Tim Freke Interview

Tim Freke Transcript: Lucid Living, Deep Awake State, and the Mystery Experience

Part One:

Key Takeaways

• Awakening is a change in consciousness, not an idea or belief.
• The deepest reality is always present, but we miss it because it does not change.
• Spiritual experience is not reserved for special people; it is available in everyone.
• Humanity is not an obstacle to awakening; it is part of its beauty.
• New situations and contrast can make the mystery of life more obvious.
• The spiritual journey is ongoing, so holding views lightly keeps growth alive.

Questions This Interview Explores

• What is spiritual awakening in everyday life?
• How can awakening be recognized without making it into a special state or goal?
• Why can spiritual growth happen more naturally in ordinary life than in formal practice?
• How do contrast, novelty, and attention reveal deeper awareness?

Full transcript, edited for readability

Rick: Welcome to Buddha at the Gas Pump. My name is Rick Archer, and my guest this week is Timothy Freke. And as I mentioned before, in these interviews, I listened to a lot of this stuff on my trusty iPod. Usually about an hour a day, while brushing my teeth and cutting the grass and washing the dishes and eating breakfast and stuff. I’m just listening to spiritual interviews and talks. And I first came across Tim a couple of years ago, when I was listening to a series on the Urban Guru Cafe.

Most of the people on that show are what you might call Neo Advaita folks, and they seem to be emphasizing the sort of not being anyone home and nothing to do and don’t bother with practices because that implies a practicer, and so on and so forth. And then Tim came along and it was like, whoa, how do we let this guy in? Because he’s telling you he has a more complete picture, in my opinion. Now, he said, yeah, that’s all true. But there’s also this, you know, there’s the other half of life which we’re living, and I found that very refreshing and very inspiring, and I’ve kind of been on the lookout for Tim Freke audios ever since.

Although in the last couple of weeks, I’ve listened to them about an hour a day. So I’ve really been immersing myself in your world. And it’s really been a joy. So let me just read a brief intro so people know who you are. And then we’ll proceed. This is from Tim’s website. Tim is a philosopher, or lover of wisdom, who is pioneering a simple new way to experience a profound spiritual awakening, which fully embraces our everyday humanity. He has spent his life exploring the awakened state, he often simply calls the mystery experience.

Tim has articulated his own evolutionary philosophy of lucid living, designed to help people go beyond ideas and actually experience a deep awake state, which replaces outdated spiritual jargon with clear new concepts which are simple to understand. He’s also developed a profoundly simple mystery of the moment attention technique, and a number of powerful eye-to-eye practices, which are capitalized to “I to I” practices, which quickly awaken practitioners to the mystery experience and help them commune with others in oneness and Big Love.

Then it goes on to talk about Tim’s degrees and the many books he has written, about 20 of them so far, one of which was a top 10 best seller in the UK and USA, which is called The Jesus Mysteries. And Tim kind of calls himself a stand-up philosopher, a concept he developed from the ancient idea of a philosopher as a traveling spiritual entertainer who transformed people’s consciousness. I also take it as a sort of a take on the term stand-up comedian, because you have a great sense of humor, and I really appreciate that.

And in light of the fact that you do, I’d like to start with a frivolous question, which you probably will give a profound answer to: when you were in school, was your last name an asset or a liability?

Tim: Yeah, you know, you can survive school with a name like Freke.

Rick: I can imagine one crowd saying, hey, freak, get over here. I want to talk to you. And another crowd saying, whoa, man, that’s a cool name…

Tim: [laughing] I think the great thing is your kids, that can be very mean. So they’ll find something. But with me, it was also obvious it was all laid out, right there… Here it is. I think it’s been an asset. I think it made me not take myself too seriously from a very young age. It meant that I had to be able to roll with the things that came towards me; I enjoyed being a freak. I have never, I’ve never, ever regretted it and wanted not to be so, yeah.

Rick: The crowd I hung with, that was considered to be a compliment, you know, we called ourselves that. Great. So you have a lot to say. I mean, you’ve written a lot of books. And as I listened to you, I kind of broke down what we might be talking about into several categories. One is your own personal spiritual odyssey, starting from, I suppose, the most significant incident at the age of 12, and then moving onward. And then there’s what you teach these days as a teacher or a stand-up philosopher, and then there’s your whole take on Christianity, which I think is fascinating.

And I don’t know if we’ll get to cover all of these in this one interview, and if we don’t, we’ll do a second one in a couple of months. But let’s start wherever you would like to start, maybe with your own spiritual journey, if that would be appropriate.

Tim: Well, here we are in this funny being alive business. And the thing which always struck me, Rick, and it still does all the time, is how strange our predicament is, that we’re thrown into this incredible experience of being a body of sensation, of just the whole gamut of life, which is so on the one hand so beautiful, and then on the other so cool, you know, where miracles happen and terrible things happen. And it’s all thrown at us. And we don’t have a clue what it is. And that has been the most central thing since I was a kid. We don’t know what this is. And it used to amaze me that so many of the grownups that I would see as a child went about as if they know what this is.

And nobody knows what it is. Nobody knows what it is. Isn’t that amazing? I mean, that seems like the most significant thing about life is fundamentally, underneath it all, nobody knows what it is. And when I was about 12 years old, something happened when I went right into that mystery. And I really became consumed by it. And I was just an average kid, you know, sitting on this hill over my little sleepy hometown in the southwest of England, where I grew up, with my dog, quite romantic, a boy with a dog on the hill. And just being with, you know, what is life? What am I? Why is there suffering? All those big questions. And something happened. And at the time, I had no idea what it was.

And in retrospect, of course, I have lots of ideas about what it was. But I would say now it was the first time I entered this deep awake state, or this lucid state I call lucid living. And the most important thing that I remember very vividly is entering this big space of oneness and love, this incredible love just from nowhere, just like as if I slipped into this other world, which was just full, pulsating, just thick with love. And little Tim really just was overwhelmed. I was in tears. And I felt so loved, and also a strange sense that I was the love-loving Tim. And what that did for me was it resolved all my questions. And it didn’t give me any answers.

But it suggested that this thing, like the question, I could never quite ask the really, really big question, you know, the life, the universe, and everything question. It could never quite be said, and that the answer that I was looking for also couldn’t be said.

Rick: So you’re already asking questions at that age?

Tim: Yeah. As long as I can remember.

Rick: That’s great. I mean, when I was at that age, I was thinking, am I cool enough? How’s my hair look? You know, and things like that…

Tim: Yeah, I’ve got over that one.

Rick: But from as long as you can remember, you had been sort of asking the deep questions.

Tim: Yeah, life’s always seemed profoundly mysterious, strange. I had a profound… I remember, must have been about eight or nine, going for a walk with my father and asking him these questions, and him looking down at me and going, “Well, Timothy, greater men than you and I have asked these questions, and never found an answer.” And I can remember, maybe with the arrogance of being a child, youth, but I can remember feeling, if there’s a question this big, if life itself is a question this big, then there must be an answer this big, and there must be a response this big. And what happened to me on the hill was that I found it. And what the answer was not words.

It was not something intellectual, it was actually a change in my state of consciousness. And what that did for me is it set me off on a journey, which has been my life, of trying to understand this shift in the state of consciousness, how it can happen, and going there again and again, and trying to get to know it. And sharing with others has been a big part of it right from the beginning also, because I started to find as a teenager that I would, I would enter this spontaneously. I had no way of making it happen. It was just a, well, here I am again, and be in this big space, and I found that other people who were with me would start coming into the same experience.

Rick: Because of something you’re saying to them or just because of some silent contagion?

Tim: I think it’s more like the silent contagion. I mean, certainly people would catch my enthusiasm, because I’m quite enthusiastic about it and would help. But I think, really, it’s because we’re all one. And so when one of us moves, there’s a good chance that the people near us move also. And also because it’s really not very far away. In fact, it’s incredibly close. It’s right there waiting for us. So when somebody moves into it, or, I mean, this is the phenomenon which gets turned into something very grand about being around your special people. I don’t believe in special people. You know, I’m certainly not one. And what I see is that we’re all like it, we’re all special.

And that when any of us come into this big love or come into this deep awake state, then those around us do too, which is why now what I do is I get people together to share this state, rather than seeing it as it was for me, I think, in the 70s and the 80s, where it’s a very personal thing. It was all about something you did on your own for yourself, you know, you closed your eyes and you went within and you meditated. And actually it’s something which is even better to do together.

Rick: Yeah, there’s definitely that influence. I’ve been in groups of like 8,000 people all meditating together at the same time, and all this… it’s powerful. I would just sort of beg to differ slightly on the special people bit. I mean, I know what you mean, because ultimately, we’re all the same person. And there’s nothing ultimately or essentially special about anyone. But as reflectors, you know, there’s a difference between a five-watt bulb and a 100-watt bulb and a 1,000-watt bulb. Some people seem to be able to kind of reflect this with much greater fullness and have a sort of a more, what’s the word, catalytic influence on those around them than others.

But it’s the same light, you know, like the Incredible String Band said, “light that is one though the lamps be many.”

Tim: I think they might have taken that from Rumi. You’re absolutely right, of course you are. And it’s like anything in life. There are some people who can do amazing things with the football. You can do amazing things with music. There are some who can do amazing things with this. I guess the place I’ve arrived at after many decades is that what’s important is that we see it like that. Because what happens when we elevate people, we actually create something which gets in the way of us realizing that it’s in us, you know, the old Buddhist line, which is kind of provocative where they go, you see the Buddha on the road, kill him. Right?

