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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 of interviews or conversations with spiritually awakening, people have done hundreds of them now. And if this is new to you, and you’d like to check out previous ones, please go to batgap.com Bat gap and look under the past interviews menu. This program and all the time we put into it is made possible by the support or through the support of appreciative listeners and viewers. So if you appreciate it and would like to support it in any amount, please click on the PayPal button on every page of the site. And there’s also a donate page with other alternatives if you don’t like dealing with Pay Pal. My guest today is Sara Taylor. And I met Sarah at the science and non duality conference last October and we hit it off and had some fun together. And, you know, I think at that point, Sara wasn’t feeling like she was quite ready to do an interview. But now she is. And so here we go. Yeah, go ahead.
Sarah Taylor: It’s like I don’t know, Rick, not not yet. We check in through email. And like, I don’t know, I’ll let you know.
Rick Archer: That’s always a good sign. We were much more inclined to interview people who have that attitude than people who are champing at the bit, you know, you know, and I kind of met Sarah because she and I are both friends with Susanne Marie, who recommended her and who has been sort of a mentor for her.
Sarah Taylor: She’s wonderful. Yeah.
Rick Archer: So a little bit about Sarah. I’m just going to read the first part of a bio and let her fill in the rest. Sir, is an actor writer, a stand up comedian? Can you be funny sitting down? Or do you have to be standing up?
Sarah Taylor: Never, I always have to be standing up, Rick. It just doesn’t work if you’re sitting down.
Rick Archer: So you’re not gonna be funny in this interview, then.
Sarah Taylor: It’s gonna be a very serious humorless interview.
Rick Archer: So she’s those things and she’s also a spiritual and creative mentor living in Los Angeles. As a child, creativity and spirituality were in the forefront of her life, the lived experience of unity, faded as trauma and stress from a troubled home edged out this awareness. But as Sarah began to discover, singing and acting, she was hooked on the transcendence, they evoked creativity became her church. And actually, I wrote down another little thing from you. So I was working on a book, and I’ve read a few rough drafts of some chapters, and it’s gonna be a very good book, because she’s a good writer, and she’s been living a fascinating life. But here’s something maybe we can start with. And feel free to just sort of elaborate and fill in and take us off on tangents. But I’m at age four or five on the playground at school, you would stand on the woodchips amongst the swing sets and slides. And with eyes open, gaze at the space in front of you until you were the space, vast, tranquil nothingness and everything that’s it was all around you. And you were at home. I replaced it with you just to read that. But anyway, is that a good starting place?
Sarah Taylor: Yes, sure. You know, the I think the funny thing about this is that maybe this is the way it is for for a lot of people who come to spirituality later on and then go, Oh, I remember what this I remember this feeling. I felt it as a child. I think we I think we all are connected like that. When we’re when we’re young. So I don’t think it’s just for like, you know, special people have it. But yeah, as soon as I started meditating, and having, you know, deep experiences later on, on the spiritual path, I was like, oh, that’s what I was doing. And it actually was kind of a specific meditation in the Dzogchen tradition, called awareness of awareness, which, I guess Padmasambhava who was an eighth century, Buddhist meditation master taught, and it’s just gazing downwards and, you know, Resting, resting in awareness, but you know, holding inside and outside at the same time, and yeah, it was so it was it was, it was an escape. You know, when I was a child, just, I’d also sort of lie on my bunk bed, the bottom bunk bed and look up at a wood not just just above me, and I just focus on that until I was taken into a transcendent place and I must have been six or seven or eight. So it started out. I mean, I think it was, you know, kind of my lived experience. I remember looking around at my family and going, huh, wow, everybody’s just really running around like this is this is what people do. Okay. All right. Okay, you know, kind of being a witness to it in a way. And then and then it became it became sort of sort of an escape, I think. And then around I think, seven or eight. Those experiences I can’t I can’t really remember them there was there was a kind of a shutting down. That happened.
Rick Archer: Yeah, our friend Susanna said a similar thing that she felt it’s slipping away. And it was like, I think she was maybe trying to hold on to it. No, I don’t want to lose this. But then, you know, life just kept intensifying and kind of slips away.
Sarah Taylor: I think for me, it was more like the survival mechanism, the fight or flight mechanism with how highly strong my nervous system was becoming? Yeah. Because I, you know, I had a troubled home, you know, nobody has a perfect upbringing. But it was it was a bit troubled, troubled. And so, you know, when the nervous system is really keyed up, that edges out, you know, so much.
Rick Archer: Yeah, that’s why so many meditation practices are designed to get the nervous system unkeyed up, you know, because a more settled mind and nervous system is more conducive to that the clarity and the transcendence.
Sarah Taylor: So totally. And for anybody who’s suffered trauma, I mean, and they say, Well, I’m not good at meditation, or, you know, I want the spiritual path, I want to wake up, I want to, you know, whatever. But, you know, I don’t want to do meditation. I’m usually like, try it. You know, because it’s so soothing. It’s so it’s so calming, and it rewires your nervous system. I mean, you, you know, this. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Rick Archer: And, I mean, I suppose it’s not too much of a stretch for people to, you know, hear meditation and nervous system in the same sentence, because everything we experience has a physiological basis or a neurophysiological basis. And if it’s a significant experience, or a significant shift in awareness, there should be a significant shift in the physiology.
Sarah Taylor: Mm hmm. There sure is. And, you know, I found just on my path, that trauma, even after very significant realizations, you know, the nervous system, you know, yeah, it’s it, you know, it keeps bumping you offline. You know,
Rick Archer: they’ve done studies on meditation, where they’ll, you know, expose long term meditators to a very stressful experience, like a loud, sudden, unexpected sound, and the nervous system will react, but there’s, there’s a sort of much quicker recovery time from those things gets back. Stasis much sooner.
Sarah Taylor: Well, yeah, there’s something about like, the nervous system setpoint that there’s a setpoint. So apparently, the nervous system doesn’t like to go way up and way down, right. So if you’re very young, when you’re developing as a as a human being, and you’re learning that, you need to be on high alert, you know, your setpoint will be higher, the nervous system goes, Okay, I don’t want to go up and down like this. So let’s just stay right here and keep it high interest. So and yeah, I mean, I’m no trauma expert, but
Rick Archer: I think that’s true. I mean, that’s part of the deal with PTSD, you know, it’s just there’s been so much excitation or agitation or trauma, the nervous system gets habituated to functioning that way. You know, the fight the fight flight freeze response, which is supposed to be a momentary thing that’s important in a saber toothed Tiger incident, but, you know, if it happens often enough, it gets it becomes the norm.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, yeah, exactly.
Rick Archer: But the bright side of this discussion, is that no matter how much of that has been piled on, through through stressful incidents, it can all be unwound and deconditioned. Yeah, we can get back to a very beautiful style of physiological functioning, and that too, has research on it. They’re doing, they do research on PTSD sufferers and so on,
Sarah Taylor: the nervous system can heal, the body can heal, you know, the mind heals the brain, Hill’s new neural pathways develop. So, you know, and awakening helps that Yeah, I mean, my God, you know, I mean, I didn’t get in this like, I want to I want to wake up I mean, I just wanted to sleep better at night. I you know, I had anxiety I was I was a very anxious person. And I had stage fright, but yet I loved performing. And so it was this push pull of like, well, I love doing this but it you know, I kind of throw up before I do it. Gee, is a normal. So, so yeah, so I was just like, oh, I guess I’ll learn. I’ll learn meditation, and then I got way more than I bargained for. Yeah.
Rick Archer: Interesting. Well, we’re jumping ahead a little bit. Now. I don’t want to Who? Have you talked about anything you don’t want to talk about? But so you can give a very short answer answer, if you wish. But for the sake of those, and there are probably many who also went through traumatic childhoods, is there anything you can say, to make your experience a little bit more specific or concrete so that people can relate and say, wow, you know, she, if she went through that, then maybe there’s hope for me?
Sarah Taylor: Yeah. Well, I mean, you know, I think with any type of trauma, you feel like your boundaries are being crossed. So, so there was, there was a lot of that and just feeling like there’s a threat to the to the organism, like there’s some some sort of threat, even if it’s, you know, psychological and emotional abuse is is is, you know, can be just as devastating as physical abuse. So, you know, I found that sometimes people they don’t, you know, that maybe they weren’t physically abused, and they say, why everything’s fine. I don’t know why I’m so you know, so anxious, I don’t know why I have so many problems. I don’t know why, you know, but, you know, emotional abuse can feel like, like a physical abuse. So, emotional abuse, sexual abuse is a, you know, a crossing of boundaries, it’s actually something you can point to, and go, Whoa, this, this, this happened, even though people block it out, you know, as a as a survival mechanism. So, so whether, whether the trauma, you know, was a, you know, emotional or physical it, it, apparently, the nervous system, and the brain responds. Similarly, and, you know, I don’t know, if you’re familiar with Peter Levine’s work, he’s got a great book waking the tiger, that I highly recommend for people to read, if they’ve had any kind of trauma in their background. You know, he says that things like, you know, a surgery, when you’re four years old, you know, or three, or, you know, before the age of seven, or something he’s saying can be extremely traumatic, which I had, you know, I had a list of things that were wonderful in my childhood, but everybody did their best. So, you know, there’s no blame or anything, but you know, it is it is what it is. But yeah, so you know, falling off falling off your bike and not being able to discharge that energy. And Peter Levine talks about this, you know, in a much, much more eloquent way. But you know, even just falling off your bike when you’re like six and trying to ride a bike and our fall, and you know, you have, you know, your let’s say a parent is saying get back up on the bike, and you don’t have a chance to discharge the energy and to cry and to go, That was scary. And to shake a little bit, you know, then it steps down, it gets stuffed down. Yeah. So So you know, our nervous systems are filled with stuff down stuff.
Rick Archer: I’ll bet that circumcision creates a lot of stuff down stuff for little infants that don’t know what the heck is going on. And all of a sudden, they let’s get all kinds of sexual issues.
Sarah Taylor: Maybe Yeah, I wonder if there’s some research done on that? Yeah, yeah.
Rick Archer: In a couple of weeks, I’m going to interview a guy who wrote a book called souls gift and another one called souls plan. And basically, he seems to be saying that, even if we’re abused, there may be exceptions to this. And I’ve only read a little bit of his book so far. But even if we’re abused, it’s like, we actually made a plan for that to happen as we came into this life. And it may have been done in collaboration with our abuser. And the abuser might have said, you know, I really don’t want to do this. I love you, I can’t possibly treat you that way. And then again, we will say, but I want you to because I need to have that experience in order to undergo such and such a growth. I mean, do you think that there’s any validity to that way of thinking or I do do I do?
