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Tell us your a little of your story of how you became a monk and how how people in Nepal become monks in the Bon tradition. My name is Geshe Sonam and I born here in this area, this place. And when I was nine, almost to 10. And I'm the middle son of the my family. And in our culture, middle son and middle daughter becoming monks and nuns. So because of I'm middle son, so my parents sent me to study in India. It was we we don't have very good monastery here, but lots of practices going in the caves are there, but to education, you know, so uh my teacher took me to India and I go to school first to study science, math, and those and then after that I became a monk when I was 19.

Before from 10th, I was like a entertaining of monk, like a monklet. And then become a when I was 19, now I can make the my decision. So I choose a monk, you know, and then I become monk and after the school, I study 14 years for the Bon philosophy, practice, and all those things. So I was awarded called the Geshe degree, which is in West it's called the equivalent to the PhD on Bon philosophy. Can you share with people the history of Bon, how it became and has grown and flourished and and the relationship, how should the Westerners think about the relationship between the Bon tradition and Buddhism?

Yeah, so when we talk about the origin of Bon and Buddhist, right? So Bon origin originated around the uh nearby the Mount Kailash. You know, that's the origin place, you know, so there these days people are talking in Nepal place called the Humla, Humla. But there is a earlier time he used to talk about the Olmo Lungring. Where the Buddha Tönpa Sherab was born. He was also prince, you know, in that area. So that's the Himalayan region, you know, so where the science of Himalaya was started from the Bon, you know, and then of course everybody knows that Buddha Shakyamuni born in house in Lumbini and those plain area, you know, he been enlightened and achieved the Buddhahood, like that.

And then later, you know, but Bon was very flourish. And you know, after the Buddhist arrived to Himalaya, you know, and then Buddhist and Bon get a conflict, you know. I mean, you know, it's the not the religion too, you know, it's not like a Buddha's Buddha Shakyamuni and Tönpa Sherab fought, fought, right? But people don't understand the Dharma very deep, you know, and then people start to fight, you know, so there is also lot of how say conflict between Bon and Buddhist because of two different idea, right?

So but it wasn't like a ideas are totally opposite, you know. But that time actually it was different actually. Now it's look Bon and Buddhist are very same, but that time the Bon was more like a tantric and Dzogchen practitioner. It wasn't like a Sutric or there is some Sutric, but later when Buddhism introduced to the Himalaya and then um, Buddhist and Bon are very flexible. So, Bon took lot from Buddhist and Buddhist took lot from the Bon. So, that's how, uh, we are sharing so much.

It It's now many researcher trying to research and tell which is belongs to whom, but it's very hard to tell cuz it's too mixed up, you know. So, therefore, uh, you know, from the before the 7th century, 8th centuries, just everywhere, even like in Mustang, you know, but in the Tibet, central Tibet, in a 6th and 7th, 8th century, then Buddhist was start. But really flourish of the Buddhist was from the 10th century. You know, from 7th, 8th, 9th was very little, but really flourish in Himalaya was from 10th and 12th century.

And before that, all of the Bonpo's teachings were so been so much, uh, flourish here, so much alive, vibrant. And that's why if you see the Tibetan Buddhism, it's totally different than other Buddhist. You know, so therefore, we shared, you know. I think it's a good things to if there is a good knowledge, we have to share from the Buddhist. And if Bon has a good knowledge, Buddhist share that, you know. I think So, this is the how and politically then, uh, Bon was, uh, suppressed.

And then slowly slowly, uh, Buddhist become more flourish in Himalaya, you know. So, but still Bon never, how to say, end the his Bon's, uh, lineage, the teachings and technique. Everything from that time till now, everything is continued. And then, my teacher, like he exiled to the India, and they built a monastery and they give all this education. It was shocked by the how I say situation in their homeland. And then so that's how how we got all the knowledge of like a the philosophy, sciences, all of the Buddhism and Bon we learn.

Yeah, now it's a so much commonalities is because you know like a uh if we say talk with the Tibetan Buddhism then so much commonality. But if we talk the another Buddhism, then we are so different. Like Theravada Buddhism? Yeah, Theravada or like a Japanese Buddhist or other Buddhist are so different, you know, but Tibetan Buddhism we are really to so much common because we share too much to each other. You spent a lot of time in the West and teaching Westerners about the path and the tradition and spreading the Dharma and support.

Can you tell people a little bit about what you're trying to accomplish here to preserve the tradition? Yeah, I think you know like a as my teacher guidance, you know, like a when the communist come and then it was shocked to our the philosophy and teaching and technique that people like in the very difficult situation they survive. And this Dharma teaching been the core of the people to keep going, you know? And then when this came, it was shocked, you know? And then Lama say please and and then many Lamas felt, you know, this is the end of this teaching.

You know? And they work so hard, they train us, you know? And to me first, you know, in Bon in our Bon term, the Bon itself mean the truth or reality or fact or we can say nature. We if we we are saying that if you really know the true and fact and reality and then you know the Bon. If you are not know the truth and fact, you don't know the Bon. So Bon mean truth and reality and fact. You know? So therefore if I just assume into a in a word, you know, it's like that.

You know, but there are, you know, many skillful way, many technique according to the people, according to the, you know, Buddha Tsempo Sherab, our teacher been totally like a different style. Because it according to the people who follow them. Like that. So my core to contact with the our Western Dharma friend is how can we bring this technique, this teaching, this science, this, how to say, teaching to West? So also our Western Dharma friend also enjoy. You know, and one thing is that and another thing is that who knows where problem will.

If something happen bad things on East, maybe this teaching can be available in West. Or something happen in West, it will be survived in East. So my teacher is very open. You know, says to us, "This is the time to share." If we keep secret or something but it doesn't mean, you know, like you tell everybody. It's not like that, but we need to choose the serious people to serious teaching, you know, medium people, medium teaching, new people, new style of teaching, you know? So, but we try to preserve.

Doesn't matter where it is, whether it is in a west or east. We don't want to be sectering. We want this technique keep alive. So, that's the idea. So, that's why, you know, like in the west also, uh what I found with the our western Dharma friend, you know, in the science like psychologists are so good, you know, like it very close to our Dharma. And then science is too much in the materialism. And Dharma is quite moving forward to the uh superstitious, you know? So, I want to bring them in the balance two together.

So, that science can uh protect us going uh deviating in the house of superstitious. And Dharma can uh support to the science not deviating to the materialism. To come into a deeper in the practice. So, that's the what I'm looking, you know, like it. So, that's why I'm be with the all the Dharma friend in west to try to share. You know, I'm not you know, trying best to share with our Dharma friends. The west is slowly starting to wake up. Yes. So, it started with yoga and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi brought over transcendental meditation.

And then you had Yogananda bringing the kriyas. And then that began to be over the last 20 years become very popular. And now plant medicine and the shamanic work is coming to the west and people are doing peyote and ayahuasca and other medicines to have an experience of the spiritual realms and to escape the materialism and try to have an experience with reality on the other side. And there's emerging as part of that an awareness and fascination of the dark room meditation. And so, explain to what the Westerners the role of the dark room, how it became it was part of the tradition in Zukchen, and how Westerners should think about that as part of their practice.

Yeah, I think this is very important topic, you know, like a dark retreat is the one part of our own teaching, you know, like a many many, you know, centuries, you know, so many like a many centuries this yogis been doing in the cave totally dark, you know. Right now we got a electricity and so many different type of light. But earlier time it's very rare, you know, and then they have to spend mostly in the dark. So, and they try to find even within the dark how can they learn.

So, they don't relying on light or, you know, so much like that. So, because of that, you know, in a cave they don't have a kerosene or gas or to lightning the candle or like that. So, they their life is very simple, you know, so they need to find a way to learn the practice. So, they got a technique to how can you practice in a dark. So, that's the what how it start and then, you know, like it the main idea of dark retreat. Uh I don't know, like a maybe people has that experience or not.

You know, once I have when I was going to school, it was a totally dark night. I woke up in the middle of night. You know, and then I don't know where am I. Where is it, you know, because everything is dark. I can't see anything, right? So, this experience, you know, like it then I easily diluted. Because I don't know. I have no knowledge. I don't have a aware where am I? What it is? So, actually the Dharma teaching, the Bön teaching is trying to teach us how can I be conscious?

How can doesn't matter what situation, what condition. So, I can keep awake. I can keep conscious. You know, I keep aware what's happening. You know, so many people easily lose their awareness. In the in the dark. So, I'm preparing to the our Western Dharma friend. Come stay in the dark and just experience it. And see what it is look like. You know, maybe you might first time you don't get a really high realization. But you experience something and you will realize, "Wow, in a light I was totally conscious and aware of what's happening.

But in the dark, even I don't know what's the time. Is it daytime or nighttime? You know, so we dark retreat is a one such a technique to reach beyond the time. You know, beyond the light and how say dark. So, when we go to the dark dark retreat and slowly the vision comes, light comes inside. It's not external light. It's a inner light come up. So, there is a lot of like it to how say explore. It's a very spiritual deep exploration. So, I'm asking you guys to be come and you know, like it to so that once you feel it is really connected to you or really uh, resonate with you and then you go further because, uh, anything is when you are, uh, try to learn or spend your energy, now, first you need to trust.

If you don't trust or if you don't experience, if you don't experience, you don't trust. If you don't trust, you can't do that. You know, to build up the aspiration, admiration, and, uh, to build the trust, first we have to experience. So, therefore, I think dark retreat is a short time, and you can go beyond the time. And once you go beyond the time, what it look like? We never experience those, right? So, I think that's why and then future, we can become a, you know, in the dark if I can really conscious in a dark, which is very, uh, closer to the sleep yoga, and very closer to the dreaming, you know?

So, therefore, this all are the high teachings of the yogis in the cave. So, right now I'm talking from the Mustang, right? This area you can find a thousands of caves. These thousands of yogis been doing this. So, I'm welcome all of you. Uh, we are trying to be build a future dark retreat here to connect to the lineage and experience to go beyond the time. So, join with us. That's the what I can say, yeah. What's the minimum amount of time for a student to come and have the experience?

How many days? Yeah, I think in in the at the it depend on the how deep you are in the practice, you know? So, if you are quite new, better not so longer than three, four days. We don't want to be like a something happen or like a but if there is a benefit and always the coin is good part and bad part always go together, you know, so if we are not conscious and that can be problem, too. You know, if we are conscious, that could be very good for us to be keep more conscious, you know, like a as the many Yogananda talking about transcendental stage, right?

So, those all we can experience in dark if you are really advanced on dark. When a student from the West comes, will you get to teach them the Bon teachings and practices? Is it just observing the arising or should they bring their own practice and you support? How should they think about the practice? I think, you know, like a there are all sort of people, right? Some will come totally new, you know, and then they don't get it doesn't resonate them and they will go away.

Some come just totally new and then it resonate them and then they will follow, "Geshe-la, could you guide us? Doesn't matter which one is, just guide me. It's it's resonating me, right?" And then it's not a big different, you know, I I don't learn about the other tradition, what kind of dark retreat is, but according to the Buddhist and Bon, I don't think there's a big different, you know, so it's very close, you know, like a very same idea, same consciousness because we've been Tibetan Buddhism, specially, right?

We are so much share, we have so much commonality. So, I don't think we need to be worried about Buddhist dark retreat and Bon dark retreat, but others tradition like Hindus or Christian, that I can't tell because I have no knowledge about that. So, uh even anyone comes with their things, you know, and then you can we can share, you know, and then see what it is look like, what's you got, what it is. Uh so we after we how say talk each other, share each other, then there is a result come.

Then according to result we can do that. Right. Uh before go to dark at the night time, we have some practice. Close uh eye lid and we practice some. It's very close to that. So in in the Bon tradition, we have before go inside the dark, we practice those. So I really thinks that we should guide our master should guide that before go to the dark. So they have like a not such a very strange thing. They already know something closer. You know, and then when they get there, it's a really prepared.

And also the teaching, you know, like a any how say Dharma's teaching, if you you knows what you looking for. It's not like oh just pop up there and you enter there. It could be also, but best if you have some the kind of path. What I'm doing, what I'm looking for, where I'm getting. If you have that kind of plan, will be much better, I think. But sometime that could be all also hindrances, too. Not always like a good path, you know. So see, we can just try.

And how long after you're in the dark, you have these deep experiences, and then you have to come back into the light. How what's the reintegration process? How long, what's the practice to to bring it on side yourself so you can go back to the world? Yeah, if you stay three four days, it's not big big different because you are not experiencing beyond that time. It's not so long enough, right? And that's why in our tradition we do a 49 days. Because 49 days particular days has a very meaningful.

Because it has a time is a very connected to our mind. Because like a one our physically body when we are in a dark in a certain time then it produce a chemical in brain, in body. And that make different. But if we have a very short and then there is a not enough time to produce that how say chemical, right? And or to produce the hallucination. So some people are very, you know, open channel. They can produce chemical very fast. Some take long time to produce that chemical.

You know, so and then according to chemical or that hallucination will be different. So according to the experience that will be like a karmic tendency, like a tendency of beyond the time will also impact, you know. So how longer that much challenging in coming back, but not like a totally you something becoming like aliens or totally don't know where to go. But not like that because you you got more experience than the dark, you know. That one you have very strong what do you call the habitual.

It's easy to come back, you know. So it's it's one that big different unless if you already take care of your sight, you know, like a having things and food not immediately come out and go to the windy area. That's not good part, you know. maybe you can come with a light but with the goggle of and slowly slowly that dark can reduce and then come back to normal. So, those are important part. And with the monastics if a if a Westerner comes to do this experience, does the the monastery prepare special food for them that helps support their experience?

I think diet is you need a very good food because in a dark it took lot of energy because you don't get vitamins from the sun light, you know, and you becoming very weak, you know. So, diet is very important part. So, you know, like a monastery rather than monastery we need a special group. Like a special we kids in a moment and we are working now. We try to build a what you call like a group people that you know, like a we study we know stuff what kind of food it is needed, what kind of guidance it needed, what sickness could possible.

You know, so what kind of medication should be at the door, you know, like a so anything something is happening ready to cure them, right? And make sure that we don't harm. Our bone perspective is bone should be relieve the suffering. Not the cause of suffering actually, you know, so if we don't guide if we are not serious, it could be harm the people. So, then it goes to the opposite of Dharma, opposite of bone. So, therefore yes, I think monastery itself has a different food because they are not in dark, right?

But we need a group people so that according to the dark people, they we can provide them the food that they needed. There are a lot of stories about people healing their bodies in the dark, regrowing their spine or healing from sickness or other things. Are there specific practices in the Bon or the Buddhist tradition for healing in the dark? Yeah, I think you know, like a because in Bon teaching we says 70% of our mind is distracted by the eye. Sight, you know? And then in dark, sight is no use.

Right? So that means 70% is we wiped out. We come back to the silence. You know? So that will be cure a lot things because because of those 70% creating so much problem in our body, you know? So because of this 70% is arresting. According to that resting impact will be there. But there is no really particular sickness will be cured like that. But also, if you are not prepared enough but that can also create the sickness, too. So it depend, you know, like a even you are you never practice, but it depend how your mentality is stable.

If you are mentality is stable, you are more courage, you know, you are more impatient, maybe good for you, you know? But if you are really impatient you are struggling with inside thought or so much, maybe it could be cause problem. Though in the West there's so much stimulation. Your phone, your iPad, movies, cars, music. And then all of that goes away and there's just the breath and your awareness. It makes many Westerners afraid. Yes. How do they How do How do you teach them to not get bored and to make the most and adjust to this new experience with no with only no light?

That's the why, you know, we have a meditation practice. That keep them busy. So, meditation doesn't means like a you know, bring to the emptiness, you know, like a a void. Not like that. That's the one part, too. Because when we are too distracted, we need to bring to the a wait a waiting, right? Also. But many people thinks the meditation means that. Not only that. Actually, many people thinks meditation be bring the happiness. Also, yes, it do one part. But not everything. And many people thinks meditation bring calmness, also.

But these are the all integrand. There are so many integrations there. You know, so this part, when you learn something, when you are boring and, you know, like a many people when they get the What do you call that after certain age? They don't They got a How I say? No no job now, right? They so much time and they getting crazy. Until then, they've been so busy and distracted and now they are afraid what to do. So, that experience exactly come in dark, too. So, that's why if like you follow any kind of master, that guidance is before you go to the dark.

So, that you know, if something happen like this, what I need to do. How should I keep the busy myself? You know, but then that busyness will be slowly slowly reduced. We have to be very skillful for the Dharma. Dharma is not so easy path, you know, many people thinks Dharma is the best or very easy or, you know, and many people thinks if I go to this talk I will be tomorrow enlightened. Not like that. It takes long time, you know. So, therefore uh how to say, my point of this is that if any tradition you learning.

So, you prepared. If something in that situation that you ask to your teacher if something happened that situation, what I'm doing? And you prepare for that. And then you see how it is. Sometime we might succeed, sometime we might not or we can guide from the outside, you know. So, there are many things now we have a very good technology, science been very much make us to Dharma also so much easier, you know. Yeah. Last question. What can go wrong? Yeah, I think that's very important part, too.

Like you don't expect too much positive. Don't expect too much negative. Like a if we come with the middle not expecting too much uh how to say, positive and too much negative too much negative also make you suffer. If you you go to the too much positive like too much uh what you call, mm wishes. Like you all I will cure this problem, I will be a special guy or something and then you found ordinary, you know, and then you get you've been discouraged, right? So, don't be like a uh no hope and no uh scare.

No hope and no doubt. Just come to the balance of hope and doubt. And then come to the, you know, just you just came, come. You just come with open. As the signs. Okay. Let's see. Don't make any decision. Just come with no decision. And but it doesn't mean that you don't prepare. You prepare something. But you don't estimate the result. That means you don't expect negative. You don't expect the positive. But result will be one of those. You know, so if you don't expect you are more in present.

Once we are more in present, there's a less chances of problem. So therefore, um you can lose your eyesight, you know, like if you immediately open your, you know, no glass or dark glass and like that. Or sometime, you know, we become weak. And you don't if you don't feel the what do you appetite. And you can become a sick, too. But that's why, you know, like a don't be like a at a I don't like not a picky things. You follow the like a system, right?

Like a Okay, if teacher teacher think this is important for you, just consume it. Don't Don't become a picky. But I don't mean not at all. It's not in your hand something everything controlled by us also not right things. But everything controlled by you also wrong things. So just, you know, if you feel something going wrong, you don't know, better to ask. And take the advice. You know? Or if you knows that that's the good part, then you don't need to be necessarily keep asking. Move forward, you know?

Very flexible. You know? So, if we do that way, then we will can free from all the problems. You know? So, that's the why I want to, you know, like a you can get a sick also. You can get, you know, if you are not like a follow or learn before you go to the talk, you study first. And then I think everything will be okay. Yeah.

Within 20 minutes, I had an experience that just changed everything. You had a career as a dentist. Yeah. Right. Along that same time, deeply into Buddhism. Went to my first TM session. For the first time in my life, I experienced the dimension of consciousness completely devoid of thought. My life changed on the spot. And so then began this search. Walled off in this monastery in Nova Scotia. I literally spent 16 hours a day in a room the size of a closet. I playfully came to call ego's coffin. Why is it so hard to do nothing? Well, then I realized I'm actually feeling the pain of withdrawal from my addiction to sensory stimulation and also information. We're scrolling, especially AI. It's just even more information. It's faster. What happens to me when I come out of really extended dark retreats? It's the most radical unlearning detox thing I've ever done. What's extended look like?

This year I was in for a month. A profoundly revoly experience because you in fact see space, time, causality, the very sense of self. They're made up and we continue to make them up. The ethmology of the word distract is really compelling. It literally means to pull apart. When you're in the dark, you can no longer distract. We use colloquialisms like at the end of the day to what indicate bottom line what's really important. What happens at the end of the day? It gets dark. You return to this fundamental matrix of who we really are. I'd love to explore deeper this idea of when we're asleep, we're actually awake. And when we're awake, we're actually asleep. This is really interesting. So check this out. Well, when Deborah Silverman says you need to have this guy in your podcast, you book it as soon as you can. Yeah, she's a sweetheart. She's She's a rare being, that girl.