Well, okay, what they’re trying to say in that very Zen line is, look, if you think it’s outside of you, you’ve completely missed the point. It’s what you are. So my feeling is that since the kind of 50s, 60s, our own religious tradition really collapsed. And probably rightfully so because it was moribund. But we brought in a lot of Eastern religion, some of which is absolutely fantastic and has had a massive influence on me. But we also brought in a whole load of things that were culturally alien, and really don’t help. One of the things we brought in, which I myself was involved in for some time, is this idea that there are fully realized mega beings.

And I think it gets in the way, you know, this whole arriving idea that there’s somebody else who knows. Whereas my experience is that you can get to know these people and they turn out to be surprisingly like you and I. They’re very good. They are extremely good at being bright lights, wonderful. And we need them and, you know, praise to them, and thank God they’re there. But they’re also human beings. Everyone is absolutely. Seeing that and seeing we’re all in it together gets rid of this fancy somebody somewhere, and I should be like them if only I could.

Rick: Yeah, exactly. You know, we’re like we are, we’re all like we are, and we’re all caught in this polarity. We’re all great souls, all of us.

Tim: [laughing] That’s good. Yeah, I mean, one of my motivations in starting this show was I live in a small town of 10,000 people where about 3,000 or so meditate. You know, it’s the home of Maharishi University of Management, which was founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, and a lot of people walking around this town who’ve been meditating 30, 40 years, who still have this attitude of like, well, enlightenment must be like being like him, you know? And I’m not like him and therefore I must be like lifetimes away from it or something. And I think, just as you’re saying, I think that can be an impediment.

And so a lot of the trappings of a spiritual teacher have nothing to do with consciousness or state of consciousness or anything. They have to do with his cultural conditioning and the way he dresses, the accent and the kind of food he eats, and all that kind of thing. And a lot of people sort of attribute all those things to the state of enlightenment and say, well, you know, that’s what it’s got to look like, but it doesn’t have to look like that. It can look like it has to look like…

It has to look like you.

Rick: Yeah, exactly.

Tim: And I think, personally, I spent decades chasing this idea of some permanent state. Whereas when I actually examined life as I experienced it, what I see is that everything in life is flowing and changing. The thing which is permanent has no qualities. You can know that, but the knowledge of it will move and change.

And why I think I’m able these days to take people pretty quickly to a very deep awake state where, you know, it doesn’t even feel the big love, you don’t miss it, it’s not an abstract thing, it comes right down into your body, is because if you take away that idea that it’s some unachievable goal, it becomes something you can enter into straight away, and it becomes something natural in that way. I guess my approach is much more Taoist. It’s just natural. It’s just there waiting for you to step into it. And don’t get a hang-up about having to be perfect or the fact that you’re human. Your humanity is great. It’s what’s so lovely about us. You know, you’re different to me.

That’s why it’s so interesting. And yet, we can both come into this Big Love together.

Rick: Yeah. If you think about it, what this enlightenment thing is supposed to be is supposed to just be a recognition of the reality of life, and if it’s the reality of life, it’s got to be here already. It’s not like some whole new entirely different element is somehow going to jump in all of a sudden and surprise us. Whatever it is, the essence of it, or the component of it, must be in our experience right now. You know, so it’s like…

Tim: It’s always there. That’s what we’re paying attention to, the thing. And that’s why it’s so elusive. It’s so elusive because it doesn’t change. Because it is always this permanent presence of awareness, which is what we are. It’s always there. And we miss it because it doesn’t move.

Rick: I like to think of it as like, what if it were like a tone, you know, and there’s this tone playing, and it’s always there. And at first maybe you think, okay, I hear this tone. And after a while you tone it out, so to speak, because it’s always there. But if at any point you wish to hear it, you just turn your attention. Oh, yeah. Okay. There’s that tone still going on? You know? Yeah. Of course, it’s not a tone. It’s just a metaphor, but…

Tim: And that’s the thing with all of these, you know, we use metaphors because we have to. It’s not any of the metaphors.

Rick: One thing I find is that sometimes in more contrasting situations, it becomes more obvious. Like if I’m just sitting at my computer working all day, maybe not so obvious. But if I, let’s say, have to travel and I’m rushing through an airport trying to catch a connecting flight, and I’m out of breath, and there’s all this chaos, it’s like the silence becomes much more evident in contrast to the chaos because it’s a new situation or something.

Tim: I agree. I think newness is very powerful. And it’s because when there’s a new situation, we recognize the freshness of life, and we’re actually becoming conscious of the mystery. We’re beginning to enter into the mystery of life. And when we’re in habitual states, we don’t notice the mystery. We don’t even really feel alive, kind of numb. And that numbness is where we don’t feel it. So if you throw yourself into a new situation even more, which is quite difficult, there’s much more chance you’ll go, oh God, I’m alive. What is this? This is happening. And as that occurs, there’s much more chance you become more conscious. And as you become more conscious, you notice these perspectives.

Rick: Yeah. And it’s not only I’m alive, but it’s like, okay, I’m out of breath, I might miss my flight. There are all these people. It’s crowded. But even more predominantly, perhaps, there’s this deafening silence. This pure silence that just perseveres or continues in the midst of the chaos, and it’s the contrast that makes it more evident.

Tim: Yeah, yeah. It is. Yeah, in a way it is.

Rick: So you kind of mentioned that you had this experience when you were 12, but then it wasn’t a one-shot deal. You kept on popping in periodically after that, for no apparent reason. It just sort of…

Tim: Yeah, yeah, it would just happen. And I mean, I wasn’t… I was, you know, very quickly looking for it, and recognizing it and welcoming it. And it would change and get deeper and take me to all different places. And I was doing all that I could also to explore it. But what I found was that often the deepest moments of awakening wouldn’t come when I was meditating or, you know, all the different things I was doing. It would come in a blues club or a coffee bar or by itself. And I feel lucky for that, because I didn’t associate it therefore with, you know, I’d woken up for the first time, as many people do, in a temple or a church, doing this, then I would associate it with that.

Whereas for me, and is that it’s just happened naturally. So associated with being natural, and this leaves things wide open.

Rick: Mr. Natural is the natural. Well, you did sort of have that initial awakening on a hilltop, but I presume you didn’t have to keep running up to the hilltop to have it again. It just sort of happened.

Tim: That’s right.

Rick: And you didn’t necessarily come down from the hilltop with stone tablets or anything, you just…

Tim: [Laughs] No, no stone tablets… If I had, I’d be running a religion!

Rick: Yeah, really! You might get yourself crucified, too. So did it take you long to kind of realize that this experience you had had on the hilltop was something that others had had throughout history, and you began to read their books and so on, or wasn’t it like you thought you were able to put it in a context?

Tim: What a great question. And I wonder, you know, it’s a long time ago, and memory plays tricks on us. So I mean, the interesting thing is, if you could look back and actually see. But my sense is that quite quickly, I mean, I know certainly within a few years, I was reading the Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita and was very influenced by Mahatma Gandhi, and by the age of 16, 17 was involved with the guru. And I think I certainly looked East. Ironically, I’ve written my bestsellers that have been on the Western tradition. And personally, like most of my contemporaries, and the people that are a little bit older than me, you know, the East was opening up, it was arriving.

And I can remember going to hear people talk about Maharishi and people like that when they just arrived, and feeling, oh, what’s this? This seems to be about the same thing. These people seem to understand what I’m saying.

Rick: Did you go through a wild, crazy teenage drug phase? No alcohol and all that stuff?

Tim: Well, especially alcohol a bit, you know, but yeah, I was fascinated by psychedelics.

Rick: Psychedelics, right.

Tim: My first encounter with really serious psychedelics was LSD. And I would still say that my first LSD trip was one of the most transformative and important experiences of my life, and utterly amazing. And I think then what I really felt was, oh my God, this, you can actually take something which opens up this space, because for me it really opened up the same space. There was all the psychedelic stuff, which was fascinating, interesting, but underneath it there was this profound love and oneness, just like we’ve been on the hill and ever since. Oh my goodness, that’s interesting. And I’d be reading, of course, Aldous Huxley and Ram Dass…

Rick: Right. Yeah, I was reading him the first time I did LSD. We sat around all night trying to figure out what bardo we were in.

Tim: I’m bizarrely… I mean, I have a dear friend Peter Gandy, who I’ve written a lot of books with. He now is at the end of my garden, or I live at the end of his garden.

Rick: A matter of perspective.

Tim: Basically, he lives in my old house, I moved next door, family, and my office is at the end of his garden. As you know, in the 18th century England, they would have these magnificent gardens, and they used to fill them full of ancient sculptures or monochrome sculptures, and they’d often employ what they call an ornamental hermit, and it wasn’t really a hermit. He just looked like he was a hermit. So it was part of the garden. So Peter calls me his ornamental philosopher, okay. That’s my role now. But he was there, he was there for my very first LSD trip and has been there ever since, really just being able to dive into it.

So the other thing which has happened for me, which is hugely lucky, is that I’ve shared the journey with many, many people, and with some people for decades, so we’ve been able to see it as we’re exploring this strange, what is it?

Rick: Yeah, that’s cool. I was sort of charmed by your references to your lifelong friendship with Peter. It’s really sweet. And to have somebody like that, that you can kind of grow with that stays with you. I mean, we pass through many friendships in life, and a lot of times it’s sort of like meeting someone on a train station and then our train keeps going, but you would have stayed on the same train.

Tim: I know. It’s strange, and it’s not just Peter, there’s a few other very, very significant people that I’ve been lucky enough… You know, I think when you have these profound experiences with people, there is always a connection. And those connections have stayed solid over the years for me, and we’ve been touching base on the journey. So as you grow and change and you realize you’ve been wrong, which is what the journey really seems to be, something new opens up. And I guess that’s the other resistance I have to the idea of arriving is that to me, you know, it’s just endless. Journey is endless.

And every time you think you’ve got somewhere, you’re gonna have to, you know, you’re gonna be kicked up the arse and moved on. Because you haven’t. It’s like there’s always more. Life is big.

