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Rick Archer: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer. And I swear to God, this is the last interview I’m going to do at the sand conference, because it’s 10 o’clock at night, and we were leaving in the morning, but I been wanting to interview my friend T proctor here whom you may have already seen in the panel discussion that we did it on embodiment. And this is our last opportunity. So here we go. I think I’ll ask you to just briefly introduce yourself. First, whatever you feel is relevant and important in this context, and I will take it from there. Okay.
T Jonathon Proctor: My name is T. And that’s my real name. So people often ask if it’s T or T EA, it’s just t plaintiff, T Jonathan proctor. And that’s my real name. It’s not a that’s not a taken on man. We I live in Humboldt County, California, which is far north of California. And we run a practice called being real being embodied. I say we I mean, my partner Christine Fiorentino, and I, and we do workshops, we do retreats, I do private sessions, Christine teaches yoga, and a big part of our practice is in the name being embodied. What our focuses is, learning to experience life as a fully embodied, awakened being.
Rick Archer: Do you know any uninvited awakened beings?
T Jonathon Proctor: You know, I think there have been quite a few, even here.
Rick Archer: Yeah. Yeah, this is a recurring theme. I interviewed somebody earlier in the conference, who insisted that, really there she was not a person, there was no person, and so on. And I didn’t, wasn’t quite quick on my toes enough. But I think my response might have been or should have been, of course, your person, your wonderful person, a lovely person. It’s just that you’re not only a person? Yeah.
T Jonathon Proctor: Well, you know, there’s many ways of looking at it. And I think that it can become kind of a classic, circular, circular argument. It’s interesting, I see some parallels to Christian fundamentalism, or certain fundamentalism that say everything reverts back to the book. And the book says this.
Rick Archer: And so you can find books that say, you’re not a person. So you
T Jonathon Proctor: can find books that say, you’re not a person, and you can mimic those books. Yeah, I don’t think it’s, I think, to be fair, I think that people experience that. And I think that’s an actual experience. And you know, you talk about Ken Wilber states and stages a lot. And development lines of development, right. So you know, I think there, there’s such an unlimited amount of states that we can enter as a human being. Yeah. And if we decide that’s the place we want to park our ship, then, you know, we can get a lot of play out of that.
Rick Archer: I don’t know about you, but I’m experiencing right now that I’m not a person, but I’m also experiencing that I’m a person. And the two go together quite nicely.
T Jonathon Proctor: Yeah, well, it’s been a pretty intense conference, I’ve in the context of this talk tonight is really amazing. Because we’ve been, we’ve been at the sand conference, and there’s just one thing after another after another, and there’s all kinds of different perspectives, and amazing people
Rick Archer: has usually like five or six things going on at once that you might like to go to, and they’re all very interesting.
T Jonathon Proctor: You know, that brings me actually back to the body and back to the need to take care of ourselves to regulate ourselves to get healthy food and rest. And yeah, yeah. And well, if you don’t mind me saying, you know, you took some time off to do some meditation today.
Rick Archer: Oh, I always do. Yeah. I mean, that’s like bottom line. I haven’t missed one in 46 years. Because I’m obsessive, but But yeah, you got to take care of the body. So but this whole theme of not a person, maybe we should put it in context, because maybe some of the people listening are aware that this is an issue, but there’s a whole sort of niche of the spiritual community. New, you know, the Neo, so it’s often referred to as Neo Advaita, in which there’s a strong emphasis on the point that, you know, if you look, you can’t find any little nugget inside that you could identify as you there is no person it’s you just come down to kind of vast emptiness. And so people say, well, there is no me. There’s just this vast emptiness. And, but what happens is, unfortunately, It creates in many people a problem and even sometimes mental illnesses of some kind. There’s this fellow Scott killaby, who was going to be here at the conference, but his mother that had to leave, but we were going to sit down have a whole discussion about the calls, he gets on a regular basis from people who are kind of have become extremely disassociated or unbalanced, because of their obsession with this notion of listening to teachings, which tell themselves that they are not a person, or that there is no one home. And that there’s nothing to do nowhere to go. And you’re already there and interrupt at any point. But Jeff foster illustrated this whole issue very delightfully, a little cartoony made called the Neo Advaita trap, which if you look on YouTube, for that, you’ll find it. I’ve watched you I’ve actually I’ve shared that with people. Yeah, good. So do a search folks on Neo Advaita trap, and then pause this video, watch that one and come back then Anyway, go ahead.
T Jonathon Proctor: Well, first of all, I’ll just say that the characteristic of a lot of the more mental pathologies is a disordered or fragmented sense of self. And, you know, frankly, I’ll just tell you that that my early history with a lot of neglect and a lot of trauma and a lot of difficult experiences, that was my experience.
Rick Archer: Prior to any spiritual prescrire, spiritual you came in
T Jonathon Proctor: there was there was a fragment, I developed, perhaps a fragmented sense of self. Yeah. And so I think it’s, it’s a little bit, I don’t want to go too far astray on this topic. But when, when people have a lot of either trauma or attachment, attachment difficulties in life, they actually don’t develop the full sense of self that people with a with a adequately integrated sense of self has have. And what happens to those people is that they come into these teachings, which are not only teachings, but they’re powerful fields of transmission, if you will. And these teachings affect them in a way that confirms something that they already know that there’s no self. However, what it what it tends to bring up for them is because there’s never been a stabilized sense of self is a very deficient and fragment, you know, a very, very deficient sense of self.
Rick Archer: Do you think that these teachings with such people further exacerbate the fragmentation? That, in other words, they can destabilize a person who hasn’t achieved? Integration of self to begin with?
T Jonathon Proctor: Yeah, I’ve seen it. Yeah, absolutely. And I think I experienced it to a degree.
Rick Archer: So would you say that for some people, the emphasis in their growth should be about achieving an integrated sense of self or whatever terminology you would use? In other words, building up the ego in a sense, rather than trying to kill or deny the ego, and then once a strong ego has been established? They might proceed from there. Yeah, I
T Jonathon Proctor: don’t want to give you a yes or no answer to that. I mean, I think every case is different there was that there was that famous quote, for a while by Jack somebody, the you can’t be you can’t be nobody until you’re somebody. And that was a the idea being there, that if you’re just this kind of fragmented, free floating, chaotic awareness, you know, with with random perceptions, and random ideas, and nothing coherent or integrated about about what you feel yourself to be in the first place, you’re not going to be able to develop as an embodiment of being going forward, just because you access some state of awareness or some state of deep peace or some state of emptiness.