I mean, she is the first time I met her was if she came here on the podcast and she absolutely blew me away. I have to someday maybe when we're done I can tell you how we first met like a year ago. It was a really I've only known her for a year a year but I've known her for lifetimes. Yeah, you know she's that kind of girl. Well, let's let's dive into that right now. I'm so curious how you No, I was I was teaching a gig at Elin. Um, and she was one of the participants and she came up to me. Uh, I'm a I'm a I'm a I'm a nerd. I'm a geek. I'm a scholar, scientist, academic kind of guy, right? Um, and so she came up and she goes, "You know, you're really interesting. I'd like to do your chart." And my eyebrows astrology for you. You know, I'm I'm into again, I don't know that much about it. I got a little bit about the Hindu Tibetan approaches and principles of alignment.

I don't really know much about the kind of western thing, but there was something about her presence that was like don't just blow her off, which would have been my usual thing. I just wouldn't have time for this, right? Yeah. Um and so so I go okay like whatever. So she does my chart and the next day she pulls me aside and we spent an hour together and it just blew my doors off and it was like holy crap, you know. And so since then we've developed a really tight, sweet, strong relationship because underneath the bubbly super I wouldn't say superficial, just the the shiny appearance of her is some real depth. I mean she goes really deep. Yeah, she blew me away. She read my chart the morning of the podcast, which again, she I don't know if you know, she doesn't do that anymore. Really? That's right. That's She Yeah, I found that out later. Yeah, I did too.

I was like, "Okay." And and I've had astrology readings from from people who I think are amazing like and they they like I it feels resonant and Deborah's just different and it's hard to describe but she got to layers of understanding about me that I got to I had never felt so seen. I think that's it. And and to me it's it's her gift as a medicinew woman shaman seer where not only does she kind of bring in these exogenous external stellar influences but she has almost this x-ray vision to penetrate into the to the stars within. And so for me that that's what really like you resonated and clicked you know her ability to actually see um deep deep inside and then bring that into some kind of external um alignment thing was it was pretty cool for me. Yeah. So I'm I'm not going to say I'm a total convert um but it really completely shifted my understanding and allegiance to authentic.

If I had to guess you're it probably takes a bit for you to become a total convert to something. Yeah. I'm pretty skeptical by nature. Yeah. Yeah. Um, even though my mind is is is as open as I can possibly make it, but you know, have you heard this jingle? This is great. It's important to have an open mind, but if your mind is too open, your brains will fall out. Okay. Yeah. Right. So, so you want to have an open mind, but you know, it's not radical whatever relativism. There has to be, I shouldn't say there has to be, it's helpful to have some structure. And so for me, part of my dance has been is stretching from my more conservative traditional academic scientific backing um training and going out to my comfort zone, outside of my comfort zone into the stretch zone into into territories where I would normally never tread.

And so I actually use that now as a marker for perhaps where to go because if I just stay in my comfort zone, I mean, you know, I may I may dye my hot tub, but I'm never going to really learn. And so stepping into things like there's just no way I would do something like astrology or whatever. It's like, well, wait a second, just right there could be an indicator that perhaps you might want to take a look at this. Yeah. Instead of a knee categorical dismissal of it. Well, well, how does that play into your, you know, you had a career as a dentist. Yeah. Right. And along that that that same time deeply into Buddhism and so that seems like someone who is, you know, so kind of intellectually curious and I would say probably oriented in some ways to really explore something like Buddhism. Those seem like two very different things. Yeah.

Well, doesn't everybody have to be a dentist to take these deep dives? Yeah. I full disclaimer, I went into the medicine medical field um dental field in this regard. Um my parents were whole family's in that business. They were in that and I went through a cascade like we talked about earlier. Originally I wanted to be a concert pianist. Then I wanted to be a physicist. And so I I I barked up both those trees and realized you know close but no cigar. Um, but then I realized, well, geez, you know, I something something's got to pay the bills here. And so I I did the dental school thing. I love the rigor. Um, I I really love the clinical practice for all the years I did it. And and also it helped me st co-ound this charitable foundation called Global Dental Relief. You know, we still work in half a dozen different countries and we've served at this point hundreds of thousands of kids.

And so I I really um enjoy that aspect. But one of the one of the ways I roll here, Cal, um, in geeks speak is I'm very much an integralist at heart, you know, integral theory. No one has a patent on truth kind of guy. And so I really like that particular framework that um, just has a table big enough for all these different ways of looking at reality and looking at self. And so inside and outside, east, west, north, south, nobody has a patent on truth. you know, wherever you wherever I find it, um, I'll take it. So whether it's the medical arts, the scientific disciplines, the spiritual paths, the psychological arenas, without trying to be a dilotant, I find myself just insatiably curious about all these different knowledge and wisdom streams and what they have to offer me and then eventually the world.

And that's why I really have a lot of allegiance towards the integral framework because it has so much explanatory power. It provides a container, a space where you can welcome just so many different trajectories onto your path. And that really speaks to me because like we were talking about earlier, one of my biggest concerns are my blind spots. You know, what is it that I'm not seeing? And so even though yes, I I'm I'm a Tibetan Buddhist, as I play largely for tax purposes, right? I drink that Kool-Aid, there's some shadow sides. Every tradition has its blind spots and I am just um super interested in teachers, teaching situations, people that will point out to me where I'm stuck and what I'm not seeing. Um and so that's just infrastructure part of the way I roll in this world. Trying to maintain an open open mind but always within within limits.

Um, you know, there has to be some either credibility or some some historical context for it, otherwise it gets a little suspicious to me. Yeah. Uh, and did did you like what was your introduction to to Tibetan Buddhism? Was it your your kind of with this charity traveling or had you already Well, let me backpedal just a little bit. Uh yeah, the Tibetan thing I can speak about a little bit more targeted in a second. But what got me into this whole kind of meditative spiritual business was I was a stressed out undergraduate at Indiana University doing a double degree in in music, classical piano in biological sciences. And uh I started having symptoms um that eventually were diagnosed as hypertension, high blood pressure. And so I was 20 years old. old.

I went to the local um health center and they diagnosed me and they said, "Well, medications and alter diet." And I said, "Well, I'm going to alter my diet, but I'm not going to take these meds. I'm 20 years old." So, as it happens, this is way back to starting to get back there. I I remember reading a paper about some of the collateral benefits of TM, transcendental meditation, that it had some preliminary data had come out showing that it had capacity to work with things like hypertension. there was a guy on on campus who was doing a presentation. So, I went to it. I liked his demeanor. I liked his style. I said, "Oh, I'm going to try that." So, went to my first TM session. I don't know if you've done it. I have. You know, the fruit and the whole thing and going, "Oh, here's I'm a good little Catholic boy burning incense and offering fruit to a shrine." But, okay, I'm going to do it.

And you know how it works, right? So, they they they recite your mantra. um you started out loud and then it starts this little dimmenuendo day crescendo thing and it was beginner's luck but I fell into a samadei state absorption state I mean for the first time in my life as a 20-year-old I experienced the dimension of consciousness completely devoid of thought utter neurotic sessation it was just mind-blowing experience I mean within that timeless bit of time because there was no time there was no space I was kind of gone My life changed on the spot because here I was coming in in this particular way of looking at mind and world and all of a sudden within 20 minutes I had an experience that just changed everything. And so that was the start of the whole thing that that 20 minutes just changed my life.

Um and so then began a somewhat difficult journey kind of dark ended up in a dark night of a soul type of experience where it was like I don't know what that was but I want more of it. M and so then began this search cuz TM was great. I still have tremendous respect for the TM thing. But back then it there wasn't much of a path quality. I was like, you know, what do I do with this amazing experience? So I started looking and then somewhat by process of elimination um as I'm prone to do, I started reading voraciously everything I could about world wisdom traditions. And back then there wasn't that much. Mhm. And one day, um, I think it might have been Houston Smith's classic book, The Religions of Man, um, I came across the Buddhist chapter, and I just found myself nodding my head a lot, going, "Geez, maybe I'm a Buddhist." So, I started exploring that even deeper.

That brought me from Michigan, um, where I was living at that time, to Boulder, Colorado. Um, the radical iconoclastic, um, sage Trunk Parimpiche was there at the time. his whole crazy scene. He was a Tibetan master. So I slowly aligned myself with with that whole school, that crazy lineage. And I haven't looked back. It's just been a a magnificent journey. But like I was suggesting earlier, even though that is arguably my infrastructure spiritual practice, um there's the world is so much bigger. There's so many other strands of knowledge. And so I have such tremendous ongoing deep appreciation for that tradition, but there's so much else. There's so many other approaches. And so you do explore some of these other spiritual I do without without trying to be a dilotant because that's that's the other thing.

And especially now since I've been writing books and and teaching a little bit, I I actually find it somewhat incumbent upon me to to just become as familiar as I can with as many knowledge and wisdom traditions as I can so I can just relate to people. So I'm a really deep student of of Hinduism especially nandu shiva tantra adabanta um I've studied sufism dowoism um esoteric Christianity the gnostic traditions indigenous ways um in the west you know some of the great teachings that are available there in the Greece the last couple years I've been blown away by the non-dual wisdom traditions in our own backyard the pistocratics permenities and pedicles and then the neo neoplatonists.

Not to um speak too much about um the philosophical end of it, but these non-dual teachers in the west really opened my mind to how much wisdom we we have within our own intellectual um history which is fundamentally from the Greeks.

So this has been a really big eye openener for me especially um a guy by the name of I amlicus pionistus from the neoplatin tradition because they speak a language and a vocabulary that is really resonant with my upbringing as a westerner and so like I mentioned at the outset east west north south if there's truth to be gained somewhere you know I'll check it out well you know one of the things I found challenging for myself is I I can I can read these these different spiritual traditions and there's a resonance and then it's like now what do I I feel like stuck in still my own kind of [expletive] and and so like how you know and I know you have deep practice in being in the darkness in meditation um you're you know ushering people onto the the next uh phase of reality or however we would describe it but H how do we take these teachings that we may read and be like ah that that's I love that that feels resonant to me but we have so much wrapped up in the ego and what we have been led to believe this reality is about.

So what is the unpacking of that? Yeah that's such a great question. Um because on one level do we really need more information? You know this is really interesting in this information age gi which is uh the kalyuga the dark age we're we're in it and one one I see one of the indicators um characteristics of the dark age is we confuse information for experience um we eat the menu instead of the meal you know the map is not the territory whatever metaphor you want to use and this is really important because what are we doing when we're scrolling and we're trying to get especially the AI it's just even more information and it's faster and the addition of the next um tools. So for me a couple of things. One is we do this two ways and and this is one reason I'm I'm really interested principally in traditions that have a practice associated with them a practice.

So this is a really big deal for me. So a brief comment about the the genius of the indic approach. They have a pedagogical approach. It's called the three wisdom tools or in Sanskrit progynos. This to me is the kind of a dealmaker. hearing, contemplating, meditating. And so hearing is is kind of what we're doing here where when you're reading, you're just you're ingesting information. And so fantastic. It's just the first phase of this three-fold approach of um hearing, contemplating, meditating, ingest, digest, metabolize. And so what happens here that to me is critical is we take this information and then if you just leave it here, that's not going to change you. Do we ever change when it's just information? We change when we feel things.

We change when we massage, I like to say, cerebral data and into sematic fiber, when we bring it into our system and and literally incorporate it, turn it into a body. M so for me the traditions that really work for me because I'll read philosophy I'll read all these other things but the ones that I will really take to heart are the ones that allow me to then contemplate the teachings work with them massage them into the tissues of my being challenge them and then most importantly the final trans um transformative phase you ingest digest metabolize it's the meditations when it's when the teachings are fully digested metabolized and incorporated. And what I've discovered is that this three-fold approach that again the Hindus and Buddhists were on it. It acts as a kind of filtration and purification system. And by that what I mean when you're still up here, it's conceptual.

It's dualistic. And hey, we need it. We need to function in the world that way. But you know, we often feel that something's missing in the world. Well, part of what's missing is a fullblown incorporation of these teachings. And so when you start to go down, work it into your system, waking down, there's all this nomenclature about waking up. Yeah. I love waking down to the wisdom of the body. And so as you go through this this approach of hearing, contemplating, and meditating, it's why I did my three-year retreat. It's why I do my dark retreats. I'm actually filtering away dualistic concept until I actually can walk the talk. Because you're never going to walk the talk until you get it into your body. Mhm. And then this is totally in line with the unlearn process. Your body already knows this. This is this journey is a journey of recollection. As Plato put it, anomnesis.

This is a journey of remembrance. Literally remembering. And so as you're working your way down into the wisdom of the body, you're filtering away all this these advantitious defilements, these this the dust of just traditional knowledge and information. And now you're getting to the real truth, which is when you have it's is in your body when you have these aha moments. This is when something clicks within you that says there's some truth here. And then this also for me it's like the Buddha allegedly said, you know, do not take what I say for granted. Test my teachings against your own experience. Work out your own salvation with diligence. This is how you do it. This is why the non-dual wisdom traditions are they're not dogmatic. They're indicators. They're pointers where if this makes sense to you, follow my advice, follow these teachings.

Test the teachings against your own experience. See how it works for you. This is why this resonates with my empirical background, my so-called scientific background because now I can test this against my life experience. It's no longer just a doctrine. It's no longer just dogma. Now it's lived. And then for me that's the whole point, you know, then then my life fundamentally becomes a meditation, right? Yeah. Everything I I can enter a lifetime retreat within the context of my daily life through this approach. Well, I love that and that you know I was speaking earlier before we got on about my time. I've done a I've done a couple of these fiveday silent retreats with Ajashante. He's awesome. And one of the Yeah. One of the greatest things he said that I've I've I've carried with me and and and really tried to have it be a major thread in the podcast is don't take my word for it.

Have your own experience. and and his whole thing was, you know, I try never to speak on anything that I don't have direct experience on. High five, right? Big hug to AA. That's just so spot on. You know, just fingers, indicators pointing the mind and the heart in the right direction. And then inward bound, you know, there's all this stuff about outward boundary school, but then inwardbound, you know, find your own way, make your mistakes, learn from your mistakes.

You know my my teacher Kempo Ribbuchce once said beautifully you know erring and airing I walk the unairring path right mistake after mistake but I'm learning I'm learning I'm learning and like we were talking about before we went on to me one of the biggest traps in this day and age is is the wisdom um I shouldn't say the wisdom the danger of certainty the danger of of conclusion conclusion is usually just based on exclusion M and and so to me it's exactly what you're saying is is looking within making the journey discovering literally discovering uncovering on your own terms and then that's when the conviction is born from your own direct experience and then like AA you can speak from that space because then you're speaking your truth right and your truth most likely is different from mine at least in some nuanced ways and just to allow for that when we start to recognize our own truths.

And again, this this this whole notion like when I when I think about the school system, you know, one of the most frustrating things is it runs completely counter to this idea of your own experience. you're memorizing someone else's alleged experience with something. And I mean, without going, you know, down a rabbit hole about, you know, our our quote unquote education system, um, it it just it just hasn't made sense as I've woken up to these things. Like, what are we even what are these kids even doing?

Yeah, it's it's so it's such a critical point. um you know when I when I did my three-year retreat um what inspired that by the way you know I exactly what we're talking about I had studied really intensively for several decades with a with a number of teachers and had just finished um a 12year quite intensive curriculum with my main teacher at that time Kempo Sultram Yamso Remache he was an amazing legendary teacher and it was like my cup was was really pretty darn full. I had just consumed over 12 years this amazing corpus of of information and knowledge. And then just like I said a few minutes ago, I realized I need to get this into my system. Mh. And so I realized it was one of the most painful things I've ever done. It was it was a death. I lost my marriage. I lost my job. I lost my house. I mean, it was like a death. I lost everything.

Um but at the same time it was one of not one of it was the most impactful experience of my life. Um and what I want to share at the outset here that I think is relevant is the first I will never forget the first three months were an effing blast furnace. I mean it was tough. So here I am. I'm walled off I robes shaved head the whole thing. Um walled off in this monastery in in Nova Scotia on the cliff of St. Lawrence, the Gulf of St. Lawrence. I'm in a sequestered compound with five men and five women. It's a a group retreat by design. I'm in a room the size of a closet. And then I'm in a meditation box, which people love this one because they always get um imagination runs wild on that, which is like a 4x4 box that I I playfully came to call ego's coffin.

So, so I literally, no kidding, I literally spent like 16 hours a day in this box, which is basically like three sides framed and then open side, you know, so it's not like you're literally in a box. Yeah. And so I had my little practice stuff there and I was doing these incredible meditations. Threeear retreat is not just one meditation. I probably did 60 different practices over these three years. But what's really relevant here, Cal, is the first three months were intensely difficult. And I I would walk to the shores of the cliff um and wonder like why is this so hard? Because at that point I was mostly just entering and just sitting like doing nothing. Mhm. Why is it so hard to do nothing? Well, then I realized in in my experiences in Darker Street really pointed this out. It's like oh my gosh, I'm not a human being. I'm a human doing. I'm always just doing doing doing.

And then I realize the other thing that's happening here is I'm going through a detox. I'm actually feeling the pain of withdrawal from my addiction to movement, my addiction to sensory stimulation, and also my addiction to information. And so because all of that was taken away from me, it was like I literally I don't think it's a a metaphor, literally going through a type of detox. It was really rough. But because I had the guidance, I had teachers there that could help me, um, I kind of hung through it. And as I was able to to clean through and drop through those dimensions of being, it it fundamentally just transformed the way I related to everything. And then from there I could realize exactly what you're talking about that whether we know it or not, we're so deeply inculturated.

We're so deeply trained and ensconced in world views that are not of our own that are not in resonance with reality. And one last thing and then I'll pause. This is a big deal. I learned this from Bruce Lipton and some other researchers. Um in the first year of life, so this is really pretty cool. So roughly years ages 0 to two, we're more or less in delta wavelength, which is the wavelength that we associate with deep sleep. Everything, you know, human growth hormones being released. Um, this is why babies and and young infants are always sleeping because they're mostly in delta. So roughly, more or less from 2 to 7. And this is where it gets really interesting. We're mostly in theta. So that's the next wavelength up. Delta 0 to 4. Um theta is 4 to 8. Check this out. In theta, this is the wavelength that hypnotists will take you down into to deliver their post-hypnotic suggestions.

So think about this. It's not a metaphor. Literally, we're hypnotized up until A7 formal operational thinking roughly PJ. We're basically being hypnotized to see the world in the way that we think it is. It's not the way it is. It's the way we've been trained to see it. Wow. This mass consensual hallucination. And so then because these are stem cell periods of our lives, these fundamental germinative stages then have profound repercussions for the entirety of our lives. And then we therefore then spend our lives to greater or lesser degrees influenced by what was installed in this profoundly germinated phase. And so at a certain point when you start to question the worldview we've been hypnotized in you realize it ain't working. This is the this is the essence of the meta crisis today. It is not working. Yeah. So then the midlife crisis comes about.

We start to challenge it because it's not in resonance with reality. Through a psychedelic experience, something will change. Through a meditative experience with me, something will change. Through impermanence and death, something will change and shake your snow globe. And then perhaps then you start to question. Questions are more important than answers. Then you start to say, is this the only way? Is this really what's going on? And then begins the process of unlearning. Right? Then begins the process of detoxification. And again Plato had this his teachings on um animis the journey of the path is one of recollection remembrance. Deepak chop nailed it. He said all this effort to learn when all we really need to do is remember. Yeah.

And so relearning or I should say unlearning, retracting, detoxifying whatever metaphor you want to learn is in fact about recapturing these primordial states of purity that have been so covered and obscured by all our education. Right. Yeah. Well, what what who and maybe happens in a few different tribes, but isn't there a a group that there's they select infants until the age of 13? They stay in a cave. Darkness Yeah. The Colombian indigenous populations. Yeah. So, this brings in the practice of dark medicine, dark retreat. Super powerful stuff. Yeah. they'll be they'll be in um greater or lesser degrees of intense sensor deprivation sometimes up to 21 years. And so these again like you said select group um they're fundamentally being trained to be shamans and medicine men that have the capacity to then dance between these two worlds. It's not for everybody. Yeah.