Rick: There’s a TS Eliot quote from Burnt Norton that I meant to print out to be able to read it at times like this, but it’s something about coming back home and discovering the place for the first time, you know…

Tim: …You arrive where you started and discover the place for the first time, yeah. It was a massive influence for me. I would sit when we were at school together, we’d get together a group of friends, some of whom are still on the path with me now, and we would read TS Eliot to each other because he, you know, there’s a very different, very conservative kind of Englishman or American really, but maybe becoming, and who just, you know, the moment in the rose garden, that’s what that moment of awakening is, he calls it the moment in the rose garden.

Rick: He was very much influenced by Vedanta, actually by Eastern teachings.

Tim: And yeah, indeed, he was a Church of England man, but he was certainly very influenced also by that. Well, he was an incredibly educated man and had great vision. And The Four Quartets is just one of those. It’s a scripture.

Rick: So did it take you very long to realize that drugs weren’t gonna do it for you, and you’re probably frying some brain cells, and you better get on to something more natural?

Tim: I never, I never… It always felt like it wasn’t something. I always took it very seriously. So it was never something I did a lot. It was something I’d do as a special event. It was always, you know, I was quite spiritual in those days. So it was always something which I did with great intent and saw something important. I couldn’t understand for the life of me people who were just sort of dropping a tab and watching TV. It was something which was important. So it was never, it never really fried me too much. In fact, I think it was just, for me, beneficial. I know for a lot of people that hasn’t been, but it was. And that naturally led on to others.

It was only ever a part of what I was doing anyway. It was like, all right, you can get it through that, oh, you can get it through this. I mean, get it through that. Oh my God, you can get it all these different ways.

Rick: And I understand from listening to you that at some point you got into the 14-year-old perfect kid, what was his name? Maharaji, or something like that.

Tim: Guru Maharaji, right. That’s right. And that was the guru I had when I was 17. It was only a couple of years older than me. And another friend of mine was involved with him and I became very involved for a while and traveled around the world and got blown away and practiced his knowledge. And yeah, it was great. It was great. But eventually there was something wrong. There was something not right. And I guess that’s that thing about, oh, I’d been wrong. It keeps the journey moving. It’s when you’ve been involved in something, you’ve given it your heart and soul, and then it’s like, oh, hang on, now, but now I’ve gained something. But there’s something missing.

And then you move on to the next stage of the journey.

Rick: Yeah, I kind of, I wouldn’t use the word wrong. It was sort of like you’re climbing stairs, and it was like the step you’re just on was wrong. But now it’s time for the next step. You know? I just liked the idea.

Tim: And I think partly the reason I say this is because I think it’s very good that you hold that with everything the whole time, that you know, I have this whole set of ideas, a story I’m telling. And yet what makes the story interesting is when you move on, you go, oh, maybe I’m wrong. And I think it’s good to hold that the whole time. So some of the concepts are held very lightly. So you’re growing and changing all the time.

Rick: Absolutely. I mean, if when you arrive at each step, if you kind of have the attitude of, okay, this is the final step. There’s no more climbing to be done. I’m staying on this step forever, and everybody else should be on this step.

Tim: Really easy. Not like suddenly the most… I mean, me for years, you have this idea of, you know, if only I could arrive and I could be some sort of Uber Tim, some amazing whoo, whoo. And then what’s happened is it’s been like, why would I ever want to arrive because the joy is the new discovery. The joy is the constant feeling of moving, and life itself seems to be saying that, doesn’t it? It’s just everything is moving and changing.

Rick: Yeah, okay, so we’re kind of zipping through your various stages that you’ve been through. And I don’t need to belabor them too much, but feel free to dwell on anything that’s significant that we might be skimming over. So what next? At some point, you started to realize, well, maybe this whole guru trip isn’t for me. And what did you turn to then?

Tim: Well, I kind of, you know, I tend to be an intense personality, I suppose. So it was like, right in and then came out, oh, loads of things, Rick. I mean, I had an outrageous year with an occult community, studying Western magic. I did lots of meditation, experimented with every sort of mind-altering substance I could lay my hands on to see what each one of them did, read a huge amount of books, studied philosophy, went on a medicine retreat for a year twice, cutting myself off from things, and also must mention that my creativity has been part of my particular path because I’ve always been creative, words, but also music and just somewhere trying to express the mystery as well.

Because that takes me deeper and opens up things.

Rick: During all this, was there a sense of kind of desperation or yearning? Or were you…

Tim: Sometimes yes, sometimes… awful periods of being dreadfully lost and it being really hard, and then feelings like, you know, I’m sure you have them, where you’re just like, everything’s, hey, I’m just like, hey, just come with it. And it’s like magic. And every door opens, and then suddenly that ends and you’re back sitting there on your own thinking, oh no, I’m so lost. Why am I so useless? And God, I hate being alive. God, it’s so great to be alive. So all of those polarities.

Rick: Did you find that over time, though, that the negative ones sort of matured into the positive one, and that there’s more consistency of just smooth functioning and contentment? Or do you still seesaw back and forth?

Tim: Ooh… I think there is that “Wooo, yes! Oh, my God!” that is gone…

Rick: Equanimity?

Tim: Yeah… But you know, I certainly wouldn’t want to give anyone the impression that somehow, you know, like, Tim Freke’s life just goes woo! It doesn’t, you know. I mean, I was just today with my son in the hospital, he’s very sick. And when those things happen, I’m a family man, you know, it hurts and you’re worried and, you know. But what’s happened for me now is that I no longer see my human journey as somehow taking me away from my spiritual journey. It’s the same thing. So that this deep love, this presence, this awakening, this lucid living, we can get into what these ideas mean later, but that’s there. So I can dare to enter into my life just as it is and meet him as he happens to be.

And so there’s periods which go, you know, so when I’m writing, I’m writing a book, there’s periods where it’s just magic. And then there’s other bits which are really hard. Yeah. And that’s life. And I don’t expect that to be different anymore.

Rick: No, no. I mean, as long as you’re alive, there’s definitely going to be waves on the ocean, you know.

Tim: And not only that, right, but it’s like I’ve come to the place where it’s like, I want that.

Rick: Good thing you do, because you’re gonna get it whether you want it or not.

Tim: There was a time when I thought I didn’t want that. And, but I mean, my dad died a little while back, and he was in immense suffering. He had a stroke, he could just move his one arm. He was lying in the bed, he was just calling out as best as he could, “Help, help!” It was incredibly distressing. And I realized being with that, that there was this man who I was, my dad, who was dying. And it was shit. And yet within that there was also this incredible love that was there. This, like, the awakened state isn’t… it just holds everything within it, whatever. It just holds it all. And then I realized that, you know, the idea that I could be with my dad and be unattached was horrendous to me.

Or that I could not suffer because I was so enlightened, was horrendous to me. I wanted to suffer. He was my dad. And so what I’m exploring now, which is really exciting to me, is that we can use the big space, use the deep awake space, to enable us to actually enter into our humanity, and really just to be the vulnerable human beings that we are. Wonderful, up we go, down we go, in we go, and all the things which a human being does, and make that journey. But what the deep awake does for me is that it allows me to do it. Because otherwise, it’s just too much.

Rick: Yeah, that’s well put. It sort of mitigates or buffers, or provides a kind of a foundation on which the waves can rise even higher, actually. I mean, you know, you could use the analogy that in a small pond, if it tries to rise up in high waves, it’ll just stir up a lot of mud. But in an ocean, it can rise up in great waves, much greater waves, because it has that ocean status, that depth…

Tim: It’s a great old image, the ocean, and it’s got a lot to be said for it. Because, you know, being is like that. It’s our being is one thing, it’s a whole spectrum, which is held together as these two poles, which we can explore. But if you like the ocean, the waves are going to rise and fall. And then there’s this great stillness at the depths, right, and the waves are individual, and the depth is all one. And those two sit together. Now just being tossed around by the waves is a very, very difficult experience. But being able to ride waves because, you know, there’s also the depths, that changes experience.

Rick: Yeah, no, it’s great. I mean, because, you know, I’d say probably the majority of the world is stuck in the state of, I am just a wave, and that’s scary, and it’s threatening, and I hate all those other waves, and those waves should be more like me or whatever. And then, you know, the crashing…

Tim: Yeah.

Rick: And then there’s a subset in the spiritual world these days of, I am just the ocean, you know, and there are no waves, you know, and don’t try to pretend you’re a wave because you’re not. Don’t do wave things, because it only reinforces your waviness, you know, just be an ocean.

Tim: You mentioned in the introduction, the great irony for me is, you know, when I started really working around oneness, it wasn’t very fashionable. And Advaita has really not made it to this country, hardly at all. And so I’ve been part of the problem. I was having this extraordinary experience of oneness, and I wanted to share it with others. And so I was like, “Come on, come out, come out, come out, come out, come, you know, there is no Tim, there is no you.” It’s just… there is a place where it’s like, “God, that’s so obvious.” And it’s extraordinary to see. But now the journey keeps moving on, right? And ironically, there are now people teaching Advaita on every street corner.

I mean, some of that’s great, you know, how wonderful that it can happen so quickly. And yet what I’m seeing is, oh, now it’s like, oh, hang on, let’s not lose the other pole. Let’s not lose the humanity, because that’s where the love is. That’s where the feeling is. And then you’ll hear a lot of people tell you, you know, “Well, don’t get involved in bad feelings. It’s just, you know, just is.” Well, yeah, it is just is. But it’s not just is, it is and it’s appearing as this… how amazing.