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, I’m grateful for my life. You know, we’re all one organism, we’re all one thing. So we’re all in cooperation, even. Even somebody like Donald Trump, he’s, he’s playing a role. You know, I can just imagine him before having to land in a body. He’s like, what you want me to do what? But, but Yeah, everybody’s kind of playing playing a role. So that I mean, my view is so that humanity can evolve, you know, in some way and that and that, that that involves the individual of evolving the individual consciousness. Yeah, yeah.
Rick Archer: All the world’s a stage and each time plays many parts, right. Yeah. However, extra center entrances.
Sarah Taylor: That’s right. Shakespeare. Yeah. So yeah, so it was it was you know, all this stuff that I was doing kind of going into a meditative absorbed state. When I was very young, what was actually probably really helpful for my nervous system. And, and then I you know, kind of forgot about it and you know, tried to try to fit in and everything and then I I discovered, you know, singing when I was about 14. And that was when the transcendence started started returning.
Rick Archer: Really. So that wasn’t a long hiatus if you went from nine to 14, and then it started returning already, that’s,
Sarah Taylor: or it was probably about maybe six or seven, six, and then, you know, 14, but you know, I misunderstood it, I thought, Oh, wow. So this, this singing thing, this, this creative thing that I do, whether it’s writing or, you know, acting out little characters for my family, or you know, you know, acting out scenes with my dolls in my room or something when I was little or something. So I guess, you know, I was feeling it then to, there was a stillness and a spaciousness and an interconnectedness. And, and a piece that would, that would, that would descend. So that kind of hooked me. You know, I was very pronounced when I was 14. And when I began singing, I mean, music really, really can do that to all of us. But but, you know, I got I got hooked on it. I was like, Oh, well, I gotta keep doing this. Yeah. And then I discovered acting and you know, so it was, it was all so performing gave me that doorway into presence. And peace and interconnectedness.
Rick Archer: Yeah. But you did go through quite a period, it seems of, you know, being kind of dependent upon antidepressants, and you’re drinking and all kinds of stuff happened. So I mean, sure. How long did I mean, let’s let’s touch on that a little bit without belaboring it too much.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah. I mean, yeah, when I found found performing it was it was a really exhilarating time. But again, I you know, I misunderstood it, and was like, Oh, great, I got to keep doing this thing. So I can feel that way. Went to a college for the arts, and went to American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco, and then went to California Institute of the Arts. And I, I got a degree in acting, which makes you lots of money. But, you know, I had developed, I developed this identity of self Sarah, the actor, Sarah the performer, because that was the only time I really felt connected everything live, you know, you get it. So, so what happened upon graduation, you know, every, every college graduate goes through a tough time. I was no different. But, you know, graduating from an art school, you know, I, I could, looking back now, that identity was starting to be seen through, you know, and like, it wasn’t fitting, I was trying to do the Hollywood thing and getting an agent and going on auditions. And, and I was like, wow, why doesn’t this feel the way it did when I was, you know, acting and performing? And why does this feel different, you know, because now you’re supposed to go make a make a living at it. But, but there was also something about knowing what I am beyond that, that I think, was starting to dawn. And, and I went to massage school so that I could learn, you know, a trade so that I could support myself. And so I was in massage school where I feel like I had the beginnings of a Kundalini awakening. Because energy started, you know, moving through me a lot. And you know, how Kundalini works, it’s, you know, you get very energized and stuff was coming to light. And I fell into a really deep depression. Hmm, I fell into a very, very deep depression. And, you know, depression was not something new to me, I would fall into these, these these bouts of depression when I was 15. I tried to kill myself. I took a bottle of sleeping pills, and I lay on the bed. And I did what what I always did when I was a child, which was, you know, rest my attention on my breath. And it took me into a very still quiet place. And, and I had a vision of me acting on stage and something in me said, Get off the bed. Don’t die, because you go do this. Go do this thing.
Rick Archer: up and went and vomited or something. Yeah,
Sarah Taylor: I’ve Well, I went into like, you know, the living room where my parents were, and I said, I have good news and bad news. I was like, the bad news is I just swallowed a bunch of sleeping pills. But the good news is I’m going to be an actress. So they were like why, you know Like, what are you talking about? So, you know, but it was from that day I had that sort of purpose. So out of that darkness came this vision. And it was like that’s what I’m going to do. That’s what I’m going to be. So you know, here I am just graduated from this art school and I’m in another depression and but yet I didn’t. I didn’t feel identified with the Sarah the actress. So I felt I felt aimless. And I didn’t know what to do, because acting and performing had been my my thing, my doorway into the divine.
Rick Archer: It’s interesting that the storing up of Kundalini would coincide with depression. Usually people what can cause over all kinds of things, I suppose. But most often, it seems like it stirs up some bliss or some.
Sarah Taylor: Oh, yeah, sure. Did. Okay. Sure. Did. Yeah. I mean, for a while, I mean, you know, then Kundalini visited me again in 2011. And that was a ride. But get to the Yeah, yeah. Lots of bliss and lots of like energy and feeling great. And then it starts kicking up all the sediment in the system. Yeah. So it starts kicking up all the sediment in the system, and I fell into a depression. And so I went to like, like one of those low cost clinics, because I didn’t have any insurance. And they listened to me say, I’m depressed. And the guy wrote down, she was depressed on a little piece of paper, whatever he was, you know, coming up with my diagnosis. And then I said, Oh, by the way, you know, bipolar illness runs in my family. And he went, Oh, and he just crossed it off and said bipolar to our brother, and handed it to me and said, You need to be on this Medicaid medication. And, and I was very happy to have a new identity. Bipolar lady. That’s right. So from after, after, after lady to oh, that’s, that’s what it is. That’s what it is. And, you know, we know that trauma can masquerade as a lot of different physical illnesses. And
Rick Archer: you thought you’re gonna be like Jonathan Winters, I guess?
Sarah Taylor: Maybe, I don’t know. How do you do? Yeah. No, no knows. But, you know, now there are a lot of great examples of people, people with bipolar, doing wonderful things. But it, you know, turned out to be a misdiagnosis. That wasn’t, that wasn’t really what was what was happening. So So I was put on, which tells you
Rick Archer: something right there. I mean, how many millions of kids are there in this country who are on various medications? Because of some snap judgment by some, you know, yeah.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah. I mean, I just took that diagnosis, then to another psychiatrist and said, so I’m bipolar, too. And, you know, I was such a good little actress. Like, I’ll play that role. Please give me an identity. I need one. So, so yeah, so So the, the medication numbed me. You know, I’m not anti medication. I think it’s helpful for people if they truly, it can get them over a hump, or if they, you know, really, if they’re destabilized without it. But, but yeah, it was on it for about 10 years kind of medication wasn’t there was a mood stabilizer and there were always like two different antidepressants that that, that the shrink was trying out.
Rick Archer: I remember one time when I was a teenager when I was taking drugs trying a tranquilizer one time just for kicks. I thought, God, this is horrible. It’s so numbing to use your word. I know just so flat. So blah. How can anybody stand to live like this?
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, and, and that’s, that’s how I felt. Yeah, yeah. tranquilized. I found out that wasn’t one of the initial medications that they gave me. I and I looked it up online later. And it was it said, it’s, you know, that’s what it does it tranquilizes us so it was just like, here kid, go, go go sleep for a while, you know, and, you know, that’s that’s not that’s not what we need. I mean, I’m sure we have a lot we have a long way to go with understanding, you know, mood disorders and mental illness and but yeah, not everybody needs to be needs to be on medications. So
Rick Archer: So what got you out of that phase? Well, I’m so grateful for
Sarah Taylor: the internet because you know, I just started doing research and going on these like, you know, message boards and stuff Facebook wasn’t invented yet. And and just going wow, I don’t this doesn’t feel like me all these people are having these horrible side effects from medication and playing around with their medication to try to get the right cocktail. And, and so I was definitely searching for something for sure. And I eventually kind of came to the conclusion that I didn’t think I needed to be on it anymore. And of course, you know, being the good little people pleaser that I am I you know, went to my shrink that I’d meet up with every month and say I don’t you know, I think can we start lowering it lowering the dosage and he was like, yeah. And then eventually it was like, I think, I think I want to go off it like, Ooh, you know, whoa, what’s gonna happen? You know, and he just looked at me and said, I think that’s a great idea. And he agreed, he said, I think you’re gonna be okay. But he did ask me, he said, So what are you going to do? To support you instead of the medication, I said, Well, I think I’m going to take a meditation class. So that’s, that’s how it began. And so I guess that was 2005 that I, that I got off the medication. And you know, you have to detox that stuff out of your system. Like, it’s, it’s real. But right around that same time, I was feeling this urge to write and perform what it was that I was writing. So I was, you know, taking some classes about, you know, performing what you write kind of solo shows type of stuff. And, and then I, you know, I took a meditation class from my friend, Angela, who taught me a meditation with, you know, shock rows and stuff. And then I got into some therapy. Finally, Yay, finally getting into therapy, because, you know, I was always seeing, seeing a psychiatrist rather than actually talking to somebody about what, you know, what was going on. So, so I got into therapy, and I went to my first Buddhist, Buddhist talk. And I was like, Oh, this is cool. And funny. It was like, right around the same time that I started doing stand up. That’s something in me said, You got to go to stand up. And I didn’t think it was odd. I think you and I were talking about it before we started recording or something that I’ve never been, like a big fan of stand up comedy. Never find me, like in the comedy clubs, you know, sitting there with a drink in hands, you know, watching a comic, I was like, stand up comedy, but something in me. You know, it was kind of pushing me to get on stage and do it. So I began meditating and doing stand up comedy at the same time.
Rick Archer: Nice. Yeah. Okay, well, I’m not gonna ask much of a question here. I want you to just keep going. Oh, I just did want to mention, though, that for those who are watching the live broadcast, if you if you feel like submitting a question, go to the upcoming interviews page on batgap.com. And you’ll see a form at the bottom through which you can submit a question. Cool. All right. So you went to your first Buddhist meeting? Yeah.
Sarah Taylor: And I was like, Well, this is cool. That Buddha dude had some cool things to say. I remember, I think I went with a couple of friends who were like, I don’t know what they’re talking about. And I was like, oh, kind of makes sense to me. I don’t know. You know, when I would read Buddhist teachings or hear a talk on it, I, there was a resonance for sure. And it felt very familiar to me. And, and so, you know, began having deep experiences, right, right. I think right away.