I mean you look at it from a modern lens and like this is just child abuse, right? Well, where is the real abuse here my friend? I mean, is the real child abuse what we're doing in this like polluted distracted information age, is that a form of child abuse or um what's going on with these wisdom traditions when they when they bring it? And so you'll see an analog to this in the what's called the tuku tradition of the Tibetans where an alleged reincarned reincarnated master will be um identified early on brought into the confines of a a monastic situation and sequestered relatively early and there's always I wouldn't say a sense of desperation but there's always a sense of urgency. Let's try to find this individual as quickly as we can bring them into the system. Why? Mhm. to exactly prevent this level of of in inculcation, indoctrination, and therefore it lessens the detox.

So we we might want to learn from these wisdom traditions. Where's the real child abuse today? Yeah. Yeah. I think it would be hard to convince society. Yeah. I don't think the education boards would would be uh it is fascinating though and and you know I've certainly never spoken to to any of these um people who have been through that practice but I can only imagine their their ability to walk in both worlds and I I like just when they really first come into this reality for the first time like what do they actually see? Yeah. Well, they don't see the world the way we do. No. Um, in my my experience, let me just say a tiny bit about what happens to me when I come out of really extended um dark retreats. So, this is one of my biggest practices.

I've been doing it for many, many years now, several decades, but I'm only now starting to write and teach and talk about it and and so you'll see how this connects because not only is the experience within the darkness incredibly profound, it's it's the most radical um unlearning detox thing I've ever done. But in reference to your question, Kell, one of the most fascinating aspects is is when I come out, um I first of all, it takes several days. Um the sensory insult is so intense. I don't re I never realize how contracted I am in my life until I actually open to such a degree when I'm in extended darkness. When what's extended look like? How many? Well, like this I this year I was in for a month. So you're in there and everything dilates. It's a fantastic metaphor. It's not just your eyes that dilate in the dark.

But when you're in for extended periods, your mind dilates, your body dilates, your heart dilates, everything opens, opens, opens, the armor falls away, everything drops away, all the contractions melt away. And when I come out, it is unbelievably fascinating every single time. Excuse me. where I literally it takes me a couple days. I don't see the world the same way then when I came in. This is not a metaphor. This is literal. I open my eyes. I usually come out at night and it's like, you know, I'm not trying to figureate at all like I used to do. Like when I first came out, there was a little sense of panic. Yeah. It was like, have I done some iruparable damage here? Oh, wow. because my world has been so unlearned, unmade, deconstructed that I have to literally kind of stitch it back together again.

This is a profoundly revoly experience because you in fact see how in fact our worlds are constructed moment to moment. This whole thing is made up. Space, time, causality, the very sense of self, all the things we take as givens, axiomatic, they're myths of a given. They're they're constructs. they're made up and we continue to make them up. And so in the dark or extended meditation, so I don't want to say it's only darkness that does this. Um extended really deep inner work will do this. Sometimes psychedelics will do this. If you've ever come out of like a ketamine journey or 5 mm journey, that type of thing when your world reconstillates is indicative of this. But instead of a maybe a 20 minute reconstellation period, you get to witness this over days. Wow. And you start to see how it is that in fact you put this world together.

So to come back to your original question, they don't see the world the way we do. They see it. Is it the real authentic way? That's an open question for me, right? That we even have the capacity and this goes back to K and Schopenhau. Do we actually even have the capacity to see the world the way it actually is? There's some um really interesting um scientists today saying that that's actually impossible. If you were to see the world the way it is, you would dissolve, as they put it, into an entropic soup. Okay? You literally don't have the capacity to do that. But the bottom line is you actually, this is the great gift. You start to see first person how it is that you make everything up. It's a storyline. It's a construct. And when you go in to do deep inner work, meditation, dark retreat, psychedelics, things come apart. You get to watch it all come back together.

But I can say with some certainty that these great beings, they certainly see the world in a much more open way. If there's a fundamental narrative to me these days, Carol, it's it's this what I call combustion cycle of contraction and expansion. And so when someone comes into the world or someone is more open in that regard, there's they they naturally see the world first of all, they don't see it dualistically, that's for sure. They see they perceive the world in a completely non-dual way. And a consequence of that is is is um a world that's registered with love and kindness and compassion and connectivity. You know, they see this world in the sacred way. And then of course through conditioning or inculturations or whatever, then they start to contract. The world starts to come apart at the conventional world starts to come together, I should say.

And then eventually you constillate this thing called conventional reality. Yeah. So what is that like uh almost the cadence of you know um what calls you back into the darkness? When do you know it's like okay now it's time and and then the part two of that is as you come out of it and over the next couple of days things start to get reconstituted like how is it different than when you went in? Does does it like h how do you like you know I can imagine my mind like wanting to hold on to that thing which I know is not the way but that feeling it's got to be super disorienting because I've had those experiences on psychedelics where it's like that was amazing. I've seen a whole different reality, a different frequency, whatever you want to call it. It's allowed me to let go of the fear of death. Totally. Because there is something much like that's where it's like the surrender.

It's like what what am I to do in this thing? Like how silly of me to think that I have really I mean I'm free will sure but like I have any control over this like what happens when like all of that like oh and so that having that like leaving with that sense like I can still carry that but like how do I not get sucked back into the everyday life structure? Yeah, boy. These are such spoton questions. Thank you for getting right down to it. So yeah, so much to say. So to go to your first question, what calls me into the dark is this ineffable invitation for depth and and um darkness is so one thing you can't create actually you can create light you can create everything else you can't create darkness darkness is the elemental reduction base you'll see this um I mean we don't know for sure but arguably the big bang hang arose out of a matrix of primordial darkness.

We don't know, but there seems to be that instance in the book of Genesis, right? Then there was light. In many of the world's great mythologies, darkness is is elemental and primordial. Look into the nature of your own mind. Right now, out of the background, darkness of your mind arises a luminous display of your mind. So it's not too much of a stretch to really argue that if there is a reduction base, it is this elemental primordial darkness. There's there's some for me calling to this element that it's simultaneously incredibly alluring and also terrifying. Yeah. Because there's this bipolar relationship to the truth that it represents this kind of metaphysical mirror that on one level to me it represents truth, isn't it? Suchness. This is my languaging. Darkness is the color of non-duality.

But at the same time, I think my egoic structure, you know, the the lower devolutionary end of my being realizes we ain't going there, right? Right. Like no effing way. Right. So when I have to this is like a total hoop in the rare event that it comes out and and I because I try to be somewhat quiet about this because this thing is so bizarre. Like you know you're you're going to do what? Right. Yeah. Like there is no effing way, right? And so let me just share this. This is actually pretty funny. What I've discovered, just like with death, because the only thing we project more into than darkness is death, which is why we're so wildly adversely affected by both. And so what I've discovered, Carol, is dark retreat acts as a type of roarshock meditation. You know, the roar shock block.

Yeah. even before you go into it, it starts to teach you because for instance, if you are adversely um affected by it, why is that? If you're afraid of it, why is that? If there's like no effing way, why is that? Darkness is fundamentally neutral. It doesn't do anything. It just creates a contrast medium or like a metaphysical mirror that simply allows you to see yourself in the most intense possible way because you can't get away from yourself. Like wherever you go, there you are. There's no way to escape. That's what makes it so incredibly transformative and also really intense because you you can't run. You can't hide. M and you start to see like I did in the slightly softer version in my in my three-year retreat my insatiable lust for distraction. I mean we the dark age is a distracted age. And I'm a Gemini. This is what I learned from my my our mutual friend Deborah.

Geminis love to play with words. The ethmology of the word distract is really compelling. It literally means to pull apart. distract. And so what distraction does either moment to moment or deeper levels, you know, like reality altogether, it pulls us apart from the nature of mind and reality. And so when you're in the dark, you can no longer distract in the conventional ways. There's no phone. There's no other weapon weapon of mass distraction. The only thing you can do is relate to the contents of your mind and heart. This is why in the Buddhist tradition where it's actually a a so-called sanctioned practice in in the over history, it's called a forceful method of liberation because it's uncompromising and non-negotiable. So that's that's the first part of the question. I I go in there because I know there's something deep here. Yeah.

You know, much like people feel called the plant medicine. They're like, I I'm [expletive] terrified on some level, but excited because I know in that and on the other side of that is something for me. I don't know what it is that's different every time. Right. High five, bro. That's exactly right. And the parallels between a psychedelic journey and the dark medicine are insane. In fact, we're doing some studies now. I'm working with a number of researchers. We got funding. So we actually doing some studies with dark practice. A number of the researchers that we're working with also do psychedelic research and every single one of them says I cannot believe the parallels between dark medicine and plant medicine that that on one level it really is a type of sober psychedelic.

Um and I can say more about this later if you want to go down that the psych psycholytic psych psychedelic aspect but but one thing and then if I can remember your second question psychedelic again word origins literally means mind manifesting that's what the word means and so where does the mind manifest more intensely when mind becomes reality like in the dark so talk about a psychedelic experience and if you go in there long enough it does actually become psychedelic when endogenous DMT is released and all this really cool trippy stuff comes out. But prior to that, there are some also incredibly psycholytic things that take place. So, but the first part because there's only directions we can go here. The first part is I go to it um because it's just to me like a calling to come home for ultimate rest, for ultimate restoration. It's like it's really interesting.

We use colloquialisms like at the end of the day to what? Indicate the bottom line. What's really important? What really counts, right? Mhm. What happens at the end of the day, Kell? It gets dark. What really what at the end of the day, where do you go? You return to this fundamental matrix of who we really are. And so from that space, then the idea isn't just hang out there forever. No, the the idea is to go there to restore, to reconnect, to unlearn, to remember, to find out who we to discover who we really are. And then you come back up to the light. You come back up to embody your life and your thoughts and everything else. Otherwise, you fall into a spiritual bypass and escape. Ah, I'm just going to go to the dark to fall asleep. No, you're going to the dark to wake up.

Then you take the insights, you extend up the outside, then you extend the great the dark medicine and you bring it out into the world. So that remind me what your second like when when you come out of that h how do you just like what's the integration look like so that you're not back to square one immediately, right? Fantastic. Fantastic. So that's the key. So just like with psychedelics, set and setting, preparation, experience, and then integration are everything because otherwise what happens is you just and this is a real issue in my opinion, Cal, with with psychedelics is you just become a state junkie. Yeah. You're basically craving particular states of mind. And so that's a real near enemy. The issue is transforming states into traits. Right. Right. That's the whole point. And how did Houston Smith put it so beautifully? I love this line.

The po the process of the path is to transform flashes of illumination into abiding light. It's beautiful. How do you keep that light on? Well, you do it a number of ways. Um, you come out and the first thing you do is you realize, those are some tips that people want to explore. you realize you're in an incredibly highly neuroplastic state for sure. Just like in psychedelics or any deep inner work, the data is out on this, not with dark retry yet, but there's no doubt the neuroplasticity. You're more open, you're more fluid, literally. And so, you're in a highly neuroplastic state, which means you're really tender. You're really open. So, you create some safeguards when you're coming out. For me, it's intentionality and it's discipline. I'm going to hold this experience. Um I'm going to really watch first of all um the the negative forces of the dark side.

I know the the words the forces of my habit coming back in karma whatever term you want to use. These forces are formidable and you really feel them when you come out of retreat. You really feel them after a psychedelic trip. You'll see how the forces of our inculturation, our habits, our families. It's a classic recidivism. It's just gone. So there has to be some resolve to to hold your seat to maintain it and to really be aware. And the way I work with this most importantly to bring it back into our bodies, Kel, is I notice um the layers of contraction. So these are the armor. This is the armoring that comes back on. Contraction, contraction after contraction. And so when I'm so open in any form of of deep practice or in particular darkness again I get I get incredibly open just entering this completely expansive space and then when I come out I I feel it somatically.

I can feel it in my body. I the light comes on. I feel a contraction. I feel a contraction. So I sensitize myself to these contractions and then I use them in a kind of an alchemical way. It's like whenever I feel that contraction, I'm going to pause for a second. I'm going to relate to that contraction as such because on one level, we need our contractions to operate in the conventional world and then in an alchemical/tric way, I'll transform obstacle and into opportunity. I use the very contraction that if I capitulate it to it just hurls me back into samsara and inconventional confusion. I'll use that actually as an invitation to open. So now every time I feel the contraction, whether it's irritability, I mean, you don't have to go too far to feel contraction, bro. Right. I bet. I bet. Yes. It's like everywhere. So I feel the contraction. Okay. Pause. And I usually feel it in my gut.

I feel in my chest. Slow down. Open. And then I do exactly what I just did. I micro dose. Yeah. I close my eyes. Yeah. So unlike psychedelics, you can micro dose this dark medicine in the blink of an eye. Literally. Wow. And so often like I lose it. I get speedy. I get excited like I am now, you know, because I want to share everything I know in a short period of time. Yeah. I start to feel the contraction. So I close my eyes. I feel I micro dose. Reconnect. There it is. There's that space. And then I try to put work from that space. So those are two ways. The other way that we can go into this direction if you like um the nocturnal meditations. I've written three books on these practices. There's five of them. Dark retreat is a form of nocturnal meditation. So every single night, you know, when I engage in in sleep and dream, I work with this as well.

It's a miniature type of dark retreat. So there's other ways. What's that look like? I'm sorry. What does that look like? What do you mean? Like a at night? Yeah. So So this is my languaging. Um, I I have kind of mapped out there they're the some of these these practices are traditional. Um, I've just put them into a particular schema that that works for me. Um, and and they're the there are five of these practices and they're really cool to know. So, in order and then I can say anything you want about any of them. Um, the first of the five is what's called liinal dreaming. And so, liinal liinal experiences are super cool. So when you're going to sleep tonight, liinal experience is basically what happens when your head hits the pillow. From the time your head hits the pillow to the time you clock out, you're in a liinal space. Limmonality literally means threshold.

Neither here, neither there, neither awake, neither asleep. Kind of this plasma dimension of mind, which is really cool by the way if you if you watch it because you can watch literally in that liinal phase. You can watch the narrative structure of the self sense which isn't itself. It's just a storyline. You can see that narrative construct come undone. If it didn't, that's insomnia. That speeding narrative loop is what creates the self sense. That's what the self sense is. So every single night you are you are deconstructing the selfense. If you didn't, you wouldn't fall asleep. It's one of the seven forms of insomnia. So liinal dreaming is awesomely cool. Mh. So I work with that. You know, I'm sitting there, I'm going to sleep. You know, instead of mindlessly crashing out, I close my eyes. I'm connecting to this lial space. And then briefly, the next step is is lucid dreaming.

You probably heard of this. You're in a dream state. Something clues you into the fact that you're dreaming. You attain consciousness. That's a super cool state. Um, so you can explore lucid dreaming. The this next practice after that is called dream yoga, which transcends but includes lucid dreaming. That's when you use lucidity for the purposes of deep spiritual practice. And then the last two are a little bit more graduate school. I usually play with these mostly in dark practice because they're a little bit more um advanced and intense. The fourth one is connected to yoga nidra. This is what's called sleep yoga, which believe it or not, as mindbending as it is, maintaining um full awareness in the deep dreamless space. You're fully conscious in deep um non REM sleep. this is a really game-changing type of experience.

It's pretty subtle, which is why most people just kind of um don't do it, but just to know the potential is even there. It's like, are you kidding me? Um and then the last one is Bardu yoga, which is what where the dark practices come in, which is when you use either the darkness of the night or literally dark retreat to prepare for the ultimate dark retreat, which is death. But let me say one last thing and then I'll pause because this is for listeners. This is something you can start to explore. This is really cool. So when you go to sleep tonight, the imitation, this is a little again putting my money where my mouth is so I'm just not flapping my lips for two hours. Like what can we do with some of this [expletive] Yeah. Well, here's one thing as a type of investigation, contemplation, and then meditation that if you even get a glimpse of this, this will change your world.

We have this unquestioned assumption, right? without even thinking about it. You know, we wake up in the morning, we look back, I slept great, I had a great dream, I fell asleep, I woke up. I mean, we all we all just I said all that [expletive] this morning to my wife. Yeah. Right. Well, here's the inquiry. Appearance is not in harmony with reality. There's no you that fell asleep. There is no you that had a dream. There is no you that woke up. The only thing that ever actually happens is this undifferiated natural flow of now do awareness. So I'm going to the very deep end of the pool here to situate something that you can start to look at every night. Don't take my word for it. Check it out for yourself. The only thing there ever is is this non-dual undifferiated infinite field of subjectivity. Whatever term you want to append to the ineffable absolute, that's all there is.

What creates the illusion that Cal fell asleep, that Cal had a dream, that Cal woke up. The only thing that is are various degrees of contraction against that infinite openness. And you start to see this, this is gamechanging. So I noticed this in the dark, right? I'm sitting there, I developed this kind, it's called Turya in the Hindu tradition. this this this witness awareness where I'm actually able to sit back in the theater of my own mind and watch these degrees of of contraction and expansion. And so I'm awake. I'm like I am in the most mofo contracted space. Y this is the space that we think we're actually the most awake in. Yet we're actually the most asleep. You fall. Okay. So one more one more thing. So you're in the space.

It is only in this dimension that we think to be the only state there is that space, time, causality, the laws of physics and science, they all apply only at this state. Start to relax, open things come apart. That's the liinal space. And then the dream space, space comes apart a little bit. Time comes apart a little bit. Causality comes apart a little bit because they're deconstructing. This is why all this miraculous [expletive] happens in our dreams. Mhm. There's no You can fly, you can walk through walls, you can do all these things you can't do in the physical world because you've unlearned space-time self-causality. And you see this firsthand. It's all made up. You know, this is a halfway house. So that's lucid dreaming, dream yoga. And you continue to open ah deep nondual restorative non-rem sleep. Now you're entering. What did Ramen Maharashi say? This so beautiful.

That which does not exist in deep dreamless sleep is not real. That's a mind bender. Now you're in the domain of reality. And you can see this in the countenance of someone who's asleep. Look at your lover. Look at your wife. When they're in this space, it's like you're looking into the face of God, isn't it? The countenance. They're so open. They're so relaxed. They're almost beatotific because they're actually they're bathing in this matrix of non-dual reality. They're in the most open space. And this is where all the healing comes from, the restoration. You don't enter this space, you're going to die. And the less amount of time you spend in that space, the shorter you live. So you enter that space, there you are. It's so gray, right?

And then for reasons that we can talk about, then things start to contract again. and come back up into the dream back out to lial space contracting contracting wake up into the morning go a [expletive] I slept great no you didn't there is no you that made this journey there just isn't there is no individual person self that falls asleep wakes up and dreams it's constructed and deconstructed every night and actually I don't know if you want to go even further it's happening right now this is actually happening at lightning speeds as we're sitting here. But you know, the reason I do these extended really deep dives is I can't see I can't see this in the day. My life's too busy. There's too much distraction. I'm so contracted I can't see it. So it's only when I go into these specially contained environments. Psychedelics can do this is a kind of a quick fix.

It's only then when I have the contrast medium of darkness and stillness and stasis silence that I finally can see and most importantly I can feel I can feel all this stuff happen and so then the invitation is here's the integration thing integrate this every morning not just every retreat that's why I start every morning with meditation and I continue to check in to hold the magic of that space even from last night so Every night, whether you know it or not, you're entering a form of miniature dark retreat. And so, if you understand these processes, then you can engage a level of of path and practice with all three states. So, something like that. And I I love it because this is something you can do. Don't take my word for it. Test it. Look, feel. You will never fall asleep the same way again. You will look at your sleep and dream in a totally different way.

And then you wake up and look at this thing right now and and say, "Hey, wait a second. WTF is going on here, right?" Anyway, it's pretty cool. I'm excited to explore that. Yeah, it I I'd love to explore deeper this idea of when we're asleep, we're actually awake, and when we're awake, we're actually asleep. Yeah. Yeah. We've got it all bass backwards. Mhm. We yeah we do you I mean so there's so much to say here my friend so um yeah what how do the put it right there is um only that day dawns to which we are awake there is more day to dawn so we want to bring these previously um um we almost reject I wouldn't say reject are dismissed dimensions of our experience, sleeping and dreaming, which in our this is really interesting. So, check this out. So, according to some scholars, there's about 4,000 world cultures, Charles Lawson's research.