And to actually enter into what the isness is appearing as, and to allow the human, not just to allow but to truly engage with and enjoy and, or just surrender into, whatever word works for you, the human adventure, that seems to me very precious. And that’s what opens up to this big love. And the irony, like I said earlier, is that once you get that, this all-elusive big state, the oneness, the big love, the deep self, opens up much, much, much more quickly, because most people I meet think they can’t experience that because they keep thinking they’re just this. And once you just go, well, look, don’t worry about that. That’s gonna stay, but see the other as well. Not instead.

So, oh, oh, there it is. Oh, my God. Oh, wow… and there it is…

Rick: That’s great. You know, it’s like, I don’t totally get where these people are at, some of them. I mean, they say, for instance, you know, don’t meditate because that implies the existence of a meditator. I mean, that, to me, is like saying, don’t eat because that implies the existence of an eater.

Tim: You could say that about anything.

Rick: Yeah, absolutely. It’s all yours, copyright free. And sometimes I doubt myself. Sometimes I think, well, is there something missing in my development, because I experience, sure, I experience the non-person level of life, but I also experience the person level of life, and yet these people say they don’t have that. They’ve… there’s no one there. And I think, well, maybe I haven’t reached it or something. But then I think, no, it’s actually the whole package, you know, it’s this and that.

Tim: I think it’s a kind of… I can convey this as something which I’m still working on knowing how to say, but it feels to me more like, look, there are options into what we experience, and you can focus on anything. You can focus on golf, you can focus on music, you can focus, and you can focus on this, the oneness. And if you just focus on it, and you… it’s amazing. And when you first come across it, I mean, it blew me away completely, you know, when I found that I could start coming into this and really got the, what’s called the teaching of no-self. But it’s an option, it’s not the only place you can look.

And whenever you hear the word, it’s just something, you’re talking to a reductionist. No, it’s just, you know, whether it’s a skeptic going, oh, that’s just your imagination, or whether it’s a spiritual teacher going, no, no, it’s… that’s just your ego. It’s like, well, not just. It’s like, whoa, this is a very rich experience on many, many levels. And we can focus in all different ways. And that’s great, let’s do that. And for me, I want to open up to as much of it as possible. And that includes… I tell you, it was having kids that’ll help, you know, having kids. Before I had kids, all of that stuff’s really, really attractive.

As you know, my litmus test now is like, “Is that a good teaching? Is what I teach it to my kids?” You know, or is that a total teaching? Know what I teach? Because, you know, I’m not there with my kids. I don’t want to, you know, with them, they’re just growing up, I’m not there going, “You don’t really exist, you know… don’t get an ego now.” I’d be mad. I want them to come in to be strong, healthy individuals, who will, through that individuality, I hope, awaken to this deep love and this deep oneness. That’s what I want, you know? And then what do you get on the Advaitic side, there’s this kind of like, you know, you don’t exist, which I wouldn’t say to my kids.

And on the more New Agey side, there’s plenty of “just be in the moment,” which I would also say to make an argument in the moment, because the moment is getting into time. Because, you know, it’s like constantly with kids, the battle is like, well, I don’t think just about, and I think that’s more. And so what I see is, oh, hang on, this is interesting. So spirituality needs to become more mature. It needs to actually see these polarities that we want to be both of this. We want the oneness and the separateness. We want to be like a little child dancing in the moment, for sure, because that’s where you want to be.

But also, we want to be like we’ve spent a long time becoming responsible adults who are dealing with time and have to live life as it actually is. And those are not… they can exist together. They do exist together already. Right. And all we have to do is be conscious that they exist together, and then suddenly there’s a huge threat to our experience, rather than some one narrow focus.

Rick: I remember one time I was driving along with my mother and the car broke down and rather than deal with the situation in some practical way, I kind of went into Advaita mode and just said the whole thing’s an illusion and sat down on the side of the road and pulled out a book of Shankara’s Crest Jewel of Discrimination, reading it.

Part Two:

Key Takeaways

• Awakening is not either oneness or separateness, but the recognition that both are true.
• Separateness is not a mistake; it is the means by which consciousness and self-awareness arise.
• Lucid living means seeing life like a dream: you are both the person in it and the awareness of it.
• Spiritual maturity includes honesty about fear, confusion, and vulnerability.
• Love is what oneness feels like when it is lived through a separate human life.
• Science and spirituality both point to a vast intelligence unfolding through the world.

Questions This Interview Explores

• What is the relationship between oneness and separateness in spiritual awakening?
• How can awakening include both the absolute and the relative world?
• What is lucid living and how does it help with spiritual realization?
• How can love arise from seeing both our unity and our individuality?

Rick: You know what you were saying about the importance of how you put it… “Both-And,” as opposed to just “this or this,” I think, you know, it’s not only a practical and helpful perspective in terms of helping people awaken, but I think it can be rather dangerous to adopt the, you know, “only this” perspective. I mean, it almost seems that the, you know, to find a guru or spiritual teacher who hasn’t gotten into some sort of trouble in this day and age is the exception rather than the rule.

And, you know, often when you, you know, look into the stories around these people, they’re saying things like, well, you know, it’s all just, I’m not doing it at all, just, you know, the karma of the people that I’m interacting with, is I’m helping them play out their karma or helping them awaken their Kundalini, or, you know, and all this, but it really, I’m totally uninvolved, and, you know, and, you know, I, what I, some spiritual teachers whom I would consider to be more honest and mature in their approach to the whole thing are, you know, saying the kind of thing you’re saying, which is that, wait a minute, you know, we’re also we may be that impersonal, absolute, but we’re also this personal relative, and we need to be as good as we can be in terms of our personal expression, you know, and we, you know, our realization of the impersonal, absolute doesn’t absolve us from being a moral person, or, you know, a compassionate person, and so on.

Holons, growth, and the courage to look at life

Science is just such a great thing. I love it so much. And but you like it, like everything in life, it suffers from the conditions of its birth, and it was born, and it could only form itself by being in opposition to this very dogmatic and superstitious religion, which was around at the time, and therefore defined itself in opposition to that, which is not.

Tim: It’s, you know, there’s lots of ways of approaching it, but, you know, the idea of holons of Ken Wilber uses a lot Artha Cursillo, developed to British philosopher, is that, you know, that each, as things expand and evolve, they include what’s gone before, you know, there was a time when, you know, just being able to, you know, make it to the toilet was a real challenge for a little lad, or wherever I was… one, and, you know, look, for so far, you know, that’s not much of a challenge for me now. But it just still happens. It’s just, I don’t think about it, you know, it’s just like, that’s part of my life.

And as you grow, you know, you, I can drive now, and I can also listen to the radio and have a conversation because, and you just expand out, but you the other things haven’t gone anywhere, they’re still there. And I think the process of the psychological growth and be developed as a person doesn’t stop, it just becomes something which maybe at one period in your life, you really need to put all your attention on. And it now becomes something which you can do, you’re able to, you know, sometimes you may need to stop giving all your attention again, but there is something which you’ve grown beyond, and now there’s something more… not instead, but as well.

And that’s what much more like what life is really like. And my, I suppose that as I’ve got older, it’s been about having the courage to just go, ‘look for yourself to what is life actually like for you and the people you meet?’ And let’s start with that, not with some fantasy about what it’s like for someone you’ve never met, or…

Rick: Yeah, [laughing] I’ve noticed among some of the work…

Tim: [inaudible]

Rick: I’m sorry. Go ahead. What were you saying?

Tim: No, no…

Rick: I was just gonna say I’ve done. I’ve noticed among some of the Advaita teachers, that they’re kind of blossoming into a more holistic perspective like that, you know, whereas they may have been a few years ago beating the drum of “only this, only this,” now they’re saying, wait a minute, okay. Now, I think I better tell it there’s a more complete story to be told. And they’re, they’re recognizing the subtleties and the nuances and the complexities. So do you notice that too, that that’s happening?

Tim: Definitely, I got invited to talk at a conference on Non-Duality and Science in California last year, and my role, I don’t know how I managed it to end up in this but I tend to be a wherever I go. I’m kind of a bit of a heretic. And so even there suddenly was like, normally before I’d been the heretic who was going,” Look, come on, it’s all One”, and now I was the heretic of going “No, no, look, it’s all many”. And what really surprised me and was beautiful… I got such an incredible response. And it was it felt as if the whole audience, this huge gathering of people, was just waiting for this.

Rick: Breathing a sigh of relief, right?

Tim: Yeah, of course. It’s both. It’s both and that you see, the problem is that normally, we get this, it’s either one or the other. Because we feel that the deep thing is getting left out. When people when we normally get involved with life, it’s like this is not being mentioned. And for me, the breakthrough came with this image of lucid living. And maybe it’d be helpful to just say a little bit about that, because…

Rick: I want to get into that, but, but let’s talk just a little bit more about your experience at that conference…

Tim: Okay.

Rick: Because I was sort of wanting to attend that conference. And I was thinking of attending it this fall. And, and I, you know, I think and dwell a lot about this topic. And this whole point of what you encountered at that conference concerns me a lot because there are a lot of people I’d like to interview, but I don’t necessarily feel equipped to kind of deal deeply and sensitively enough with this issue. And, you know, I don’t have the wisdom necessarily to sort of help them undergo what I perceive as a necessary shift to a more holistic perspective.

So if you wouldn’t mind just dwelling a little bit more on what you said at that conference, and perhaps, you know, the audience received breathed a sigh of relief, but where there’s some tough nuts that sort of like, you know, thought you were full of crap and didn’t, you know, didn’t accept what you were saying? And you know, and what not?

Tim: I mean, certainly, I don’t know whether they were in the audience because there’s something magic happens for that event, I think, as it often does, doesn’t it? I mean, I certainly know that there are a lot of people, I’m sure who will dismiss what I say as, as well, you know, Tim’s missed the point, and he hasn’t got it.