Rick Archer: Yeah, I mean, in my spiritual upbringing, the emphasis was always on. Strengthening, integrating stabilizing, purifying the physiology, you know, making it a fit instrument to sustain what we might even call the shock of awakening, right? Because awakening can be so dramatic, that you need a strong physiology. When I was I was on a course one time with marshy, and someone said, you know, Archie, couldn’t you just enlighten us? And he said, maybe I could, if I could take 10 strong men hold you down. You know, I mean, you would just be blown away without having established the neurophysiological capacity to embody that that experience.
T Jonathon Proctor: Yeah. And you know, I think you can kind of, say equivalent things about psychedelic drugs, you’re giving people very powerful medicine, but if you’re using those things in in unskillful ways, what you’re doing is you’re opening people up to a lot of potential damage, and a lot of potential Strife for them. And so, in the same way that if you if you had somebody come into the room tonight that wasn’t All together stable, you give them some LSD, they might be very much the same thing to have somebody come into a satsang and just have them walk back out the door is very powerful medicine. Yeah.
Rick Archer: Well, I’m not, you can tell us more about your spiritual background if you want to. But I know in my case, being on long courses, meditation courses for six weeks, six months, you know, 10 hours a day of meditation and stuff. There were some tragedies, you know, there were some I once had to go to a hotel in Switzerland and mollify the staff after a woman had jumped off the balcony and killed herself. And I’ve heard of stories like this and other spiritual movements were under intense sadhana, intense spiritual practice. Troubling personalities, just crack, you know,
T Jonathon Proctor: yeah. Okay, so I will, I will move it back to my background and basis, basically, my background was that my life through basically the intervention of my own shadow, took a massive, took a massive fall. And in a sense, a complete turn from everything I had been, you know, in my very early 30s, and my late 20s, to my early 30s. And I found myself with a at that very deep sense of existential despair, like, what is all this? What is my life? Who am I? What is this? What is the truth of everything, and I began to go to the pasta meditation is actually going to have a pasta meditations. And that led me to Spirit Rock, and then I was at some of the Tera Vaada monasteries. So I began to practice very intensely, the body oriented, the personal practices. And, and so I would, for instance, when you go to a Quaker retreat, it’s a very powerful practice, you go for 10 days, I mean, the first time I ever went to a go anchor retreat, I, I was walking around, and I was I was thinking, wow, this must be what it’s like a purgatory. Nobody was speaking to each other. And, you know, people were people were walking around, it looked like a bunch of corpses walking around. People didn’t look happy. You know, it was it. Was it on the fire? Yeah, we look kind of zombified Mental Hospital purgatory.
Rick Archer: shinjin. Young said that to me, and he said, some some in some aspects of Buddhism, and I don’t keep them all straight. zombiephiles people, they become very unnatural in their demeanor, their behavior.
T Jonathon Proctor: Yeah. And I think that, you know, all the all the different traditions have their have their pathologies that go along with them. So So you go on this very, you go to this very deep place, and I had immediately very deep, profound experiences. I mean, I remember after my very first vipassana retreat, people were talking about the man we’re talking about, all they were thinking about was the girls across the aisle, I was just I was having these amazing, massive experiences of, of the body is this crystalline structure, and just on and on. And, and I’m like, Really, you guys were thinking about? I was thinking about, like, the nature of the universe I was experiencing myself perhaps is the nature of the universe in a particular way. And so then they just let you go, they’d let then the 10 days is over, they say, Good luck. Good luck, practice two hours a day. Good luck, right. And they say, you know, don’t do anything else. Because this, you want to keep it pure stay with this practice. Right. So I had that. And after a while, that wasn’t satisfactory. So I came into some of the non dual teachings, I came into meeting Gandhiji, I came into meeting Adi Shanti. And really, after a while, I saw all of the non dual teachers that were available to be seen. I drove I had a little camper, and I would just drive from place to place to place through different states and, and talks about states and stations, through different states and seeing every teacher that was available. And I guess, you know, this would be a good point to say that at one point, I sat down with a certain teacher, and leading up leading up to this point, I had never fasted in my life before. But I just had this sudden impulse to fast and I fasted for five days, and I went to a weekend intensive with this teacher. And I had this terrible feeling that something bad was gonna happen. And I was determined to go talk to this teacher and I waited through there were a number of different number of different sessions. I waited till I think about the last session. And then I said, Okay, I’m going to go do this. So I sat in the front row, and I was ready to raise my hand, and I was overwhelmed with a sense of panic. And the Panic was the fear that I was going to get up and attack this team. This terrible overwhelming fear that I was going to get up attack this teacher and that people were gonna have to restrain me and that I was going to be dragged off to prison, you know, just this, but it was very visceral. And so I raised my hand anyway. And somehow upon facing that fear and walking up there in that moment, and then meeting the teacher, and then looking and it was Ganga Ji and looking at her eyes and feeling, what my experience was, I felt as if a ray It was almost as if a silver Ray, that had sound to it move down through my chakras, but all the way down through the bottoms of my feet. And I felt total stillness, silence, equanimity, peace, zero tension in the body, and total equality with the other person that was sitting next to me, which was Gandhiji at the time. And even as I talk about it, now, I can feel the stillness to sound I could feel
Rick Archer: the presence, as you talk about evokes it.
T Jonathon Proctor: Yeah. And I think, you know, that’s why language can be evocative language and gesture can be evocative. So from that point, that was, that was the departure from what had been in my life, a very deep, almost conviction that I felt that I was a damned. So I mean, I felt that I was a damned and I think, obviously, the fear that came up around raising my hand. Yeah, not only that, I was damn that maybe I didn’t even have a soul. You know? And I’ll tell you, it’s, it’s fairly easy to talk about now. But to be in a life to live a life where you literally feel like you’re damned, and you don’t have a soul. I mean, yeah, to have an inner conviction like that incredibly painful.
Rick Archer: Yeah. You know, we were talking on in the car on the way to the restaurant about the, the fact that enlightenment necessitates a transformation of the physiology even on the cellular level. And I suppose this, that’s the sort of thing that this sort of thing that could probably be studied. But the point I’d like to make is that it really is a physiological thing as much as it is a consciousness thing. And, you know, you know, how scientists will tell you that waking, dreaming, and sleeping are each unique states of consciousness, physiologically, as well as subjectively. Well, higher states of consciousness are unique in the same way. They’re not only different from one another, and from waking, dreaming, sleeping in a significant market way. But their physiological correlates are significantly different, uniquely, so. So to my way of understanding what evolution to enlightenment or whatever, we won’t even bother to find enlightenment now, but spiritual awakening, what necessitates is a complete restructuring not only of our way of perceiving and our, you know, our subjective orientation, but of the neurophysiology which is, yeah, which supports that. Sure.