Um, and of these 4,000 world cultures, 90% of them are what are called polyphasic cultures. Polyphasic cultures are cultures indigenous and otherwise that that pay allegiance to alternate states of consciousness and have a deeper more sensitive relationship to the full spectrum of their being our being in particular the dimensions that unfold and sleep and dream. 10% no surprise euroentric cultures that we are these are monophasic cultures that really um hubistically just assume the only way to know mind and reality is through the waking state right there this is talk about blind spots we talked about blind spots earlier talk about blind spots this is the blind spot of wake centricity which is which is a way of of viewing that we don't even know we subscribe to this particular view that's how archetypal this blind spot is we're all subscript subscribers to the wake centric view.

And the reason we're for we're for this or we subscribe to this Cal is because it's it's a developmental issue because subsumed under wake centricity is a light centricity. We're we're addicted to light. Um the egoic centricity. Um these are all dimensions. Wake centricity, sight centricity, that's the other one. We're a highly sightcentric dominant culture. Everything's all about appearance. Yeah. And onethird of brain processing power is devoted to processing visual data. So we are actually living at the most superficial dimension of our experience trapped in the most dualistic sense hung up on the way we look and the way we appear and the way in our fashion and our models and our homes. All of which by the way disappears in dark retreat. Appearance doesn't matter in dark retreat. As I playfully say, you can't have a bad hair day in the dark.

It doesn't matter if you're fat or sick or or it doesn't matter in the darkness. It democratizes everything. The only thing that appears when all external appearances are taken away is the only thing that you really have that really matters is the internal dimensions of your being, your heart and your mind. M and so what what we discover in deep meditation and in the dark is exactly our addiction to this most limited dimension of our experience the wake ccentric state how it dominates and then categorically dismisses other states it can't fully experience this is the developmental aspect of it because ego is only fully online and operational in the waking state and therefore what does it do it's a type of imperial ism, colonialism where it dismisses dimensions of experience it can't fully experience. Oh yeah.

That's why we say, "Oh honey, it's just a dream." That's a dismissive pjorative statement, right? Or deep dreamless sleep. I mean, who needs who needs to do that? It's just a waste, right? Get back, be productive, right? Well, this particular world view of wake centricity based on egocentric principles, it's killing this planet. I mean it's basically part of the essence of of uh the meta crisis that we're dealing with here. So understand just first of all understanding this view um what darkness and inner work does psychedelics will also point this out. It can help us democratize consciousness. It can help us kind of equilibrate and realize the full spectrum of our being that it's not merely what we experience in the waking state. Now that's not to categorically dismiss what's happening here. Of course not.

It's just not to be mutually and exclusively identified with exteriority with body with form and the outer world. How about the inner world? How about the the the affective um sensual physical body? How about your emotional body? How about these levels of interiority? So all these levels of inner work, all the medicines we've been talking about basically are ways to diversify our portfolio, right? So we don't have all our accounts in a market that is 100% going to crash. You know your body is going to crash. The external world eventually for you is going to crash. Then what are you going to do? We talked about this earlier. When you die, where are you going to go? You know, we talked about graceful ungraceful exit. If you you're going to have an ungraceful exit if you rage rage against the dying of the light, Dylan Thomas, right? Don't rage.

Relax. transition into these inner dimensions. So, I'm I'm sucking all the air out of the room here, man. Oh, no. Hell no. No. Well, it's interesting because as you're explaining that, I just I I flash back to Las Vegas in that experience and like none of like the appearance, whether it was my hair, how I looked, the houses I had, like none of that [expletive] mattered. And that was the as I share with you the Oh, whoa. Okay. Yeah. And I've tried to articulate this before and it it never quite comes out right, but but there was a part of me in that moment that was sad. Not because I might die, but because this was not the life I was meant to live. I had that just that that deep understanding that what I had been chasing, what I had achieved, what I had overachieved had nothing to do with why I'm here or it has something to do.

Sure, it has an element, but that wasn't the game I'm I came here to play. Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. And so and so, yeah, your share there was just like, oh gosh, I I I I feel all that. And you know what's really awesome, my friend, is to have that experience in the archetype of externality in Vegas. Can you think of anything that pulls you out of yourself more than Vegas? All the artificial light, all the entertainment, it is super samsara. And this is why I go there as a kind of meditative social experiment. It's a type of reverse meditation. So I just wrote a book on reverse meditations. Dark retreat is one of them where I will voluntarily put myself in the most intense distracted environments and and Vegas is one of these, right? Hey, don't get me wrong, I love a show as as much as anybody else. The sphere. I mean, anything else I grew on it, right?

But I go there now and you're like, this is effing amazing. There's so much to do, right? There's no human place for human being there. You're just doing. It's 24/7. Lights are on 24/7. Everything is designed to distract pull you out. It is the archetypal place representation of samsara. I've never thought. And so to go there, my friend, when you're in this place that is designed to heighten, this is it's like heightened samsara. Then from that contrast, then when you have this type of insight, it's even stronger because all of a sudden you're retreating, retracting, pulling away from that and realizing what is it that really matters here. It's not what's happening in Vegas, man. Right? Sooner or later, the power is going to go off, right? Sooner or later, it's lights off. Sooner or later, you have to go back to the dark.

Darkness by the way just it's symbolic representative of depth interiority internality substance authenticity. So when I talk about darkness yes yes yes um dark retreat in itself is unbelievably powerful but it's not for everybody. I want to say this right at the outset. I'm writing two books on it. First one's um hands of my agent right now. Main reason I came out because I was it's kind of a secret practice. My teachers told me don't write and talk about this. then now is the time. I'm writing in stuff this stuff and doing the research um just as much to keep people out as to invite people in because if you go in with the wrong attitude, the darkness like psychedelics is big medicine. It it can hurt you. So I want to say that out from the from the outside. There's no silver bullet. Nothing will do it. Psychedelics alone won't do it in my opinion. Dr. Treat alone won't do it.

These are all incredible skillful means that can bring about certain levels of insight. But I want to say that before I forget that I'm not doing a categorical 100% endorsement of this practice. It's not for everybody. There are contraindications. But to come back to your story, absolutely you're in there in an environment super samsara designed. I mean, what is more distracting superficial and in um infatuation with appearance base than Vegas? Yeah. And so to have that contrast there was like whoa. Yeah. What really matters? Yeah. Are you familiar with a place called Dominhur in Italy? It's in northern Italy. No.

Tell me about super sacred um community with a it has uh something called the temples of humankind which is this structure temple that was built underground into the side of a mountain over the course of I think 16 or 17 years dating back to like the early 80s into whatever the kind of mid to late 90s This community built it in secret because they weren't going to get the permits to be able to do it. It is one of the most fascinating things you'll ever see consider like the eighth you've been there. Yeah. So I was there recently. Um so super like it's built on these lay lines like super energetic portal the whole thing. And the only reason I bring it up is one of my friends that was on the trip had got invited to go to Las Vegas with some like a a fun group of people to go to the sphere and do all that and he literally flew from there. Oh no. Oh wow. There's a jar. Exactly.

To Las Vegas. Talk you up how that how that was for him afterwards. Yeah. He was like gal. He goes, "It was so wild." And just to be in the contrast of it was like there was big medicine in that. Exactly. And he was able to like rather than judge himself for why didn't I just go home after this? He's like, "Oh, just to like play in that." Beautiful. I mean, this is this is um I use a term reverse meditation. Comes from the Buddhist tradition, but another term for this is called charal ground meditation. and channel grounds uh in India were historically the most revulsive possible environments like open graveyards with hyenas and ravens. I mean just think of the most repulsive environment possible.

And so the the interesting thing in the tantric traditions um al alchemy of the west is you go to these places that you would think would be anti-spiritual, antithetical to meditative whatevers. This is potentially one of the most pregnant places you can go for transformation. And so you go from the place in northern Italy, you go to Vegas as a charal ground meditation to see how you can work with holding your seat in that environment. So this is a so everybody who goes to Vegas next time, look at it as a type of channel ground reverse meditation. And notice when you get in there, notice when you're entering that space. Notice the levels of contraction. Notice the levels of speed. Notice the levels of everything that Vegas represents. And do so in a compassionate way. Not not judgmental. Just saying, "Wow, this is so effing interesting. Look how speedy I've just gotten.

Look how contracted I've just gotten." And so therefore the child grown practitioners would intentionally put themselves in experiences that were previously deemed anti-spiritual anti-meditative as actually a way to accelerate the meditation and spirituality. So therefore like we talked about a half hour ago there's nothing wrong with Vegas. Everything becomes your meditation. Everything becomes your path. You can use Vegas as a meditation. Now that also doesn't mean you go in there. I mean, sometimes I do it like clinically, you know, as a scientist to like, you know, observe it. No, it means you dance. For me, I dance between the two. Oh [expletive] I'm going to get a margarita. I'm going to go see a Michael Jackson, whatever. Yeah. And then, you know, I'm getting back, wow, that's interesting. And I I watch, I observe.

And therefore, you start you just start to see things um that perhaps you haven't seen before. So if you approach experiences like that in that regard, they can become an authentic practice, you know, for you to see things you haven't seen before. Yeah. actually brings to mind I was having this conversation within the last week with a friend and he was talking about his relationship with cannabis and um how he had struggled with it for a bit and he had kind of he was about to throw it away and then he had this download that's like no like that's actually not developing the relationship to remove it entirely. It's like can I just can I put it on my altar? There you go. And then when I'm ready to work with it in the right way. And it's like I think we're taught that if you want to, you know, stop eating sugar, just get it out of the house.

Well, what if you had it in the house and you developed a relationship with it? Doesn't mean you have to eat it, but like you actually Yeah, Cal, that's the magic word in my opinion. No, you can't really control the display of mind and reality. Um, you can muscle certain things. You know, look at look at dictators. they try to control it. What you can dictate so to speak, what you can work with is your relationship to the display. That's the key. Um because if you do try to just control and this doesn't mean that we shouldn't work to improve the world and change things. I mean, we're in really deep trouble. But the issue is exactly what you said. The issue fundamentally at the end of the day, the issue is your relationship. That's something you can't control. And so when you have an experience, and this is another thing. So again, another little practice, right?

So when you're engaging in in some experience in in the world, and I I love this because it has so much explanatory power for me, once you sensitize yourself to this kind of combustion cycle of contraction and expansion, you realize how deep this is. You start you can start to sensitize yourself to all the ways that in fact we do contract. Every time we're distracted, we're contracting. Every time we pull away from the present moment, every time we're irritated, every time we grasp, every time we have a desirous experience, don't take my word for it. Test it. You're going to feel a contraction. And what is that contraction doing is it's it's referencing every everything back to me. So, this is all in a generative sense to substantiate my very sense of self. And so, if you start to see this, you go, "Hey, there's that contraction again." Oh, let me pause.

It's a little BTO yoga, by the way. death prep right there pause maybe I can open and then you open to it and so then what you're doing is that particular whatever is still there that content of mind is still there that experience is still there but your relationship has changed and that's what you can control and so the maxim is you learn how to relate to your mind instead of from it that's a good one because if you're relating from your mind that's no relationship at all that's a radical capitul relation to the contents of your experience. Welcome to samsara. You're just speeding out the display of your mind without any level of perspective or relationship relating to it. That one that really subtle difference between two and from it's like a butterfly effect.

That subtle relationship changes everything because if you re now you relate to your mind whoa now there's a new sense of lucidity perspective. This is archetypal lucidity. And now you can, you know, you have a you have a a greater sense of of power and um control over your own relationship to the world. Like right now, what's happening in this meta crisis with politics? I mean, just pick your poison, right? Right. We're living in an age of meta contraction. And so if we start to sensitize ourselves to it, I watch the news, it's really painful. I'll feel like, you know, Gaza, Ukraine, I mean, whatever. I'll feel it. Oh, contract. Oh, contract. If I capitulate to that contraction, offensive or defensive strategies are born from that. If I feel it, I feel the pain. I take responsibility for it and I go, "Okay, breathe. Pause." Sometimes I'm decorative. Close my eyes. Open.

Now, instead of reacting to the [expletive] show, I can respond. That's another huge difference, right? Instead of reacting, I respond. And from that space, I can bring a quality of sanity, kindness, and love to a world that is just being riddled with defensive and and offensive. So interesting as you bring that up. I think, you know, like I I certainly in this season, I've stayed away from a lot of the news on X. Um I I don't watch really any TV, but I may be in an airport or something and pass by and see the news is on and just catch a glimpse of it. and almost like my buddy who was ready to throw out his cannabis like I don't look at it because of the reaction. Um, I feel like my my work is to actually look at it and to deprogram like what that what they're wanting that response to be, right? Because even if I look away, I have respon I have reacted in some way. High five, right?

And so, high five. So, this is awesome because now here's another practice we can do. And I I'm not kidding when I say I do this. So I I don't want to offend anybody with political strategies, but I am a liberal by a surprise, right? And so what I will do, I am not kidding when I say this. Every once in a while when I feel a little bit too smug and secure in my little cocoon in the blind spot of my literal liberal space, right? There's a lot of near enemies to that. I will literally turn on Fox News and I will literally watch, you know, Tucker Collston, whoever he's not gone, but Sean Hannity, people that otherwise were like, "Are you effing kidding me?" And I do it as a reverse meditation because if I can't even listen to them. Yes. How am I ever going to communicate with them, let alone try to work with them? And so, this is not easy, right?

I'm sitting there, I want to throw the shoe at the screen. I can hardly believe what I'm hearing, but I can also hardly believe what I'm feeling. And so I feel it, I go, you got to be kidding me. And I go, okay, from that space of contraction is born offensive, defensive strategies. How can I be compassionate? How can I express a quality of love? Not idiot compassion, right, or idiot love, but how can I keep my heart and mind open to situations that I would otherwise just run from? If we can't do that, we're screwed. Yeah. How do we ever think we're going to solve the culture wars or any capacities to deal with people that don't drink the same Kool-Aid that we do? Yeah.

So all this stuff that we've been talking about for the last hour and a half is like metaphysically cool and philosophically is as I often say like every riff when I'm teaching out if what we're talking about in this session is not of benefit to the world Cal. It's irrelevant. Irrelevant. I mean we're just it's a mental masturbation. and we're just making ourselves feel good talking about some cool metaphysics and philosophy. Sure. The bottom line here is like translational research, translational spirituality is what the f are you going to do with this stuff? Go off on the mountain top and feel good in your infinite openness, right? No, take this openness and you go back into the [expletive] show. You go back to the channel ground world now with a more responsive strategy based of love, kindness and compassion.

This is how you can change people because just like the dark they'll connect to these elemental properties. It may take them some time but Gandhi what did he do in India? Look at him as an example. His principles of a himsa and nonviolence. So these principles, I think this is super important because otherwise meditation, spirituality, philosophy, I it's just all up here. Yeah. So not only do you get this stuff down into your body through these mechanisms that I'm talking about, but then what do you do with this body? You activate it and you step into the world incorporating these teachings and you implement them in the world because otherwise this is just an effectual spiritual bypass.

I'm really big on this right now because right this world is going to going to hell in a hand basket and it's it's all hands on deck and there one reason I'm now coming out and writing and talking about dark retreat because I mean if you're not just shocked with what's happening in the world just like with quantum mechanics right they say if you if you're not shocked by the implications of quantum mechanics you don't understand it this is true if you're not shocked with what's happening you don't understand what's happening Mhm. And so I think perhaps our collective strategies, people like you and I and others, is to shake the snow globe to get people to wake up, get out of our our little secluded comfort zones and realize it's all hands- on deck time.

And we take these teachings, we take these practices, these wisdom technologies, and we bring them into the world right now, which is in such desperate need. So to me, to me, that's super important because otherwise it's Yeah. Yeah. And I and I and I love that you've you've introduced so many of these different practices for people to try on for themselves, right? And to have their experience with it. And work, you know, I love this idea that you would turn on, you know, Sean Hannity and try it. Right. Well, try it. Well, it it's it's this whole idea and I've I've been there before where I'm like one side is all good, one side is all bad. And it's like if you can't see the good in someone that you don't agree with. That's right. And you can't see the downside in someone that you happen to support, then you're [expletive] That's right. You're just so blind.

Back to what we were talking about before we even got on this whole this illusion of certainty that we actually know. Like there's a lot of intelligent people across all parts of the spectrum. And so there's some goodness in all that and they all have blind spots just like we do. Hey, high five, my friend. And this is where this is where the philosoph philosophical traditions, the nondual wisdom schools really come back into play to inform they use the the the um the term right view, which is basically right outlook, right philosophy. And so let's throw a dart at what you just said because this is really a big deal for me that according to these alleged and I I subscribe to these highest non-dual wisdom traditions the fundamental nature of reality and the fund fundamental nature of our being is is um divine perfectly pure basically good. Kung Burmage used the term basic goodness.

The great wisdom traditions radically proclaim the inherent divinity, purity, goodness of the human condition and the manifest reality. Thi this world is sacred. We are in a pure land. What is it? What did they say in the last go G gospels? The kingdom of heaven is spread out across the earth and men do not see it. M so what we're doing through the process of unlearning is removing the cataracts of confusion and through these these practices these tech psychospiritual technologies mixing metaphors developing a type of x-ray vision the ability to see through appearances again the genius of dark retreat appearances don't matter in the dark I don't need a reenoir or a cesison I I don't need anything in the dark appear appearances don't matter. That in itself is colossal. And so when I come out, you ask me how I work with it.

My practice now is cuz otherwise it's like esoteric, like dark routine, like what the f I come out, I develop a type of X-ray vision in the dark. Interestingly enough, inside meditation, you go into the dark to retrain and re-educate your senses. And what I've discovered is it's the most profound opportunity to alchemically transform our most dualistic sense faculty, which is this into a type of X-ray vision that allows me to see through you into the goodness of your heart. Mhm. That at heart you are no different than me, bro. We share the same bed of mind and heart of the human condition. And so I do dark medicine because I forget. Yeah. I come out and I forget in the display the multitudinous display of the external world when all my sense faculties are consolidated in the superficial most dimension of my being. I forget that I am you. Raman Maharshi said this.

This just blows me away when he was asked how can we best help others? Do you know what he said? What others? Wow. What others? And so you go into the dark literally it's pratahara in in the kalachra tradition and also in the yoga sutras means sensory withdrawal. You withdraw your sense faculties on the dark and then they're they're pedagogically it's like a remedial school. They're actually literally re-educated like I alluded to an hour ago. And so I come out it's not only do I see this world a different way, I see you a different way. And I noticed that when I get adversely affected by people like flying in yesterday, we had some flight delays and I got a little irritated and I was like projecting all over the place. I realized at that instant when I'm feeling the contractions, I'm consolidating my identity. I mean my my perception at the superficial dimensions.

And then I go, wait a second, there it is. Relax. Open. Open. Ah, eyes open. X-ray vision. I can see all the other plane people on the plane are anxious as I am. All the other people in this world are fundamentally just like me. And so this I think this is super important. This this fundamental recognition remembering unlearning we forget that we all come from the same matrix. We're all children of the same heart mind. And so if we can remember that, unlearn, come back and live from that space, this is a game changer, man. And so I go back into retreat because I forget. The essence of spiritual practice is remembrance. The essence of samsaric practice. And by the way, the implication here is we're always practicing. We're always meditating whether we know or not. The essence of samsaric practice is forgetfulness. translated PN distraction. And what are we looking at today in this world?

You go talk about an education. Go to the airport. I'm surprised anybody can even get to a plane anymore without I mean like you know this this is great. So check this out. I love this. There's a there's a great teaching in Buddhism. I love this. It the maxim is Buddha in the palm of your hand which is which is an intimation of the immediacy of the awakened state. That it's always right here. It's just right here. And so when I go through the airport, right, Buddha has been bumped. He's second, right? Buddha has been bumped second position by by the Buddha's devil, which is Mara. And what's Mara? These weapons of mass distraction. And so you're in there, and this is this is what scares the [expletive] out of me, man. I mean, my iPhone, what is it? iPhone 10 to the 30th. Like, what is the model? Yeah. Yeah. The next thing that comes out is what? It's faster. It's more distracting.

