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Scott Kiloby (Wisdom In Times Of Crisis) Interview
Rick Archer: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. Buddha at the Gas Pump is an ongoing series of conversations with spiritually Awakening people. We’ve done over 550 of them now. And if you’d like to check out previous ones, please go to bat gap comm bat gap and look under the past interviews menu. This program is made possible through the support of appreciative listeners and viewers. So if you appreciate it and would like to help support it, there’s a PayPal button on every page of the site. The interview you’re about to see was done in the context of a webinar offered in May by the science and non duality conference entitled wisdom in times of crisis. In addition to this interview, there are dozens of others. interviews and presentations with people like Vandana Shiva, Peter Levine, Gabor, Ma, Tei, Deepak Chopra, Rupert spyera, and many others. Although the webinar is over, now, it is archived online. There’s a link to the archive in the description beneath this video, and the page for this interview on bat gap calm. So enjoy the talk.
Rick Archer: Welcome, everyone to the wisdom in times of crisis online event, the general theme of the event is exploring and reflecting on the challenges and opportunities that this unique time that we’re going through the COVID-19 epidemic is offering us. My name is Rick Archer. And I will be speaking with Scott Kiloby. Today, whom I’ll introduce in a moment. My day job is doing something very similar to this I do the Buddha at the Gas Pump interview show. I’ve been doing that for about 10 years. And it consists now about 550 interviews which you can find at bat gap comm bat gap, including two with today’s guest, Scott Kilby. So listen to those this weekend. Scott Scott is the co founder of the first Addiction Treatment Center in the US to use mindfulness and inquiry as its primary modalities. His work focuses on healing addiction, through resolving trauma. He also works with a number of different issues, including people needing support in the non dual path. And when I first interviewed Scott, he was a practicing lawyer in southern Indiana. And he explained that he himself had had a fairly serious addiction for many years and had overcome it. And he was very much in in the non dual world, although as we discussed, he and I both shared a much more nuanced understanding of of non duality than was sometimes invoked back then incorporating many practical aspects of real life, not dismissing them as a losery, or meaningless or insignificant or anything. Anyway, I’m talking too much right from the outset. So like the nip that in the bud and Scott, I read that little bio, is there anything you’d like to embellish it with? Or elaborate on from what I just said?
Scott Kiloby: Well, we do have the Kiloby Center for Recovery. And I am co owner of that that’s in Palm Springs, you I think you mentioned that that’s an outpatient center. We treat primarily addiction, but we also work with trauma, anxiety, depression, just about anything else. And then we have a residential and detox center in what Kinta California called the natural rest house, and I’m co owner of that, that’s for people who need to detox or need 24 hour care. Um, I am. So
Rick Archer: a detox be a sort of a step to what the Kiloby Center does, like you first, get yourself detox, and then you go and get down to the root of the problem so you don’t get taxed again.
Scott Kiloby: Exactly. Yeah. That’s what it is. Yeah. They stepped down and basically stepped down levels of care to outpatient and then we let them go. And yeah, so and then we also we, strangely, right before COVID-19 started, we began to form what we call the Kiloby Cooperative, which is going to be a virtual online center like 24/7 support for people. The big issue for me today is to make this kind of work accessible and affordable. Because I’m seeing that people are spending a lot of money, going to retreats and doing sessions and so what we’re trying to do is build something new that’s more affordable and accessible. to more people, and there’s a lot to say about the Kiloby Cooperative because it’s a it’s truly a collaborative effort there. So one person in charge, I don’t have the right to run, you know, my, I have one vote among five people. And we’re trying to decentralize the Guru, the teacher, so that he doesn’t have so much power. And we’re trying to empower other people to learn how to inquire on their own, so that they don’t have to be so reliant on the teachers or the gurus. There’s a lot going on Kilbey cooperative, but we were forming that, and then COVID-19 happened. Yeah. And so what we did is we we responded to that by offering services to Kilby cooperative, free webinars, free meditations every day. For people on Facebook, we’re stressing out about a number of things right now.
Rick Archer: Let’s go. These are the Medicaid and Medicare and health insurance and all that kind of stuff help to defray the cost of this stuff.
Scott Kiloby: Yeah, I mean, so that was one of the good things, if you want to call the good thing about COVID-19 is that the treatment centers can now do telehealth with people, you don’t have to physically come to our center, we can do it all, you know, online, including drug testing remotely, if we need to. So that’s a real advance here in the in this world, because it’s kind of archaic in a way, since we have this technology to not allow us to help people online, you see, because some people don’t need to come to the physical center, they can be helped through online. Yeah, so that’s a good thing. So the Kiloby Center now you could actually be patient at the Kiloby Center, but never come here. Strangely, now for detox, you can’t do that. Because you have to come and you know,
Rick Archer: you have to get away from the usual temptations and so on. Right, yeah, you find this thought just popped in my head, I know that A has a very spiritual component to it. And the guy who founded it, it was almost like a spiritual epiphany that he had that that led to his founding of it, I forget the guy’s name Bill, somebody? Do you find that there’s kind of a strong spiritual streak in people who ended up getting involved in addiction,
Scott Kiloby: addiction, recovery or addiction? Well, addiction itself. I
Rick Archer: mean, you know, it’s like, everybody’s looking for something. And every I know, in my own case, I probably could have gotten addicted if I hadn’t learned to meditate when I did. But I was, you know, pretty heavily into drugs for about a year. And but I had this, even though I was really screwing around and messing myself up, more and more, I had this sort of spiritual motivation, I felt like there’s more to life than meets the eye, and maybe these drugs are gonna help me discover it. And finally dawned on me after a year that they weren’t being so helpful, but, you know, is there? I mean, is there any validity to that notion that there’s a, there’s a kind of a deep spiritual yearning, that that underlies addictive behavior?