Rick Archer: Such as
Sarah Taylor: well, I went, I went to a meditation retreat, my first meditation retreat, I, my, my therapist, you know, would lead these little Buddhist retreats up at a Zen Center, and which was very helpful. And I didn’t know what I was doing, because it was just sitting there in the, you know, meditation Zendo kind of like, do I focus on my chakras? What do I do? Why am I here? I mean, I don’t know why, like I signed up for a nine day meditation retreat, kind of write off, like, let’s do this. And, you know, I became one pointed and concentrated and, and, and sort of joy welled up in my chest. And this was the first retreat that I was on and I remember being outside and, you know, the trees were all around me and I just took a breath in and focused on my heart and there just was this bursting open. And I heard inside I heard, you know, welcome home. So, you know, I’ve had lots of little intuitive pointers along the way little little voices inside which somebody could probably diagnosis something but But you and I know better. But yeah, so so it was a very deep kind of Homecoming to to go into meditation which, you know, doesn’t mean that I stayed in these you know, absorbed states for you know, hours and hours or days at a time I you know, I get bumped off of it because of the nervous system was so, you know, jacked up and the mind is busy and, but I became hooked. I became really, really hooked on meditation and I’d be began to meditate for hours and hours and hours a day. And, and I went on like three meditation retreats a year for a while, I, I found that I was able to go into what, what’s called the jhanas. And, you know, I don’t know a ton about Buddhism, I know that, you know, like, through the whole time that I, you know, was on the Buddhist path and doing the practices, I’d start to read something about Buddhism, or I’d start to try to intellectually understand something, and I’d be like, Ah, I’m just gonna meditate. Like, I wanted the direct experience. I didn’t want to get bogged down by. Yeah, that was really, I mean, I’m glad it was some sort of intelligence telling me oh, she’s got enough stuff in her mind. Like, no, don’t fill it with other stuff. But, so, so I began going into the jhanas, which are these eight absorbed states. And, you know, there’s like a very blissful state, there’s a quantum of state, there’s a state which are connected with everything, there’s the state of no thing. And then there’s the, you know, the, the eighth Jhana, which is, you know, neither, you know, perception nor non perception is, is what it’s called.
Rick Archer: And you’re trying to go into specific genres, you were just spontaneously slipping into one or another.
Sarah Taylor: Well, the, my teacher was talking about the jhanas and teaching them and he did a great job with it, because I just
Rick Archer: latched on when he would talk about one you would find yourself being able to experience it.
Sarah Taylor: Yes, yes. Yes. Yes. And, and I started coming to him with like, hey, you know, I was experiencing this, you know, sort of like falling into a white snowbank and being enveloped in just all white and, and everything is spacious. And it goes on for forever. And, and he’d say, Oh, well, that sounds like the fourth Jhana which, which the Buddha described as being wrapped in a white blanket from head to foot or something like that. So, so I would have these, you know, experiences. And I was hooked on that.
Rick Archer: So that kind of stirred up the Kundalini again, as I understand it,
Sarah Taylor: that that took a while. That was 2011. So I was meditating probably like 2006 to 2011, about five years. Yeah, yeah. And in 2011, I had an awakening. I mean, I’ve had I’ve had a glimpse into the nothingness of the small self, you know, a few years prior to that. Which, actually, you, you might enjoy hearing about this, and that sort of comedy before, in that, you know, as an LA traffic, and I was like, a glimpse, like a foretaste, you know, of seeing that, who I had taken myself to be, was really just a series of roles, you know, like, we’re putting on costumes, and then taking them off putting on costumes and taking them off. That it’s fluid that there’s, it’s not fixed, it’s not stable, it’s not permanent. And I, I fell into the witness state, I guess, as UTMs would call it. Deep, deep emptiness and, and a witnessing everything. And so I was just sort of this bag of emptiness, you know, going around doing comedy shows in LA. And, and it built my, my confidence at the time, because I hadn’t really had had a profound shift yet. But it built my confidence in in emptiness and in presence and in being nobody, because I remember sitting in the back of the Comedy Store, and I had a bunch of shows that week, like at the Hollywood improv, and this other Comedy Club and Comedy Store, and I’m sitting in the back, and I’m just this bag of emptiness. And I hear the host say, and ladies and gentlemen, Sarah Taylor, and somehow, you know, I was thinking to myself, how what’s going to happen? I’m just this bag of emptiness. And you know, I get on stage and I grab the mic and joke start coming out, you know, material starts coming out, you know, engagement with the audience comes out, you know, spontaneity and, and so, so, I had already had a sort of emptying out that occurred, I guess, that was about like 2009. So then then the Kundalini mayhem ensued in 2011. Which happened as a result of an awakening of a real seeing that that I made up that the small me is made up. And it was an it was a seeing of, of myself, it was actually visual visual for me and I just watched myself. Go down a drain And I, you know, felt this pop of just relief and expanse and I kept being in the floor going I’m free. I’m free. Like it was. It was like fireworks, you know, it was a fireworks type of, you know, shaking and crying and laughing and, and, and the next day or two later as I was sitting in meditation, then the Kundalini erupted.
Rick Archer: Then what was that? Like? I mean, how did it erupt?
Sarah Taylor: It was like a firehose. Yeah, totally. It, you know, and luckily, I just had that shift and seeing so. And I think I was
Rick Archer: probably wouldn’t have erupted if you hadn’t had it. But yeah, right.
Sarah Taylor: Although you never know. Yeah, you hear some some crazy stories. And I have some students and people who work with me who’ve had like, big Kundalini openings, but you know, they have no context for it. So but, um, but yes, it was like a fire hose, just just going off from you know, bottom to top, and I just, you know, thankfully knew enough to lie back on the bed and just let it move through me for about 20 minutes. And, and it was, you know, every dark thought I’d ever thought every self harming thought every, you know, I’m worthless, it’s awful life sucks, I’m a piece of shit, can we swear? Sure should. And, and I just lay back on the bed, and just, it all was just just coming out, I guess we’re coming, coming through. And, and then the next day of download through the top of my head. Let’s talk about
Rick Archer: the previous point first, and then we’ll get into the download. And I think it illustrates a principle, which probably most people listening to this are familiar with, but it’s worth mentioning, which is that, you know, the body is like a container or an instrument through which anything is lived. But if there’s a profound spiritual awakening, then as we were talking about earlier, there has to be a correlation between that and the physiology. And if the physiology is full of crud, then and a profound spiritual awakening has is happening or has happened, then that crud no longer belongs in that nervous system, because that nervous system isn’t going to be able to support that as if it’s full of crud. So the crud has to go. And there goes as you experienced.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, yeah, exactly. All those energetic knots loosening. And, and that, that wasn’t the end of it. I mean, you know, as many of your listeners and your viewers know, you know, awakening just sort of like opens up the door, and then the little demons come playing out. And people are like, what happened? Why is this happening? But yeah, it and it was, you know, many, many years of stuff, right, rising to the surface. You know, it was at that time that that I, you know, I went to my teacher, and I said, Hey, you know, I’m just, I’m, I’m wanting to talk about the, the abuse and the trauma that I’ve experienced, and, you know, and I remember him saying, what, why you’ve just had this profound realization, like what you know, so, so he didn’t really get it at first, you know, who knows why, but, but I sort of floundered for a few years, because there was so much dark material coming forward. And so, I got into therapy.
Rick Archer: So, as that dark material was coming forward, did the witness state or the whatever you want to call it, abide or persist and thereby give you the sort of stability to handle all that, that was coming on?
Sarah Taylor: Not always, I mean, it was, you know, real, you know, back and forth. It was the I got it, I lost it, I got it, I lost it, I lost it thing. So, which
Rick Archer: also is indicative of a culturing of the nervous system, you know, because, yeah, just go from A to Z and snap on and be sustaining, it has to sort of like, it tends to purify in waves. So this wave of purification, and then integration of that, and then a wave of purification, and that can go that cycle can repeat for a long time.
Sarah Taylor: It and it repeats and people always say like, I just went through this. Why am I back here again? Yeah, you know, you just it’s a spiral. You just keep going deeper and deeper and deeper into the sediment just keeps coming up. Yeah, every time there’s an opening, there’s a great then more and more of the crap can come through. You know,
Rick Archer: sometimes I like to think of these openings or consciousness, if you will, as a solvent. And you know, the way let’s say water can be a solvent, you can dissolve things in it. And if you just have a cup, then you don’t have very much water so you can’t dissolve Not very much. But if you as the capacity of the water increases, then more and more can be dissolved. And, you know, if the if the if it becomes oceanic, you can throw in dump trucks full of mud or something, and they’re just gonna get dissolved. Because there’s enough capacity.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, yeah. So, so something like that. So I kept saying, like, when’s it all gonna be dissolved? You know, it was a very tough time. You know, there was a lot that was like, 2011 1213 Those were really, really, really hard years, my poor, my poor now husband, but, you know, there was chaos all around me, I might, you know, things were falling apart, toxic relationships were dissolving. I, you know, I was doubting what I wanted to do, you know, there’s been a lot of stops and starts on my path. And, you know, I, the, the doer, you know, I couldn’t kind of Summon, you know, getting back on stage and doing the grind of a stand up comic, like, it just wasn’t, wasn’t coming. So I stopped performing for about three years, four years, maybe. I mean, I just didn’t, I mean, I had an agent. So I was did this NBC show that was like, a web series. And I did like, you know, some other stuff. And, and I remember thinking, like, oh, do I want to do this, you know, what am I doing? You know, it was it was all seeming meaningless, you know, that that whole stage of, you know, I had seen that, you know, the small self is, you know, more or less made up, it’s transparent. It’s not necessarily real in a fixed sense. And so is everything else. So, so it was a real chaotic time, it was, it was a divine mess, as I like to call it. In that, you know, the Kundalini was doing its thing, you know, the body would would shake from the Kundalini and move and I would get sick a lot, you know, the reactive patterns, would, you know, would would recruit the Kundalini energy, and, uh, you know, I’d be in an inflamed state, you know, I was doubting what I was doing. I didn’t know where I was headed. You know, everything was changing around me. So it was very, very chaotic. But also that, you know, after that Kundalini awakening, like a day later, then there was some sort of download through the top of my head.
Rick Archer: Oh, yeah, you’re gonna talk about that? Yeah.
Sarah Taylor: Well, I mean, we now know that, you know, it’s maybe universal Shakti. So perhaps that was personal Shakti that had become awakened. But there was a download of a very, very big energy that started moving through me. And so and so in the midst of all this chaos, I started doing energy healing work on people. Which, you know, thankfully, people were helped by it and and aided, you know, by it, even though I was still, you know, kind of stabilizing, and
Rick Archer: perhaps it helped you to stabilize or integrate to do that work?