And this is the fundamental pathological signature of the Kaluga, the dark age, is its insidious iteration and manifestation driven largely by artificial light. Good old Thomas Edison. Don't blame him. Light has done so much for us. But what does light do? Back to Vegas. Draws us out and away from ourselves. We violate the natural curfew of the night. Especially when we go to Vegas. What happens when it gets dark at night? Darkness invites us in. Right. Oh, Billy, it's getting dark. Come on in. Right, we start to settle down. We start to slow down. We start to go to sleep. We lie down. What are we doing? We're going in. We're going in. What happens in deep meditation? We're going in. We're going in. What happens in dark retreat? What happens when you die? An invitation into interiority, into depth, into meaning, into authenticity.

And so every time we distract from that on that at that very genesis which happens every single time you're distracted like all the effing time you're giving birth to samsara on the spot. This is how you construct and create the samsaric agenda moment to moment to moment. And so if you understand this take responsibility for your world. There's no samsara out there. Sam samsara is a state of mind. There's no nirvana out there. Nirvana is a state of mind. I can work with my mind. I can relate to my mind and I feel that distraction. I can retract right in silence and stillness. The Greeks, this is so cool. According to to Peter Kingsley, he said one of the central differentiating factors that um the Greeks used to differentiate the human from the divine stillness. M if someone manifested unusual degrees of silence and stillness, they were deemed to be divine.

And so in this day and age with our rampant insatiable acquisition, and this is really coming to play in AI, you know, and I'll say how this lands with you. I am really into this right now. We talked a little bit about it before, but I can tell you one thing. Every single time I listen to an AI podcast or the latest whatever, and I'm very aware of this, I pay real close attention to my soma. I never come out of an AI event feeling centered and at peace, gathered. Never. Every time, maybe it's just me, every time I come out one of these things, I feel speedy and contracted and anxious, somewhat excited, but also anxious and fearful. And so I pay really close attention to this. Okay, I I come out of this AI listening to some really cool talks. I come out and I go, "God, look at my look at my body right now. Wow, I'm really contracted.

I'm really speedy." I pay real close attention to that these days. So I keep coming back to this over and over for our listeners because once you sensitize yourself, you can't you cannot solve a a problem you don't even know you have. Mhm. So if we don't if we can't make a diagnosis, there's no prescription. So if we can diagnose, don't take my word for it. Just see for yourself how contracted we are. You can feel this now. Right here, you have the opportunity to bring about remedies and do us. I can work with openness. And then parathetically, and then I'll pause. Look below any spiritual experience. I promise you test this.

Look below any experience to which you would append the label spiritual right psychedelic sex whatever it doesn't matter promise you will find commonator denominator of openness openness look below the more open you are the more spiritual the experience is and so if you understand this underlying phenomenology this is the great gift of dark medicine for me is where I really saw this You realize, oh my gosh, I can make any experience spiritual by what? Relating to it with a quality of openness. Talking to you becomes spiritual. Being in the studio becomes spiritual because I am open to it. And so if we understand that, wow [expletive] I never thought about that. Is it true? Let me think about it. Psychedelics. Yeah. Gosh, I guess I was open. A walk in nature. He's right. I was open. Practice openness. My favorite definition of meditation, habituation to openness, right?

What happens when you die? It's the grand opening, all this [expletive] ties together. Let's talk about that. So, right here, I mean, here's underlying this all is a great place to conclude. Yeah. Underlying this all is we're talking about how to prepare to die. Mhm. is under underneath underneath us all this narrative of openness is is fundamentally the grand opening that is death itself. So yeah. So what got you so into the the the kind of the practice the the the transition to dying and what does that mean for you? Cuz I know in just the the bit that I know about you it's not that then there's any ending in the dying. It's just a continuation into what like I would love to hear in your words like what what is this all about? This is my baby. Right. So underneath subsuming everything we've talked about for the last hour and a half is this this death thing, the death principle.

So I I look at everything is is um archetypal these days um symbolic. And so for me when when I work with death I I work with it very specifically and what we know is death at the end of life. But I also really like as a kind of a cultural translator. It's one of the ways I look at myself. Um I'm a cultural translator. Um I take the great wisdom of the alleged east, which is those boundaries are falling apart with globalization. And and how can I bring how can I culturally translate this into a vocabulary and a set of experiences that relate to white people, right? Or black people or the western world. Yeah. And so I'm a cultural translator.

So I work a lot with principles, archetypes and the death principle because once you start doing this and you realize the universality and the massive applicability of working with what are called the BO teachings that's the way the Buddhists talk about death. Bardo meaning um gap transitional process in between. So specifically to get back to your question and the boy there's so much to say here you're going to really get me excited. I have a real passion for death because as we'll see, death is an archetype for transformation. It's an archetype for real growth. You really want to grow in this life, you go to the places that scare you, you know, within reason, right? You you go to your you go to fear because I'll come back to that. But I got into this um maybe so let's check this out. So gosh, it's been a while now. 35 years ago. The decades clicked by man.

I I I was uh getting involved in Tibetan Buddhism. Um and at that point I was connected to the varatu scene uh the community in the Boulder Denver area. And one of the one of the directors, in fact, the current director of the Denver Center um asked me one day because I was just starting to cut my teeth as a teacher. Uh I never I never wanted to be a teacher. And in fact, even now I'm a reluctant. When people call me a spiritual teacher, it I have to say totally creeps me out. Yeah. I I that is not who I am, man. I might be a spiritual friend. I might be a guy and I am not a spiritual teacher. I'm definitely not a guru. And so, so this guy, I remember him very clearly. He said, Andrew, you know, people in this community are kind of interested in exploring this this death and dying thing, the Bartle thing. Would you be interested in teaching a program on this?

And it was like whoa that's interesting there again like darkness there was something like okay so as I'm prone to do I read everything in print at that point there wasn't much since then there's been a lot and so I gave I gave my first talk and and u as you'll see when you start to study the it's called thantology from the Greek god Thanoos um you start to study than east and west and the Bardau's teachings in Tibetan Buddhism they're voluminous I mean they may not have a whole story in In fact, I know they don't, but boy, do they have a big one and a good one. So, the more I got into it, it's like a like falling into a fractal. It was just like more and more and more there.

And I realized, and this is why I'm so jazzed about it, is that all the teachings, all the dharma, um, all all the the profound practices are actually condensed in the singularity, you know, the the the black hole of the end of life. And so, here's what really changed it. I just taught this one course and some someday um literally no exaggeration I'm I'm up in my studios this lady calls she got my number from the center um let's call for Susan and and and she calls I pick up the phone in those days I still pick up the phone and and she said well you know I I heard you're you're an expert in in death and dying and my first thing is like uh I think you have the wrong number like we're literally just like where they're like where did you hear I literally said well where did you hear that? Well, I called the center and they said, you know, um, you're knowledgeable.

And then my first reflex was, I think you really do have the wrong number. But before I could say anything, she said, my husband is dying. And she's in this remote area of Colorado, and she goes, neither of us are really Buddhists, but we do have a deep appreci appreciation for this wisdom tradition, and is there anything you can do to help me with my husband's death? And and again, I felt like a to talk about imposttor syndrome. It was like I I am not qualified to do this, ma'am. But her heart was so broken and she was like she had nobody else to help her. And and it was like, well, what am I going to do? Just hang up on her? And so I am not kidding. So I said, "Well, I can try." And so ensued a series of phone calls over the next couple weeks where eventually and her husband did die at at the end of the third week. I'm not exaggerating. She'd be on the phone asking me a question.

I would literally be flipping through the one or two books I had. Yeah. Index. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Old school. Totally bullshitting. No Google back then. No chat GPT. You know, exactly. It's like ah and and you know, it's like, well, what am I going to do? But here's the thing that really it changed my life. Three or four or five times over multiple calls when I was flipping through and I wasn't, you know, I was like going here very quietly. I could hear her mumbling, I wish I would have prepared earlier. I wish I would have gotten ready earlier. And for some reason, even this day, it tears me up. It was like a command to help people prepare. And something in her words just cut to my core. You know, she was just she really wanted to help her dying husband. Her heart was in the right place and she didn't know not she didn't know what to do. Yeah. And so she turned to me. Yeah.

And it was like [expletive] man. I I don't know. But ever since then, Kell, I have made it a personal journey to to understand and I don't want to use the word conquer death because you're not going to conquer it, but you can befriend it. You can transcend it and include it and understand what it is. And maybe we can talk about that. And because of that, I mean, if you look at the corpus of my nine books, underneath all is the these narratives of meditation. And even underneath that, it's like I don't know if you saw Martin Scorsese's beautiful two-part documentary on George Harrison, if you haven't seen it yet. And at the end of the second two-hour doc, um George um talks about how his life has been to prepare for death. It's really beautiful. So yeah, since then, yeah, I I wrote this big book called Preparing to Die.

We run um um a really successful um cohort preparing to die program, three-month really intensive training we do twice a year that's really starting to grow. And so I'm super into it right now because just as I alluded to earlier, not only does do these teachings not just from the Buddhist tradition, I I I'll draw philosophy, neuroscience, physics, I mean there's so much to come from the hard sciences. Um I've come to discover You know, as Peter Kingsley says, how wisdom hides within death, again, darkness, right? This is this is where depth and interiority and substance really come into play.

And so I've discovered that these these BTO teachings, these death and dying teaching teachings not only have given me an indestructible confidence about my own mortality and relating to that and also more perhaps more importantly helping others because like I said earlier, your storyline may be different than mine, but at at the heart we're the same, bro. And so when I'm with these nine people, I don't get caught up in the surface chop and the story line.

I can see through that into the commonality and I know through my intensive study and even more importantly through my practice I have a pretty good sense I could be wrong I don't think so I have a pretty good sense of what they're going through and where they're going and my confidence born from again like we talked about earlier from my direct experience allows me to be at the side of people who are in a heap of hurt and be there just simply with silent immutable presence often the best thing you can do is just not just be there, hold space, bear witness. That is incredibly curative. And then I take all these principles and I'll pause because I'm talking a lot is then I I bring them one of the great gifts of studying the death and dying teachings is is how ironically beautifully they bring you to life.

When you frame your life within um the embrace of impermanence and death, this is not a morbid set of contemplations. This is the most empower thing empowering thing you can possibly do. If I'm talking to you today and I know by the end of this conversation I am never going to see you again. I'm going to relate to you a whole lot more with authenticity and kindness and love than if I know a call next week. I'll see him next year. No. If I hold everything within in impermanence and death like a fleeting rainbow or like a flower. That's why we appreciate these beautiful things because we know they don't last. And so if you can if you can see everything as a as a fleeting rainbow or as a as a fragile flower, in other words, through the lens of impermanence and death, it empowers your life. Life becomes more beautiful, more rich.

So I want to say this at the outset before we get into some of the weeds here. This is one of the great reasons for exploring this stuff is it's not morose, morbid. It really it's the most empowering thing you could possibly do in terms of just bringing you more fully into life. So anyway, blah blah blah. No, I love that and I can see there's just so much to explore here and I shared that you know I first got introduced to this type of work with with Ron Das's work. Yeah, he's great around that. And it was the first time it occurred to me what a disservice, you know, I don't know what happens in the east, but I know just in our culture that people who are dying, no one around them generally wants to admit that this is what's happening.

And so there's this lack of authenticity about what is actually unfolding. and in a lot of ways not allowing this person to have the full experience of what this experience is and it's there's so much dissonance with what's actually happening and then what everybody is saying is happening. Totally. So what is Yeah. What is it? Give me like give give us an example of like okay this person reaches out to you if you don't do if if you don't work with a person through your practices what is generally their expected experience of death going to be and then what does it look like when you have this very conscious act of dying? Well, I can't speak with total authority because obviously I don't really know. But I think it's exactly what you just said for most people in the west. Let me share a couple. These are such great lines. So Arnold Toyby, the grace historian said this, this is so great.

Um, death is unamerican, right? Yeah. Why? Because defeat is unamerican. Right. Yeah. Right. Or here's an even better one. Remember Jack Lane? probably even too young. Yes, you're the fitness guy. Oh, yeah. Right this guy. You had the two dogs and you could do a thousand push-ups and I love this guy. Right. So, this is even better. I can't die. It would wreck my image. Yes. Yes. So, so as part of let's frame this to what we were talking about earlier as part of our wake centric externally oriented appearance infatuated society where we you know what did Williams William James said I love this guy reality is what you attend to and so if you attend to what is most visibly readily apparent through the most dominant sense faculties your appearance your body this is who you think you are. Yes. Right. Yeah. Ego is f Freud. Ego is first and foremost a body ego.

Echarola ego is exclusive identification with form. These are fantastic definitions. And so most people rage rage against the dying of the light because they exclusively identify their very sense of self with this most superficial dimension. And so just like we were talking about with the with the sleep and dream thing, you can see this for yourself. You can see this indeed meditation in the dark. When you start to withdraw your identity, this is exactly what nature does on its uncompromising non-negotiable terms. So I now look at death. I reframe my relationship to death. Death is a wrathful form of liberation. It's wrathful only for those who are unprepared. And it's wrathful because it's uncompromising and non-negotiable. I'm sorry, you have no say in it. It's going to happen. But here's the kicker. It doesn't have to be wrathful.

It can be a very It can literally be a once- ina-lifetime opportunity. I like that if you understand WTF is going on here. Now, whether the Tibetans and these wisdom traditions have the only way, I don't know. I don't think I don't think so. But they h have a hell of a good way. And because of my extensive practice in particular in dark retreat, I I went started doing dark retreat principally as a way to enter the death space to prepare for death. That's why I went in. And then like I mentioned, this is where I discovered how to live. So we can come back to that. But the idea here is for people who aren't prepared to come to me, boy, brace yourself, Bridget. Brace yourself for an ungraceful exit.

Not because somebody's going to command a a difficult transition, but because you're simply not familiar with these more nuance, subtle dimensions of your being that are going to be stripped away on nature's non-negotiable terms when you die. It's already happening, man. I can no longer run a 4-minute mile. Right. Right. Right. Right. You know, my 2 hours and 30 minutes at the marathon, I can't get to that even. Right. I just can't do it. Yeah. It's already happening, right? Yeah. What's happening as we age? It's exactly the same thing happens at the end of the day. Retracting, retreating, we're heading towards the ultimate night. We're heading towards the ultimate dark retreat. It's already happening. And so, if you understand this and you truly get what nature is doing, this is a radical transformation in relationship.

Instead of looking at the mirror and having an oh [expletive] response, right? or looking at your body like creepy skin [expletive] Right? Instead of that, it's like, "Oh, wow." Right? I look in the mirror. Oh, a spot. Oh, wow. I had a dear dear friend of mine. I interviewed her, um, Tori Kapan. She was a Dharma teacher. ALS, dying from ALS. Boy, oh boy, what a warrior she was. I I'm mentioning her as an archetype, you know. Here she is. And there's a video she made on it, you know. And you know what ALS? This is B, man. This is a really tough scene. And so she's talking in the most beautiful way, quote unquote. She goes, you know, her legs atrophied. She's she goes, you know, I just can't I just can't do what I used to do with my leg anymore. It's not like, f, I can't. It's like, whoa, this is really interesting. All right.

So, she then approaches her whole dissolution process as a type of child ground meditation. See, so this then becomes a type of reverse meditation. reverse meditation in the sense that you're reversing your strategies to unwanted experience, relating to it instead of froming it, from it from it, and bringing it onto your path. And therefore, if you do that, you can actually look forward to old age, sickness, and even death as tremendous opportunities for openness, for fluidity, for rapid psychosspiritual development. If you understand what the process is actually inviting and then eventually commanding. But the kicker is you can do all this, you can die before you die. This all the training programs that we're doing, my book and everything is is to get to the point where you can say with total confidence, been there, done that, right? Been there, done that. You've already let go.

You've already opened. You've already released. Letting go is just a euphemism for death. You've let go open to such an extent that when you get to the end of life, nothing happens. Nothing happens. You just you just transition into that. And I I'll share one last thing. This I will never forget the story. When I was writing my book, Preparing to Die, part of it was interviewing 20 or so really highlevel Buddhist masters in India and Nepal. And so you can actually get a clip of this in this documentary called um Tukdam, Between Two Worlds. And so I I I've been doing some clinical work like I mentioned at the outset. Um I do clinical work in six different countries. I was working in Nepal at the time and I got to know this amazing meditation master. His name was Tango Repetache. Um amazing amazing guy. And so I'd worked in this monastery. I hadn't seen him in a while.

And so I wanted to have an interview with him to ask him some questions about the deaf and dying thing. And Cal, I'll never forget this. So I I'm I I was granted an audience. I I was admitted into his quarters about the size of the studio. And off in the corner was this guy who should have been in ICU. He had both legs cut off from diabetes. He was um blind because of his diabetes. I mean, the guy was an effing physical train wreck. And I I actually took me back and I talked to his assistant. I said, "Are you sure it's okay? I'm here." He heard my voice and he said, "I'm Shila. Amila," which is Tibetan for doctor, "Come in. Come in, come in." So, I will never forget this. Here's a guy who literally he died like a month later, who was on death's doorstep, and he was laughing in childlike wonder and play and delight.

And I said, "Is this guy in denial or what?" No, it's because he had already transitioned his identity through his deep deep lifetime or lifetimes of incredible inner work away from his surface identity. He didn't care about his fading tan. He didn't care what was happening in his body because he knew he was not just that body. And if we I I left that space like with the Susan story. It's like this guy knows something I don't know. Yeah. I want to be like this guy. I want to approach death with the same joy. This is authentic joy then just this fearless joy of what of what um is about to transpire because for people at that level literally nothing happens. They just just like they they fall asleep with total lucidity so to speak and they go through this with complete awareness.

So long-winded response to my underlying aspirations for working with this material is to get people to maybe because they have the same heart and mind that you and I do. Why can't we be like them? We just have to do the work or in this case the relaxation, the openness, you know, and then we can drive that. What do you what do you make of people who've come back from near-death experiences and reported with some consistency? Super interesting literature. I'm pretty familiar with it, the work of Grayson and others. There's there's a big literature on it now.

To me it makes total sense and and and um also within the Tibetan schema you know they have a very sophisticated mapping of the dissolution stages um and so the vast majority of the studies that I've read and there's tons of them now um are are completely resonant with these fundamental dissolution um stages as they're articulated in the Tibetan tradition. Um so from my perspective they're 100% valid of course from you know like Eban Alexander who's I've interviewed him you know proof of heaven there's a bunch of other people um who have gone through these I've never had a physical near-death experience I've had quite a few on psychedelics especially 5meo and I've had even more in dark retreat I mean I've had a lot of near-death and I would say I mean I don't know but what I would say full death experiences but in terms of ndes proper absolutely positively.

Um they're having tremendous glimpses of of the dissolution of this apparent reality and self structure. They share their their stories. They come back with amazing um renderings and they can point out um through these so-called anomalous experiences and paranormal experiences and and I always say paranormal in relationship to what what's the normal here? Oh yeah. Right. Yeah. Or even even altered states like altered states of consciousness altered in relationship to what? Yeah. Like to me this is the altered state. Yeah. I if you think this world is solid, lasting, and independent and I'm separate from you, you're on drugs, man. Yeah. And you are actually you're in a cocktail of 50 different neurotransmitters and hormones that create this version of reality. We're always on drugs. We're always tripping. This is the altered state. Yeah.

These dimensions are pointing to the natural state. And so when people have these NDEEs, they're having glimpses of the natural state. So depending on how far down they go, even the light in the tunnel thing can be so to speak explained in the mapping that I'm familiar with. The bottom line for me, Kel, is that is that these amazing experiences, these psychonauts, these people who have these journeys, can come back and share dimensions of reality that if we just listen to them, they can really open our minds and hearts. But see, again, we get uneasy with these sorts of things because they don't fit our paradigms. They don't fit our cognitive structures, and so we either categorically dismiss them or or basically just give lip service to them. But the NDU literature is massive. Um, yeah, much to say on that, but something like that. Yeah, I love that.