Scott Kiloby: I think so. And I think it just gets sort of misdirected. It’s like, I feel like, what what we are doing now, the cooperative, everything related to this work is becoming really trauma informed, and understanding how during the Child Development years, that’s really what really shapes you. What happens. So that’s what we’re focusing on a lot, mainly, um, what was your what was the other part of your question? So I don’t miss it.
Rick Archer: Well, just that a, I mean, I think that ultimately, everything is a search for the divine, everything anybody does, but perhaps it comes out somehow gets intensified in the, in the, in the life of a person who is using drugs, it’s a certain desperation that that is coming out, you know,
Scott Kiloby: yeah. And there’s pain. Yeah. And so the drugs and the alcohol numb the pain. And so it works. It gives you kind of like a false sense of presence. It’s not, it’s not the presence that we talked about non duality, but for a while, you get to forget about your problems. And you know, you’re you’re intoxicated, you’re living in your own little world. And you know, but it doesn’t work, because it’s only short term, and it doesn’t deal with the issues, but at least it makes it worse in the long term. Yeah, it makes it worse in the long run. But at least it is something that keeps people surviving until they get to the place where they’re ready to drop that and then finally deal with the pain or whatever it is that’s driving that search. And then I think a lot of people that get into recovery, end up becoming spiritual seekers, because they were always spiritual seekers. Yeah.
Rick Archer: That’s kind of what I’m getting. Yeah, yeah, it was like just this sort of misdirected quest or something that, you know, and you get it, get it on the right track, and then they just take off perhaps, yeah,
Scott Kiloby: that’s what happened for me.
Rick Archer: Yeah, me too. It’s like, you know, I knew there was something more and but I was just so muddled and my quest for it. Fully interesting. And I, I’d say that part of the pain from my observation, especially with the the opiates, is this sort of meaninglessness, that of life, you know, that there must be feeling like, you know, life means nothing, I just want to blot it out. And and that’s kind of tragic in a way because Life can be so rich with meaning and so profoundly alive and meaningful. If one could just sort of wake up, snap up, snap out of that, that doldrums that dullness that that clouds, the beauty of it.
Scott Kiloby: Yeah. And you know, and that’s the goal of what we’re trying to do. But when you’re talking about people who have been experienced who’ve experienced trauma, it’s not that easy just for them to drop that, you know, and then just just be present. Because there’s pain there from the past that they’re carrying over to they’re self medicating, in a way to survive. And so when you start taking away their drugs, you have to be very careful, because what’s left is the pain and the trauma. And then if that’s not resolved, they’re going to be at risk of resuming use.
Rick Archer: Yeah, yep, you probably have to, I’m guessing you have to sort of enable them to process the trauma in bite sized pieces, you know, in manageable chunks. Otherwise, they’ll retreat back into the drugs if it comes on too fast.
Scott Kiloby: Yeah, in fact, the trauma work that we’re doing now is almost surgical in the sense that it goes through every memory of a traumatic event. And it ended the disconnects the charge the emotional charge with that particular memory. And we move chronologically through all traumas to clear the emotional charge through all memories, and through ideas and beliefs and programming that came from the trauma traumatic event. So we map out all their traumas. And we go through them systematically, very surgically, but in a way from awareness, like looking and inquiry into it. And so that’s what we’ve been focusing on, it’s been working in the sense that, um, it’s a different model, because like in the 12, step program, the idea is like, Okay, today, I’m clean, I’m going to stop using drugs and alcohol, and I’m gonna count the days and the months, you know, that I’m sober, we don’t really do that we buy in more into if somebody wants to try the abstinence approach, we do that. But we also believe the harm reduction model is a smart model. Because if someone’s on heroin, they risk losing their life. But if they go down to marijuana or Suboxone, they can save their life, we feel we find that to be success. So we can then inquire with them, still, while they’re on that lower drug, to inquire into the drivers that are still keeping them up on that lower drug. And then that will let them get off of that drug. And then they can go down until they’re not using much of anything, or they’re really not creating harm by what they’re using. Just harm reduction is a new thing that I want people to know about and to get on board with, because this epidemic of heroin is not being one. I think, because we’re focusing too much on pure abstinence and not thinking outside the box.
Rick Archer: heroin and fentanyl we should add, it’s even more deadly. Yeah, I know I do. Teach them a spiritual practice. So that, you know, I can, again, I can only relate to my own experience, which is that I picked up a spiritual practice. And it was very gratifying. And within a short while I began to feel better all the time than drug me said made me feel temporarily. So it’s kind of like, I didn’t have to fight the desire to take drugs, it just sort of disappeared, because I was
Scott Kiloby: feeling better. That’s it. That’s what we call the new model. Yeah, right there. Right? You know, you don’t make a decision with the rational mind. But necessarily, you can. But instead, you can work on the pain and the drivers that drive the addiction. And then when your body gets clear of that emotional stuff, it doesn’t want the drugs as much naturally are the natural kind of letting go of something.