Sarah Taylor: I think it did, I think it did. Because I felt like, well, I have to do something with this, I want to be of service, I want to, you know, this this energy that comes through wants to become that wants to help it wants to do something. Yeah. And
Rick Archer: when when I became a meditation teacher, or, you know, Mara, she said about teaching is one of the best things you can do for your own evolution and for your own integration. And that, you know, once you stepped into that role, then a lot more energy will come through you or wisdom or whatever. So, that’s interesting. The more you give away, the more you get sort of thing.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, because in 2008, I began teaching meditation. I mean, I didn’t even think about it like, like, oh, it’s such a cliche, people get into spirituality, and then start teaching. Like, I didn’t even know that that was a cliche. I just was like, oh, gosh, I want to share this. So I mean, I remember that I remember thinking, oh my gosh, why don’t why don’t other creatives know about this. And so I began, you know, back in 2008 2009, this is before the Kundalini mayhem, we’ll get back to that. But, but yeah, I had a classical comedy karma for comics, where we would sit around, and we’d meditate and then work on comedy material and share it with each other. And so I was, you know, teaching teaching meditation to the comics here in LA, and did that for a while. And then it’s just sort of, you know, became me teaching meditation at companies. And, you know, so a lot of the teaching that I was doing 10 years ago, or eight years ago, or whatever was more like, oh, you know, meditation is really going to help you with anxiety, it’s going to help decrease your stress. And of course, through the years, how I teach and how I work with people, of course, has changed. You know, but, but yeah, I think maybe maybe the teaching was very, you know, very, very beneficial and and help helped move me along. And it just always felt like oh, well, this is, you know, this is something it just felt very natural. Very natural. So Kundalini mayhem
Rick Archer: so yeah, good name for a rock band.
Sarah Taylor: Maybe I know we just thought of it. Let’s do it. Can you play the guitar? No, I’m a drummer. The drums are your drummer. That’s right. Oh, cool. Well, I kind of badly played a guitar and the ukulele. Not well, but you know, just enough to sort of sing loud enough that it you know, covers it up.
Rick Archer: I don’t know if the ukulele belongs in a band called Coonley. Man. You never know.
Sarah Taylor: Sounds more like heavy. Rock out. Non duality, Rick, it all belongs. Okay. But, but yeah, so So the Kundalini was going crazy and the you know, the Shakti or whatever, just just pouring through me. And I think we were talking this past week that, you know, I went in at right around this time, I went into a Kinkos, FedEx. And all the copiers stopped working. Oh, yeah. And, and the guy was like, oh, no, this has never happened. There’s like a copier isn’t I was like, hold on a second. I’ve been learning about grounding my energy and dumping excess energy. You know, I was learning all this personal energy stuff. To help me
Rick Archer: just to interject, I was on a long meditation a bit. Well, I’ve done a lot of long meditation courses, sometimes, like six months at a time and the way you’re doing all this long stuff, and weird things would happen. I mean, it’s very, very common for watches to stop working and all but also for glasses to explode, you know, water glasses and glass doors to explode and, and, and, you know, I walk into a room and the typewriter would would break. But then I was also good at fixing things. It’s weird when this stuff happens. Yeah.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, it’s super. It’s super weird. I mean. I mean, there’s like a laundry list. I won’t bore your listeners with like, just crazy things that that happened during this time. Where people finally just started turning to me and going is that your energy? Stop it. My energy, it’s everybody’s energy. But yeah, just crazy. Crazy stuff was happening. A lot of chaos. But but eventually things started started kind of settling. Good therapy for anybody who’s had any background of trauma and you’re in an awakening or you want awakening is do as much healing work as you can do. You know, having a trusted relationship with a qualified therapist? Shout out to Dr. Beth leedham in Encino. She was incredible. So I saw her from like, 2012 I don’t know, 2015 or something like that. And yeah, that was that was incredibly helpful. You know, doing energy healing work, not just on others, but but going and getting energy healing work done on me. It was a real time of healing. You know, getting massages, being in the body doing yoga, you know, so, anybody, you know, going through, you know, something like that. It’s so important to stay connected to the body and to end to develop good relationships with people if you’ve been through trauma, you know,
Rick Archer: sometimes good old physical exercise can be very helpful, like some kind of sport or jogging or whatever, swimming, whatever appeals
Sarah Taylor: run. Yeah. Yeah. And you do pickleball right.
Rick Archer: I do a lot of it. Yeah. Look, look it up people. It’s kind of like tennis, like tennis for old people.
Sarah Taylor: It’s tennis. I don’t know. I saw a video or something that you sent me. I looked insane. It was just so yeah,
Rick Archer: I mean, the champion. The champions are young, but you can get you can get good at it. Well, let’s not get off on Pickleball
Sarah Taylor: Okay. All right. Well, I have a whole nother BatGap interview about pickleball. Yeah.
Rick Archer: So anyway, so the Kundalini started to simmer down, Kundalini started
Sarah Taylor: to simmer down. You know, during this time, psychic stuff opened up as well. I was talking about that.
Rick Archer: That’d be interesting. Put your turban on tell us about it.
Sarah Taylor: So let me tell you. It. Sir. Madam, madam Sara, fortune teller. Yeah, I did a bit of that I actually started doing psychic readings. I mean, it was really like looking for what, you know, why am I here? And how do I give back and to deal with all this stuff? How does this all mean? I know that’s the common thing that people get into, you know, what do I do with it? You know, what do I do with it? And you know, first and foremost it’s it’s for us to help us navigate our way is there’s there’s more there’s more to be done. But, but yeah, you know, what were
Rick Archer: some specific psychic experiences you started curiosity. Not that we want to dwell on that too much. But anyway, yeah.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, I mean, well, I found out that I’m a medium or that I, you know, have mediumship abilities, but I think this is, you know, very, very common. Maybe it’s not common, I shouldn’t say that. Because, you know, not everybody will experience this. It doesn’t mean something’s not happening on your path. Your listeners know that by now. Yeah, but, but yeah, just being able to know what was going on with somebody being able to see energy and to see where there might be blocks and then correlate that to the chakras and, you know, sit with somebody and they would, you know, the blocks would kind of maybe dissolve or the energy would, you know, get discharged and reorganize in the system. You know, knowing things about people having visions, having dreams. And for wildlife. I did, I did. mediumship. So if people were coming to me for energy healing work, you know, and their dead uncle wanted to talk then I was like, Alright, let’s do this. But, you know, in time, I stopped. Stopped making that part of what I what I do.
Rick Archer: Is that what you meant when you mentioned cities in your bio, that were there other cities? Yeah.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah. I mean, well, I haven’t walked through a while yet. But can you levitate? Not yet, but I’m working on. Is that useful?
Rick Archer: It could become a magician.
Sarah Taylor: Or just LA traffic. So I’m just gonna levitate to Santa Monica today. But, but yeah, just you know, more like psychic stuff. You know, which I thought okay, I guess I’m a psychic. And I don’t know, somebody hooked me up with a reality show that was gonna, like do do something on me being the psychic who was traveling the world and then I was like, okay, that feels really wrong. So, so this was it’s a very, it was a very tumultuous time. But around 2014 or so you know, I found audio shanties book. Because I was, I was lost, I was a little lost. I was apparently I didn’t know how to Google nonduality. Or, you know, what happens post awakening, but I just, I just didn’t, I just didn’t, I knew that something a significant shift had occurred. But, but I was lost. I was pretty lost.
Rick Archer: Which is an interesting point. Because here you were having, you know, experiences that would make many spiritual aspirants envious, if envy were cool to have if you’re a spiritual aspirant. And yet, you were lost. And what that highlights is the value of knowledge. Experience alone is only one leg, and you can’t walk on one leg in the need the lack of knowledge as well.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, yeah. I just wasn’t finding anything that said, hey, if you’ve had a significant opening, or awakening, then like we were talking about the sediment is going to rise to the surface, you know, things are, are going to be in motion for a while. There’s all that stillness, right, but then there’s all that motion of the chaos, at least on my path. And then I and then I found Adyashanti, his book, The End of Your World, uncensored, straight talk on the nature of Enlightenment, I think, you know, the guy,
Rick Archer: I think I have it on the shelf right behind me. And yeah, I know, the guy we’ve we’ve eaten before together. Yeah.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah. And, and so I was like, oh, you know, and even just reading the first few pages, I sink into a deep, luminous peace and everything sort of settled down. So I feel like sometimes just being seen and acknowledged, and it is enough to kind of cool all that all that energy that’s in the system. You know, I see you relaxed, this is natural, this is par for the course, nothing’s wrong, it’s going to be okay. It’s not gonna be like this forever. And so and so that book really, really, really helped me. And then things started stabilizing and an integrating, I think, more after 2014 Thank god.
Rick Archer: Yeah, there could be more. But sounds like you’ve, you’ve passed some significant milestones and you may be on cruise control now, you know,
Sarah Taylor: well, I mean, I mean, I then had an awakening in 2016, which was, you know, far beyond the the awakenings that I’d had before. So let’s
Rick Archer: talk about that in one second. I just want to you know, as a setup for that. I just want to ask you about the previous awakening so the previous awakening had a strong witnessing quality to it. Yeah. You know, you kind of saw through the nature of the personal self and you weren’t really making decisions. Everything was kind of on autopilot, I guess and you probably felt like you weren’t the actor or the doer, anything. Somehow things were just action was being done spontaneously automatically by who knows what, right? Yeah.
Sarah Taylor: And there was a lot of wrestling to a lot of a lot of the There was a lot of like muscling too, because then then a doer would would try to try to
Rick Archer: do syrup authority. Yeah. Oh, yeah,
Sarah Taylor: sure.
Rick Archer: Did you go through a seesaw phase where where there was kind of you talked about I got lost it. But what was that characterized by a sense of alternating surrender and control? Where you on the one hand, felt like the sort of the Divine was really orchestrating things, and you didn’t want to get in the way. But on the other hand, that could lead to passivity. And there needed to be some initiative. And there was a working out of a balance between those two different tendencies.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, that that was a it was a confusing time, because I felt very passive. I didn’t feel like doing much I, you know, you know, and, and with the nature of things that I do, just being an actor and a comedian, you know, there’s a lot of efforting that you got to do. Yeah, that everybody’s under the impression we need to be doing. We got it, we got to do the grind, we got to muscle it, we got to get out there and hustle. Has there was no hustle. I was you know, you know that the only thing I felt called the item the only doing that really felt continual was the teaching and the energy healing work and but but with the with the acting and the performing that yeah, I would start something and me would start to rise up and go wait a minute, and grab a hold of it and go but but but I’m supposed to be doing this with my life, and then there’d be a muscling and a contracting and a kind of pushing. So there was this feeling of pushing and then Oh, all right.