Well, look, this has been amazing. um first again first uh episode in the new kind of revamped studio with the lighting and the new cameras. So, thanks for that. Yeah, it's been great having you here. Appreciate it. Cal, I love I love a couple things about you, my friend. I love the the intelligence, but mostly I love the depth of your presence and and the authenticity of your being. Your questions are coming from a really honest place. And so, what that does for me, I trust you, man. And so I I just feel h just let's just go with this one today. Thank you, brother. Yeah, that means a lot. A lot to me. Yeah. You create, you know, this kind of holding an environment in this space that's really like, whoa, this is really awesome. So that's no small thing. That's a gift. Thank you for showing up. Yeah. Thanks so much. Where can people find you? Oh yeah. Makul a lemonade stand. Thank you.

Set up my lemon. Thanks for the opportunity. So you know I have several websites. andrewhollow.com. Um that's where I list all my programs that I teach um here and there. I have another platform that we just completely rejugger that we're super psyched about. Um it's called Night Club, which is a a really hip running big platform where we support all the nocturnal meditations. Okay. And then the big thing these days is a dark retreat. So, uh, Andrew Hollow, I just got it like half an hour before I came in here. Andrewhalichek.com/d darkness. There we go. Okay. Literally came in half hour before I pulled it in this in this door. All right. There I'm going to be offering um dark retreat teachings, programs, way to get people to do it at home through masks and what's called Gray Retreat. But thanks for the opportunity. That's people can find me on those platforms. Awesome.

We'll we'll have all that stuff in the show notes as well. So people can just click on it. Terrific. Yeah. Thanks again. Awesome. Thanks for being here, brother.

So what if at the deepest levels, light doesn't reveal but actually conceals? And what if one of the best ways to achieve what you really want is to sit alone in the dark and do absolutely nothing? And I mean nothing for days on end. Zero light in a virtually soundproof room. Complete sensory deprivation. No phone, no watch, no computer, no contact with the outside world except for a guide that checks in with you once a day and delivers food. You have no idea what time it is or what day it is, or whether it's even day or night. Everything in your conventional reality is turned inside out and upside down. Sounds great. Yeah. Well, for me, it's become an epic game of lost and found, one that I've been practicing for 29 years. It's called Dark Retreat, and it's the single most transformative practice I have ever done.

You'll find versions of it in ancient Egypt and Greece, and is still practiced today by Buddhist, Taoist, Hindus and indigenous populations. Like the Colombian, Kogi is a lifelong meditator. I was really curious what it would be like to spend so much time alone in such a concentrated environment. Well, NBA superstar Rudy Gobert, he nailed it when, after just three days in the dark, he said dark retreat was meditation times a thousand. I go into the dark to lose my superficial sense of self in an effort to find my deeper, truer self. What I lost in the light I can find in the dark. Here's a photograph of my dark room at home. You don't have to invest a lot in decor. This is the practice of radical minimalism. And right here is one of the greatest benefits of dark medicine. Appearances don't matter. Fame and fortune doesn't matter. Reputation and social status doesn't matter.

The only thing that matters is the only thing you ever really have. And that's your beautiful mind and your good heart. Dark retreat frees you from the burden of having to put on a good face. You cannot have a bad hair day in the dark. All your makeup comes off. Even the face you normally put that makeup on comes off and you can finally breathe a massive sigh of relief. And just be yourself. The first time I walked up to my dark retreat cabin, I was filled with anticipation and dread. Kevin was so unassuming from the outside, but I knew what was waiting for me on the inside. Nothing. Pure blackness. When the door closed behind me, it felt like I had just been swallowed and my heart was pounding from the intensity of such silence and stillness. For the first few days, I tend to sleep a lot as my body gets the rest it so desperately needs.

It's actually a fantastic luxury to sleep as often as you want, however long you want. It's not exactly like I got to get up and do something, but sooner or later I do have to get up and then the question becomes, okay, now what? Well, I can reflect on my life, I can meditate and I can work out a problem. But by far the single most important thing I can do is lie on the floor in corpse pose and do absolutely nothing. It's the easiest thing in the world, which actually turns out to be the most difficult. Darkness puts all my relentless activity under house arrest and it virtually forces me into simple human being. It has taught me that who I think I am is defined by what I do, but who I really am is revealed when I just stop doing. For me, this full stop was a hard stop. It was really difficult. The darkness was heavy, suffocating, oppressive.

I felt like I'd just been sealed inside of a tomb. I fought against it, I resisted it, I tried to outsmart it, and I even tried to to meditate it. And all the time I kept thinking to myself, I can't believe I'm actually paying for this. But at a certain point, something shifted and I finally just gave up. My shoulders dropped. My stomach unclenched and my breathing lengthened. And it's so hard to put this into words, but somehow this crushing tomb that transformed into the most nurturing womb and dare I say, a womb with a view of who you really are when no one is looking. I was no longer resisting the darkness. Now I was part of it. I actually couldn't tell where the darkness ended and I began. Somehow, magically, this dark retreat had erased me to point out the unerasable no edge, no Boundary, just an infinite field of pure open being.

And in that vast openness, what had been so bloody awful turned into pure awe. This is when I realized the darkness itself is fundamentally neutral. It's just dark. The weight, the suffocation, I felt was due to everything I had projected onto it my loneliness, my heartbreak, my pain and my fear. The darkness was acting like a mirror. As I lightened up, so did the dark. As I softened, so did the dark. The darkness hadn't transformed, I had. And this is when I realized that this practice that can seem so daunting from the outside is only as hard as you are. Once I stopped shielding myself against the darkness and opened to it. It's not just my eyes that dilated. Everything dilated. My body softened, my mind Expand it and my heart broke wide open. I would often find myself on the floor, weeping, not out of sadness, but out of fullness and immense gratitude for what I had just been shown.

I have to say, when I come out of the dark, I'm so open I should probably be quarantined. The love I feel for the world is so transmissible that I'll often say to people, I don't know all that well. I love you. It just freaks them out. Dark retreat has shown me how were each afflicted with a darkness deficit disorder? It's a disorder of depth, interiority and authenticity. It's a disorder, a fundamental disconnect. Because we think what we're looking for is outside on the light. But it's actually to be found in the darkness, within light in general, and artificial light in particular, pulls us out and away from ourselves to such an extent that we've lost contact with who we really are. We're equally out of touch with the sacred earth, and we can no longer really feel each other as earth is losing its darkness.

We are losing our way, and every single time we flip on the light, we violate the natural curfew of the night and capitulate to distraction. To distract literally means to pull apart. And nothing pulls us apart from ourselves and from each other. More insidiously and relentlessly than light. And with each distraction comes a dismemberment and a forgetting. Darkness helps us remember. So how does this apply to you? Well, you may never spend a single day in the dark, but you can taste this medicine in so many ways. you can microdose in the blink of an eye. Literally. You can elect to spend an evening away from lit screens or spend an evening by candlelight. Or you can step outside on a moonless night and allow yourself to be draped in delicious darkness. And then notice what you feel. Notice how what's most essential is often invisible to the eye.

You know, we use phrases like at the end of the day to convey a sense of what really matters at the end, what's of ultimate importance? The bottom line. Well, what happens at the end of the day? It gets dark. It all comes down to darkness. Why not let it teach you now? Why not let darkness illuminate your life now?

Now, you know, Andrew, as I was reading Total Eclipse of the Mind, I have to say I fell in love with the dark. And I pulled out of my closet a mindful that I have I was like, "Okay, I don't want to just keep reading about this. I want to get into it." In this episode of Insights at the Edge, my guest is Andrew Holecek. Andrew Holecek is, first of all, a friend. He's someone I admire. He's an interdisciplinary scholar practitioner of Tibetan Buddhism and other non-dual wisdom traditions who has a terrific gift at making deep and esoteric teachings accessible and practical, including Tibetan Buddhist teachings on the Bardo, the passage between life and death, teachings on sleep and dream yoga, how we can actually do spiritual practice while we're sleeping, and the practice of dark retreat, full immersion in darkness, which is what we're going to be talking about today.

He's the author of 10 books, including the new Sounds True book, Total Eclipse of the Mind, Unleashing the Power of Darkness for Creativity, Healing, and Transformation. Andrew, welcome. It's such a delight, really. Every time I hang with you, I just so look forward to it. Thank you for the opportunity. You've been a meditator for 50 years. You completed the traditional Tibetan 3-year retreat, no easy feat. You've explored psychedelics, and yet this is what you write at the beginning of Total Eclipse of the Mind. Nothing compares to my experience of dark retreat. It's easily the most transformative practice I've ever done. Okay, big statement. Yeah, I it's it's not hyperbole. I'm not exaggerating. Um the return on investment, the ROI, with this practice is is ridiculous.

You know, you can go in for a couple of days, and a number of people, there's amazing testimonials to this degree extent mind these days. People go in for 2, 3, 4 days, and their lives are irrevocably transformed and altered. And I like very much what NBA superstar Rudy Gobert says around this. After he was in for 4 days, he came out and said quite directly, dark retreat is meditation times a thousand. Um yeah, it's the most concentrated, intense way to work with one's mind and one's heart. And this is in fact what makes it so transformative, and it's also what makes it so challenging, because when you're in the dark, you can't really get away from yourself. And so every aspect of it is profoundly revelatory. Um and I'd be happy to go up any direction There's a lot to talk about here.

But even just here at the beginning, someone's like, dark retreat, I don't even really know what that is. And then we're going to talk about how to bring it out of the retreat context and into our everyday life. But let's start the formal practice. What's going on? Yeah, so formal dark retreat is is when you go to a specially prepared cabin or cave that is Specially prepared cave. I wonder where I can find one. Yeah, there aren't that many, but there are some. And there's more there's more popping up. Um really there's more cabins than caves. But, the caves are kind of cool. We can talk a little bit about some of the differences between them, but these are rooms that are 100% hermetically sealed. I mean, they're they're they're beyond dark. They're as dark as dark can get. And they're also uh extraordinarily quiet. So, these places are secluded environments.

And so, it's in fact this intense sensory deprivation that makes it so trans transformative. And that's in the both in Hindu and Tantric um Buddhist approaches, they talk you may have heard this term, they talk about pratyahara, um sense withdrawal, which is a really critical important point in I mean, the kind of doctrinal framework for this practice is where all the senses are are withdrawn, they're they're retreated. And in a very real way, they're they're re-educated. So, this is a profound way to quite literally, not metaphorically, learn how to see, sense your world in entirely new new ways. So, when you're in the retreat, um somebody comes and checks in with you um once or twice a day depending on where you are. I have to say, when I did my retreats, I did not have this type of support. I started this um almost 30 years ago.

And um because there was hardly anything out there at the time where I went, um I had zero support. Um and so, I learned a lot, a lot of OJT, on-the-job training with this, made a lot of um I wouldn't say mistakes cuz nothing was a mistake in the sense that it taught me a great deal. But, yeah, you're just basically you have this incredibly precious, rare opportunity. It's like a a silent retreat on steroids where you know, there's this there's this wonderful line, I really like it. Silence is for bumping into yourself. I I like that. Well, dark retreat is for slamming into yourself. And this is one reason in the tradition, what is Tibetan Buddhist tradition, which is where I have most of my training, Bardo yoga, you mentioned that term. Um dark retreat is for slamming into yourself. It's considered a wrathful, semi-wrathful form of liberation.

Um because just like death itself, the darkness is uncompromising, non-negotiable, and eventually it it it invites invites you, almost forces you to open and surrender. And right there, Tammy, that's where the magic comes from. Um just the the the invitation, uh the demand actually to just completely open, relax, and assume kind of a shavasana, you know, you go into the dark, I don't want to be too dramatic, but you go into the dark to die. Um where letting go is just a euphemism for for dying, for death. And so you're you're just forced to let go in the dark retreat of all your habit patterns, the way you eat, the way you go to the bathroom, the way you brush your teeth.

Some of it can be actually quite hysterical um as you're in there learning new ways to just negotiate in this this unique environment, but that environment provides very powerful kind of metaphysical mirror that allows you to see and most importantly feel. It's a highly embodied practice. To see, feel yourself at levels you've never seen and felt before. And this is what what makes it so ironically fantastically revelatory. So, more to say, but I think for starters, that's enough. Can you help me understand the mechanism that is creating all of these changes? You're in darkness, yes, it's so it's the sensory deprivation of any form of light or see seeing you're seeing darkness and seeing whatever you see in darkness, but how does this create all of this change? this is the you're going right to the heart of it. This is so great.

So, yeah, the in geek speak this is called the phenomenology. Like what what is really taking place, like you said. And this is this is actually what we're studying. I'm working now with a number of institutions, actually five universities and research labs. We're really studying this stuff. Cuz there's a there's some data parenthetically on sensory deprivation and flotation tanks. But there's virtually nothing on extended dark retreat like this. And so, what we're discovering um is that when when you go into the dark, what happens here that's really quite beautiful. And and the Tibetans have a very interesting word for this. The word is is rang bod. R A N G B O P, which basically means self fall. And so, what happens over extended periods, and this may not happen in your first retreat, um but for some people it does. Um it tends to happen over some durations, and and I can explain why.

What happens is the mind opens and relaxes to such an extent as like our our you know, Trungpa Rinpoche very famously said um Well, actually no, I'll get back to that in a second. My favorite definition of meditation, this is where this ties in, is meditation is habituation to openness. And so, what happens in the dark is is you pass this threshold initially. Very often when people go in they they contract defensively against the dark. But eventually, um if they in fact do open and relax, the mind descends into itself. And as it falls into itself, Jamie, this is where it just becomes spectacular. It's like um a tour, an archaeological tour of the sedimentation levels of your conscious and unconscious mind. And so, what I mean by this is is you open and relax. And again, by the way, meditation will do this, right? Deep inner work will do this.

Any any deep intensive inner work will do this. In a microcosmic way, this happens every night when we fall asleep. We enter a mini dark retreat every night when we fall asleep. And in the big dark retreat is waiting for us at the end of this life. But as the mind opens and relaxes, it descends from conscious to preconscious, to subconscious, to unconscious, to collective unconscious. This is where the work of Carl Jung and the depth psychologists really come into play. And then the baton, so to speak, is handed off into this the wisdom the non-dual wisdom traditions, the the deepest dimensions of the super unconscious mind, things like the clear light mind. And so as one is doing this, what's what's just so spectacular is as the mind falls into itself, you start to realize all the ways that we constantly distract, pull apart. The word literally means to pull apart.

And when you're in the dark, you can't distract anymore. There's there's nothing to distract into. So what happens is the mind retracts, the mind retreats, it returns, fundamentally opening, relaxing, and falling into what we're calling in our our studies the reduction base of innate wholeness. And so what happens here in the menopause is instead of of fracture upon fracture upon fracture, dismemberment, dismemberment, dismemberment, distraction, distraction upon distraction, what happens is you have um remembrance, reintegration. So every time you go down and drop, instead of dismembering, you're remembering. I mean, the essence of spiritual practice is remembrance. Plato was onto this, the process of anamnesis or recollection. And so the image I use in the menopause, because I think this is a good one. So imagine you're skiing, I'm a skier. So imagine I go skiing and I break my leg.

So I have two broken pieces. So I go see my orthopedic surgeon. He puts these two broken pieces into approximation, puts them next to each other, and then he puts them in a holding cast. And then what happens through the mere act, Tammy, this is where it's so brilliant. Through the mere act of cessation, through the mere act of holding, all the natural restorative healing processes, in this case of your body, take place in exactly analogous fashion. By putting your entire being in this kind of holding environment, this cast, that really when you can no longer dismember, you start to remember. That's where the healing, integration, the transformation takes place. So, through this descent, you're returning to this magnificent um restorative dimension of your being.

And there you start to see very practically, we can come back to this towards the end, like, okay, this is like super cool, but pretty esoteric, like, why should I do this in the world today? Well, I think you can make a very powerful argument that what we see today is the meta crisis, the poly crisis, is the result of one fracture upon the next. It's just one dismemberment upon the next. And so, you can actually see in a very powerful first-person way how we're just really pretty broken beings. And we're broken by this relentless distraction. Light um just continuously seduces us out of ourselves, and we distract, distract. So, in the dark, fundamentally, I um this is what we're studying. This is the principal kind of generation of the transformation, the creativity, the healing. What in the dark do I need to do or not do in order to actually avail myself of this?

I mean, I could I was thinking about, well, someone could go into a, you know, dark cabin for 3 days and just thrash on the floor. That's not going to be particularly useful, is it? Like, I have to connect or relate to this in some way. Yeah, spot-on. So, so people can do dark retreats for many, many different reasons. I went in principally, just as a sidebar, decades ago to to fundamentally, literally prepare for death in the context of Bardo yoga. I literally to go I literally went in there to learn how to die, to let go and to open. When you say literally, were you going Well, I was just saying literally. No, no, no. You were exploring it. Exactly. Yeah, that's a good good point of clarification cuz we don't want to scare people more than necessary. So, yeah, so More than you already are. Right, exactly. So, so you can go in for you can incubate creativity.

You can go in um searching for meaning and purpose. You can go in um for divination. I mean, there's a there's a vast variety of things you can do in the dark. But for me, um tell me by far the most important thing to do and you you suggested this is absolutely nothing, which is simultaneously the easiest thing in the world and the hardest thing. Um because we're not human beings, we're human doings. And when you're in the dark, you can't do anything. And so, I love what Meister Eckhart says here when he says the soul does not grow by addition, but by subtraction. So, this is a prac- this is a a process and a practice of negation, um cessation, erasia. And And when you think about even all the terms for awakening, many of them are actually terms of negation, cessation. We have nirvana, extinction. Nirodha, cessation. Nirguna, Nirvikalpa, Nisprapancha.

I mean, all these terms, non-duality. These are terms of cessation, negation, erasing. And so, I find that this the single best thing to do is is literally nothing. But the trick, of course, is doing it well. That's really the art of meditation. Because if you're in there and you're thrashing and you're resisting and you're fighting, yeah, you'll get across the finish line of a dark retreat, but you'll just come out battered and bruised and your ego structure is just going to be stronger. So, the most important thing to do is is develop a quality of trust. This is really big when you go into the dark. What does darkness really represent? Because fundamentally, this is super important, Tammy. The darkness is neutral. It's It's just like a mirror. It's The darkness really isn't doing anything.

It's just providing this extraordinarily precious environment where we can look and feel into ourselves at levels I've never done before. So, the best thing to do is shavasana, corpse pose. Just lie on the floor and just do nothing. That's not easy um because again, we're human beings and I'm just on human doings and not human beings. And so, with that said, there there are supplemental things to kind of like fill in the space when you're not just lying on the ground and doing nothing. A lot of people at first, and it's not a problem at all, they sleep like crazy for a couple of days. They don't You don't realize how sleep deprived you are when you're in the dark. This is not at all a waste of time. First of all, it's profoundly restorative, regenerative at a physiological level.

But even more compellingly, and you alluded to this in your introduction of my work, it's a magnificent opportunity to work with the natural meditations, liminal dreaming, lucid dreaming, dream yoga, and sleep yoga. And the reason this is so spectacular is because it's a real It's a kind of a reallocation of our perceptual resources because we consolidate our all our attention, all our resources in the waking state. Um and it It's It's called wake centricity, sight centricity. Um all by the way in the service of ego centricity. And so, when you're in the dark, um you decentralize in the best sense of the word. You can reallocate your your sensory faculties. In fact, in geek speak, this is what we're studying. It's actually called cross modal plasticity. And what this means is that This is so interesting. 1/3 of brain volume and 2/3 of brain processing power is devoted to vision.

The most superficial of all sense faculties, the sense faculty that that we that seduces us out into the world of mere appearance where we're skimming and scrolling and speeding and you know, skipping across the surface of life. Well, when when that most dominant sense faculty is is completely taken offline, even at a neurological level, you can reallocate all those perceptual resources. And then what happens is you come to your senses by losing your senses. There's so many wonderful ironies that take place in dark. You become much more sensitive um to your interiority. It's called interoceptive uh interoception. You're much more sensitive to what you feel. Everything comes alive when all your um kind of cognitive and perceptual resources are no longer consolidated to this external superficial most sense faculty. So, um I'm riffing a lot on this because this is a big deal.