Rick Archer: And if you actually did one of the drugs, perhaps after having gotten clean and done a lot better for a while and maybe, you know, regularly practice some spiritual technique or something. You think, ah, get this out of me. I hate it. It doesn’t, you know, I don’t like it anymore.
Scott Kiloby: Well, let me tell you a story. I told you the story that two years ago, I had a bone spur in my spinal cord, which was excruciating pain, and I’ve been in pain for two years. Painkillers were my drug of choice, and I can’t take them now. And I can’t even take one. If I take one. I spend the day waiting for the drug to get out of my system because you just don’t like the influence of it. And I don’t like my body actually rejects it. We call it the somatic. No. It’s a somatic No. Which is different than the mind saying I’m not going to use when the body rejects the drug. It’s a much more powerful way of recovery because your body’s gotten stuck and let you use it. abuse it. Interesting. Well,
Rick Archer: wow. So what would you do if you had something? I mean, this has been painful enough your bone spur, but you know, what would you you’d be kind of stuck if you had something that was really chronic and very, very, very painful. What would you do?
Scott Kiloby: Yeah, I mean, you have to find other you know, I’ve been looking for other things. There’s medical devices that are good out, there’s surgery, which is a last resort. Um, there are exercises for the spine, there are other medications that are not as harmful. You have to look for other things. If your body starts rejecting the opiate, you have to Yeah, to survive. So I’ve kind of just been experimenting to try to find the least harm producing way of managing it.
Rick Archer: Well, I hope that continues to work out well.
Scott Kiloby: Yeah, I’ve been working out and eating right, because I’ve this again, this the the spinal thing changed all my habits.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Yeah. Um, you mentioned a couple minutes ago about helping people work through all the various levels of trauma? And what are the mechanics of that? Like, you know, I could sit here, and I could think about things that have happened with my alcoholic father, or that happened to me in high school, or whatever. What are the mechanics of? But those things don’t really I don’t think about that stuff much anymore. I think maybe they’ve been worked out. But I don’t know, maybe I have some latent stuff that is still lingering there. But how does psycho psychologically and even and emotionally and even physiologically, what is your process, which actually resolves these things once and for for all? And? And is there any risk of exacerbating some trauma, which is better left sort of buried? For the time being?
Scott Kiloby: There’s always a risk of re traumatizing somebody, let me answer that. Second. The process is that, first of all, we have to understand what the traumas are. And so what we do is we actually have I mean, we’re a treatment center here. So we, we, we assess people, there are full assessments there, we actually map out their, their entire history, their traumas, so that we understand the root of everything. And we and we also map out the beliefs and the stories and the programming that got started from the trauma. So then we take them into our inquiries, and we have ways of gently triggering and inducing certain memories to come up to find out whether there’s an emotional charge without memory. So when you say that things happen to you that you think that you that are no longer an issue, we have a way of testing that. So what we do is we gently induce that memory in a way that makes makes you see whether your body is responding to it, like it’s still scoring pain. And when it is we undo that connection between that memory and that pain, through our inquiry process?
Rick Archer: Is it possible to discuss that in an interview context like this, what the inquiry process is that could actually undo the memory or the trauma?
Scott Kiloby: Sure, I’m using my own experience, I was bullied in sixth grade. So that was, that was the beginning of my drug use, because of the bullying. Oh, that’s young. So if I was going to look at the bullying with trauma, if somebody was going to facilitate me, they might have me use what we call reverse inquiry. So they might say, um, it might have me say, I’m not afraid of my bully. And as I’m looking at my Boolean awareness, and when you say reverse inquiry like that, your system will object to it, your system will tell you the truth, your body will tell you the truth. So if you say I’m not afraid of my bully, your system is going to pull up the words and the pictures that tell you that you are afraid. Okay, and then that you’re carrying around that trauma with you even today. And so once we have it up, then we have them observe those, those traumatic words and pictures, but we have interventions that come and unhook them from it so that they don’t become re traumatized. So that’s a big part of our work is to never re traumatize someone to make it gentle, so that when the trauma comes up, we have ways of unhooking them from the thoughts first, and then bringing them down into the body without the thoughts there, which is a much more general way of dealing with trauma. When you’re trying to deal with trauma. When you’ve got the thoughts there. And the feelings you can get overwhelmed very easily. So we deal with them in part by part, the mind first, and then the body all looking from awareness. And it’s a gentler process that way.
Rick Archer: How’d you come up with all this?
Scott Kiloby: Just from my own suffering?