Rick Archer: When you tried to push Did you get some blowback from from nature, if you want to call it that? I did you say, do you get resistance? Or? Yeah,
Sarah Taylor: yeah, I think you know, I got into car accidents. I had illnesses that were just lay me up for a while. So it was definitely getting the message.
Rick Archer: Reminds me of Rogers story where he was he was into this competitive bicycle racing. And, and then he had some profound awakening. And then he tried to get back into competitive bicycle racing. And next thing you know, he’d be flat on his back for six months, right? I would have to say they’re playing for your kid. Yeah, I
Sarah Taylor: got other plans for you, Mr. That’s kind of like what it was. I get back on the horse and I’d start muscling the whole I’m an actor thing, or you know, I’m doing stand up. And then it would all collapse. Yeah. And I would I would be forced sometimes just to be flat on my back and just, you know, there’s nothing, nothing I can do. I guess I have to really let let that go.
Rick Archer: Yeah, it’s interesting. I’ve gone through a lot of that myself. And even recently, some guy got in touch with me. And he said, you know, had this awakening and I don’t feel like doing anything. There’s no impetus to action. How are you supposed to act, you know, when there’s no sense of an actor. So there’s this kind of gearshift thing that happens between between sort of a sense of individual self being in control and this was a Vedic phase for it. They say Brahman is the charioteer. So you have to let go the rain so Brahman can take them up.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. And that that letting go has to has to happen and some not nonduality heads might be like, well, who’s letting go? Yeah, blah, blah. But But yeah, and I think that contributes to a lot of that I got it, I lost it phase, which just, you know, rule of thumb is surrender to what is whatever’s happening belongs, whatever is happening is is needed. So so we polish that facet of the diamond. You know,
Rick Archer: when you got it I lost it phase. Did you have days where during the last aspect, where you felt like I can’t wait to go to sleep tonight, so I can just be oblivious because I can’t stand this gripped feeling of being lost again.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah. And then I have like, super weird dreams where like, you know, some yogi was like, stroking my third eye the entire night. And I’m seeing the dream. Yeah,
Rick Archer: I had the same thing. Yeah. I don’t want to say me too many times. But I had the very same thing this, you know, on the, on the forehead, like that. And then woke up in this profound state of wow, what was that?
Sarah Taylor: Wow, very cool. Yeah, these little gifts that we get. Yeah, it was a dream, you know, a few years after the Kundalini awakening and and I just was lying back in this Yogi’s lap. I’m still trying to figure out who that was. orange robe you know, turban and and I was the witness watching him as he just stroked my third eye. And then you know, he looked up at me, you know, and just kind of nodded to the me watching and then went went back to stroking the third eye and I mean, this is like an eight hour long dream or something. And, and that was around the time that the psychic stuff was opening up and you know, all that all that kind of opening like, like a bigger seeing, not just seeing things about myself but seeing things about others and about life.
Rick Archer: I also had a thing one time where some being of some sort worked me over, had me lay on my stomach holding on to some handles, and then worked my spine up and down with some kind of implement some kind of spear or something like that. Your actual chiropractor, it was the biggest and most intense experience I’ve ever had in my life. But wow, I feel like I’m talking about myself too much.
Sarah Taylor: But hold on a sec, how did you feel afterwards like what
Rick Archer: orderly released it was this, it was as if I had been gripped by steel bands for all eternity. And suddenly those bands had been broken. And I just felt this awesome set sense of freedom and bliss and relief and gratitude. I kind of walked around with my jaw hanging open for a few days, just kind of adjusting to this new condition.
Sarah Taylor: What the What the body had been holding on to or hold on to so much. And then the spot and he was working your spine to which is yeah,
Rick Archer: it was like I was ushered into this room told to lie down on my stomach hold on to these handles. And some something somebody with a spear of Trident or something came and started stabbing up and down my spine with this thing. And it was like a hold on for dear life. And it was excruciating, but wonderful at the same time. And then when I came out of it, my body was drenched in sweat. And I was sort of lying in bed like this and just felt like this huge relief of like, God,
Sarah Taylor: what what a chiropractic adjustment? Well, you know, network chiropractic, if anybody out there is interested in looking into I think it’s called Network network Spinal Analysis. Now it’s really great for clearing the nervous system through the spine of of a lot of a lot of crap.
Rick Archer: That’s where the deepest stresses lie, I believe.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, totally, totally.
Rick Archer: And there’s a whole Vedic understanding of it in terms of the subtle physiology and Sushumna and Kundalini and all that stuff. And then nadis And you know, all that business.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah.
Rick Archer: All right. So you were beginning to I asked you the question about the witnessing phase and about the, the juggling act between individual control and sort of divine control, if you want to call it that. But then you alluded to a more profound awakening, I think you said 2014, or something.
Sarah Taylor: It was in 2016. Which is why when you and I met in 2017, I was like, Let me settle a little bit before we, before I go that and then I just woke up one day, last spring, after having another dream, in which I’ll go into that later. But where it was like, Okay, I’m ready. I’ll, I’ll tell Rick. But, uh, oh, those dreams. But But yeah, to 2016. You know, I, I decided to go on a on another Buddhist meditation retreat, you know, and sort of turned away from Buddhism, like I was angry at Buddhism during that time, like, I was like, why didn’t you guys tell me about this, you know, about all the chaos, you know, I want to just go back to the way things were? Well, not really.
Rick Archer: does Buddhism have the tools to deal with all that? I mean, somehow, somehow, I mean, I’ve not had a Buddhist path, but somehow I just get the sense that they don’t really know how to deal with Kundalini and psychic abilities. Or maybe they do and I just don’t know enough about it.
Sarah Taylor: Maybe they do. And we don’t know enough about it. But But I, I couldn’t find anything about the energetic awakenings, you know, the most I would get is sort of like add, just don’t pay any attention to it. You know, like, yeah, don’t worry about it. And that’s very helpful advice, you know, to not fixate on it, don’t attach to it. Don’t make it a new identity. Don’t Yeah, just
Rick Archer: brush it off sometimes stuff.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, yeah. And, you know, my teacher was helpful, you know, with that, but, you know, I needed some other type of guidance. I mean, during that time, I got really into, you know, just just managing my personal energy, you know, when you’ve been blown open, you know, so much, you know, there is also a personal energy that we need to tend to, you know, grounding myself, you know, visualizations of being routed to the earth dumping energy, big breath in, you know, dumping excess energy, just this kind of managing. I just, I kind of figured it out on my own, I sort of pieced stuff together. But, but yeah, so So finally, I, you know, I was ready to ready to go back to a Buddhist meditation retreat, and this one was like, you know, eight days and up at Mount Baldy Zen Center. And it feels like the seventh day I guess, you know, right towards the end because I’m, uh, I like to wait till the very last minute. I’m always kind of late. And I was you know, doing these this open Meditation, you know, holding the space of the mind. So this is another Padmasambhava meditation just just resting in the, you know, in the space of the mind watching whatever arises eyes open. And, and I was I was bugged by the perceiver by the witness, I was like there was a knowing that I am this awareness. And it’s in me, you could say if it had a location, and all around me is awareness. But there’s this perceiver there’s this witness that’s, that’s like in the way and,
Rick Archer: and the witness was not awareness, the witness of something other than awareness, maybe a vantage point of some localized nature.
Sarah Taylor: It was a vantage point, but something shifted in that I saw Padma sunbathers face and I heard the perceiver is not a problem. And in that moment, everything went and dissolved and I I realized that the perceiver the, it is the same as as God as awareness as as this isness and I’m sitting in the meditation Zendo with a bunch of other quiet meditators and I start laughing. And I just, you know, as soon as I left, I just wrote in my journal I am that I am that. Never heard I’d never heard that phrase. I am that I get emotional thinking about it. Tomasi? Yeah, yeah, and, and I just laughed and laughed and laughed. And I mean, I could not stop laughing. It was. It was hilarious and relieving. It was like the biggest cosmic joke ever. And
Rick Archer: next stand up routine.
Sarah Taylor: Well, we’ll see. I’m trying I’m trying to kind of, you know, bringing a little more philosophical stuff. Now. I’m getting back to it. But I’m, Jim Carrey would
Rick Archer: like to talk to you? Well, though, I’d like to talk to him. He’s really into this kind of stuff these days. Yeah.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, he is.
Rick Archer: And Russell Brand.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, maybe we’ll cross paths. But yeah, so so that the whole day was just spent kind of laughing hysterically and just in wonder that, you know, I am that everything about me has always been that. And always will be, it all comes out of the same thing. The same, you know, the same source. And, and, you know, I woke up the next day at this meditation retreat. And I was like, Well, boy, I got a lot out of this meditation retreat, am I going to skip some of these meditations we’re doing in the Zendo. And I just, you know, stare at the trees and just, I was just in such joy. And then the last meditation of the day, I said, Okay, I’m gonna go sit and do this meditation. And it was a, you know, sub 10 meditation, where you eyes open, just holding, everything’s inside, everything’s outside, everything is inside, everything is outside. So you really hold that dualistic perspective, and then you toggle back and forth, back and forth faster and faster until it all, you know, ideally dissolves. But that’s what happened is that all of a sudden, inside and outside dissolved. And again, like in 2011, I saw what I had always taken myself to be and I saw her go down a drain. And I was sucked into a void for a while. I don’t know how long. And when I was spit out of that void. I looked around and saw that I was a cushion, and the Buddha statue and the floor and the window and that I was everything and everything was me.
Rick Archer: So the difference then, between the 2011 one and the 2016. One would be the 2011. One was a witnessing shift, and the 2016 one was a unity shift. Is that fair to say?
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, yeah, it was a shift. It was a shift into unity. Yeah,
Rick Archer: and that was about two years ago. 2016 A
Sarah Taylor: little over two years ago. And you know, time and space collapsed. And you know, the Sarah that I was, you know, really felt like she died. And yeah,
Rick Archer: so what about this thing promise and Baba said about this perceiver is not a problem. Oh, is there still a perceiver?
Sarah Taylor: No, actually, I left that out in the 2016 shipped into unity. Right before the inside, outside, inside, outside dissolved. I saw his face and I heard him say There is no perceiver. Okay. And that, again, that pointer just went that made everything. Dissolve.
Rick Archer: So how does perception happen?