T Jonathon Proctor: And this is, this is really great. I hope I’m not cutting you off. But this is really beautiful, because this is so important to our teaching. I think TC teachings get out there. And, you know, I totally was one of the teachers that I studied with, and I went on retreats with and whatnot, I love him, but somehow in the way that he teaches, and some of the teachers teach, it’s as if ego is just these kind of thoughts floating around in the mind. And if you can just kind of turn away from the thoughts floating around in the mind and see the awareness of the thoughts, see the space in which the thoughts arise, you’ll be free of ego.
Rick Archer: He goes much deeper
T Jonathon Proctor: ego is grown into the body, from the moment probably, that we are even conceived, you know, because we know that we know that even in utero experiences have have impact on on what we become and hungrier for. So a really, really traumatized ego, a really traumatized sense of self, you know, that gets wounded, that gets abused that gets neglected through time through time, that becomes conditioned in the body. And so so too, does a well cared for what they call good enough care that can comes condition in the body. So when we talk about embodiment, we’re talking about exactly what you’re what you’re saying here. Not only awakening to the state, once or twice or many times over and over, but because embodying that state by growing your body into Who the state of being? Yeah. Oh, yeah, there has to
Rick Archer: be a transformation on the level of the cells and the level of the neurons and the whole physiologic, and they’re sort of, you know, esoteric Eastern schools of thought which understood Stan this in great detail in their own terminology, but with all the noddies in the Shama, and the EDA and Pingala. And all this stuff that’s supposed to in this chakra is and all this stuff that’s supposed to go on and the physiology, both subtle and gross, in order for consciousness to be transformed and higher consciousness to be sustained. It’s a, you know, I mentioned we used to go on these long courses. The way it would work is, we’d start we’d get there and start building up in the amount of meditation we do. Remember, Dear Prudence, son, how it look around round round, that was called rounding, then you’d meditate you do assays you meditate, you do answers you you build them out, you did it until it
T Jonathon Proctor: I just touched my heart right now. I’m just stamping my microphone, but it’s it’s touching my heart with you talking about this something about you talking about your Dear Prudence and your early times? Yeah,
Rick Archer: yeah. And so it build up to the point where you’re doing it from morning till night, you know, many hours. And if for some reason, you had to leave abruptly in the middle of that, it you came out like, you know, unmolded jello into the world, and unable to and all hell breaks loose nooelec, The Beatles left abruptly in the middle of their course. And George Harrison once said, I don’t know what happened after India, everybody’s egos just went crazy. And so the way, the way we left properly, was a month or so before it was time to leave, you start diminishing the amount of meditation you’re doing? Yeah. If I’m even in the height of it, going into town to buy a toothbrush, it’d be like, oh, like, like, we made the comparison than LSD or something? No, you just couldn’t handle the sensory input? Because you were so wide? Oh, absolutely. There’s so much stuff going on. Yeah. And so there had to be this kind of gradual shutting down of the openness and integration of what had been the transformation that have been taking place. And then you go back home, and, you know, for six months or so and just plunge into activity, and then go back and do it again. But you’ve got to be the counterbalance of the integration.
T Jonathon Proctor: Yeah. So you’re tied trading and pendulum, this is a good time to bring in how wise the new understanding of trauma is an understanding of trauma treatment is because we understand that we need cycles of regulation, we need to be kind to our physiology, we need to be kind to our ourselves.
Rick Archer: So anyway, here we have this eclectic, diverse, spiritual world of modern spirituality with all kinds of teachers teaching all kinds of things, all sorts of people, and they’re all arguing with each other on Facebook. And so it’s kind of a mishmash, but there’s something exciting happening. But I suppose what you’re doing and what some other people are now starting to do, is to bring in a much needed service, or perspective to this whole process, so that people just don’t sort of waltz into it willy nilly without proper preparation without really knowing what you’re doing. And then, you know, nutcases, you’re trying to sort of help people. Well, I’m doing working around what I
T Jonathon Proctor: heard, okay, good. Yeah, well, then I’ll go back to my own my own case. So this awakening experience that I described, the Ganga, Ganga Ji experience, it, it opened, worlds of experience that I could have never imagined. And you know, you’ve been meditating for a long time, you know, how weird things can get. So I’m not going to go into all the details and all the gory parts of the awakening experience. But at some point, after that happened, I really remained in it in a state of bliss, and gratitude and love and joy in all, you know, for quite a long time, even even though I was having really, really peculiar experiences. And I think for, you know, off and on for for at least six months, I was just in this right, and then off and on for the next two or three years. You know, it was mostly that and then there was some kind of titrating into reality, I wasn’t working, I was really driving around on my camper from retreat to retreat, which was a lovely time. But it came to a point where I needed to get back into the world I need to go back to work. And the first thing that I found was that I was exquisitely sensitive, so exquisitely Be sensitive and it was. So it was traumatizing to come back into a world and be working and be in loudness, when I’d been in the wilderness a lot. The second thing I found is that nobody really cared what my experience had been in the world, there was no, there was no commercial value to the awakening that I had all the different beautiful experiences of awakening. So so there was a sense of isolation in that. And then And then finally, because I had to interact with people who didn’t care or Noro know about this, there was a sense, what I realized is that I kind of had to go back into my old structures in order to deal in the world and my old structures were pretty dysfunctional. So it was it was kind of a glaring
Rick Archer: Kinja somehow having changed so much, can you have rebuilt slightly new structures that wouldn’t have been as dysfunctional as yoga?
T Jonathon Proctor: I think there was, and certainly there was a change. And I, you know, I think with people that do that have awakened experiences, there are changes, and there are things that are kind of that gracefully fall away. And, and there are things that don’t fall away. And there are things that actually come back and revisit that seemed to have fallen away. What I ultimately found out is I didn’t know who I was, as a person, I didn’t know myself at all, I had, I had very little introspective sense of myself, as after that spiritual stuff. Yeah, because I had been basically what happened to me is the back doors opened, and I could go fly around and all the different dimensions of space and being in love and joy, I can just go fly around. But from the front forward, there had been no work done. Really no work. I mean, almost very little work, because everything was geared to being a lamp unto yourself, right? Now, I think that can that’s the Buddha’s last teaching, right? Be a lamp unto yourself, which ultimately, in one way, it’s very true. But when you take that teaching, when you take the teaching of misery, Madonna, which I saw actually pop up on a screen tonight that said, have the courage to have the courage to never admit that you were anything other than the unbounded, you know, light of being kind of
Rick Archer: way he did it. He said, Right? A teacher told me that, and I believed him. And I just kind of focused on that, for three years, I felt
T Jonathon Proctor: I followed, you know, those are good daughters instruction in that. And what I found is that it made me a defensive person, because then I couldn’t admit to my personal flaws, I couldn’t admit to my personal, you know, because then that seemed somehow to be disloyal to the truth of my being, which was so much more vast and big, and all these little petty things. So here, you have now a split. And this is I think, what happens, a particularly non duality, you get these split people. Yeah, you know, so so everybody around them can see, these people aren’t functioning at a high level, maybe they’re barely functioning at all. But yet, from their subjective point of view, they’re enlightened, they’re awake, they’re done, they’re finished.