Rick Archer: Yeah, you just kind of devised it as you went along, probably applied it to yourself and find it and
Scott Kiloby: yeah, it started when I heard Eckhart Tolle, they say come down and feel a feeling. Yeah, without without putting, I thought, Okay, I’ll try that. I tried that. And then from there, I started to notice I started to read non dual teachings, and I would extract certain things like watching thoughts. But then through the years, I started to notice that not everybody can watch thoughts, like there’s a subset of the population that that can’t just come and witness thoughts. You know, and I learned that by opening up the Kiloby Center because we work with a different population of people. These are not spiritual seekers. They don’t know how to witness thoughts, a lot of them, so we had to invent some enquiries that help them If they can’t put these thoughts, and that’s part of it, too. Um, well, if that answered your question, but
Rick Archer: it’s good enough. So you know, right now we’re in the, in the throes of this pandemic. And it almost seems a little unreal to me, because there’s only nine cases in the county I live in. And even though people are walking around town with masks, and I don’t know anybody personally, who has gotten sick. But I see it on news all the time. And I know it’s out there. And it’s real enough. And we’ve modified our lifestyles, but I don’t, you know, I was I interviewed a guy a while back. And then he wanted me to be in a webinar, in which we discuss our, our dread and our grief and Our fear and our seven. So I really can’t do it. I would feel disingenuous, because I’m not feeling any of that stuff. I’m not either. Yeah, but I have compassion for people who are and I don’t deny that they are. And perhaps you are in more contact with people who are feeling those things than I am. Because you’re never wait, you know, every week all the time, I don’t really interact with people like that. So what’s going on out there, Scott? And how are you helping people, you know, cope with the situation that we’re going through.
Scott Kiloby: So the Kiloby Cooperative, again, does a free webinar every Wednesday night at 515. Pacific on the Scott Kiloby page. So that’s a place just to come. And then we can show you some inquiries to deal with whatever’s going on. The main issue that I’m seeing now in private sessions, as people are afraid about money, even more than health, because all this it’s really affecting our economy and people’s, you know, pocketbooks and money, you as you know, carries with it anxiety, right? So a lot of sessions around what’s going to happen to me, am I going to be homeless? A lot of that people are scared. I’m second to that, um, is that there are some people who believe that we’re at the beginning of the world kind of starting to collapse, they’re catastrophizing, this, and we don’t know the future, it could be happening. We don’t know. So a lot of those inquiries are happening about here’s the world is going to end now. They’re petrified to that, of that. And then I do inquiries, of course, on the fear of death, and the fear of illness and tracking the illness. Um, those are the things that I’m seeing mostly now around COVID.
Rick Archer: Yeah, well, let’s go into each of those points a little bit. I know, in the money thing, um, there have been times in my life when I’ve had like, 20, or $30, to my name, but you know, I told myself, okay, you’re not going to starve to death. And, and, you know, so, and somehow, you’ll have a roof over your head. And so and then things will change, all things must pass, as George Harrison said, so. And that turned out to be true. But I don’t want to sound glib, because obviously, there are a lot of homeless people. And there are people who have kids, and they’re, they’ve lost their jobs. And, you know, they might have their electricity turned off or something like that, or actually be evicted if they don’t come up with some money. So, you know, if you’re talking to a person like that, let’s say, yeah, what can you do to give them some solace and change their perspective?
Scott Kiloby: Well, the first thing that I do is I make sure that they’re not trying to hide out in the absolute because that happens sometimes. Because there’s a practical aspect of life that you spoke to in the beginning. And so I’m always, I always kind of talk about the Middle Way, which is that you wake up, but you don’t dismiss relativity. And you don’t dismiss reasonable precautionary measures, like matte wearing a mask, social distancing, all those things are practical. What I work on is the interior experience, the fear, a sense, the sense of lack, the the stories, the programming, the interior stuff, is what I do, and then I don’t really coach people on the practical stuff, because the rest of the world is doing such a good job of that. But I tell people that you really need to include that. It’s not just about taking care of yourself and feeling no anxiety, or being present. It’s about also taking practical steps in the real world. Um, you know, yeah, that are
Rick Archer: necessary. Okay. Well, and then the second thing you mentioned was, you know, maybe the world’s coming to an end. And obviously, throughout the ages, there have been people who thought the world was coming to an end. And there have been much worse pandemics than this. In times when there wasn’t any kind of medical care that was worth a damn. There have been World Wars, and in many cases, you know, millions of people actually, the wars were taking place where they lived, which we’ve never experienced. Right. So, you know, there’s been some heavy stuff down through the ages. And, you know, I think in a way where we should count our blessings because it has been a lot worse for people. But again, that’s not to dismiss this. It’s just serious situation. It’s tough for many people. But my sense so that we don’t have to dwell on this too long, because it’s somewhat speculative. My sense is, yeah, the world is coming to an end, but not in the literal sense, the way things have been, is coming to an end. And things are gonna change quite significantly in five or 10 years from now. We’ll see quite a different structure of things. I think, then then we’ve seen and we’ll think, well, it was a, it was a rough transition, but I’m glad to read it.
Scott Kiloby: Yeah, that’s how I feel actually, I don’t know, I can’t I don’t know the future. And you know, you don’t either. But it feels like there’s, this is the beginning of a transition that we’re going to have to work through. Yeah.
Rick Archer: A lot of spiritual people feel that and have been saying it for years. And, of course, some have been very conspiratorial in their prognostications. And you know, 144,000 of us are going to be pulled up to heaven, and everybody else is going to be dying on Earth, that kind of stuff. And us and them kind of mentality, but I think it’ll be a much more global transformation that will include people of all faiths and you know, orientations. Yeah.