This is This is a part of this remedial work. This is what the Hindu Buddhist tradition talks about as pratyahara, right? Sense withdrawal. Retreating and withdrawing like they say, like a a tortoise, um into the interiority of our being, so that we can then connect more deeply to what we feel. In in in the non-dual Shaiva Tantra tradition, Kashmir Shaivism, they talk so beautifully about touch as a form of transmission. Touch is a form of knowledge. Now, I'm always thinking here of like the Sistine Chapel, you know, where where um God is reaching down and touching, I guess, that's Adam. And so what happens in the dark that's so magnificent is is you're returning as you as you drop in, you're returning from the most dualistic sense, sight. Sound is also taken away. You know, I mean, yes, you can smell when food comes.

You can taste when food comes, but fundamentally you're you're almost forced into the most intimate of all sense faculties, which is tact and which is touch. And so the literal, the metaphorical, this is one of the dualities that breaks down. You you literally get deeper in touch with yourself. You get in deeper in touch with reality. When you're no longer distracting, pulling apart into all these surface modalities. So, long-winded answer to a really terrific question. Now, you know, Andrew, as I was reading Totally Eclipse of the Mind, I have to say I fell in love with the dark as you were writing and describing about it. You got me. I you you romanced me into it.

And I pulled out of my closet uh a mindful that I have a a you know, and I thought as we were talking Beautiful. wouldn't it be fun if we just explored together, you and I, continuing our conversation but being in darkness while we do. Because I was like, "Okay, I don't want to just keep reading about this. I want to get into it." pulled and also to share with you I signed up for a dark retreat. I found a little tiny house just a couple hours from where I am and I was like, "I have to go do this." There you go. And actually uh follow my my love. So, here's the question that came up for me. My intention in going to such a dark retreat is to reset my nervous system. There you go. I have felt that my nervous system, ever since the pandemic, I got to be honest with you has been in a kind of overdrive state.

I've been working with it and I'm wondering what you have to say about how darkness can help with this. Oh my gosh, 100%. Uh yeah. Yeah, isn't it true? You know, for me, it's just with COVID, with everything that's happening in this meta crisis, the political I mean, pick your poison, right? I really do feel not only drawn and quartered, I feel splintered. I feel decentered. I feel fragmented. And so, you just absolutely nailed it when you go into the dark. And by the way, let me just say what we're doing here is spectacular. Um I'm so glad you're you're introducing even what we're doing here because what happens let me just say something about this. When when I either close my eyes We're in the dark now, Andrew. I mean, we're going to we're we're feeling our way with each other. Exactly, exactly, exactly.

I mean, this is one of the most beautiful things about what darkness represents as a principle. This is so interesting and this applies to your kind of nervous system reset by the way. Is that you can create light. You cannot create darkness. Darkness is elemental. It's primordial. You cannot manufacture it. You cannot produce it. And so this is really really interesting because I think when people reflect and on darkness they they are simultaneously attracted and repulsed by it at least a lot of people are and exploring this kind of bi- polar relationship is very interesting. I think people are attracted to it because they intuitively know deep in their system that it does represent the elemental, the primordial. For me and I feel this the minute I put this mask on or I close my eyes darkness invites intimacy. It invites interiority.

It represents depth, authenticity and dare I even say truth. And so what a wonderful exercise just to do this to connect, to slow down cuz darkness really invites and almost forces the slowing down and then cessation. And then connecting and speaking from these depths because I feel personally um when I don't do that again, I get speedy I kind of rush to the surface of my identity structure. Um, I get superficial in the way I approach. So for me is putting this mask on, speaking from this space, going into the dark retreat, which does this obviously in a more extended fashion, the returning to this elemental, this primordial. Yes, this hits the reset button both physiologically because you one does tend to sleep so much more in the dark at first, which is just fantastic healing capacity of the dark.

And then eventually, like I mentioned earlier, then the deeper restorative processes of these of this descent, waking down into the wisdom of the body, waking down into the depth and interiority. And And sometimes people don't realize, this is worth a brief comment, that once you get past, you know, just a few millimeters on the surface of your skin, it's pitch black inside your body. And so this this return to the depth of the center of ourselves, um this is where you know, darkness represents genesis, creativity, and origin in so many worlds mythological traditions. It's It's um darkness precedes light. Before the Big Bang, allegedly, there was this primordial soup of darkness. You know, we were probably conceived in the dark and spend 9 months bathed in it. We return to darkness every night when we fall asleep. We return to darkness at the end of life.

And in fact, we use languaging that that suggests the the kind of the um sense the the irreducibility of darkness when we say things like, you know, at the end of the day, which represents for what? Uh for us what what quality of what really matters, what really counts. What's the bottom line at the end of the day? Well, what happens at the end of the day? It gets dark. It gets dark. And one of the things that uh attracted me so much, part of my falling in love, is what you're saying, the irreducibility. I think I've had certain cautionary notes for myself around exploring psychedelics, but when it comes to darkness, I notice I feel there's no obstacle because I'm not putting something in. I'm simply being with something that's organically there. I wonder if you have a comment about that. Spot on.

This is exactly why a number of the scientists that I'm working with that do parallel research in psychedelics are beyond over the moon studying this because yeah, this is such a great comment, Tenzin, because at the early levels of dark retreat, and this is what I call I make two distinctions here about darkness. This is my languaging, but I think it's completely appropriate. Kind of sutra level dark retreat which is more exoteric. It's more about self-fulfillment. And it's more psycholytic in nature. Psycholytic, lysis means to loosen, to soften. And so this is where at the sutra level is the psycholytic aspect. This is where all the stuff loosens, comes up. Um things are broken up and and you have to come have to come but do come up to the surface.

And along these lines, again, Chögyam Trungpa the master of the one-liner he said so beautifully along these lines, you know, meditation isn't a sedative, it's a laxative. Well, if we repeat a little bit Rüdiger bear meditation, I mean, dark retreat is meditation times a thousand. You're in the dark while you're laxating times a thousand. And basically what that means is you're opening, opening, opening and stuff is going to come up. I mentioned earlier the descent of the mind. You're submerging. Well, you can equally talk about dark retreat as a practice of emerging. Doesn't really matter which metaphor you're using. One way the other, you're going to go down into it or it's going to come up. You're going to purge. You're going to cleanse. It's going to come up. That's the psycholytic aspect. Now, tantra, this is where it really gets cool.

This is where it's now a little bit more esoteric. This is where it's not so much about self-fulfillment but more about self-transcendence, more spiritual than psychological, and in fact, it's more psychedelic instead of psycholytic in the truest sense of that word because psychedelic literally means mind manifesting. And in the dark, mind manifests as never before, mind becomes reality just like when we fall asleep, and according to um the wisdom traditions, just like when we die. Why? Well, because there's nothing else. It's all been taken away. And so, there's no doubt, you nailed this right on the head, Tammy, is that dark retreat is absolutely positively a sober psychedelic. You become the medicine. And we're going to be studying this. We have no doubt whatsoever.

We don't have the data yet, but we're going to gather it that after a certain amount of time in the dark, there's no doubt whatsoever that things like endogenous DMT are going to be released. This is what accounts for the more dazzling aspects of extended darkness, the lights, the visions, and all that kind of stuff that happens. But the most important thing here, and then I'll pause, is that a very powerful kind of analog here is that a a big issue with with dark, just like with psychedelic, is set and setting. Having the right place to go where you feel safe, you're contained. That's the setting. Mindset is how you approach it. Um another really big issue with both darkness and psychedelics is dosage. Um the issue with dark retreat is you can overdose. You absolutely positively can overdose on yourself.

And so, getting the dosage right is part of why having a guide on hand is really helpful. Understanding what's happening when you're in the dark, like where do the pressures come from? This is a really rich topic that we could talk about. Why does it get heavy and suffocating and oppressive? There's a reason for this. And so this notion notion of dosage is a good one. Um titrating the dose, figuring it out exactly what what is going to be workable for you. Because if you if you go in there too long, and this is a big problem with people that want to white-knuckle it and and stay in for for weeks for even, you know, the 49-day thing. This is where you can get into trouble because you can in fact overdose on yourself.

So Well, well, and the whole thing here, Andrew, cuz I'm just going to take off my mask for a moment and then I'm going to put it back on, but look how perfect control of the dosage there is. Hey, hi friend, I feel like seeing you for a moment. But wait a second, I'm going to go back. Isn't that awesome? Well, Tami, as usual, you're the visionary because the what you just I'm a visionary with a dark mask on. Isn't it true that that the the irony of language, the paradox, even the the breakdown of literal and metaphorical comes into play here. Because what you just did here is what we're exploring. Me meaning some scholars and and and scientists as well, um the practice of gray retreat. Which is tight it's exactly what we just did. Titrating, dripping the darkness so that it never can become a problem.

So that you can absolutely positively work out the dosage levels by simply flipping the light on and off. Or just like we did, taking the mask on and off. People who hear about this, they they first response is there's just no effing way I can do this. There's just no way. Well, if you approach it through this titrated way, closing your eyes, again using the the psychedelic language, you can microdose in the blink of an eye. You can microdose every time you put the mask on. And so everybody who has eyelids can do dark retreat. Um and so this is the way you work your way into it. This is the way this otherwise wildly esoteric practice is just for the professionals can become applicable and in in brought to home use and brought to scale.

And this to me, Tami, is what's incredibly exciting because I see boy, we can talk about this, you know, the the the principal signature of this dark age, this we know we live in the Kali Yuga. You may have noticed another term traditionally for the medical crisis. Well, we can make a very powerful case that one of the principal character, I should say generative drivers of the dark age is light and artificial light. And then deeper, maybe towards the end of our conversation, I want to plant the seed Well, we'll say a little bit, I think people may be like, what? I mean, there's so many issues that are causing our problems. Artificial light, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, now we're going to the reduction base. So, it's again, just hang with me and see if it's true for you.

And what I'm trying to get at here is that again there's there's nothing of course, but good lord, we couldn't operate in the world without light. I mean, blind people will contest that, but we need light. We if we didn't have photosynthesis, we couldn't eat and and light of course is an extraordinarily powerful ingredient of the human condition. I mean, half the day is light, half the day is dark. So, I'm not I'm not basically saying let's get rid of the light. What I'm saying is let's put it into balance. And so, here's let me interject one thing here that I learned from the Greek tradition, if I might, that I found extraordinarily helpful. They have this beautiful term, this will help you understand the basic principle of what happens in the dark in a larger wisdom tradition context. You'll find this also in the in the teachings of Taoism on yin and yang.

But when the within the context of of our own um, wisdom tradition, in other words, the the Greeks principally, they speak about this comes from Heraclitus. Of the He was a philosopher of flow. He's the guy that said you can't step into the same river twice. Well, he also talked a lot about non-duality, believe it or not. And he brought forth this incredibly interesting term. It's a beautiful term that I'll explain it has such intuitive resonance. It's called enantiodromia. E N A N T I O D R O M I A The word literally means running into the opposite. And when you really explore this principle, which I did, it just blew my socks off. It's a tremendous explanatory framework for what happens in the dark. Um Basically, the idea here, this also represented in the East with the with the yin yang, is that if you take something to its extreme, it flips into its opposite.

And so, this is the logic here that God, I wish somebody would have told me this 30 years ago in the dark. When you're in the dark, after a while, the past closes in on you. The future closes in on you. It feels like the walls are closing in on you. It feels like the ceiling and the floor are closing in on you. And you feel like on on one level, I'm being slightly dramatic, it feels like you're just being crushed, crushed into this tomb. And what I've discovered that's just bloody amazing within this context of enantiodromia, is that when the mind is forced into the present moment, to such an extent that darkness invites, well, guess what happens? It flips into unbelievable openness. This is the most amazing thing. And I mentioned this in in my recent TED Talk on this topic. The tomb, you know, you're in the dark, it can be really intense at first. It can be really heavy.

And we can we can talk about this in terms of the preliminary descent of the mind when it falls into itself. It falls through into and through all these upper bandwidths of the unconscious mind. That's where all the spiders and snakes hang out, the refuse of the unconscious mind. And that's why the first part of dark retreat can be somewhat challenging, because you're facing that. All that stuff is coming up. But once you drop in into and past and and below that, what felt like a tomb, I can't resist the language to play, turns into a womb. Or as I say, a womb with no view, or in this case, a womb with the best view. Of who you really are. So, I'll pause, but this is a big deal. So, the darkness closes in on you. You're you're you're withdrawing, you're withdrawing, you're withdrawing, you're withdrawing to such an extent that eventually it blows you wide open.

And this this is huge, Tammy, because when you come out, you you actually have no idea until you come out of the retreat just how open you got while you were in the retreat and how basically contracted we are as we live our lives. We're so contracted. And so, when you're in the dark, you're relaxing, you're opening, everything dilates. You know, it's not just your eyes that dilate in the dark. Your mind dilates, your heart dilates, your body dilates. And I if I if I I wouldn't do it, but it'd be an interesting experience. If I'm in the dark for x amount of days, 4 5 6 days, theoretically as a thought experiment, if the walls were to blow off and the ceiling was to blow off, and I was to be hit in the full broad light of the day, I would probably go into sensory shock.

And what this reveals to me is just how calloused I've become, just how disconnected I've become, just how out of touch I've become with myself, with others and with this world. This is the loss of empathy and compassion and connectivity to self and other. And I see this when I come out. It takes me, depending on how long I'm in, it takes me days sometimes to come out. Because every time I drip the light in, just like I drip the dark going in, I drip the light coming out. And every time that light comes on, Tammy, I will notice very, very sensitively an introceptive some level of contraction, some level of defensiveness, some level of of yeah, just pulling apart.

And so this to me is profoundly revelatory of just how contracted I become in this life through relentless sensory assault, through all these weapons of mass destruction, all these light sources, and hence coming back to this light thing. That if you you know, you go into the dark I'm coming back to wind it back up with the enantiodromia thing. Close, close, close down, you're going to eventually open up. And then not only do you open up to this extent, but you finally discover, as my friend Chris Wallace says so beautifully, there is no darkness within. There's just light I'm seeing. And so you go into the dark so deeply it flips into these profound lights. So I'll stop there because I know I'm throwing so many noodles on the wall, but this is just so you That's That's all right.

I I I I want to pick up on something that I think's really important and that you write about very beautifully in Total Eclipse of the Mind, which is working through the layers of spiders and snakes as you just described them in our conversation. I What I've been finding as I talk to people, they say, you know, gosh, I just keep waking up at 3:00 a.m. in some kind of panic. How do I work with it? And I thought, huh, dark retreat could really teach us how to work with our panic moments, our terror moments, those that come upon us. And in dark retreat we have to find our way through. And And you go through a four-part process that I think is really brilliant. You teach it in a version in your reverse meditation book with Sounds True, but I think talking about it in the context, I'm in the dark and something unwanted as part of this laxative experience is meeting me right in the face.

What do I do? Take me through it, Andrew. Yeah. Oh, this is so great, Tammy. So, let let's actually do this together. Let Let me do that Before I go through And I can absolutely mention the four steps of this, but even to make it more applicable and appropriate, let me just guide you through this. This is This is a really quite beautiful thing that I do, I'm not exaggerating, Tammy, every single day. I I kind of learned it spontaneously. Something unwanted happens every day, really? Yeah, exactly. It's kind of amazing, right? So, let's do this together. So, if you don't have a mask and many of you probably don't, you want just close your eyes. So, let's just do this together. Simply close your eyes. Take a nice deep breath. Put your hand over your heart and allow yourself to feel. You mentioned the term working through it, going through it.

I'm going to amend this ever so slightly with the languaging go into it. Exactly what the darkness invites. So, we're going to do a mini dark retreat right here. Whatever you're feeling right now, the invitation is to feel it, make contact with it, touch it as fully as you possibly can. If you're like me, this probably invites a wonderful interiority. The practice is and this applies again to anything that can happen at any point. If you're having panic in the middle of the night, any unwanted experience during the day, it doesn't matter. Feel into it, but don't feed it. Feel it, but don't feed it. You know you're feeding it when you start riffing on it. That's what keeps you up at night. That's what creates a real panic attack. You're feeding this underlying sensation that in many instances may not feel all that great.

Well, you may discover that if you give yourself permission to feel it as fully as you possibly can, this radically changes the entire structure of the experience. Again, Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, the master of the one-liner, said so beautifully, there is no way out. The magic is to discover that there is a way in. Dark retreat is the way in. This practice is the way in. Hold to your experience. Just like the holding environment I mentioned earlier in the dark. Notice how we break away. This is the most immediate iteration of this distracting pulling apart tendency that we have when things especially are difficult and challenging challenging our default is to distract, pull apart, break away. Right there in that gesture of distraction we transform simple unwanted experience / pain into complex suffering.

So you can deconstruct your suffering by remembering, returning, retracting to the fundamental unwanted sensation. Hold to that. Don't grasp, but just simply hold it in the cradle of loving kindness. Do so without judgment. Swami Kripalu said the highest form of spiritual practice is self-observation without judgment. Just simply feel it. Playing with language yet again, this is how you can resolve even the deepest underlying traumas. Because trauma is nothing more than chronic contraction. And when those contractions come up and you hold them essence of the word dharma d h a r m a in Sanskrit big word in Buddhism in Hinduism, the word literally means to hold. As in stop, cease, don't move away, hold in that sense. And then hold as in contain. Relate. So eventually you'll discover hold it to heal it.

This is how you resolve any unwanted experience, even intractable chronic contractions of trauma. And all this is the kind of thing that comes up in the dark, whether it's the darkness of the night and a panic attack in the middle of the night, the darkness of dark retreat. When you're no longer distracting, you're starting to have the opportunity to get in touch with a whole host of unwanted experiences. And if we keep running from them, we will never process them. We'll never get through them. Stop. Drop. To the wisdom of your body which knows what to do. So I'll pause there, Tammy. I can say more about the four specific steps of reverse meditation, but this is the essence of it. This is really the heart of the whole practice is kind of reversing your normal strategies to run away and to anesthetize by distracting. Drop into experience, especially when it's unwanted.

This is how we digest, metabolize, process unwanted experiences. This is how we purify karma. This is how we prevent the accretion of karma in just this incredibly simple gesture. Invited with this exercise, really invited and extended dark retreat gives you the extraordinary opportunity to process and relate to a ton of challenging unwanted experiences that has to come up. If they don't come up, your life becomes a symptomatic readout, an avoidance strategy to avoid these unwanted experiences. And dark retreat invites this stuff, allows it to come up. Just a couple of more questions, Andrew, with the darkness here, between us. You mentioned that as we move through unwanted experience, the psycholytic, I think is what you said, dimension of this, we move to yet a deeper place in time, where we're encountering, I think you said, something like who we really are, something to that effect.

So, from this place of having the darkness be our container for the conversation, our holding space, which I really, really like, tell me about that discovery, Oh, huge. Yeah. perhaps even bringing forward how you discovered this in dark retreat. Like, was there an initial moment when you were in dark retreat and you were like, "Oh my effing god, this is what I've been looking for?" Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Ooh. Yeah, so so this is this is great. So, this is now um what happens exactly like you're suggesting when you start to relax and open. So you you've dropped through the upper you know what I call the refuse heap of the upper dimensions of the unconscious mind, you know, the refused elements. You drop through the spiders and snakes. Now you're dropping deeper, deeper, and deeper into the deeper dimensions of the unconscious mind.

And we can talk a little bit more later about how that term is actually a slight misnomer, but I don't want to sidetrack your very important question. And so as the mind continues to open and open and relax like Rumi put it so beautifully into wider, wider rings of being, now you're getting down into deeper, more fundamental truths. And so this is where I like to use this language saying my language saying the darkness is the color of non-duality. It's a duality decimator. And it fundamentally darkness will take you all the way to the groundless ground of non-duality. That's the fruition of this practice. But as you're working your way down and opening, you're going to go through like I mentioned a few minutes ago through these kind of sedimentation levels, an archaeological tour of the unconscious mind.

And you're going to drop I mentioned into the into the personal unconscious, then into the collective unconscious. And so whether you want to use the Youngian depth psychological terms or the of the archetypes, which is completely appropriate here, or Taimni, I prefer the Eastern and Western renderings of the gods and the deities. This is where you meet the gods and the deities. These are the most fundamental dimensions before you dissolve into the full complete openness of the non-dual space. This is where it becomes a complete game changer and deal maker because you know if you're returning to the dimensions of your mind that that are generative of everything we do up on the surface. These fundamental archetypes, these fundamental principles of the deities and the gods and what they represent, the principles and qualities that they represent.