And hey, you know, maybe that’s right, you know, and, like I said, you know, I’m always carrying around this, “Look, it’s just words, I can be wrong about everything.” But the, what I’ve found is that the more we meet in this polarity that we can meet in the rawness, the vulnerability, it’s just like to be able to just go up to someone and go “look, to experience this oneness, that one of the first things is to do is just notice just what it is to be human, to know that, of course, we’re scared people.” Everyone’s running around going, “Oh, oh, I shouldn’t do this I shouldn’t do that.” Look, you’re like, everybody’s scared. everybody’s scared.

If you’re a human being and you’re not scared, you have not been paying attention. You haven’t been looking…you’re in denial… it’s scary, of course, it’s scary…you are, we all are. That’s so that’s natural… there we go, we’re all scared. Are you confused? ‘Course you are, you know, you’re born into this thing, you don’t know what it is… you’re born to, two people who are your parents, they don’t know what it is, you know, it’s like, no wonder they’re also confused and messed up. And that’s, of course, we are, I feel sorry for all of us, you know, once you’ve kind of got that like, Okay, right, let’s meet in that, hey, let’s pay attention to really what this actually might be.

Let’s actually open up to maybe seeing it in a deeper way. And then that can just start and then Oh, my goodness, there’s this other place where you’re completely safe. I mean, utterly safe, safe, safe in a way that you can’t mix words. And then there’s Tim and he’s very vulnerable. totally vulnerable, anything could happen to him any moment. And not just to him, but the people he loves. And does, you know, and then this is another place where it just is and it’s safe. And those two fit together in every moment. It’s not one or the other. It’s both at the same time. And just to be able to allow that.

Oh, it’s such a relief, I think, to both the safety as a relief, massive relief, obviously, but also the vulnerability that we can just be holding each other’s hand, you know, just like, you know, yeah. Philosophy.

Rick: There’s a bit in the Isha Upanishad, which I sent you in an email, which is something like, “Into blinding darkness go those who worship ignorance and into even greater darkness go those who worship knowledge.” And I don’t know if I’m interpreting that correctly, but it sort of sounds to me like what this theme we’ve been talking about for the past 20 minutes, you know, excluding the relative world, the so-called world of ignorance, you know, and focusing exclusively on the absolute and dismissing the significance or relevance of, of the relative, it’s like your key you continue to say and I love that phrase. It’s and what is it? And, and-or… how do you put it?

Tim: both-and

Rick: both-and, both-and… yeah, so maybe we’ve dealt on that point….

Tim: I nicked it from Carl Jung…

Rick: Oh…

Tim: …who said once… Good old Uncle Carl, who was a great explorer and said once, “Not the niggardly either-or, but the glorious both and,” and I just read it went, “That’s it!”.

Rick: It’s great. Well, one of these days, I’m going to get some T-shirts made up. And I think I’ll put both-and on one of my T-shirts. And another one I’ll put on another t-shirt is paradox, which is, you know, one of my favorite words,

Tim: isn’t it? It’s for me, absolutely central to the whole thing is paradoxical. Let me move on, there’s one little thing which might be interesting to see. Because for me, it’s not like, Well, er, it’s deeper than I just want to have both. It’s actually seeing that the two are one. And like, if you think about the paradox of polarity, you couldn’t have a world with just “in” and not act, right? They’re opposites, but you couldn’t turn just left. Every opposite implies it’s the other opposite, every pole implies the other pole; they exist together. So that there is One, the many-ness is not like, well, and then there’s this illusion.

It’s like, no, no, no, the oneness is the many-ness, for many-ness is the oneness. or you know, in Buddhism, the forms is the emptiness, the emptiness is the forms. And the role the forms play apart from being absolutely magnificent. And just such a yes, yeah. Is that through the separateness, is that how we become conscious at all? So it’s not like we’ve made a mistake. It’s, it’s that the One becomes conscious of itself through appearing as many. That’s how it does it.

Rick: Otherwise, how could it?

Tim: So you see this with a child, you know, if you watch your children, they come in, and there’s this, you can look in the baby’s eyes. And, yeah, there’s this huge oceanic oneness in a child, we’ve all been there, but it’s not conscious, and right in their conscious, but not conscious of that. They’re just like, whoa, and then as you come in you …what happens, you enter separateness, the world becomes broken up, you learn words, oh, this is this, this is this, this is, you know, up and down, self and other. And then you arrive where we are, where every single thing I’m conscious of, in this moment, I am conceptualizing as separate, that’s why I’m conscious of it.

Everything I’ve got, you know, the camera and computer, my hands doing this funny business, your face, your life, you know, my body, the floor, the outside. So the consciousness is discrimination, it is separateness, that’s what consciousness is. And when there’s no discrimination, we’re in unconscious deep sleep. And the minute we become conscious, there’s discrimination. So the separateness is not the problem. It’s the foundation, which allows us to be conscious. And then through the separateness, we can be conscious of the oneness, which is the thing which was already there.

Rick: There’s this phrase in the Upanishads, which goes something like… I don’t know the Sanskrit but the phrase is “The world reveals Brahman.”

Tim: Yes, isn’t that just gorgeous? So the one becomes many to know that it’s one. So the journey for me to talk mythologically would be unconscious oneness becomes conscious “manys” on a journey towards conscious oneness. So the place that we can, we can taste in this deep awake state is the one becoming conscious that it’s one by appearing to be Tim or appearing to be Rick or, and that is only possible through the separateness so rather than it being some pernicious illusion, some error or some thing to be ignored, some fault, it’s actually perfect is actually the thing which allows the journey to happen at all.

Rick: Yeah, and you’re not just talking about a child being born and growing up and going through differentiation in order to realize oneness, you’re talking about the whole universe. I mean, you know, from the Big Bang onward…

Tim: It’s the same process. The journey which a child makes is essentially the same journey that the whole universe is making, into separateness and then by increasing separately you think of the great myth of modern sciences, you know, from the singularity, the one, with practice explosion of variety, and the more various it becomes and the more complex it becomes more conscious it becomes Yeah, so here we are pretty damn various and pretty damn complex and conscious.

Rick: Yeah.

Tim: Now, that’s got to be wonderful. The problem is that and you see this with kids, the same, we all go through it, is that you get sucked into the separateness now, you know, when you hit your teenage years, you know, it’s like you’re suddenly in, and it’s cold and scary and you’re isolated and the suffering of separateness starts. But that is also something which pushes you to explore. And through that the journey of maturation doesn’t end, it continues right to your last breath, so that you’re actually Oh, now I can start the journey to discover not just what this is, but what am I, and that’s where this knowledge of your deeper being opens up and the game suddenly changes.

Rick: Yeah, and, you know, fortunately, more and more people are …

Tim: …bad press Don’t you think?

Rick: it does. And, unfortunately, more and more people are consciously embarking on that journey. I mean, you know, maybe in the 1950s, it was pretty rare and uncommon to find someone who would talk like this. These days. It’s like, as you say, on every street corner, there’s somebody talking like this more or less. And that’s, that’s encouraging. That’s very encouraging for the planet, you know, which, if this weren’t going on, we’d have reason to be very pessimistic, I think. …Can you hear me, Tim?

Tim: Indeed. The whole drama, you know, paradox again. I can Yeah, yeah. Okay, so you better come here is the American Theatre is the paradox, isn’t it? That we know, it’s like watching some amazing movie. It’s like, it’s all happening once it is getting better, and it’s getting worse. And it’s like, on a knife’s edge. I mean, it is. And at the same time, there’s incredible new consciousnesses growing up and you look at it, and you people, when I travel the world, which I do a fair bit, people are always saying to me, is it happening? You know, is it I don’t know because I only get to meet the people that it’s happening for. And from the people I meet, it’s really happening.

Something amazing is going on.

Science, intelligence, and the mystery of God

Yeah, that the that I think that I tell you, I tell everything which turns it around for me, though, is that is this idea that rather than there being is that rather than God being at the beginning of time, the superconscious being that just goes, boo, there you go. It feels more to me like actually, this is God becoming conscious of itself.

Rick: Yeah. You don’t hear too much talk of God in Advaita circles, some of them anyway. But to me, whenever I look at like a nature program on TV, or, or anything, it always amazes me that any scientist or physician or anyone like that, who really studies closely what’s going on in the world, could be an atheist, you know because they look closely or look out through a telescope. And there’s just, it to me, it’s like, the word “intelligence” is just flashing in neon letters. It’s there’s such an immense, infinite, profound intelligence operative on every level of creation. It blows the mind

Tim: Science is just such a great thing. I love it so much. And but you like it, like everything in life, it suffers from the conditions of its birth, and it was born, and it could only form itself by being in opposition to this very dogmatic and superstitious religion, which was around at the time, and therefore defined itself in opposition to that, which is not.

Rick: interesting…

Tim: It’s a branch of the Gnosis it’s about science means Gnosis. It’s about finding this deep knowledge. And so what it’s done is it’s said, Look, if we, if we take the singularity, and we call it God, we’re anthropomorphizing, if we say its intelligence, we’re projecting our humanity onto it, whereas I feel it’s the other way around.

Rick: Yeah

Tim: I think that that we have come from it shows that it contains in potential, all of us – intelligence, fun music, everything.

Rick: Yeah, absolutely.

Tim: It has all that within it. It must. Yeah, well, could it come?

Rick: Yeah, it’s not like we’re attributing human qualities to it, if we call it intelligence, rather, we as humans are, you know, a minuscule reflection of a vast intelligence.

Tim: Exactly that, exactly that way around. And when I look at, you know, when you look at from that perspective, you know, and I look at my own experience of say, creativity, which I studied a lot, I feel that by looking at human creativity, you can kind of understand natural creativity, because it’s a small reflection of the very creative process. And I look at the process of evolution as we’ve come to understand it, and it really reminds me of my own creative process.