Scott Kiloby: You know, what I think is, is I don’t want to say good thing about COVID-19. But is it I think it shook people up. I think it woke people up in a way, okay. And because we there’s complacency around the human life, right, we go to work every day, we get to escape from our spouse and come back, um, we have our luxuries, we can go anywhere we want, you know, some of us, right, the ones, right, and now all of a sudden, that’s changed. Like, we can’t do that. We can’t go to places we can’t, we can’t leave our spouse. And so people, it’s bringing people closer, but then it’s also bringing up triggers, because you have to spend more time with people. Yeah, that’s the same point of view. But how it’s going to transition our world? I don’t know quite yet how that’s going to do but I feel that yeah, I’m feeling that since the beginning of it. Yeah, me too. Yeah.
Rick Archer: I also feel that you know, I mean, there have been various people, you can you can find videos online from five or 10 years ago, people predicting that there will eventually be a print pandemic, and we’d better get ready for it. And there’s all kinds of evidence now that we weren’t getting ready, you know, we should have been stockpiling certain things and medical supplies and all that stuff. But a much bigger monster, I think. And I don’t want to go to too much of a tangent here. But it’s I think it’s relevant, but much bigger monster is climate change, which is moving much more slowly. And, you know, people use the term climate alarmists, because it’s the the pace of change of the climate is almost imperceptible, unless you happen to be in a hurricane or something like that, or have your town flooded out. But I think the alarm the so called alarmist have a right to be alarmed. Because if the predictions of the scientists pan out, we’re going to be in deep shit, right? And so perhaps this, this COVID thing, will serve as a wake up call to, you know, make us ask, What else might be coming down the pike, you know, that we should really take more seriously and do something about?
Scott Kiloby: Yeah, and that’s what I mean, by the middle way, it’s like, you can do this inner spiritual work, and it’s great to do, but there’s a relative world out there that we have to pay attention to. That’s what you’re really saying.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And, and, and lives. I mean, you know, it’s, it’s easy to talk about all the stuff in the abstract. But if you worked in a hospital, ER room, in New York City, if you’ve been there doing that for the last couple months, I mean, I’ve seen these people interview, and they say, it’s just Bedlam, the the amount of death they’ve been seeing, it’s like, you have to sort of feel that and realize that, you know, for the people impacted the workers, the people who are sick and dying, the family members of those people, this is really serious business, and you have to kind of like, I know, keep your compassion alive, I think and, yeah.
Scott Kiloby: And I think that’s why we’ve offered so much free stuff during this period is passion. You know, it’s like, you know, it’s this is not a time to drain people of their money when they’re already in financial difficulties. This is time when we can, if we’re able to those of us who are facilitators, if we, if we have the resources to you know, pay our own expenses, then why not give some stuff for free to people who need it so that everybody can have that if they need it. There’s no barrier to that. That’s that’s really important for us, you know,
Rick Archer: so just as you’re saying this, remind us of what what is some of this free stuff or paid stuff if you if you’re able to pay for it? What what is it that? Is there anything you’re doing right now that You’re doing more of or even that you weren’t doing before the pandemic, but then you find yourself needing to do in light of this circumstance.
Scott Kiloby: Yeah, I’m doing Facebook Live Events two or three almost every day. Wow. Just to connect with people and kind of keep them on track and to talk about individually or groups. Live at Facebook Live event, I just, I, so anybody can come in and listen to me. So that’s one thing I’m doing. And those are all free. Um, I think you’re asking about what free services exactly we’re offering.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And not even necessarily free. But things that are somewhat especially germane to the pandemic situation and the this, the fear and the difficulties that it’s stirring up in people? How are you helping to, to address that?
Scott Kiloby: Well, so that we do that through the Kiloby inquiries, which is a set of tools we developed when we opened the Kiloby Center. And we’ve developed those tools, because we were dealing with a different population of people than you see in the non dual world. Those are people that, you know, were chased by serial killer for two days, or people who have been on heroin for 20 years. So we had to adjust and create tools that keep them where they are. And so we develop those tools. And so we simplified inquiry, we feel like we’ve simplified it and made it really much more about the relative world to like, being able to look at your store, like, like being able to look at specific stories that you’re still look, you know, still believing that are causing suffering. If you don’t know how the Kiloby inquiries work, it’s hard to explain. But we have a way of sort of, like, if things are hiding in your unconscious, bringing them up, like we have ways of bringing them up. And so by bringing them up, then we can have them in awareness, and then rest with them, and then come down and feel what we’ve been trying to avoid feeling. And once you get down your body, and you really do good somatic work, you know, where you’re reducing your the resistance to the feelings or the sensations. You know, that’s when you start seeing changes in people in terms of their anxiety level. There’s feelings of lack and everything. So it’s hard to explain the work, because it’s a whole robust set of tools I could there’s no way I can explain it. But essentially, what we’re doing, if you want to boil it down is we’re still undoing that connection between the thoughts, and the negative feelings are contractions in the body. Because it’s that connection that causes or makes the feeling the experience of suffering. Real.
Rick Archer: Yeah. And like, if a person doesn’t exactly get what you’re saying, Here, it sounds like it’s easy enough to find out because they can, you know, sit in on your Facebook Lives, and they can join a variety of things that you’re offering. And, you know, I’m sure you need to charge some some money to support yourself, but money is not a barrier, that an insurmountable barrier. So if people’s curiosity is piqued by by this conversation, they should explore what you’re doing. It will try.