Rick Archer: I’ve heard it said, by some teachers are one in particular that this path of discrimination and always remembering that you’re not a person or that you are the badness, and it’s actually not suited for the householder, it’s not suited for worldly life, it’s for the recluse who can just sort of engage in that contemplative discriminative discriminative activity without having to be very functional, in any kind of worldly sense. And if householders tried to do it, it messes them up.
T Jonathon Proctor: Well, I mean, that’s, that’s what happened to me, you know, I was able to drive around this camp or go to retreat, to retreat, live out in the woods. And then I had to come back in the world, and I had no, there was no development in that area. And some people may be have these experiences and have a pretty well developed structure that they can go back into and gradually grow. If the structure really wasn’t that well developed or was pathological. It really wasn’t my case, then then there wasn’t anything to come back to Yeah, and kind of work on. So all of a sudden, everything had been cut out from under me. And I want to actually make the point now that I think it would be really just great. You have spiritual teachers out there. And I mean, even the ones that that are teaching, even the ones that tend to be teaching in ways that we’ve talked about, we’ve may not agree with. They’re very insightful. They see people, they see things about people. And it would be really helpful. If some of the teachers that do the big sat songs that do have very little personal contact with people, since they can see people and have a feeling for where they’re at, maybe make some recommendations. Like, you know, maybe you could use some addiction help or maybe you could do some cognitive therapy or, you know, maybe Qigong would be good for you, some of them but some do that. I have not seen it much.
Rick Archer: I mean, I’ve heard I just say, you know, in some cases, maybe you need some therapy or you need
T Jonathon Proctor: it And I think that’s a pretty new development. I think, you know this, they’ve said it from time to time, what back in the day, this was many years ago, when they were first getting started there, those teachers have changed over time to audio, particularly, you know, he’s deepened. And, and after watching his talk with Hamid Ali, just a couple nights ago, that’s a person who’s profound and grown. Yeah. Which goes to show that the person grows,
Rick Archer: which he actually acknowledged in the talk, of course, and we never, in fact, it’s interesting what he said, it’s worth quoting, he said, you know, awakening is a relatively easy thing. I mean, like he said, I know hundreds of people who have awakened, but that’s in a sense, just the beginning. So then for the rest of your life, you’re going to be integrating and refining whatever other words he used.
T Jonathon Proctor: Yeah, and in the same talk, I think Amin talked about the need to clarify, so that you’re actually kind of removing the obstacles, but also the need for development. And both, you know, they’re they’re both sides of one coin. And really think as a human being. We know, it’s just common sense. There’s no end to our development. And even even now, we know from neuroscience that that people are building, they’re growing new brain tissue, and they’re nice. neuroplasticity. Yeah. So which points to an underlying basis of our of our consciousness is that it’s incredibly resilient. It’s incredibly responsive. It’s incredibly impressionable, impressionable.
Rick Archer: Yeah. It’s actually a routine question that I asked usually towards the end of every interview is sort of like, well, where do you go from here? What do you what do you see developing, you know, where’s the next horizon? And I’ll, and a lot of people say they don’t know exactly, but most of them acknowledged that it still keeps unfolding. You know, it’s an ever deepening mystery. But the certain percentage of people, you know, when I asked that question, they look at me like, I’m speaking Croatian or something. So what more could there possibly be? What could what could change this country? Jane?
T Jonathon Proctor: So when when you see that, what’s your sense of the person when they’re saying that? What’s your sense of what’s really going on their
Rick Archer: interest interviews with people who stay that kind of statement, when I asked that question have always been a little frustrating and difficult for me, because I feel like, I’m not connecting in some way. And I, I’m inclined to sort of debate them or try to, you know, find, find some angle in which I could convince them that there’s, there’s more, but it’s not necessarily my place to do so. But it makes for an interesting conversation. And it’s usually not possible to do so anyway. But what’s your make headway?
T Jonathon Proctor: What’s your sense of where they’re when they’re, when they’re saying,
Rick Archer: Ah, well, the people I’m kind of, I have in mind are very clear and brilliant, in a way. I can think of two or three or four of them right now. And, you know, very impressive, articulate, clear, kind of make an interesting impression. People kind of get a little bit wiped out by them. Yeah. But I was found it frustrating. Dwell in terms of where they’re, I sort of feel like they’re at a waystation having, thinking that they’re the final destination, if there ever is one. And it’s funny, because when I started doing this, I wasn’t really aware of what the whole non dual world was about, or the whole spiritual scene in general, I pretty much been doing my own thing. And so when I started interviewing people, I started encountering these things and having to learn about the different perspectives, I found myself repeating over and over again, a Tibetan proverb, which goes don’t mistake understanding for awakening, don’t mistake awakening for liberation. Because I felt that a lot of people I was talking to had mesmerised themselves with an understanding and hadn’t even arrived at what I would consider it to be awakening. And then there are others who had definitely arrived at some kind of experiential awakening. And were kind of feeling like this was it, what more could there be? But, you know, I felt from what I what I know that there must be more, but I’m not some kind of guru or master teacher. So I don’t really have the tools. Say, Okay, here’s what you need to do next.
T Jonathon Proctor: Yeah. Yeah. Well, that’s interesting, because I think one of the capacities that I’ve always had, and I think it was, you know, I can even see it, having come in from my childhood was the capacity to see into people in a certain way, see their structures in a certain way and their holdings in a certain way. And before I was able to develop that capacity, it was very difficult for me. And it was, and I ended up just judging people a lot. You know, but when I was able to work through the judgment of people and start to come to, really and this is, I think it’s really important to bring in the heart awakening, when my heart began. To awaken, not only awaken, and this is extremely important not only awaken and a non personal vast sense of heart heart opening, where you know that everything is composed of love, you feel the light of love resonating in everything, but in a very personal way, a very personal compassionate love that was able to see that each coping mechanism, each adaptation as has been talked about, and by by Gabor Ma Tei. Each adaptation and each defense mechanism was ultimately a deep desire of the organism to live a deep, deep and honorable thing for a human being and very intelligent thing for a human being to do. So honoring the defenses. And as I as I came into honoring defenses, and I started to see them in people, I could actually, it’s like a kind of a reading of the body energy of people, but I could actually read their body by feeling it in my body.