Rick: That’s probably what is meant by man is made in the image of God.

Tim: Yeah, that the that I think that I tell you, I tell everything which turns it around for me, though, is that is this idea that rather than there being is that rather than God being at the beginning of time, the superconscious being that just goes, boo, there you go. It feels more to me like actually, this is God becoming conscious of itself.

Rick: Yeah, yeah.

Tim: …that if you like, God is the Alpha and the Omega. So in the Alpha state, the beginning state, the beginning, it’s the unconscious oneness, and it’s reaching towards the conscious oneness, which is, you know, the end of time as it were, the thing that’s the telos, that you’re being pulled to. And what this is, is the journey between the two so that it’s not that you know, because if you’ve got a conscious create God, you got some problems, you know, dinosaurs being one of them. There’s plenty of us like you look at the world. And you’ll say, Well, why would a conscious God do that?

That’s why I say it’s more like my own creative process, which is actually unconscious, it arises, and then you see what it is. And that’s what life seems to have done. It’s arisen like a dream, unconsciously, from the source. And then it’s looking at itself to see what it is. And that’s what we’re doing. Oh, what is this that we are? And becoming more conscious of itself?

Rick: Yeah, interesting. Well, it’s certainly a mystery. One, one interesting thought to contemplate is that the notion that if God is omnipresent, you know, as he said to be, then, you know, it means where is he not? He’s permeating every fiber of our being. And so who is actually having this conversation?

Tim: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, because I’ve written the controversial books on Christianity, where I do a lot of radio and TV. And people often say to me, “so do you believe in God?” And I’ve just now just got to the point where I just go, No, I don’t believe in anything but God.

Rick: BILL MOYERS asked, who’s that great guy, who are Joseph Campbell, Bill Moyers asked Joseph Campbell, what he believes and Joseph Campbell said, doesn’t matter what I believe what I’m interested in is what I experience.

Tim: Yeah, that’s it. I love Joseph Campbell. Yeah, I mean, I feel so grateful to these pioneers, these people that that have gone before and opened up the way through for us, because the reason that this is happening, this phenomenon we’ve been talking about, is because of all of those guys, you know, they went in there and got machetes and cut down a path for us to walk through. And we can walk there. And as we do that, we can see where they miss something, or we can take it further, hopefully. But we’re standing on the shoulders of giants, as Newton said, we’re so grateful.

Lucid living and the dreamlike nature of awareness

Well, let me just say that I think all philosophical perspectives are things you do. First of all, I think philosophy is the ancient practice of awakening, and always has been. So how we use words to conceptualize the thing you’ll never say, is part is itself transformative.

Rick: Well, to those who are listening, I hope you’re enjoying this, I’m sure you are. And we’ve barely scratched the surface of Tim Freke. We’re gonna keep scratching for a while. And then if we feel we haven’t completed everything that we can talk about, we’ll have another conversation in a couple of months. But a little bit earlier, you were trying to ..you started to introduce the concept of lucid living, and I kind of interrupted you. So I definitely want you to cover that. And there’s also like a seven-point thing that you outline, I forget what you call it, is it seven? That kind of like seven stages of realization or something.

Tim: It’s really all within the lucid living thing, Rick. And I think you know, what I do in my book, Lucid Living, is to break it down, just into seven insights, which you could explore and you know, it’s not magic seven, it’s not because the seven chakras and it just seven-word guys. And these seem to be key things to grasp.

Rick: Yeah, let’s go through it all. There’s plenty of time. And if we don’t, as I say, if we don’t have time in this interview, we’ll do more stuff later. But let’s unpack it in some detail.

Tim: What I would like to do is this. to do in this is rather than going through those seven points, which people can have a…

Rick: …read in your book.

Tim: Sure. Read my book!

Rick: As PT Barnum said, always leave them wanting more. Yeah.

Tim: Yeah, Just to give away the best deal of the best bits, just to get a look at this is the real insight.

Rick: Okay.

Tim: And I have found it incredibly helpful. And many, many people I know that I work with have found it incredibly helpful, because it’s very simple, which is that this awakened state, which we’ve been looking at, is similar to lucid dreaming. Except it’s right now. And what you can see with that is like a lucid living. If you think about a dream, in a dream, you have a polarity to your nature, you don’t know it when you’re dreaming. But you do. That on the one hand, you’re the person you appear to be in the dream. You’re in a world, it seems very real. Sometimes it scares the pants off you, it’s so real. And yet, if you become more conscious, and you dream lucidly, you dream consciously.

You recognize this interesting predicament where you’re having a dream, you’re in the dream, or that person in the dream, but what you really are or your what your essential nature, your essence, is, you’re the dreamer. And as the dreamer, you’re not in the dream, the dream is in you. So you see this polarity, this paradox, as you said, to your nature, that you’re in it on the one hand, and also turn it around and it’s in you that on the one hand, you’re a person in a world and on the other hand, you’re what you’re the awareness within which a whole world is arising. When I look carefully at this moment, it seems the same that I have a polarity to my nature.

And on the one hand, I’m this guy, Tim, in this flow of forms and colors and shapes and sounds, and here he is, and he’s an object, he’s a thing, he is something I’m conscious of. And on the other hand, I’m a subject, I’m this presence I could call I or what I am the awareness, which is witnessing this. And when I look for that awareness, it has no form. The Upanishad says, you know, what is it that you can that that you cannot see, but which makes seeing possible? What is it you cannot hear, which makes listening possible? What is it you cannot taste that makes taste possible? What is it you cannot imagine, which makes imagination possible?

It’s that awareness, which is witnessing all of that, and it’s not in the forms. So where the hell is it? You know, I often want to, I want to, I want to get a zip in my bald head, stand up life philosophy, I think it’d be really good to have a hat and take it off in this zzzip! and, excuse me, madam, would you just take out awareness and show everyone. Here it is! Oh, I thought he had a bigger one!

Rick: That would freak people out.

Tim: He wouldn’t do that. But you know, they’re not gonna find it. That’s the point. You know, it’s not looks like it’s inside your head. Because you look at somebody and you think it’s, and you know, they’re conscious, you know, they’re aware, but it’s not in there. Because awareness isn’t in the forms, the forms are in awareness, like a dream. And so here we are in this predicament where if we pay attention, you can see that there’s this polarity, on the one hand, …here’s Tim. He’s a guy in person, just everyday guy in the forms. And then there’s this other presence, which is just what it’s an emptiness. It just is. It’s a presence within which this is all arising.

And so time is arising and that sense within me. And which is true? Well, they’re both true. And I find myself living lucidly. And what that does for me is it goes That’s why it’s the both-and. Because I’m both of those, that I’m living lucidly, versus being present. And then as I go into that, there’s no differentiation in that. And just like a dreamer is one with a dream, I’m, I’m one with everything. Just like here, I’m what but Tim’s not… Tim’s different to everyone. That’s what’s so great about him. He’s, he’s quirky and different. And you know, there’s a difference between me and the mug. Of if there wasn’t, I’d be in trouble. Yeah. That’s what we will separate. Here. It’s many.

Here, it’s one, here, it’s in time. Here, it’s timeless, just is… here, I am in the world, here the world is in me. And it’s like a perfect mirror. It’s like this perfect, ah, like in a dream, and we go into that state every night, think nothing of it. And then if you use that analogy, for now, this deep awake opens up. And when there’s “the both”, that is when the Big Love happens. And for me, that is what it’s really all about… that is that when you see that you’re when you come into this place where you know that you’re separate and not separate with everyone. Well, you know, that’s when I just been with my son who’s not been well, and I love him.

And it’s because he’s separate from me, but he’s also not separate. That’s what love is… love is how oneness feels.

Love is how oneness feels.

Rick: Nice phrase.

Tim: And so you come into this place where you’re one with everything and everyone, then quite naturally, this big love arises and it arises where? …in the body… arises in the separateness feeling, that’s where it fell into all of that, the juice of life. And that, so that’s, that’s why this image for me, enables me to go that’s the both-and …

Rick: I have a friend who likes to say we’re all sense organs of the infinite. I’m kind of reminded by what you were saying of like, when televisions were first brought to African tribes and things and they showed them, you know, people on television, and the people freaked out because they thought that those people were in the television and like if you turned off the television, you know, the people died or something, what happened to them?

And, you know, it’s like, we think of awareness as being maybe in the body, you know, but I like to think of us more as being like a television or a radio where, you know, it’s just an instrument, which is able to kind of detect or transmit a field, which is ubiquitous, you know, radio waves or television waves, they’re everywhere. And yeah, in this particular instrument, where they’re able to be, you know, their influences or their existence is able to be detected. So it’s like, you know, consciousness is a field, it’s everywhere. Awareness.

And, you know, we each are like little radios, little televisions that are able to pick up on it and tune into it to varying degrees of clarity, you know, and express different maybe some of us pick up on some channels, some on others, you know, according to how we’re constructed, how we’re constituted.

Tim: Yeah, I think I think that’s a lovely image. To me, it’s like, look, there’s there is a, there’s a field of unconscious awareness, and we are centers of consciousness within it. And you just see that, that center of consciousness, your attention can just move and just moves wherever it wants, around that field. And the field can expand and you can, you know, your consciousness of it can expand and, and the big jump comes is when you recognize, alright, so I’m the field, you’re the field. So there’s a place where you’re separate, and there’s a place where you’re not.

So it’s conscious, it’s almost like, it’s almost like if I come back into the eye right now, it always feels to me like a doorway, because it feels at first as if I’m coming, where’s the witness? Where’s what’s Where is coming back into myself, and it seems to be getting smaller and smaller, smaller. And then it’s suddenly it’s a moment where pow! and then it’s everywhere. And I look in one direction. And it’s like, there’s just him and I’m looking at the camera, I’m talking to you. It’s all very particular. And then I look back on itself, and it’s everywhere.