Scott Kiloby: Yeah, one of the main things I’m doing now is I’m training people in the Kiloby inquiries, because we want to bring more people in. And so we’re offering discounts, payment plans, I mean, like, we’re really trying to help people financially, for sure. I mean, we can’t do training for free, because it’s such a drain of resources and time for all of us to train people. We can’t give that away for free, but we can really help people financially with that. And training is one of the is the one is the is one of the richest resources that we have. Because once once you start training, you become part of this private sort of family of facilitators, that has a group and you have free sessions for the rest of your life. You know, they pay a fee to get into the training to be trained and certified. But then from then on. It’s the Kiloby inquiries are your path, you have free sessions until you die. So that’s, you’re gonna save money instead of just doing paying session after session after session with whoever.
Rick Archer: Yeah, well, that’s great. Speaking of dying, you mentioned three things that were really weighing on people, though, is the financial thing. The job, the job loss, there was the world is coming to an end piece. And the third was dying. You know, so it we should talk about that a little bit. The fear of death? Yeah. Is that something that comes up a lot in your work with people,
Scott Kiloby: at least three sessions a week or around that? Partly, at least, but I’ll tell you what, people are more afraid of the financial thing than they are the death thing. Um, I think the financial thing feels like a death to people. It sort of taps into that fear of death. But yeah, clearly, I’m doing inquiries around the fear of death to just yeah, that’s happening a lot too, but I’m seeing more around money.
Rick Archer: I wonder if that’s because like, you know, if you have if you’re having financial problems, you have to remain alive and deal with them, if you die, then either you don’t exist anymore, if that’s what you believe, or you go to some heavenly world, if that’s what you believe, but in any case, you don’t, you’re out of the realm of money. You don’t have to think about it. So, but the money kind of has you as you trapped.
Scott Kiloby: Exactly. Exactly. Very good point. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, yeah, that’s, that’s the thing I want to tell people is that, like, I understand the anxiety around money, because I’ve had it before I understand it completely. Even when I opened the Kiloby. Center. You know, I thought there was some anxiety about whether the Kiloby Center was going to survive, you know, so I had to inquire into that I had to look at that there was some anxiety for me around, you know, are we going to bring revenue in just to be able to help people, and just doing those inquiries clear that so well, for me that I haven’t really worried about money around the Kiloby. Center. So that’s so helpful for people, they can still take action, like going to work, they do whatever, but you don’t have to be anxious all the time around money. And that’s what I’m trying to tell people. That’s possible. I think that a lot of humans are really used to the idea that you living a fear based life is just what human life is, like, like, you’re run on fear, and that’s what drives your lack or whatever. And so what we do with the inquiries is we challenge that, yeah, which ones that conditioning that makes you run on fear, and lack. And so I think that’s why it’s helping people so much, because a lot of what happens in the world I see is driven by a sense of deficiency, or lack or fear, or shame. And so those are the things that we focus on, because it’s driving people to seek, it’s driving people to be in pain, it’s making them depressed, it’s making them do drugs. It’s making them really afraid right now. And so we’re, we’re here for that, to help them with a
Rick Archer: friend of mine always used to say Fear is an acronym that stands for false evidence appearing real. Never heard of that one before? I like it. Yeah. Well, that’s it’s kind of interesting. I mean, it seems to me that if one has an outer oriented orientation to life, and is oblivious to that inner reservoir of energy and creativity that we all possess, then there is no secure foundation, foundation. And naturally, one feels fear and lack and all the other things you mentioned. But I firmly believe that we each have within us, you know, what Jesus called the kingdom of heaven, and what various other saints and sages have called the other things. But the basic idea is that, you know, deep within, there’s a unlimited field of potential. And that if we can tap into that, then all these other things, they just start to dissipate automatically. It’s like you don’t even know, they just, it’s like, if you had if you had a dark room, and you turned on little, even a candle, you didn’t do anything to get rid of the darkness. You didn’t try to push it out the window or fight against it or anything else. Yeah. But it just disappears with the introduction of a second element.
Scott Kiloby: There you go. And that’s what we do in that element is awareness. And so we’re not pushing things away. In fact, we’re welcoming, loving them. Thank you for being here. I love you stay. And that’s what reduces resistance. Yeah, right there. And so yeah, you that’s a big part of the work is not to push things away to welcome them to go towards them, instead of trying to bypass them or avoid them.
Rick Archer: Yeah, and I might add, well, go ahead. But
Scott Kiloby: it’s not like you have at the same time, it’s like that candle, because it’s not an effort effortful thing. It’s just a candle was lit. And that’s the awareness. So from the awareness, then we explore. And then those things, that dark things naturally fall away because the light of awareness there is I think that’s what you’re
Rick Archer: and it grows, maybe at first it’s a candle, and then it’s a flashlight, and then it’s 100 watt bulb, and then it’s a floodlight. Next thing, you know, the whole room is really illuminated.
Scott Kiloby: Like that. Yeah, yeah.