Rick Archer: It’s just, you know, not he was saying that today, when I interviewed her, she can kind of use your own body as a, as a tuning fork or something or, you know, an instrument to detect what’s going on in somebody else’s
T Jonathon Proctor: ear. Another teacher was talking about that today, I believe. So they’ll just take a moment and settle down. Just coming back to what’s important here. Yeah. So what’s important about that? Is that what I hear people saying, there’s nobody here. I see the defense in it. I see the defensiveness, sir. And I honor that, you know, I honor Okay, that’s, that’s where you need to be. That’s where you need to be in this place. Maybe it’s the only breath of fresh air they’ve they’ve really ever had in their lifetime. Okay, so breathe there for a while.
Rick Archer: Yeah, yeah. So resting place. Yeah, sure. I wonder if it’s an unnecessary resting place, though. Because it may just be that, you know, these are spiritual seekers. They really want to get going on this thing. And they start reading books and going and teachers, and that’s what they hear. And so that’s somehow where they arrived. But perhaps if they had encountered more skillful teachers, they wouldn’t have had to get to that particular weigh station, they could have kept moving beyond it and stayed integrated the whole time.
T Jonathon Proctor: Well, and so that, that may be I mean, again, I think it’s something there’s a lot of different ways to see that and interpret that. But ultimately, there are now teachers that teach embodiment. And the really, I mean, what’s the reason I wanted to do this interview with you? What’s important to me about doing this interview is to say that we are here you have these awakenings one of validated verify these wakings first of all, not just send you off to deal with them and figure them out. And we want to say, okay, you know, we understand that we understand where you’re at, we understand this sense that you’re just, there’s just this empty vehicle in which everything is just moving and occurring and happening. But let’s find out more about it. Let’s learn more about ourselves. Let’s let’s discover more, let’s continue the exploration, and let’s do it in a kind and supportive way in which you’re safe.
Rick Archer: So it’s almost sounds like you’re saying there could be two specialties. One is the waker uppers and the other is the, the embodies
T Jonathon Proctor: I, you know, I frankly, I it’s great that you say that because in a way there are already
Rick Archer: so there. I think you could also be and probably our teachers who have both specialties under their hood, there there are Yeah, and you can and I also Yeah,
T Jonathon Proctor: and if you do embodiment, right, it’s a natural process of waking up, right. If you learn to come into carloway
Rick Archer: along the path Yeah, yeah, you don’t have to get totally disembodied and then re embodied. You can kind of take it step by step and keep it balanced. Yeah.
T Jonathon Proctor: So you wake up through the body, right? Yeah. Yeah.
Rick Archer: So what do you do with Pete? I mean, you here you are up in Humboldt County, are you mainly working with people remotely over Skype,
T Jonathon Proctor: we I work with people over Skype, I work with people you know, in in the area, we’ve got a group of Humboldt County is an amazing place. And we’ve got we’ve got a group of people that attend our workshops and and our retreats, and then people that come and work with me. Christina also teaches yoga Christine Fiorentino, my partner is a co founder of as I said, I think of being being real being embodied, I should say, my website now to just my website is actually being real now.org being real now.org. So
Rick Archer: and do a lot of people. I mean, maybe Are you just getting started with this. You’ve been doing this for a while.
T Jonathon Proctor: We’ve been doing it for a few years up there, I’ve been seeing I actually started seeing private clients, I have a background in bodywork as well. So I started, I started with a practice, you know, somewhere near 15 years ago, that I called Whole body awakening. So that was always my sense that there was something to this body aspect of the awakening, even when I was kind of more disassociated with the awakenings I was having, there was some sense of the need to bring it into and through the body, that that was a resonant truth all the way through. And so through that time, I’ve worked with people individually and yeah, now it’s been a few years we’ve we’ve been doing the groups and, and what I see is even rarely talking about awakening, or enlightenment, or even using the word ego. And what I see is in teaching people to connect with themselves and teaching people to contact with themselves in teaching, and giving people a safe, supportive place to open people flower, people open up, but they don’t just flower by realizing the impersonal majesty of reality, which is really true. And I don’t want to give that short shrift because the impersonal majesty of reality is profound as you know, sure. And even just like, again, when I say it, I feel that I can feel vibrating in my feet, I can feel the pure, like, the pure life and the joy of of that, but also that they learn to be real human beings, they learn to be human beings in contact with other human beings. That the, and I said this you in the car? I was gonna bring this up. I’m infatuated with the possibility of enlightened relationship. Sure, like real enlightened relationship. Wow.
Rick Archer: You mean like, romantic or all kinds of friendships? Yeah, yeah. Enlightened Society.
T Jonathon Proctor: Yeah, well, good. So let’s start here, right now. What’s it like, you know, like, we’re here together, right? It was it was so like, what’s good about what’s important? What’s real about us being here together now?
Rick Archer: We’re both very tired. That is true. That’s true.
T Jonathon Proctor: But what? Let me just say, Yeah, I sense a light in you. I sense something of your soul. I sense. I sense of sweetness of your soul. And I, I love the child and I’ve watched you many times. I love the childlike curiosity and openness that you that you have.
Rick Archer: Yeah, so as far as enlightened relationship is concerned. Remember, there was a Steppenwolf song called goddam the pusher. And there was a line that said, I’ve seen a lot of people walking around with tombstones in their eyes. Yeah. And, you know, that were referred to heroin. But you know, you there are a lot of people walking around. And you don’t see that light that that you’re referring to? Yeah. I was one of those people. But
T Jonathon Proctor: we You said you were one of those people. Yeah, sure. Back in the old days,
Rick Archer: pretty cloudy, pretty muddled, pretty mixed up. And, and relationships, since you brought up that topic was a total mess, you know, in terms of actually. I think the reason is that I didn’t know who I was, or what I was. And so how can someone who’s completely unaware of what they are, interact meaningfully with others who are in the same condition. You know, both are in a kind of clouded, occluded state. Sure, and the whole world in large part, I mean, we don’t mean to be, you know, holier than thou here. But by definition, if we read spiritual books, and all ignorances, it’s usually referred to a lack of enlightenment is the common condition of humanity. And it’s does take a great stretch of the imagination and see what that that is. So if you look at what we’ve been doing to each other, you know, all these centuries and millennia and are still doing today. And, you know, it’s always my hope that a more enlightened society would be one, an enlightened society would be one free of war and free of environmental, you know, destruction and all the other yucky stuff that happens in our world. And I think that’s entirely possible. If it can be achieved. On a one to one level, there’s no reason why it can’t be achieved on a national level and international level and so on. If enough. Yeah, it’s like the old analogy if, if you want to see a green forest, you have to make each individual tree healthy. You can’t spray paint the forest with the green or any other such thing. Each tree has to be nourished from its roots and become a green healthy tree. And then you’ll have the entire forest will be green until that happens, the forest is going to heal gray and weathered. Get the analogy Right, yeah.