Sarah Taylor: Well, you know, I don’t know, there is a perceiver. And yet there isn’t. I mean, that was the thing that night that as I was walking along, which I wrote about later in my journal was while there, there is no body, and there is a body, yeah, there’s, there’s no perception. And yet there is perception. So it was holding, you know, my teacher said, Oh, well, that’s not that’s non duality. So, you know, and of course, that has deepened, you know, over the past two years. But, but yeah, all of it, all of it being held at the same time, the experiences that there’s no perceiver that there’s no one holding or owning perception. You know, yeah.
Rick Archer: So, so to say that there’s no perceiver nobody, no, perception would be only half the story, because because it’s true that there isn’t, but it’s also true that there is
Sarah Taylor: right. Okay, right. Yeah. And I think that that’s where a lot of non duality heads get caught up. It’s, they’re in a high level of duality. Yeah, you know, they’re, they’re stuck in the transcendent, or they’re, you know, they’ve seen that form isn’t all there is, you know, so now they’re like, well, nothingness is all there is emptiness is all there is, man. It’s like, wait a minute, what? Non duality? Yeah, both and both. Yeah. Yeah. And what has what has been happening has been a shift into all I can describe, like a totality. So so, you know, it’s been persistent and abiding, you know, the, what, at what I am, this pure consciousness awareness has has persisted. But Unity, maybe a year ago, started shifting, you know, the, the, into something, something else, something that’s still still in the works, I guess. Something that’s beyond unity, but, uh, but the only one of the ways I describe it as like a totality. Yeah. You know, David Buckland and I had,
Rick Archer: I was just gonna ask you about David Buckland whether you’d ever spoken with him? Yeah, I did end up emailing. He is very TMS orientation, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But he, he has this mapped out pretty clearly. And yeah, and I try to read his blog posts. And yeah, he’s probably interviewing again, pretty soon. But, okay, let me ask you a question. So, just as we just covered that perceiver, not No, perceiver we’re body, no body, both are true in the context of a larger totality. Would it also be true to say that there is no sense of a personal self, and yet there is, and paradoxically, somehow or other, both of those can be held in the larger totality?
Sarah Taylor: You Yeah, I mean, you know, Susanna Murray and Adyashanti gave a great interview with you. I think in the fall of 2016, was it Yeah, I think so about about the falling away of the self, right. That is what what happens, you know, beyond unity. And I think Susanna Murray actually just had a an interview with Renata Mcnay on unliving, beyond unity, and she and I’ve been having a lot of conversations about it. So. So that’ll be an interesting interview. But But yeah, so I think Adyashanti calls it the falling away of the self. You know, TM, or you might call it Brahman consciousness. Yeah. You know, and I, you know, I think it plays hide and seek a little bit until it falls away. But it’s not like, oh, there’s nobody here. There’s no, there’s nobody here that the experience is that there is nobody here. And, and yet I am here, there’s a body and a mind and their separateness that arises, synchronous arises out of nothing, and then goes back into nothing, just like richness arises out of absolute nothingness and goes back into into this spacious potentiality. And so yeah,
Rick Archer: if you were to summarize your experience in three phrases with these three, three phrases, be apt, I’m everywhere. I’m nowhere, and I’m right here.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah. That would be part of part of how I describe it. Probably. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And I, I sort of feel that way myself. But, I mean, I never quite felt resolved or settled with that conversation with Susanna and I just because, you know, knowing them both quite well. You know, for instance, that weekend, it was just getting over a terrible flu. In fact, we had to postpone the interview because he was telling us before the interview, how he he was sick as a dog. He got out of bed and basically collapsed to the floor. And you know, Mukti had to help him back into bed. That wasn’t happening to the tree outside the window. It was happening to this Auntie guy, and there was a sense of Oh, my God, I’m really sick. You know, there is some kind of me here that is feeling this. Even though presumably, a deeper, perhaps even more predominant reality was there is no sickness and there is no knee or anything else. But part of the package of the total experience was a severe flu that somebody was suffering through somehow.
Sarah Taylor: You know, I think this is where words really failed. There’s not a lot written about Brahman consciousness. There’s not a lot written about experiencing no self. You know, Bernadette, Bernadette Roberts, right, she wrote that wrote that great book about it, of course, it’s, you know, her her own experience with it. So she, she covers that terrain quite well. And I think Adyashanti I think has, you know, maybe he has hats off to her with you know, she’s informed the work that he’s doing now with talking about it and stuff and Susanna Murray, but nobody’s denying that there isn’t a body and the body, or that there is
Rick Archer: a double negative there. So
Sarah Taylor: I ain’t gonna tell you. You know, there there is there is a body. The experience, I think when people talk about these, these, this state of consciousness, which isn’t really a state it is, you know, again, words, words really failed, but it’s about it’s about the experience of it, from this vessel, this instrument this instrument is experiencing, you know, Sarah Anis right now and then and then and then it dissolves, this instrument is experiencing, you know, hot tea. Or, or, or the flu. But, but there’s no separation, it’s like a, it’s like the veil of, I mean, because even even unity is a very, very, very subtle, there’s someone there, there is the perceived sense of someone who is one with this computer right here, one with you. So there are two that are one where I did we’re unified so so when that falls away, it’s I mean, I know Maharishi sent me that interesting thing. He’s sort of like, well, it’s a deeper state of unity, which it’s a it’s a, it’s a, it’s a flow, so I’m sure when audio was collapsing on the floor, you know, with with his flu, that it’s, it’s it’s a flow with all of it. He is the flu, and he is the body collapsing on the floor, and he is the nothingness and he is the it’s, it’s all happening at one.
Rick Archer: Sure. But the experience was being had there in that instrument. I wasn’t aware that it was six, so I was off somewhere else doing something else. And so my instrument was not having the experience that his instrument was having. And so there’s some kind of the concept of lesh avidya may fit in here that is used in Vedanta, which means like, faint remains of ignorance, that, you know, ultimately, it’s just all totality. And there’s no individuality, but that’s, well, that can be
Sarah Taylor: like, well, ignorance creates bodies, and that’s why we’re here and that’s what we want. You know, I don’t know about any of that. I think anybody can answer whether that’s true or not. But I think what audience is on memory and what I’m starting to talk about too, is is really about it’s about the it’s about your lived lived experience and yes, experiences fade and they’re not permanent. But but words I can’t I can up someday I’ll find words for it, but it doesn’t feel like it’s stabilized in me yet. So let’s talk two years from now or something you know, and Susanna Murray you and Susanna Murray can probably have a far more colorful conversation about it than you and I could right now but
Rick Archer: maybe we’ll a threesome sometime or four. Yeah,
Sarah Taylor: that’d be great. But you know it’s all included nothing is left out it’s and I think Adria has said it in some talk again, that it’s eternity looking out through these eyes. So, so so that that is no cell. That is Brahman consciousness, and we’ve all glimpsed it. Everybody has. Yeah, whether whether it stabilizes or you know, becomes a lived experiences you know, that’s another thing but but it’s eternity looking out through eternities eyes. So you know, it’s not it’s not just Rick it’s not just Sarah. And it goes beyond even like, oh, well, it’s eternity and Rick, you know, it’s it’s something falls away, where it’s just this. So it’s sort of like, if, you know, the realization in 2016 Was I am that or I am this now feels like something is developing, that’s just this
Rick Archer: without the I am part. Yeah.
Sarah Taylor: Which, you know, he goes to a comedy show, and I’ll be like, you know, just being a goofball. But you know, that that belongs to it’s all just this, it’s all just happening. It’s all, it’s all just happening, which, which when people talk about this stuff, you know, somebody can hear it and get intellectual about it. And, and the mind or the ego can get engaged and go, Yeah, but I mean, there’s no arguing with with it, right. It’s, it’s just, this is the experience, and this is what people have reported experiencing. So
Rick Archer: well, you know, I’m certainly willing to admit that I’ve, you know, my experience has got a long way to go, and that I’m doing my best to, you know, based on what I have experienced and what I have understood to, you know, understand this and talk with you about it. But, you know, when I hear somebody like God just say, Well, you know, I, I’m still a work in progress, and there’s still development taking place.
Sarah Taylor: We’re human beings. Yeah. So
Rick Archer: what is it that’s developing the instrument, right? But the instrument is not just a flesh and blood thing. It also has subtle components. And there’s some kind of subtle thing which 10 which evolves, even if the even if the physical instrument dies. And you know, you say potamus Ababa come came to you. And, you know, people talk about Ramana coming to them, or our various other sort of Ascended Masters and so on, and so far, so, you know, what is it that persists even when those human beings died, and now they appear to be functioning on some subtler plane.
Sarah Taylor: I mean, well, as far as that goes, I mean, I just feel like, you know, somebody drops the body, their body dissolves. individuated unconscious, dissolves, yeah, the gross body dissolves. But individuated consciousness gets absorbed back into the great, great consciousness. And their essence, their essence from when they were here, also, is still floating in the ethers, and maybe it’s floating in the ethers for this is my take on it. Perhaps it’s floating in the ethers for a second. But to us on this gross plane, it’s a lifetime, or it’s several lifetimes that Ramana can, you know, the essence of Ramana can come to someone or Padma Sun bhava, or, you know, could be,
Rick Archer: and we’re getting a little philosophical here and speculative. But um, but it’s interesting to touch upon, I interviewed a guy a few weeks ago named William meter who is has a background in the esophageal society. And he said, in their understanding, you know, once you reach the sort of pinnacle of human evolution, as far as one can go in human body, then you shift to the next phase, which which you become a beginner, again, relative to what is now attainable, not yet relative to what is now attainable from there. And that also jives with the Vedic traditions understanding of 16 columns or level of levels of evolution, which fourth levels four through eight being the human, and then the highest human that ever walked the earth would have been an eighth, or somewhere in there. And but after that, there’s eight more. So
Sarah Taylor: sure, I can see that. Well, we’re all just, we’re all just starting. We’re all just beginning. We’re all just I mean, no matter where we’re at, I mean, with everything that’s happened, like I feel like oh, now I’m really beginning my life. Yeah. Like, you know, a bit of a late bloomer, but you know, and Hollywood doesn’t like Old Broads, but that’s changing. Meryl Streep is doing okay. So I think she’s doing okay, but you know, then again, she was Meryl Streep when she was, you know, in her 20s. Right. Meryl Streep when she was Yeah. But there was no Meryl there. But, but yeah, I feel like I’m starting. I’m just now just beginning, I was just telling my husband the other day, like, Wow, I feel like I’m just now starting my life and just now starting to scratch the surface of what I can create as as a comedian, as a performer as a writer. And so I feel like I’m starting over again. And then I see all like these young comics who are just starting out, and I feel like hey, I’m one of you. And they kind of look at me, they’re like, you’re a little older than me. But, yeah,
Rick Archer: so we won’t throw those people. What is that? You know, they, they just heard you talk all about how there’s, you know, there’s only this and there’s no kind of person anymore. And then and then you watch and well, I’m getting going as a comic and I’m doing this and I’m doing that and you know, so the language itself.