Rick Archer: And when you said, you know, you go toward these things, rather than trying to avoid them, you don’t go toward them. I mean, I don’t mean to put words in your mouth, but you don’t go toward them without the resources to face them. Because I think what you’re doing is first priority is it’s like, I don’t use another analogy. If you wanted to shoot an arrow at a target, you don’t just sort of hold it on the bow and let go. It will just drop you pull it back first and then let it go and boom, it goes and hits the target. So I think what you’re probably doing and you can elaborate is you’re equipping people with the the inner resources to then turn around and go and face things which might have been very difficult to face before. But in the light of that inner resource or the the, to use our light analogy, greater light. This stuff is, you know, kind of a piece of cake compared to what it used to be.
Scott Kiloby: Yeah. And you said a better than I can we’re trying to empower people to be able to look skillfully at their own experience. That’s the key word skillfully. Yeah. Because there’s a way of doing it that has skill. And there’s a way that’s not very skillful, because, and we’ve learned that from 15 years of doing this, and so what we’re doing is we’re teaching people to be skillful with how they relate to their experience. So we don’t go towards things by having them just sit there and think or tell the story of something, right. Because that would might reinforce it, we’re going towards it from awareness from gentle awareness, welcoming awareness, integrating it, allowing it to be there. And if it’s going to fall away, it’s going to fall away, just because of awareness that’s gentle
Rick Archer: that way. That’s great. There’s actually a verse in the Vedic literature, which says yoga karma sukoshi them, which means yoga is skill in action. And by yoga, they don’t mean physical asanas, or exercises, they mean, you know, getting in touch with that inner oneness, that innermost your innermost nature, your true nature, whatever, and then engaging in activity on that foundation. And then skillfulness as the outcome.
Scott Kiloby: Yeah, yeah. skillfulness and also creativity, you mentioned potentiality, um, creativity come can come alive, when you, when present starts to show up more, you know, because the blocks that fear is not there as much fear stops people. Yeah, the feeling of lack deficiency sabotage is people. Once that’s clear, and there’s presence, it’s like, it feels like there’s a potentiality there for something else. Yeah. Yeah,
Rick Archer: yeah, I very much feel I feel enthusiastic about what you’re saying. It’s, it’s good stuff. It’s not like we’re all going to become Mozart’s or, you know, or Einsteins, or anything else, that that kind of creativity, but within the context of our own lives, we all we all have tremendous potential, and we’re in a lot of us are like, eight cylinder cars running on one cylinder or something, you get all the other cylinders to kick in, and boom, right, you know, so much more as possible in one’s life. Right. And it’s
Scott Kiloby: not just about creativity, and some people are not, that’s not their thing. Their thing is they like to, I mean, I have people that work for me that their thing is they love, like, organize things and be minutes administrative stuff. And that inquiry can help you with that, too, it can open up that potentiality. Because when you do that kind of work, the same kind of blocks come in fear, lack efficiency, shame, whatever. So by clearing those, it’s not just about being creative. It’s about really, like, I don’t know how to say it’s like, it’s a funny thing to say, but it’s like, finally being what you are, and living that. Yeah, you know,
Rick Archer: that’s good, that they call it Dharma in Sanskrit, that we each have a sort of a pattern or a template for our lives that is, you know, unique to us. Even though there are similarities between different people, but you don’t try to be you don’t try to follow somebody else’s Dharma, you follow what you’re cut out to do. And, and, you know, within any one person’s life, there’s a huge range of possibilities of how well or how poorly they can do it, depending upon the extent to which they tap their inner resources.
Scott Kiloby: Yep. And that’s what we’re doing with people. I mean, we’re, you know, it is a non dual method at the, at the foundation, we’re really working with human issues. I mean, really human issues. Yeah. And that’s what makes my heart swell, because the part of non duality that you and I used to talk about that we didn’t like, was the sort of pure absolute artistic view of things. And that is not a place that I want to be in. And because it has its own problems and issues. And so this is my this is my passion is can you be in the world and not try to escape it, like be in the world? In a different way? Yeah.
Rick Archer: Yeah, we did talk about that, in our earlier interviews. And there there is, is or at least used to be a certain sort of segment of people who tried to use non duality as a way of dismissing or avoiding or negating the world or something. And that’s, I think I’ve gone through phases like that myself at times. But I kind of I think you and I are in agreement here that it’s, it’s actually a way of marshalling tremendous inner resources for living living in the world. Yeah. It’s like, you know, I mean, my old teachings to talk about living 200% of life 100% inner value and 100% outer material value and the two actually are complementary to one another and then you’re way in conflict.
Scott Kiloby: Beautiful, loves, I couldn’t have said it better myself, so I won’t try.
Rick Archer: Well, you’re saying some good stuff. Alright, so we have about maybe five or eight minutes left, what should we be sure to cover that we may not have covered yet that you want to be sure people get to hear.
Scott Kiloby: I mean, I think maybe, I don’t know. Um, and maybe an openness to like, if you’re struggling out there, you’re listening to this interview, and you don’t know anything about inquiry or non duality, maybe just have an open mind, listen to these interviews, and find out that there are some different ways of dealing with suffering that you might not be aware of. And so just we’re trying to make you aware of, of these different tools. And that’s what I want people to know, is that there’s not just therapy or counseling, there’s other ways of dealing with things. And, for me, this has been the way that’s helped me the most. So that’s where my heart lies. So my message is just to share that other people.