T Jonathon Proctor: So how do we do that? You know?
Rick Archer: Well, I think it’s kind of happening. And I was talking to nearby stars mother last night. And she was saying that she’s this she’s, like, almost 80 years old. And she still travels all over the place full of life and, and she was down in Mexico recently living in Mexico. And she she said, they’re all these little pockets of kind of spiritual clusters of people forming and kind of organically naturally spontaneously forming. And and I said, You mean, like, Americans coming down to hang out in Mexico and be spiritual says no, no, just local people. There’s something waking up in the society there. And I bet you’d find that all over the world, I think you do find that was I kind of see it with the show and the people who are watching it all over the world and the people they interact with and so on, do you have a map don’t map on the website, you see all the little red dots where that’s very cool. And so,
T Jonathon Proctor: so you see it happening? But even as we’re here now, is there a way that we could? Is there a way that we could just you and I here right now, is there something way that we can tap into we’re having
Rick Archer: this conversation and we’re recording it there? Making a contribution to awaken, but even
T Jonathon Proctor: as we’re talking, even as we’re talking now, I think there’s, there’s even opportunity to realize deeper contact with ourselves to realize like, wow, what is it really going on here that we’re talking what’s what’s really, the meaning of our of our two beings sitting here are apparent to being sitting here?
Rick Archer: I’m not totally sure what you’re getting at. What are you getting at? Let’s see. What is the meaning of it? Is there some esoteric meaning we’re looking for I mean, we’re having this conversation about a topic that’s germane and important in our own lives and in the lives of the types of people who tend to watch this show. And our hope is that if people have gotten in trouble on the spiritual path, or have found their life becoming somewhat dysfunctional, as a result of spirituality, whereas they had hoped it would improve, then maybe something is missing. And so, you know, it could be that something can be offered to remedy the situation, which is what you’re doing this thing? And
T Jonathon Proctor: I don’t mean to put you on the spot. But I’m just what I’m curious about is, are we connected in the most real way that we can be right now?
Rick Archer: Can you and I, yeah,
T Jonathon Proctor: I mean, just as an open question. I know that there’s that we’re both quite tired, but you know, just seeing that you’re connected in the most real way that we could be connected. And I mean, that as like a prayer, you know, as because I want to do it. I want to keep it particular to us. But also, I want to say that, can we live with a kind of a prayer like that? Or when we walk? Whether the person has tombstone in their eyes? Or whether the person’s a lovely, you know, inquisitive, curious, can we walk with that question? Are We Connected in the truest way right now that we can be connected?
Rick Archer: Yeah. Well, I sort of feel like we, when, when we’re actually in the world interacting, certainly there are things you can do to be a better person, as on the fly as you go. But it’s almost like, there’s also should be preparatory time, you know, some some sort of deep diving into silence and tapping the source of, you know, life. And
T Jonathon Proctor: so you feel like that needs to, you need to have touch that in yourself for,
Rick Archer: if that’s been my way of going about it. And it’s like, let’s say you never took showers, and you know, and then you’re out among people, and you think my being as clean as I could be right now? Well, it’s too late to think about it, you should have taken a shower. So what if any, would be cleaner, and when you wouldn’t have to think about it, the day there would be a sort of a natural state of greater cleanliness.
T Jonathon Proctor: So I guess this will be where I start to come into, you know, the, the kind of point of consciousness that is conscience that isn’t thought orientated, it’s heart driven, you know, that it’s that that we’re questions from the mind come into the heart and become become way that we live our lives with these kinds of open questions about not like how can I be become a better person or how can They say the planet or even how can I make a more enlightened society, but just with this kind of sweetness of heart that just looks to another person’s, and, and has an inherent question in it of how can I know the truth of this person? The same way that we need to look at ourselves? And how can I know the truth of this person? How can I, you know, and so I put my hands, I’m careful with the microphone, don’t cover it up. But how can I know the truth of this person? And
Rick Archer: how do you answer that question to free yourself?
T Jonathon Proctor: The practice of and I actually do put my hands and I teach people to put their hands on themselves and as a start the practice of coming into deeper contact with our embodied experience. And there’s a whole array of things that we can do with that. But this process of coming into deeper contact and deeper contact, essentially, brings the body into a sense of knowing itself as being.
Rick Archer: So is this something you do throughout the day as you as you go along? Tuning in being in deeper contact with yourself?
T Jonathon Proctor: I would say so. Yeah. Okay. I would say and so you could, you could say that that’s a practice. Yeah, no. And I would say it’s a practice, it’s not seeking, it’s a practice, that’s a flow of love, it’s a practice that it’s that it’s an outflowing of the love of knowing that our being is truth, that knowing that our being is love, and, and wanting every bit of our being to be an expression of that love
Rick Archer: you or the other in the table tonight, but someone at dinner to my left was was saying something along these lines, that there’s a kind of a constant discrimination, that functions to kind of keep things in balance and check. Kind of, there’s all these energies and levels and dimensions to our, to our being. And there’s a sort of discriminative faculty that that keeps them kind of holistically coordinated, and experience. Sort of a self referral self reflective quality, which you know, if you think about it is very germane to the question you raised. People who commit all kinds of nasty crimes aren’t being terribly self reflective, or self referral, you know, forgive them father, they know not what they do through just blindly plunging into this data. The other trying to get a need met without a whole lot of discernment or reflection.