Rick: Yeah.

Tim: Which, depending on you know, and you just know that it’s where you’re going.

Rick: So, with the lucid living, which is a very beautiful, clear explanation of mechanics of things. Is that a practice that you actually advocate for people to somehow do? Or is it more just a philosophical perspective that you present to them to kind of enable them to see things from a different angle?

Tim: Well, let me just say that I think all philosophical perspectives are things you do. First of all, I think philosophy is the ancient practice of awakening, and always has been. So how we use words to conceptualize the thing you’ll never say, is part is itself transformative.

Rick: Now, that’s, that’s grown on me more and more, as I’ve done these interviews, it’s like, because I had this bias or suspicion that a lot of times people substitute an intellectual understanding or insight for the actual experience to which it points. And I think that could still happen, and people still do that. But I think I was a little bit underplaying the value of intellectual insight to really transform experience.

Tim: Yeah, I mean, the mind is another thing, which gets a terribly bad press, because the mind can drive you bonkers. It can wake you up, I mean, everything has two sides, good or bad. It depends.

Rick: Yeah.

Tim: So partly philosophy, you know, philosophy is itself, its love of Sophia of wisdom, and it will lead you there. But from that I’ve developed these techniques to then say, Okay, as you understand this, now, let’s see it, because what I do, when I, you know, I have the luxury, I guess, to spend long periods looking, I just look. And that view, the lucid living came from looking really looking. And, and it’s difficult, you know, because we all look through the lenses of things we’ve picked up. So I pick up a lot of Eastern ideas, or this idea or that, so I’m looking through those. And then to go no, just look just keep looking at is there a better way to say this?

Is there a clearer way to say this. So then to get people to actually do that looking. And the other biggest thing is, when we do it together these eye-to-eye techniques, I run these events, the mystery experience,

Rick: what is that exactly? An eye-to-eye technique?

Tim: Well, what I do is I get together people on a weekend. And, and, and take them through to lucid living states of the deep awake to the Big Love. And I’m astonished really how readily people just pop. And one of the things I do with people is I use that sensation, you know, just looking, listening, touching, or the things which are happening anyway… but to enter through to do that with somebody else. So what I like to do with people, you know, is rather than especially when you’ve got people together is rather than get people to just close your eyes and go just within yourself is to say look, we can see this in each other.

And once you can, once you start to become conscious, oh look what I am, is that which is looking that can’t be seen. It isn’t in the forums, and then you look at somebody else. And you realize that what you are connecting with, when you look at someone’s eyes, you also can’t see that that which cannot be seen is connecting with that which cannot be seen through the looking, and that is a very, very profound thing to experience. And it’s something which is just there… instantly it is there in every moment. Now, of course, it takes a while people often get caught up in the oh, oh, How do I look?

And stuff…Once you’ve got through all of that, you just looking at somebody and going, oh my god, I see your face …how wonderful, …but what you are that thing that I really connected with, I can’t see it. And I can’t be seen, and therefore through the dance of forms, the One is connecting with itself. And that’s when there’s enormous Big Love starts to emerge. And so I dive people further and further into that experience. Until they know…

Rick: So have little sessions throughout the weekend where you pair people up, and they look at each other and…

Tim: …or listen to each other or touch each other’s fingers, or, and then I have an event on the Saturday night where we dive right into it. And that’s where people usually just go Ah, to hell with it. And just, and what I love Rick is on the Sunday seeing people and on Saturday nights where people are just being themselves, suddenly, all of that it’s like an inner humanity, you know, they’re able to be just like, you know, people start off, and they’re all like, this is why the end is so high. And it’s because there’s this deep love behind it, suddenly, it’s okay, and there’s this huge weight comes off your shoulders, and you can just be just be.

Rick: That’s great.

Tim: It’s nice, ..it’s more… it’s just beautiful.

Rick: Do you find from you know, people giving you feedback that the influence of that weekend is rather it’s sticky? I mean, is it stay with them?

Tim: Some, and some, I’d say the majority do…. a lot of people go away, and they have a pretty amazing time. I do encourage people to say, you know that to realize this is not something which can just last I don’t think. I think you know, I mean, I would say actually, it’s not even desirable to you know, when I dive really deep into that oceanic oneness, when you go right down into the depths, you, you know, there’s, it’s so there’s so much love, you know, it’s almost hard to function. You know, I certainly would not, at that moment go “right, I need to ring my bank manager about my mortgage”, like mortgage, money, that’s not going to happen.

So I feel this is, again, the polarity I we need to move between these states, the important thing is that, you know, it’s there? And that you can come back to it,

Rick: I would say that the part of the game is it’s all it’s about merging them are bringing, you know, enabling, stabilizing or integrating so that you can be talking to your bank manager, and yet be in that consciously in that deep state that, again, doesn’t have to be either-or can be both-and. And, you know, you can be in the most profound mystical height of experience, and yet, you know, chopping vegetables, or you know, riding a bicycle, or, you know, dealing with your sick child, or whatever else life brings, throws at you…

Tim: It’s easier to chop vegetables, in my experience, than it is to deal with your bank manager…maybe it’s just me… Everything has a polarity to it. That’s the way it looks. So when I look at my attention, it also has a polarity to it. And an image, an analogy is like sight. If I look at my sight, there’s a kind of focus to my sight. And then there’s all this peripheral vision, ambient vision, right? My attention seems to say I put my attention on something, and then actually, there’s a whole ambient awareness where the whole lot of other things I’m conscious of.

So right now, for instance, I’m concentrating on talking to you, but in the, you know, I am also aware if somebody knocked on the door if something happened, I’d be there. So for me, it’s more like now it’s like okay, so when I get together for a mystery experience, and I think it’s really important, personally, that we dive deeply, regularly, like meditation, you know, meditation, close, your eyes, go right into that big ocean, pushing that letting the world dissolve, you’re not worrying about anything, you’re not just,,,

Rick: devoted to that exclusively for a little bit.

Tim: Like what happens then if you take your attention, and you push it right back here. And there’s that big oceanic beautiful oneness, you’re being consciously in the state of deep sleep, really. So it’s that huge whoa…but the ambient awareness is still there. So if you if your kid cried out “Help!” you’d be there, but at that point, you will reverse it and you take your attention, and then that will be the separateness and then this will be in the ambient awareness. So you’re no longer swimming in this deep ocean anymore. You know, it’s just there, it’s there. But now you’re like that, and you’re able to just sort of deal with the separateness much more.

I feel is that what I’m looking at is like, you know, can we just move those…and the danger is you lose this. You just forget that’s even there. And I don’t know about what’s been it’s been on like in your journey, but I see it with people all the time. And I’ve seen it enough with myself is that when you lose one or the other, it’s like the other doesn’t exist. So if you come right back into this, it can feel like that’s all just illusion, waste of time. And then you get a rude reminder that it’s not. And if you get lost in all of this, it’s like, yeah, did I it was some time I had, I felt like I was awake, I don’t know what it was. And you kind of forget.

And the art really is to keep returning to it enough that you don’t forget, it’s there both real.

Rick: Exactly. I mean, that’s been my journey, pretty much, you alluded to my journey, I’ve been meditating for 43 years, and, and there was a time when I would just sort of deep dive deep into meditation and exclusively that, and then I come out, and I would seem to lose it. And, but back and forth over all these 1000s of days and weeks, you know, the, it’s gotten integrated.

And so it’s not one or the other, it’s like, but like you say, you know, it’s the attention will sort of zoom in on something that needs to be focused on and then kind of, you know, maybe zoom back out to a more broad perspective, according to the circumstances, and it’s not something you have to manipulate is something that happens spontaneously as, as you roll through the day, just kind of a natural functioning thing. You’re not trying to, you know, you don’t live being by virtue of some mental gymnastics of holding on to it. It’s just there to whatever extent it’s there.

In India, they use the analogy of dyeing cloth, you know, you take the cloth, dip it in the color dye, put it out in the sun, let it bleach, and you put it in the dye, again, gets all bright and colored, put it out in the sun, let it bleach, and you repeat this and over time, it bleach is less than less than eventually it’s just as colored in the sun as it was as it is in the vat of dye.

Tim: Yeah, that’s nice. That’s a nice analogy. But there’s always this movement, I think, yeah, between the poles. That’s the key. So for people that come to my events, I try and, you know, I mean, some people go back, and you know, it’ll stir up a whole lot of stuff inside.

Rick: It can, yeah.

Tim: And my God… to understand that too. Because that’s part of the journey. It’s part of it. Yeah. It’s interesting. Well, you know, fascinates me, I think probably, because it’s just on my mind at the moment that I’ve been thinking recently, how, since we imported a lot of the Eastern ideas, especially the kind of enlightened master idea, we kind of lost touch with our own indigenous, you know, in our own, in our own culture, or in the best of the Christian culture. You know, our saints were never these perfect, they will people struggled.

Rick: Yeah

Tim: They were people who went into the dark night, they were people who were willing to engage with the difficulty of the journey, you know, it was much more dynamic. And I think there’s room for merging these two together. So what I encourage people to do is just take the big experience, and then go into their lives, and then keep trying to reconnect with it as they want as they can. And as they want to. And as it’s a joy for them. And then, but it’s good either with myself or with somebody to come back and have a deep experience again, and then go out and then you come back.

And that’s the dyeing and the wool, I guess that’s like, you know, yeah, meditation coming together, and just click, and as you do, and that’s what has happened to me, I suppose. That’s why over the years, it’s like, you know, that it’s there. Even when life is rocky, it’s there.