Rick Archer: Yeah, that’s good. I mean, one word that came to mind, as you said, that is hopelessness. You know, some people, they said, the suicide epidemic, you know, especially among veterans and so on, there must be people who take that route must be feeling very hopeless. And that’s sad, because there is hope. And it’s not just, it’s not sort of imaginative, imaginary hope. There’s very, they’re very real steps that anybody can take to transform life.
Scott Kiloby: This is my passion, Rick, because my partner is a former military person. And so I know what happens in the military. I also know there’s a lot of trauma, trauma happening in that organization, big time. So then these people leave the military and try to go out into real life, and they have no skill of inquiry or any inner resource. And so depression comes in addiction, anxiety, PTSD, and then we because we’re not capable, yet of truly, like, some of these organizations don’t know how to do it other than give people meds, right. So, so here we are, like, we have to figure this out, otherwise, more people are gonna fall through the cracks of the healthcare system. We’re gonna have more people homeless and more suicides unless we figure this out.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Maybe that’s somehow rather going to be one of the things that gets addressed as a result of COVID. You know, I mean, a lot of things are being brought into sharper focus, that wealth inequity and homelessness, and, you know, the situation with veterans, and so on and so forth. Maybe we’ll get more serious about really addressing these things in an effective way.
Scott Kiloby: I can tell you that in the six years of being in the addiction treatment and mental health world, I see a lot of issues that we have to correct. And I won’t get into it, because I’ve talked about it publicly already. But if we don’t fix these issues, we’ve got a lot of shit coming our way. Yeah. Because the world isn’t like people. I mean, like right now. I mean, my partner is 23 years old, he’s happy. He’s younger than me. He’s tapped into the younger generation. And the younger generation, it’s normal to be on any depresses or antiques, it’s like everybody’s on it. That’s just what you do. That’s the world we’re turning into right now.
Rick Archer: But you feel like a zombie when you take those things. Exactly.
Scott Kiloby: So we have to figure out something. In addition to or other than medication, that really helps people. That’s the point.
Rick Archer: You only have to change one letter, I think one or two to meditation. There you go. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know, it bears really emphasizing but the solutions are there. It’s not like, Oh, what are we going to do? There’s all these problems, and no one knows how to fix them. The solutions are there, it’s just a matter of recognizing them and applying them and finding them. But you know, we fund so many things that are a complete waste of money. And, and all of a sudden, when we have a COVID, you know, pandemic, suddenly we can cough up trillions of dollars to, to help bail out the airlines or whatever. So it seems to me that a lot of these, a lot of these problems could be properly addressed and funded. And there could be a real transformative wave that sweeps the world.
Scott Kiloby: Yeah, but look, we’re we’re focused on utility. We’re not focused on that yet. Yeah. We’re focused on countries fighting each other religions fighting each other. We’re focused on that.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Look, how much money is spent on that. I mean, the military budget and what you know, what we spent in in Afghanistan and Iraq over the last couple of decades,
Scott Kiloby: right, instead of healing and helping our own people.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Or even healing helping other people. I mean, what if we had gone? I don’t know, maybe I’m naive. But what if we had gone into Afghanistan and said, Here, we’re just going to help you. We’re not going to bomb you or do this or that we’re going to help you with Education and Health and, you know, various social programs or whatever we might be seen in a very different light.
Scott Kiloby: Yeah. But we don’t go at that way right now. Yeah. Yeah. So that’s, that’s good, we’re gonna have to have a president that has a much more sort of integral, open view of the world. A more compassionate, diplomatic, and thinking outside of the box,
Rick Archer: it would be good. And also a populace that is in league or is in tune with such a president because a leader can only reflect the mentality of the populace, or at least the mentality of a certain large segment of it. So again, maybe this will be a wake up call for a lot of people will have better leadership better policies.
Scott Kiloby: I hope that that is what happens out of this. Yeah,
Rick Archer: hope so. Well, we’re both a couple of dreamers as John Lennon said, but we’re not the only ones.
Scott Kiloby: That’s two Beatles quotes in one interview that that’s good. What was
Rick Archer: the first one? George Harrison? Oh, right. Yeah. Okay. Well, yeah, no Beatles lyrics better than any other song lyrics.
Scott Kiloby: I’m good. I know him all, too.
Rick Archer: We’ll have to get together and sing sometime. I know. You’re a musician? Mm hmm. Yeah. I know. All the harmonies and everything. Yeah, set. My voice is not that great anymore, but it will do it. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Well, thank you so much. I enjoyed spending this time with you. And thanks to those who’ve been watching this little episode of the wisdom in times of crisis, seminar or webinar. I hope you’ve been enjoying that. And the whole thing I believe is archived. So if you missed some of the sessions, you can get in there later on and watch them.
Scott Kiloby: I want to thank sand and you for interviewing me. I appreciate that.
Rick Archer: Oh, sure. You know, I think sand chose you because, you know, this is a dramatic time and you are an expert in helping people deal with trauma. So it was very relevant. And I really enjoyed the stuff you had to say.
Scott Kiloby: Thank you. All right. Well, good luck in your other interviews, and I hope people benefit from all of this in some way.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Thanks, God.