T Jonathon Proctor: Yeah, trying to get a need met. Okay. Yeah. So when you see somebody, obviously, if they’re trying to kill you get the hell out of there, right? Yeah. But when you see somebody and they’re kind of doing something unskillful or they’re doing something unconscious, we can move from, oh, geez, they’re a bad person, or they’re unskillful or whatever, into Oh, wow, look at that person is trying to get a need met, and doing what they’re doing. But coming back to what you said, and I wasn’t, I would like to hear that discussion. At the end of the table. We have multitudes of capacities, the capacity you’re talking about sounds like an integrative capacity, a capacity that integrates all all kinds of different levels and capacity,
Rick Archer: integrates and regulates and coordinates. Yeah. Yeah. So let’s see. So we’ve just been talking about like two ways of going about it and I don’t think the two are mutually exclusive, which is, you know, having some some time to dive deep. And also having done that is going throughout your day with greater sense of sensitivity and, and discernment and reflection, self referral, and so on,
T Jonathon Proctor: which is which is kind of a heart process again, which can
Rick Archer: be a contract directional thing as opposed to just a quality that you naturally are endowed with Yeah, and
T Jonathon Proctor: like driving a car or playing an instrument that that becomes an embedded process within Yeah, rather than so that it doesn’t feeling deeply doesn’t take practicing it it comes naturally it just it just becomes a way of being so the state becomes the station a few minutes away,
Rick Archer: we got some points on
T Jonathon Proctor: here. I do have some points I you know, I’m feeling now I’m feeling pretty satisfied where without having to try to run through a bunch of points
Rick Archer: was one thing that I brought up in a panel discussion the other night, he said you might want to talk about and there was a term for that I forget, but it was sort of like alright, you know, They’re on the pedestals and oh, yeah, this person, they seem so high and mighty, they must be perfect. Everything they do every word they speak must be true every action, even though it seems weird and crazy, there must be some kind of cosmic purpose for it, that kind of thing. What was that term used as?
T Jonathon Proctor: Well, I’ll actually I’ll use that as a little vehicle to get back to my own journey. Because we, you know, I did see, I did seek different help for what I was going through and found some that was helpful, but ultimately found my way into the diamond approach. Right. And there, I’ve been for many years. And one term that the diamond approach uses is the, the idealizing, transference.
Rick Archer: idealizing? Transfer. Yeah. So you idealize the teacher? Yeah. And what do you transfer,
T Jonathon Proctor: you’re transferring all the inner qualities of your being, or certain inner qualities of your being, but particular the grand and beautiful dimensions and qualities of your being onto this teacher. And in you know, common sense parlance, it’s called giving away your power. But but in this sense, it’s giving away your being, it’s giving away the greatness of your being.
Rick Archer: So how would you contrast that with sort of a healthy respect, and even reverence in a devotional relationship with a teenager who is deserving of reverence?
The way that I see it,
T Jonathon Proctor: I would contrast it by saying that the individual has a really impeccably clear sense of who they are. And meaning who they are. And not only the purse person sense, but in the sense of there being so that, like, for instance, when you’re you go to see amici, I go to see Archie, sometimes, when we see somebody like that, in Marvel, it’s beautiful kind of bow, you know. And I’m not going to become a hugging saint, I’m guessing you all right, traveling around the world hugging 1000s, or millions of people. We recognize that as our own being, in a sense, doing that recognize that as a celebration of our own being, that’s not separate from us or above us. And now comes back to the point, my very earliest realization with Ganga Ji there, who can be quite idealized, right? My very first realization sitting there with they’re looking derives its total equality, total equality of being. So maybe there’s something about realizing the total equality of being even beings that do great things. Yeah, there’s a total equality of being,
Rick Archer: I get that with Dama. I mean, I’m this close to her, you know, about to be haggard, just having been hugged or whatever. And I’m looking in her eyes, and there’s just this kind of one this natural, natural, natural, I’m not or anything, it’s just the most natural kind of situation you can imagine. Yeah. And it doesn’t mean, I have her capacity for radiating, you know, divine energy or all the other stuff she does.
T Jonathon Proctor: You’re evoking in me again, yeah, I feel like you’re talking about
Rick Archer: but I could start whispering in your butt, there’s that sort of recognition on level of being that we’re one in the same, okay, beautiful, she says that from her side, you know, when she comes out on the stage, and, and you know, or that, you know, she sees, and the Gita says, you see the self and all beings and all beings in the self, you know, because the self is all inclusive totality and contains everything. So, with that as one’s perspective, then one will be probably less inclined to
Rick Archer: see a guru as some kind of high and mighty being that’s impeccable, and, you know, to discard one’s judgment and consents, in some cases, they won’t
T Jonathon Proctor: attribute it projecting their own grandiosity as well. Yeah. But so, you know, it’s a stage actually, my understanding is that it’s a stage that that people go through in certain situations, and then it’s not it’s not, you know, a bad thing or anything like that
Rick Archer: to stage. But
T Jonathon Proctor: that what you’re talking about, that’s a certain realization, that the total equality of being right there is a certain realization, and wait until that realization comes. When you get into a relationship like that. Essentially what what’s happening Is your you’re dealing with somebody who is, you know, even called the mother, you’re dealing with somebody who is an idealized, perfect parent, and you are a little child. And you know, they say, call. The devotees call themselves the children. Yeah,
Rick Archer: she calls children children. Yes, my daughter, daughter, son, son,
T Jonathon Proctor: and it’s lovely in a sense, but I would say that what we need is also mature adult embodied being, as human beings on the planet, not necessarily children who are abdicating something to what the guru says are, you know, and this is
Rick Archer: like, you know, it is a stage, I think, a lot
T Jonathon Proctor: of people stay in that stage, just as a lot of people stay in certain stages and nonduality. She,
Rick Archer: she tries to since we’re talking about, um, I mean, she, she tries to dispel some of that, I think by going out and digging ditches and picking up garbage and carrying bricks on her head. And that seems pretty bad after, after 18 hours of hugging people. Really, literally, she 18 hours, kind of Non Stop hugging, then the next three, four hours out cleaning garbage off the streets. That has happened on occasions. So maybe we’re getting off on a tangent, but I think some girls are more inclined than others to try to level the playing field and make others realize that they too are just the person. Yeah, you know, don’t need to own a 2094 Rolls Royces. And I don’t
T Jonathon Proctor: mean to. I’m not speaking disparagingly of almost devotees in any way. So I say that. But again, what I want to say is that we need really mature human beings, we deeply need mature human beings who are willing to stand on their own responsibility, the responsibility of their of their beingness.
Yeah. Well,
Rick Archer: there’s so many different kinds of teachers and teachings and practices. You know, that’s one particular theme, you know, which is not for everybody, no one scene is for everybody. And people are naturally going to gravitate toward what fits for them. And, you know, go through different stages and phases and whatnot. So it all kind of sorts itself out. But but it is helpful that, you know, the more over the past four years since I’ve been coming to this conference, it seems to me that there has been a real kind of upsurge in interest in what we’re talking about here. embodiment, integration. And, and also a more universal recognition, that we’re all bozos on this bus in that there are there’s an infinite range of possibility for further growth and maturation. Teachers who didn’t used to say that are not saying it very explicitly. So maybe they’ve learned it through their own experience.