Rick: Yep. Yep. And I also sort of think of it as a seesaw in a way where, you know, the heavier weight kind of tends to push the seesaw down to this end. And it’s more it’s sort of like the more, you know, if sort of being if we want to call it being or consciousness is very, you know, fleetingly hardly well established. Any little thing can throw it off, and you know, you’re overshadowed, you’re freaked out, you’re, I keep using the word freaked out, I’m sorry. Take it as a compliment.

You know, what, but then as it becomes sort of better established, you know, you can deal with more and more, you know, overshadowing situations without there being overshadowing, you know, and eventually, I mean, if Christ existed, and that’s a whole other topic, we can talk about, you know, theoretically, you know, even on in the midst of being crucified, his self-realization wasn’t lost, you know, his,

Tim: well, that’s the, that’s the key image. I mean, the Jesus thing is too much to go into, but let me just use this one bit, which is from the Gnostic tradition in the Gnostic tradition, they have this image which they call the laughing Jesus. And in there in one of the Gnostic Gospels, they create this, this duet, this polarity, which are called lucid living very clearly, because in their Gospel, Jesus, the man is dying on the cross, in terrible agony having been betrayed by all his friends, and you know, just like the worst thing you can imagine. And the real Jesus or Jesus’s essence is in a cave of light laughing.

And he says, “I seem to suffer but I don’t suffer because I distinguish what I am from what I appear to be.”

Rick: Yeah,

Tim: …and that is that it’s, we’ve got the, it’s an even deeper image of the Laughing Buddha really, because the Laughing Buddha is just transcendental, but the laughing Jesus is like, well look, even, you know, that’s the power of the image, right in the suffering.

Rick: Exactly

Tim: …surrendering to that and also free.

Rick: Do you know who Malcolm Muggeridge was? Remember him?

Tim: I do, yeah, yeah…

Rick: There was an interview he did with Maharishi Mahesh Yogi back in the early 60s along with the Abbot of Downside, I believe he was called. So as Maharishi and this Abbot, interviewed by Malcolm Muggeridge and Maharishi saying, “Christ never suffered,” you know, and the abbot’s, like, “what?” But that’s the point he was making, you know, is that, you know, he was people saw him suffering from their perspective and thought, Oh, this must be terrible, but from his inner status of, you know, realized soul unshakably so, he was beyond that. Certainly, the body was suffering and pain must have been felt, but there was a realm which was untouched by all that.

Tim: Yeah, that’s and but you know, what is so beautiful and So why the Jesus story in all its many forms is it has lasted as long as it has, is because it also has the humanity in it…and he is also the guy going, “Why have you forsaken me?” He also he’s like us, he’s like, you know, he’s like we are, you know, we’re there going, “oh, why me?”

Rick: Oh, yeah, let this cup pass from me.

Tim: And yet, there’s this deeper part. And it’s not one or the other. It’s both.

Rick: Yep. There we go again. Yeah. And I think the takeaway point from this bit of our conversation is that, you know, people shouldn’t feel discouraged if they, you know, feel like gain something and then lost it again. Because it’s a growth process, you know, they shouldn’t feel discouraged if they go to some weekend and have a glorious experience and feel high as a kite, and then come home, and you know, get all bogged down again, just carry on, you know, there’s going to be continued growth. And I know that the word growth is anathema in certain, you know, Advaita circles, you know, there are no levels, there is no progress, yada, yada.

But realistically, speaking in terms of what you said earlier, you know, if you look at what your life actually is, as opposed to some pie in the sky notion of what reality might be, we grow, we evolve. And so if you can kind of confront that, accept that, honestly, then it’s, you know, rather than being sort of kicking yourself every time you seem to screw up, you say, Okay, well, I’m growing. And, you know, let’s…

Tim: I tell you, the thing, which has changed for me, I used to think like, you know, that I wave, I’m stared at a white wall long enough, or, you know, follow my breath long enough, or gave up enough things and didn’t have sex and all that, then I will become some sort of bright-eyed Uber being who was….I don’t know what…And none of that has happened. Tim has stayed resolutely, Tim. Still, he’s just a bit fatter, a bit bolder, as you know, haven’t had a whole load more experiences. Apart from that he’s exactly the same.

Rick: Yeah,

Tim: The thing which has changed is I don’t give myself such a hard time about that. Is that, you know, that I’ve realized that that’s all right.

Rick: Yeah, you’ve come to understand that that’s the way it’s supposed to be.

Tim: Yeah. And through just being Tim and all of his quirkiness, that this experience of awakening can open up through that. And then Tim can be a vehicle for love in the world. And then that’s enough, that is more than enough.

Rick: Yeah. Well, you’re doing it, I must say, you know, I mean, you’ve been a vehicle for me in that, in that sense, just a joy to listen to you. And I want to start reading some of your books.

Tim: Well, Good…I’m an author…that’s how I put food on the table for my kids, and also, you know, men from writing at the moment. I mean, I take writing quite seriously, you know, it’s a problem because it’s slow. But spirituality needs to evolve. That’s my feeling. You know, we need to we’ve got this crazy idea that the old was good. Well, the old was old bits of it were good bits of it were like everything. And we need to keep it evolving and keep bringing, each new generation runs with the ball passes into the next. And we’ve got it right now. And we need to, we need to make it integral we need to make it embrace these polarities.

So we need to make it Trans rational but rational, and we’d need to clean up its act we need to make it opening up to the oneness but really engaging with the many-ness we need to make it something which can actually take us to this place where everything’s okay. And allow that to express yourself with love to transform this place where sometimes it’s not, but a lot of the time it’s not and for me the books and everything you’ve got how to put together a can we do this? …and bit by bit. We are.

Rick: Yeah, that’s a good point. Andrew Cohen talks a lot about that too, with his you know, evolutionary enlightenment idea. That it’s not us static fix thing and, you know, we’re not going to become Vedic rishis necessarily, we’re going to, you know, be Britishers or Americans or whatever, you know, living in a totally different culture. You know, but you know, with some of the same essential realization, because the, you know, that the deepest level is eternal…

Tim: you talked about, you know, earlier about these people who, you know, there’s, how great is that there are people who could be really bright lights, and it is great. And, and I look at the people who’ve been really great lights for me, you know, living and dead. And there’s a whole load of them, I look at, like, I am so pleased that you are or have been who you are. But I don’t want to be like you.

Rick: Right

Tim: I wouldn’t want that. You know, actually, that wouldn’t be right for me at all. But you were you and often what it is about these people is they’re just themselves.

Rick: Yeah,

Tim: They’re just actually being them.

Rick: I find that actually with the few people I’ve met who might be you know, classified as saints. There’s a sort of a, a lively, vivacious, charismatic quality to their personalities, there’s no plain vanilla whatsoever, you know, I mean, they radiate a lot of consciousness, a lot of being but full of humor and mischievous mischievousness and, you know, personality and ranges of emotion, you know, anger and sadness and bliss and happiness and the whole gamut, you know, probably much more vividly than the average person, you know. So this whole notion of the placid sort of, you know, colorless sap of a personality is, hasn’t been in evidence in the instances that I’ve encountered.

Tim: Same thing for me. That’s why for me now, I don’t talk about enlightenment. I talk about enlivenment.

Rick: Good point. Good word.

Tim: Yeah, that’s the place for me. Actually …got ’em both goin’.

Rick: Well, I feel like I could go on forever with you, because you really fun to talk to you. But I know your boy is sick. And I don’t want to get later there. And I don’t want to keep you too long. So maybe we should wrap it up. And maybe in a couple of months, we could do another one, then now I’ve gotta do my homework, do my homework and think of more things we can talk about. So we don’t just say the same stuff.

Tim: But I’m sure you know, my experiences. I mean, we talked earlier about my friendship with Peter Gandi, and with many people. Well, we’ve been having one conversation now for over 40 years. Still interesting, because life’s like that, and I really enjoyed talking to you. So we can have a good time.

Rick: Yeah, I mean, don’t you find that you can kind of, you’re probably talking about the same point now that you were 20-30 years ago with Peter, but you just kind of keep rehashing and getting to deeper nuances, deeper levels of the very same points.

Tim: Really, and you need to keep coming back to it from different angles all the time. Don’t you find? That’s what

Rick: Yeah, yeah, you do. You never have the final take on it. So well, you have anything that I’m sorry. Go ahead.

Tim: Do you have I just noticed that you have on your Skype

Rick: little bubble little message, their message?

Tim: “Whatever you think it’s more than that” Yeah. Incredible String Band. And I didn’t think you could put it better than that. Whatever. You think it’s more than that. So there’s always more.

Rick: Do you ever listen to them?

Tim: I do. Yeah,

Rick: That one is from Job’s tears if you want to listen that song, they sing it near the end of Job’s tears fantastic song. So let me just wrap it up by saying that I you know, I’ve really appreciated this opportunity. And for those listening, I’ve been talking with Timothy Freke, who lives in the UK, but travels around the world. I’ll be putting on batgap.com. This, this interview, but also links to Tim’s site and anything else he wants me to put, send me a little bio, I’ll stick there. And people listen to this in various ways. And so just in case you happen to be, you know, one guy wrote me said he listens while riding on a horse in Arizona.

So in case you’re unaware of that, if you found this on YouTube, for instance, and you’re unaware that there is a website where all of these are archived, go to batgap.com Bat gap, which is an acronym for Buddha at the Gas Pump, and which was the implication of which is that, you know, ordinary people these days are getting enlightened or whatever word you want to use. Go there. You’ll find this and other interviews and you can subscribe to an email newsletter to be notified of new ones. Subscribe to a podcast, subscribe to an RSS feed to have it come in your blog reader and anything else I managed to dream up as I wade through this technological quagmire that we call the Internet.

So, so thanks a lot, Tim. And we’ll revisit in a couple of months.

Tim: Great. Well, thank you for having me here. Everybody involved.

Rick: It’s been a joy