Sarah Taylor: Language can’t can’t support this. It’s all of it. Everything belongs everything is included. You know, now I feel like something is operating Think through me. Yeah. And so that that is an operation but even like, you know, like a year ago, I was like still wondering like, Oh, what am I doing? I’m doing all this spiritual work with people that yet you know, they’re all these creative impulses like on my business card you know what what what am I relatively speaking what what what what am I on the relative level what how do you you know, move forward but but you know life sort of takes care of it
Rick Archer: does and we definitely have different roles to play different dharmas.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah. So so so there’s something moving me and I have to say that I feel well, you know, I got surprised about about it, you know, that, that I still keep coming back to standing on a stage with a microphone, talking to people, because I think I was under some impression, especially after the 2011 Awakening. You know, when everything fell away, and I didn’t have any motivation to to get on stage. You know, that like, oh, you know, this is so not spiritual, it’s all meaningless, man, you know, because there’s that side of the coin, like, oh, it all doesn’t matter. And it’s all you know, there’s this whole other dimension that we truly are. So all of this doesn’t matter, you know, all that shit. Which you know, it pay if that’s if that’s where we’re at. That’s where we’re at, we kind of have to be, you know, polish that facet of the of the diamond for a little while until we move on to another one. But, but But yeah, it has been surprising over the years that I keep coming back to performing because I think part of conditioning was, oh, that’s selfish. That’s for people who want attention. That’s for Bina who knows, like, all sorts of conditioning gets gets kicked out of the system. But then, but then here we are, I, you know, this past week, I performed at a gay bar, a comedy club and a and an alternative church, you know, so I’m still I’m still doing this. So some something is motivating me.
Rick Archer: Sure. And I mean, if the kind of experience that has dawned on you is, can be thought of as the direction in which human evolution is heading. Then, if we can imagine a world in which a large percentage or even a majority of people had undergone such a development, then we’re still going to need airline pilots and doctors and politicians and athletes and exact reformers. And, you know, people will be doing many of the same things that we do now. You know, we may not, there might be certain things which will become obsolete and totally inappropriate. Just as you know, blacksmiths aren’t very common anymore. But nonetheless, I mean, the you can imagine, just as you know, when you had your awakening, the physiology sort of began purifying itself. You can you can imagine a society of awakened people in which all the various professions get purified by those people. Yeah, yeah. Well, so you can imagine a politics for instance, that’s not full of all the crap that it now is, and, and medicine, which is based upon a much more enlightened consciousness and so many different things.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, I do feel that entertainment and media has, is undergoing something right now. Yeah, for sure. I mean, just with the me to movement recently. You know, there’s been an expunging in Hollywood and just in the comedy scene, the comedy scene is much more friendly to toward female comedians. Now, you know, it’s, it’s, it’s a it feels, there’s, there’s more. It’s, there’s something has shifted, and so and so, yes, I think that’s well put, you know, we need, you know, Wall Street brokers who are, you know, awake, we need, you know, pediatricians, who are we need, and then and then that’s how humanity as a whole evolves, I feel like we’re in a new age, where that, in that, you know, people who would discover the, these, you know, aspects of reality, or the nature of reality and the nature of, of self, or beyond self, you know, would then, you know, sit in a cave or, or, or sit on a pedestal and teach and that’s all they do, or, you know, which was entirely appropriate, it’s entirely and it’s still appropriate, if that’s what somebody is doing now, but I’m noticing that more and more people, I mean, there I have people coming to me who work in all areas of life, who have had awakening experiences and profound ones, you know, through near death experience or an Ayahuasca journey or something or childbirth. And, and they’re, you know, like a producer in Hollywood, you know, an actress, you know, like, just, it’s, there’s a stand up comedian who had had an experience happened to her recently who, like, had no context for it, and I’m trying to explain it to her and she’s like, Yeah, I don’t No. But it’s something something’s happening. Something. Something’s happened in here.
Rick Archer: I just did is that this? That’s Buffalo Springfield. And there’s also something is happening that you don’t know what it is do you, Mr. Jones? That was Dylan. Oh, yeah. And, you know, I mean, a lot of times people feel like, okay, well, we have to change the system, you know, politics is a mess. And we and we need to elect different people or medicine is a mess, we need to sort of change, change those systems and, you know, various other things we could talk about. But really, we need to change, my crew were put in, we need to change, but the people who the people who comprise these systems, once they change consciousness, when it’s conscious, the horse will be before the cart, and the cart will naturally get pulled in the right direction.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, consciousness change needs to change. Yeah, so all this other stuff is, you know, like, Oh, my God, I can’t believe what’s happening, you know, consciousness is changing individuals in different arms of the one, one thing, you know, are all the consciousness is changing. And that will, you know, it’s just not happening fast enough, you know, we won’t change now. But like, I think, you know, when these shifts, now I’m like, Oh, okay. So this is something that’s evolving over, you know, like, the next 100 or 200 years, who knows what humanity is going to look like, you know, but we, you know, we live these, you know, 80 or 90 year lifespans, and we’re like, it’s not happening fast enough, oh, my God, what’s gonna happen? You know, who knows if things are going to going to clean up in the next 20 years? But you know, in the next 100, or 200, you know, sure, it’s gonna be different.
Rick Archer: Well, you know, nature has its own timetable. And that’s right. You know, and I’m sure it’ll happen in something faster than geologic time. It’s not like the shifting of continents. But you know, and it seems to be accelerating.
Sarah Taylor: It does seem to be accelerating. And when people look at politics and everything that’s happening, they’re like, Oh, my God, it’s a sign that the world is, you know, falling apart. I actually look at it from the healing perspective in that, no, this is what happens when there’s enough light. Yeah, you know, the dark comes to this kind of a healing crisis. Yeah, we’re in a healing crisis, right? You know, that that’s, that’s what’s happening. So everybody’s, you know, like, clutching their pearls, and they’re, you know, freaking out. But this is, this is, you know, with the deep healing that whenever, whenever we go through healing as an individual, dark matter comes to the surface and what has been unseen, what has been in the shadow comes forward into the light. And we experience it again, we feel it again, we, you know, it tortures us again, until it’s sort of run its course, and it sort of sort of dissolves in that that’s the healing process, but humanity is going through a healing process. Yeah, you know, more and more light, more and more awareness is being shown on that which has been in the shadow. So suddenly, people are like, what racism still exists, you know, like, what misogyny? Like I thought those women were fine. You know, it’s, it’s all coming to the surface. It’s a healing crisis.
Rick Archer: So we’ve gone off on some philosophical and societal, societal considerations. And in our remaining time, I wanted to bring it back to you a little bit.
Sarah Taylor: But there’s nobody here, Rick.
Rick Archer: Well, let’s bring it back to nobody is a real nowhere man sitting in his Nowhere Land.
Sarah Taylor: Oh, yeah, rain.
Like she’s doing a yoga pose.
Rick Archer: She’s ducking under the let the dog to open the dog door. This is a real sort of juggling dog situations during these interviews. Well, I love it, because no one can see her. But Sarah can see you.
Sarah Taylor: Oh, I can see, because Irene is doing some yoga, she’s contorting, going through the door.
Rick Archer: I gotta go ahead, we can continue. But I’m gonna cut that part out. So let me let me ask the question I just asked again, which is, you know, we’ve we’ve gone off on some philosophical considerations, which aren’t necessarily somewhat speculative, and some, you know, societal considerations about what the impact of this sort of thing might be on society. And I think that’s very important, actually. I mean, if you are harbinger of you, and the kinds of people I interview are are harbingers of what is to become a larger societal trend, you know, more and more and more people having these sorts of awakenings, which is I believe, what’s happening, then I think that has extremely exciting implications for our world. And you know, for how we might end up much better off than many of us fear. So we can even talk about you can even respond to that if you want but then I want to bring it back to a little bit more about you
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, I mean, what’s interesting when you say that it’s like, everybody’s like expecting some sort of miracle, you know, we need a miracle. But that is that is that is the miracle. It’s just not arriving in a flash it’s arriving over time, is that people who weren’t sitting in caves meditating in the Himalayas for, you know, 70 years or something are waking up, it’s, you know, it’s just, it’s happening. Yeah. You know, that
Rick Archer: might have been happening 1000 years ago, too. I mean, Kabir was a weaver and that he had, that was his profession. And Nisargadatta sold cigarettes. Yeah. So it could very well, you know, we mainly hear about people who left in historical record their teachings, but there could have been many people who didn’t leave teachings because they weren’t teachers, and they were just, you know, bubblers or something. And, and yet, they had a profound awakening.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, and I meet people who are like, oh, you know, that’s kind of how I how I see things, but they don’t they don’t call it bad. Are they? I mean, you Harry alto? Yeah. Who’s your? Yeah, like, what the heck, like, he just sort of like came, you know, came out of the womb like that, or something. And it’s been like this, divided. And he had that one moment where he felt like the ego closing in and the separation closing in, and he was like, Whoa, how do you guys live like this? paraphrasing him. Maybe he didn’t say it like that. It
Rick Archer: was kind of like that. He was saying, I can’t live like this. I mean, how do people do it? And then after about 15 minutes, it melted away again. And then he was back as usual. State? Yes.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah. You know, what I do think that it’s important to stress to is that since the awakening into unity in 2016, it’s not like, you know, rainbows have been shooting out of my butt. And I’m like, everything’s great. Excuse me, shock and swearing again. Oh, shucks,
Rick Archer: that would be great on stage. But anyway, go ahead.