T Jonathon Proctor: Yeah, even like audio.
Rick Archer: I’m saying it last night. I mean, obviously, I felt a little
T Jonathon Proctor: sad, because I felt like I didn’t want to say something about, about him or her devotees because I have a lot of respect and reverence for her. But
Rick Archer: that’s also a devotional scene and devotion has its own. Its own flavor and its own kind of appropriate structures. Yeah, it does teach me some duality for devotion.
T Jonathon Proctor: But I think I think what we’re seeing there was, I think, as, as you know, I went to see rom das when I was eight years old with my dad. And you know, a lot of the Indian, a lot of the Indian religions were coming over here whole cloth, right? And now, now, what I think we’re seeing is that we’re taking lots of value from them taking the transmission of value from them and owning them in Western cultures. Yeah.
Rick Archer: My conversation with Mira by last night she was sitting nearby Devi, no nearby star, she was getting my mirror mixed up. She was saying that she felt like the time is coming when religion will pretty much be a thing of the past, but it won’t we won’t throw out the baby with the bathwater, though. There’ll be a paring down or shucking of unnecessary, you know, husks and junk that has created onto the structures of religion over over time. And what we’ll be left with will be the, you know, the essential useful stuff and that that perhaps, she kind of sees in kind of a global inner spirituality taking place in which people will appreciate that she has all these different traditions get the best of them, and, but not be kind of restricted to anyone Yeah, I guess we’re I’m really going off on a tangent at this point. But kind of the, you know,
T Jonathon Proctor: the truth of the matter, too, is we’re both really tired. You know? Yeah, we’re running.
T Jonathon Proctor: Yeah, I you know if the truth for somebody is that it’s time to come back into the person if the truth for somebody is that I know there’s more development here. I know there’s more growth here. That’s what we’re doing here is embodiment workers. Yeah. And if the truth is, you know, I’ve had a lot of amazing awakening experiences. And I know they need to be integrated. That’s what we’re doing.
Rick Archer: Because like you You mean, you guys? Yeah.
T Jonathon Proctor: I mean, so I think the people that I’ve, that people that I’ve met that are truly working in embodiment.
Rick Archer: Cool. Well, the cameras almost out of memory. So let’s make some wrap up points and conclude anything?
T Jonathon Proctor: Sure. Let’s pick wrap up points. Can you make a map out of thinner?
Rick Archer: Yeah, sure. Okay. So we’ve rambled a bit, and we’re admittedly a little tired. But this is a topic that we we feel it’s important than wanting to discuss, and I’m sure there’ll be other sets discussions as time goes on. But sort of takeaway points that people can take with them now practical conclusions that they can sort of, you know, practically remember at the end of this interview and do something with,
T Jonathon Proctor: okay, yeah, let’s do some practical stuff. Practically get into your body, do whatever it takes to get into your body. I mean, the very simple, simple practical points are, get your diet on line. Find out if you’ve got a little baby that’s always wanting to stand the refrigerator and gobble up little sweet things, find out what’s going on. And find out what’s truth about that, don’t beat yourself up about that, or ridicule yourself, get your diet and like get your get your understand your animal drives, understand your animal impulses start to understand what this animal needs as in the Mary Oliver line, you don’t have to be good. You only the only have to let this the soft animal of your body. Love what it loves. So let’s love the animal upper body. Let’s come back into let’s let’s throw off the strictures of self modification. And let’s cut back into loving the bodies. No, no, you know, 60s
Rick Archer: around you get a lot of exercise, they don’t sit in front of computers, they
T Jonathon Proctor: get some exercise. That’s right, they get some exercise. And we have we have a lot of different ways to get exercise. And there’s a lot of lovely martial movements. And you know, Tai Chi Gong so forth. Work on your relationships, you know, work on your relationships from your heart, get help, ask people for help. Find and and when you ask people for help. Find people that you trust and feel good about. Feel safe. When you go see somebody, checkout, if you feel safe, if you feel safe, and you with that person go forward, if you don’t, if red flags come up for you, if you’re being asked to do things or if you’re being asked to abdicate your power in a way that feels uncomfortable, get out of there, just get out
T Jonathon Proctor: make a heartfelt commitment to your love of truth. Love the truth of being more than anything else. So instead of like trying to annihilate everything that stands in the way of your loving the truth of being just love the truth of being more than anything else. And I think that essentially, you know, I could probably come up with a lot more bullet points have a good
Rick Archer: one, because that one subsumes a lot of stuff. You know, seeking first the kingdom of heaven and all else should be added on to the principle the highest first if you you know love the truth of being more than anything else, all the other stuff kind of falls into line.
T Jonathon Proctor: It does and it means that you’re willing to face whatever difficulty you know, you know, people talk a lot in these embodiment traditions about allowing allowing everything to be here. It means that you’re willing to face whatever whatever is needed to be faced, you know, whatever is difficult in yourself or in your life situation. Will means you’re willing to take the steps that you need to take in your life. However difficult that may be. Yeah.
Rick Archer: Okay. Let’s leave him wanting more as PT Barnum. All right. So we’ll conclude so Thanks for listening to this too tired old fogies, rambling on about things that interest them. Probably people who are watching this 99% of them will have watched other things on that gab calm, they’ll know what it is, and you know what to do and all that stuff. But just in case of some newbies, I just want to explain that this discussion is part of an ongoing series of interviews of which there are already over 250. And they’re all archived at that gap.com Bat gap. They’re also on YouTube, of course, you can subscribe on YouTube, YouTube will notify you when new ones get posted. But if you come to BatGap, then you will find more things such as a place to sign up to be notified by email, a link to an audio podcast, various types of indexes or indices of past interviews, donate button for discussion forum, bunch of things there. And we have it as time allows, we have all kinds of interesting plans for making the site and even more exciting, you know, resource for people. For instance, I have this idea for a page, which would be sortable by the user whereby they could see what’s happening in London, and, you know, immediately get a list of all the teachers and events that are happening in London chronologically sorted. Or they could say, you know, what is what is Adi Shanti up to and automatically get a list of all his events. So you can sort it by different criteria like that. That’s just one idea. There’s all kinds of there’s no end to it. It’s just a matter of time. So, anyway, it’s an ongoing project, and I hope you’ll continue to participate.
T Jonathon Proctor: Thanks for Thanks. I really appreciate you.
Rick Archer: Thank you. Appreciate you too. It’s a lot of fun doing this. Yeah.