Sarah Taylor: But, you know, there, there has been more clearing, you know, like, just like, eight months ago, seven months ago. You know, what is it September of 2018. Right now, you know, a big chunk of a sudden cleared from my system, but, but it felt like more of a gut, a body a body. Release. Oh, that was the dream that we were talking about dreams. Yeah, I just had, like, early at the beginning of this year. I had this this just this primal fear dream. I’ve never had a dream like that before. There’s always a narrative in the dream. And often I’m aware, I’m dreaming. And sometimes I’m just, you know, I say, just knock me out. You know, but but there was no awareness. In the dream, there was just total. I mean, there was awareness of this primal fear. It was just there was no narrative, no story to it, just a primal fear, gripping dream, and it was completely terrifying. And I woke up, and something had fallen away. Yeah. Something that the body had been, had been holding. So So I think the body continues to release long after and, you know, stuff arises because we’re in a body and the neural pathways are still rewiring and everything’s still stabilizing and integrating, you know, like, I was nervous for the interview, you know, I felt there were nerves in the body, you know, which, which dissipated, I still feel like, ah, as I’m about to get on stage, but it’s all everything’s, there’s no, it’s nothing. It’s not a problem. Yeah, yes. It’s not, it’s not a problem. So there just was this big, like, gut gut released this path, just this just, you know, like seven or eight months ago. And that’s when I woke up and I said, Something felt completely different. I felt like, Oh, I’m, I think I’m gonna email Rick and tell him that I want to do the interview, not because it was like, oh, because I’m finished, I’ve completed my clearing out and I’m ready, you know, but it just was like, Oh, I let’s see what Rick is doing and just being being moved by something. So, you know, every step on the path of awakening, there is clearing, it just gets subtler and subtler and subtler and subtler and especially if somebody has had trauma, the body I mean, even just the cells, the tissues are you know, holding on you know, whereas like I think that um, you know, consciousness, before waking up consciousness identifies with the psychological self with the me to know that it exists. But the body identifies with suffering and pleasure to note to know that it exists. So, you know, if you’ve had a certain type of life or certain experiences in your life, your body may identify with the Ain’t being you know, contracted, traumatized, you know? So yeah, there are subtle, subtle clearings all along, you know? And
Rick Archer: who knows how many more there may be? Who knows? How many of you going through them 20 years from now or whatever?
Sarah Taylor: Who knows?
Rick Archer: I know that in the Vedic tradition, it’s thought that the refinement is never ending. And if one were, if one were to live long enough, one could actually refine the physical body to become a celestial body. Yeah. And there are records of people having done that, supposedly, I think, in Buddhist tradition, there are records that people have a body. Yeah. And that kind of stuff might be just mythological, fanciful stuff, but I don’t know. But you know, from everyone I speak to and I’ve spoken to hundreds, the vast majority, do feel that there’s going to continue and there is continuing to be refinement. And in many respects, not just the body, but the senses, the intellect, the the heart. All of all various faculties that make us up there. There’s no end to Yeah.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, I mean, I mean, just just because so I might be awake or whatever. And, and, you know, look at my husband, and not feel like there’s any separation between us, but then also be really annoyed that he’s doing something or, you know, and then and then not have the facility to or the communication skills yet, let’s say, I mean, all of this is hypothetical, we have a perfect relationship, of course. But you know, but not have the communication skills, let’s say yet to say, oh, you know, what, I really, that feels weird right? Now, I know, it’s just me Hold on a second. You know, so So we’re always developing, we’re always developing our communication skills, we’re developing our mental and intellectual understanding of how the physical world works, you know, of how relationships work. You know, so it’s never ending if you’re in a body you know, that then it does apply you know, we’re we’re works in progress.
Rick Archer: Peace, pilgrim, did you ever read Peace program, you know, she was this marvelous woman, you look up these programs and find this little book that you can read. And she basically spent decades and decades wandering around the United States with nothing but the shirt on her back and a Paris Well, pants also, and, and, you know, just sneakers, just completely at the mercy of whatever happened. So people would pick her up, people would feed her, you know, people would give her a place to stay, or sometimes they wouldn’t, but she would just keep walking around the world. And she just had a shirt on it said, Peace Pilgrim. And she was just this cosmic person who very beautiful soul, she has a very beautiful face. And but anyway, she had this little chart in her book about the sort of the pace of evolution, she kind of said, you know, for a long time, it just kind of goes like this, just a wavy line that doesn’t go up, or maybe it’s going up gradually, but it’s wavy. But then she said, once you undergo a certain shift of the kind of thing you’ve been describing in this interview, then it really begins to accelerate a lot more, because it’s sort of like you’re not in control of it anymore. You’re not the one who’s pulling the strings. You’ve surrendered to a much more wise and powerful level of nature’s intelligence, and they can work out your destiny, or your evolution that can work out your evolution much more effectively than any sort of individual. Yeah, thank you. But anyway, that’s a recommendation for everybody listening to get a hold of peace pilgrims little book, it’s probably free online or something. Yeah. And just read it because she’s an was a very inspiring figure.
Sarah Taylor: Is she still alive? No, she
Rick Archer: died a number of years ago, she was doing this I don’t know when back in the 60s or 50s, or something. But she just a wonderful, wonderful person. And that little bit out, I was reminded of that little bit about the evolution always continuing but continuing but accelerating once the individual kind of gets out of the way.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, and I mean, and doesn’t Ken Wilber say something about you know, we wake up, clean up, wake up, show up, clean up and grow up?
Rick Archer: Yeah, all that stuff? I don’t know. And he talks a lot about the fact that those can be rather out of correlation or, yeah, and then they need to also be brought in line for a full awakening to really be.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and also with like, you know, creativity with people who because, you know, I just I work with a lot of creative people. It’s how do you how do you get out of the way? Yeah, and let that happen. So when somebody has had a profound awakening, it’s, you know, they have some facility with getting out of the way. But you know, that that’s, that’s really what’s happening we get out of the way and life can move through us or the symphony can move through us or the play or, you know, the words for something that we you know, want to have and, you know, you’re familiar with Aurobindo, right, sure,
Rick Archer: yeah. I would love to study him more. I hoped to do that at some point. And maybe I’ll find an Aurobindo expert that I can interview.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah, well, there’s a good book called Adventures in consciousness. All I don’t, I wish I could give a shout out to the author, I think he passed away. But yeah, adventures in consciousness is what it’s called. And it’s a pretty good, like, kind of summation of, of Aurobindo, his work. And, you know, I don’t claim to really have studied him so much that I, you know, but but that’s basically what what he’s saying is that for evolution, you know, evolution is happening, this is the evolution of humanity is that, you know, consciousness is now is now is now leading things, whereas the body was evolving. You know, the body’s been evolving. So now consciousness is evolving. I mean, you know, we’re kind of our bodies are pretty, pretty good machines. I mean, we still have wisdom teeth and appendixes. And who knows what, therefore, but you know, not now it’s consciousness is turned to, to evolve and, and to evolve humanity. So, and I agree with that. I think that’s, I think that’s what’s what’s happening.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I would say, you know, it always has been, and yeah, throughout the 13 point 7 billion year history of the universe, and this universe is probably only one of many. So that’s always been the game. But I think at least on this planet, you know, we’ve reached a stage of biological evolution with nervous systems. We’re not We’re not dinosaurs. We’re not troglodytes. You know, we have a level of complexity and brains large enough to really become vehicles for some very interesting developments to take place, and for a very interesting society to arise from those developments. Yeah,
Sarah Taylor: yeah, definitely. I agree.
Rick Archer: Well, Sara Taylor.
Sarah Taylor: Well, Rick Archer, what do you think? I think we’re winding down. Let’s not let’s not exhaust people. Yeah. Are philosophizing.
Rick Archer: PT Barnum said, you know, always leave them wanting more. They also said there’s a sucker born every minute, but
Sarah Taylor: he did say that. But
Rick Archer: he was from Bridgeport, Connecticut right next to where I grew up.
Sarah Taylor: But your Connecticut guy? Yeah, it was from Fairfield, Connecticut,
Rick Archer: and Westport. But in any case, Sarah, you know, your good friend, I you know, we haven’t spent a lot of time together. But I just feel kind of camaraderie with you. And I’ve enjoyed having this conversation with you. And, you know, I would certainly want you to have the last say if there’s anything else you feel has been left out. But you know, I think we’ll probably end up doing another one in a few years. And, you know, we can sort of have chapter two of this, or maybe even doing a group we continue now with this is like Maria, maybe audio or whoever wants to be part of it. David Buckland, it’d be fun. You know, a few years ago, I did this thing at Sofia university with like 14 or 15. People remember that? Yeah. And didn’t quite feel moved to do that again, this year. All I could know so many people on that panel. It was interesting. It was like this all day thing. And I kind of like maybe I’ll do another one of those one these days. And you could be part of it. But sure, yeah, it took a lot of finagling to pull that one off. And a lot of technical things, a lot of post production editing.
Sarah Taylor: Yeah. I mean, we had technical issues earlier this week, we weren’t sure this was going to happen. I
Rick Archer: know your computer kept freezing up at all. But um, in any case, this went well, I think I think people will enjoy it. And we didn’t get any questions during it. But that doesn’t matter. I think you and I feel the time. So I appreciate your time.
Sarah Taylor: And thank you. Oh, hopefully, we’ll
Rick Archer: see what it sounds in a month. Yeah, you’re gonna make it?
Sarah Taylor: I think so. I think I’m gonna be there. About a month from now. Yeah.
Rick Archer: Late October. Yeah. And we’ll take it from there. So. So I’ll just make a few wrap up points. I’ll create a page on your website, on my website about you and links to your website and all that stuff. I would recommend if you haven’t already done so to create something on your website where people can be notified when your book is released. Because I think it’s going to be a really interesting book. And they may not want to be on your regular mailing list, but they might want to be notified when your book gets done whenever that’s gonna be. And so people listening to this go visit her website. Sarah taylor.com, right.
Sarah Taylor: Nope. Sarah taylor.org.org taylor.com is a real estate agent in Florida. Who fields my emails she is so kind shout out to Sarah Taylor in Florida. Nice, but it’s Sarah taylor.org whitehouse.com
Rick Archer: used to be a porn site and people go there all the time, is whitehouse.gov that you want to go to? Lunch? It’s good to know, these days. It’s sort of as a porn site even if you go to whitehouse.gov. But in any case, with apologies to the conservatives who listen to the So next week is an old friend of mine named Steve Briggs, who had all kinds of interesting adventures in India for years and lived in hiked in the Himalayas and claims to have met Baba Ji up there. And
Sarah Taylor: I yeah, I have this book I read part of it. Oh, close the middle of it.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I see him every week when I go to play pickleball. He’s up there teaching tennis, where it’s going to be one of these, you know, people who make Fairfield Iowa an interesting place to live in. And then the following week is this fellow I mentioned earlier, who’s written the book about, you know, life, the decisions we make before we come into this life. Yeah. So that’s interesting. Yeah. So stay tuned, everybody. And if you want to be notified of these interviews, when they get released, subscribe on YouTube. And there’s some kind of extra subscription thing you can do. I’ve been told that makes, make sure you get notified. And also subscribe to our little email list if you want to. It’s on batgap.com. You can also subscribe to the audio podcast if you’d like to listen while you’re commuting and stuff. So Thanks, Sarah.
Sarah Taylor: Thank you.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Take care.
Sarah Taylor: Thank you. Bye, everybody. Thanks for watching live