And so when you're in the dark, you drop into this incredible creative matrix. So the hence dark retreat is such a tremendous source of creativity. And here's the aha moment. You asked for one aha moment. I dedicated this book that's coming out to the deity Prajnaparamita, which is the feminine archetype of of emptiness. We can talk a little bit about that. And also, I dedicated the book to Hermes Mercurius, the Greco-Roman gods that are basically the um those archetypes, those deities, those gods that ferry between the gods and the mortals. They carry information, they carry insight. And so what happened to me, especially in the in the dark retreat, that broke loose this book, this book that's coming out. I say it's my best book because I didn't write it. Hermes Mercurius wrote this book.

And so one when opens to such an extent these primordial creative forces start to flow through you. And And this is why more and more creative types, Elizabeth Gilbert, um poets and writers and musicians, more and more are going in to the dark because they realize they're realizing they have this extraordinary capacity to tap in to these tremendously um creative sources. So when you return to the original, to the reduction base, no surprise that originality and creativity would be part of this return. So this is this is a really wonderful deeper exploration that again for some people can happen rather quickly, for others might take a little bit of time in the dark. But the mind drops into this magnificent creative generative matrix, this this kind of matriarchal dimension of the mind, from which everything is born, everything is brought forth.

Um and so it's not merely and you mentioned this and then again I'll pause, I get so excited. You mentioned something about space and time. Well, the other thing that happens when when the mind opens and falls to this um extend, even a little bit below this level, is what happens in this kind of duality decimating journey, is you not only does day and night break down, not only does, you know, waking and dreaming break down, not only does inside and outside break down, but eventually the very sense of self and other breaks down because these are all constructs, they're all made up. And when you go into the dark, they're unmade, they're deconstructed. So, as you're falling down, you realize this is beyond profound. But anybody who's had a really deep non-dual experience will tell you this. Anybody who's had a really deep psychedelic experience will tell you this.

You drop into and then below the very dimension of space, time, and causality because these are all co-emergent, they arise with the sense of self. So, when you drop below this dimension, even space breaks down, time breaks down down, causality breaks down. You start to have visions of the future. Um when I wrote this book, I had a very clear vision of precisely what was going to happen with the release of this book. That was another consequence of this. This is where the shamans enter into the world of the mystics. You can cultivate this in the dark. And so the self dissolves, space-time causality dissolves. Whoa. Now you're getting into these real deep transpersonal transspatial temporal dimensions. that fundamentally change everything. Now you're returning to the reduction base that generates all of manifest reality.

Um and so the capacity for darkness to do this again deep meditation will do this, right? Nocturnal meditations will do this, death will do this. But the darkness is probably not probably for me without question the single best way to drop all the way down into this reduction base. So does that make sense to me? Does that resonate with you? It does and with that Andrew I think I'm going to take off uh the eye mask because it's time time for time for me to integrate a bit here after that. Do it slowly. Right. Okay, I am. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, exactly. Well, what do you know right now right now? Wait. What do you notice right now? Even before uh What do you feel? What do you feel? What do you feel? I feel an explosion uh a boundless explosion of light that uh feels extremely vibrant, stimulating and I feel a lot of love and gratitude, too. Let me say something about that, my dear.

Oh my god, you just hit it. So this is great. This is one of the most beautiful aspects of this practice. Is that as the mind opens and opens and opens and opens, it softens. It's like I mentioned, your eyes dilate and mind dilates, your heart dilates, your body dilates. And what is the natural consequence of this opening? Love. Love. This is how you fall in love with your world. When you no longer contracting against it, and you surrender and open to it, a natural consequence of this opening is love. And so I I And I mentioned this it's somewhat embarrassing but not really because it's kind of cute. Excuse me, when I come out of the dark, I sometimes feel like I should be quarantined because my heart is so open and and I'm not actually kidding. I will be with people I don't even know all that well and I just can't help myself.

I will just simply tell them, "I love you." I've done it and it kind of freaks them out. And so I can't I literally cannot help expressing this level of openness. And so to me, this right here is worth the price of admission. You open open open. Look below. Don't take my word for this. Look below any experience of unconditional love. Not lust, not conditional love, but love for a pet, love for a parent, love I mean unconditional love. Look deeply into any experience of unconditional love. What are you going to find? You're going to find openness. I guarantee it. And so you can practice love by practicing openness. And when you go into the dark, you know, even though initially when you hit the dark, you might contract defensively because it's like a cold plunge. But once you warm up to it, so to speak, and you relax and you open, your heart breaks open.

And it's just like you said, the world is vibrant, it's softer, it's more awake. You notice this in what? 20 minutes of wearing your mask. Imagine doing this for an afternoon. Imagine doing this for a couple of days. This is like, you know, M. C. Richards book "The Center of the Cyclone" "Falling in Love with the World". Well, and what is so interesting and I'm so happy I we demonstrated it with the mask is you can do this right in the midst of your life. I know you, Andrew, in your basement you have built a a a a dark room where you can in within your house you could go for several hours. You know, and what I like about the mask is your eyes are open in the dark versus just doing a practice of shutting your eyes. There's something I don't know if you can speak to that.

What's happening in our neurological system, but when our eyes are open in the dark, it's a little different than when you just shut your eyes. Once again, such a sensitive statement. And And this we we've explored this with with some dark retreat centers and some dark retreat guides. This is super interesting, Cammy. We've discovered that about 90%. We don't have a hard data yet, but we're collecting it. About 90% of people that go into the dark usually contract at first. They have a flight flight freeze response um because it's so unfamiliar, it's so unknown, they defensively contract. What a lot of people do, and I bet it's these 90%. This is We're trying to collect the data on this. Most of the people when they first go into the dark, they keep their eyes closed all the time. Why? Because it normalizes the darkness, right? It normalizes it.

But when you're in the dark, and this is why the masks that you can open your eyes underneath are so important, you open your eyes underneath the dark, it's a different story. Now you're Now you're relating to this this re- restructuring of your sensory capacities that you're literally Now you're literally boycotting your sense faculty. You're literally working again geek speak this cross-modal plasticity. You're inviting all this data that normally is poured into the occipital cortex to process visual information. All that information, all that processing power now, I should say, is now available for your other senses to come online, especially the sense of of of touch, empathy, tactician, the ability to to relate to your world in a fully more bodied sensual way. And so, yeah, that's spot on. Practicing with your eyes open underneath the mask is helpful.

Stepping into a dark space, you mentioned my constructed my dark room. Let me just say something very briefly. It That construction project took all about 5 minutes because you don't have to invest a lot in decor, right? This is a really important aspect of the dark. You know, you cannot have a bad hair day in the dark. Appearances don't matter. Let me say this about 20 times. When you're in the dark, appearances don't matter. This is the ultimate democratizing agent. It doesn't matter if you have the wealth of of of Bezos or Musk or you're a dictator or a king or a pauper or a beggar or you're overweight. And this is why Tiyanak is so beautiful. So many women come out. This is so touching. So many women in particular come out of the dark with tears in their eyes saying, "I never felt so safe and so held and so loved in my life.

I could finally drop my bound my guard and just be myself because I realized nobody was looking at me. Men weren't checking me out. I wasn't being sized up by anybody. I could finally relax and just be myself." Think about what this can do for people that have body dysmorphia or they're struggling with aging. And they you know, they're again, what are they doing? Those people that suffer, they're consolidating their identity structure at the superficial most dimension of their being, which is their physicality, their appearance. That doesn't matter when you're in the dark. The only thing that matters in the dark is only thing you ever really have, and that's your beautiful mind and your good heart. And so it's the ultimate eraser. It's the ultimate kind of democratization process in this regard. And so this is no small thing. This Appearances don't matter.

People come out feeling, "Wow, I never felt so safe and held because I wasn't being judged anymore." It's beautiful. And as we're completing our debrief, if you will, with our masks off, you know, you talked about the holding space and the word Dharma and its connection to holding. And I I never knew that I Andrew before this conversation. And this is really interesting to me because what I brought forward was how do we work through traumatic experience? And I know in in my experience in working through traumatic experience, it has a lot to do with finding that holding space and relaxing into it. And the fact that the darkness becomes a holding space. I wonder if you can just comment on that and we'll end our conversation. It's just sends chills up my back. These these questions are so fantastic. Yeah, the the darkness is it's incredibly nurturing.

You know, I I'm I'm riffing these days and you had a wonderful guest. I I apologize. I can't remember her name. A couple of weeks ago when you talked about rematriation, um this is a magnificent aspect of dark retreat is is working to rematriate, to to return to the feminine. But in the wisdom traditions, light is masculine. Darkness is feminine. Too much light it results fundamentally in all the pathologies we see of patriarchy, all the the dominance of consciousness itself. The unconscious mind is feminine. Darkness is feminine. And so again, using the principles of enantiodromia, and then I'll come very specifically back to your question. We're getting rid We're balancing. I wouldn't say get rid getting rid. That's not the right way. We're balancing this runaway patriarchal expression, getting lost and blinded by the light. At these levels, light doesn't reveal. Light conceals.

So when you go into the dark, you're returning to the divine feminine. Emptiness is feminine. Darkness is feminine. You're rematriating. You're returning. This is why dark retreats such as it that are actually caves that are in the earth are really magnificent. You're balancing this fundamental equation. And so when you go into the dark, the darkness holds you eventually. Again, it can crush you at first, but that crushing weight, by the way, is not coming from the darkness. It's coming from all your projections. All the weight that you feel in the dark is directly proportional to everything you've projected onto the dark. And so, when you're in there and you're feeling all this stuff, that's the weight all your projections have been loaded onto the dark. When you're in the dark, eventually it gets lighter. It It frees up. It lightens up.

This is one way you know you're progressing because you're starting to own up. You're starting to clean up your projections because literally and metaphorically, you can't project in the dark your normal way. You can't throw around in the dark like you do in the in the day. It'll come back and hit you. So, you're forced to integrate your projections. Now, as you do that, the darkness changes. It doesn't change. You've changed. And now you can then trust and surrender the basic holding environment, the goodness of this darkness. And as you do so, the darkness provides this incredible embryonic environment. Make You know, profound mother. Prajnaparamita, I dedicated the book Mother of all the Buddhas. She holds you in the dark. This wisdom holds you in the dark. And when you're held in this loving way, and it is made of love, what do you do? You trust. You surrender. You relax.

And right there, in that gesture, all the benefits take place. Complete when we keep starting this conversation an hour ago, this is where all the benefits come from. Trusting the goodness of the dark. And which this which means what? Trusting the goodness of your own being, your own mind and heart. Being willing to drop into yourself so deeply, knowing that at the core of your being is this fundamental matrix of divinity, purity, and love. And this is what's revealed. So, the holding environment, literally mandala, you know, in in Buddhist language in mandala literally means essence container. When you're in the dark, there's this wonderful You can see, I just can't stop talking. There's this amazing line from Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche where he says, you know, the essence of samsara is we lose the essence in the display. There's too much display. We get lost in the light.

We get pulled out. We get distracted. There's too much display. When you go into the dark like hand-over-heart practice the display is reduced to near ground zero. Just what happens when we sleep and what happens when we die. And when when the display is reduced to near ground zero you can recap recognize re-recognize recognize the essence of who you really are. And then what do you do? The perfect place to end. Then you come back like we did when we took our masks off. You come back into the light. You come back into speech into form into action. But you have the memory of this darkness this depth this interiority with you. And so therefore every speech every word comes from this depth. Every gesture comes from this depth. Every action comes from this depth. And therefore this is where you bring in post retreat authenticity and dare I say love into everything you do.

Andrew Holecek, we're talking about dark retreat and his new book Total Eclipse of the Mind Unleashing the Power of Darkness for Creativity, Healing, and Transformation. Andrew, I had so much fun with you. Thank you so much. I loved meeting you in the dark. Thank you. It's a delight. Again, thank you so much for the opportunities. Always so much fun to talk to you. Have the best time possible when you enter your own retreat. Okay, I will remember this. Cool. Thanks, friends.

I'm so great to see you. Great to see you. I'm super psychic. I was going to have I was going to attend this one with my with my uh in the dark, you know. In the dark, but I'll I'll I'll keep it ready in case it's helpful. Yeah. I I use How are you? I'm good. I'm good. I use my my mant mask all the time. This is a great opportunity for for us to to talk just a teeny bit about this upcoming program that we're doing on on clear light non-duality and dark retreat um at the end of the month in June starting in June June 30th to July um 6th. Those are the dates over the fourth. Fantastic internal fireworks. Exactly. So we'll set off the Fourth of July fireworks inside. And so, so let's let's start by talking a little bit about um what do these three topics have in common? Clear light, non-duality, and and darkness. So, why don't we start with something like that? Interesting.

You know, um well, what I'm happy about especially was the discovery by the materialist scientists of dark mass and dark energy. dark matter and dark energy which was done by the kindness of Vera Rubin, a lady named Vera Rubin who was observing the spinning of the Virgo galaxy, you know, one of the galaxies nearby our Milky Way and through all this complicated telescopes and etc. and um discovered that the bright matter and the bright energy which we think of as the only one. The stuff that you see, you know, when something blows up or when a star shines or what we're looking at around us in this room was not the only one. And there's another matter and energy and one that you can't see.

And what that immediately gave me insight about is the issue of so-called clear light which actually is would be better translated in English as light clear which is the way it's it's translated into Tibetan the way in Sanskrit originally was and in those compounds of the word clear and the word light so clear part is the is the main noun and light is secondary actually whereas when you say Clear light in English you think is light. So it's bright matter. But actually clear light is not bright. Clear light is transparent. Beautiful. So transparent mass and energy. So so non-duality if you if you have a non-dual experience of clear light, transparency and it is an experience that you yourself are also clear light. You know, you are sustained by the mass of clear light or light clear or transparency. You are sustained by that mass and everything else is made of that mass.

And if you're non-dual with it, you're clearly not going to see that clarity because it's transparent. And you are not going to see your own transparency. You're going to experience it in some different way. And as I I like to say nowadays, you occupy it but you don't actually see it. Non that connects to nonduality therefore in the sense that if you non if you are non-dual then you and whatever you see normally dualistically are um not seen. You don't see that you don't see yourself reflected in the mirror of an object that you see. You don't see the object as something separate from yourself. That's all dualistic nonduel. You somehow are connected to it and and and what you see that where it's separate seems separate from you is illusory at the same time you're occupying the same thing that it is which is transparent matter and energy.

In a way you are completely one with it but you don't need to see that. So this is analogous to looking at your face in a mirror or for example I see my face here in the side panel or double panel thing and yet it looks like me there but of course that's not me. It's an illusory reflection that looks like me. It isn't me. And I could point to the nose of this image that I see in the screen and say, "Not my nose, not my ear, not my beard." Which is, by the way, new new beard. I like it. By the way, I don't know. People do, but I'm sort of still uncomfortable a little bit, but it's nice to say. Anyway, I know that's a digression. That's a nondole digression.

So it's not disturbing if I know that digression or not digression is the same invisible process and it's a life force actually it's all alive you know and even the illusion is alive but in misperceived but that I correct what I wrongly see in the mirror as if there was somebody else who looks like me there through a window and I correct that immediately by knowing almost inferentially you could say that that's just a photographic representation, right? And indeed, I'm not seeing real you. I'm seeing a representation of you in your side of the screen. And so I correct, we correct the error of what we see in a mirror without thinking, without having to think about it. So in a way we nondually experience what's what we misperceive as a real person through a window when we look at our face in the mirror and we simultaneously know it's not us and somehow that is the nondual correction.

Yeah. That we don't have to think about in a separate way. Yeah. So that of course that's an analogy to being on dual with everything where you are just one with it and you can sustain within that you can sustain the illusory appearance. That's beautiful. But then apparently if the illusory appearance has something negative about it where you're seeing an enemy which is in this case not the case but you're seeing an enemy you're seeing threat you're seeing you just hurt yourself bumping into something or and yet if you're non-dual that sort of doesn't happen at the same time it happened and this is inconceivable this that doesn't what I just said doesn't make sense to us in language which is always dualistic. It's matter or mind. It's yes or no. It's and and yet nondually you're beyond that kind of linguistic ability to capture that.

But that's let let me interrupt for one second because finally we get to the dark. Well, yeah, exactly. That's what I was just going to say to the dark again by by being in the dark connecting to the dark mass and energy by putting on your blindfold or whatever other way being on a dark retreat in a totally dark space for some period of time. You begin to realize that that is its own mass and energy. And in a way you sort of have the opposite of the bright mass and energy. And then you find out that you have brightness in your own mind. So it turns your mind inward and you find the brightness in your mind. So that nudges you in the direction of the nondual thing which we can't even say anything about that be that we couldn't say the opposite about. So therefore that's beyond the limit of language. So the the dark retreat is indispensable.

Just like for the scientists who thought they were about to capture everything in bright matter energy and have the grand unified theory blah blah blah. They actually ran into 10 times more mass and 10 times more energy at least. It may be hundred times more. You can't see. And this has thrown them for a loop. Although they never admit it's a real loop, but it is. So that's the dark. Yeah. Let me say one thing about this. This is really great. where we want to take because one of the things that the dark retreat does is it it makes you because I've been doing this for 29 years. It um it makes you transparent to yourself. Um and so the transparency comes into play and what it does you you in exactly where darkness can take you.

You know as the mind as the mind falls into itself the darker tree wrong bop self fall the mind falls from exactly um these points challenging who you think you are where you know you're looking at the nose and all that well in the dark there is no nose to look at and so you fall through the dimensions of who you think you are in deeper dimensions of who you really are and then and then this is where it gets so brilliant Bob is is because you discover that there is no darkness within there's only light unseen. And so we go into the dark and we remove all exogenous external distracting stimuli. It's the analogy I use. I'm curious how this lands with you Bob. It's a little bit like the discoveries of the Hubble telescope and the web telescope. If you want to see into the origins of the universe, go as far away as you can from distracting light pollution.

And then you you take the in this case of your mind. It's not a telescope. It's an inner scope. And so you go deep into a a a sensory deprivation situation where all um light pollution distraction is removed. That allows you just like the web telescope to concentrate focus the mind in upon itself and instead of peering to the beginnings of the universe, you you peer into the beginnings of reality itself and the nature of the mind. So this is what's so bloody brilliant where everything you say then can become your direct experience. You literally this is the best saying you literally see for yourself by going temporarily blind. Um and this this is the genius of of the dark medicine.

Don't you think and and you know from our from our other point about death you know which has been our stick quite a lot in all our path work our past work then if you look at the three intuitions or they have various names right as you descend from coarse matter earth water fire wind space the five elements as they say in Indotibetan science Indian and Tibetan inner science then you go to luminance, radiance and imminence. Those three exactly which are a white light, you know, infinite white light, infinite reddish light, orange reddish light. So moon and sun and then infinite black light and then that black light is like the dark retreat. That's what you touch in the dark. And then they say there's the clear light as we translate it in English but in Sanskrit and Tibetan they called it the light clear. So that's the transparency which you never see.

So you know by the way you know if any guru or anybody says I saw clear light you know they didn't. Right. Exactly. Exactly. You know that they didn't because it's the one thing you don't see but you are it. You be here, be there, so to speak, cuz it's everywhere and it's everything. And it's not nothing. It's everything. And and you and then the the absolute for the materialist is that experience of the dark light, the black light. And they think that like when they fall asleep, even they think having a rehearsal for death and they think there's a death state opposite the life state. Whereas what what you know when you go nondual inter clear light is that it's all light and the dark is just the boundary. It's really the boundary. It's not nothing. It's it seems may seem like nothing when you're still used to finding objects.

But actually as you give as you let go you realize that it's not because you don't stay there.

So you so you're you're you alive to the clear light and then the clear light is is all the illusory stuff is is simultaneously the clear light which is inexpressable right that's so that's so important so that's cool cool and what was I yeah there's so by the way what is discovered that the Hindu people the dualist ones and I think maybe the Buddhist terraata people although they don't um they don't use the three gonas but they know about them because it's very much in Indian culture you know Buddha Buddha was born in Capilavastu the town of the sananka great philosopher so there's always that connection and the three gonas which are sad rajas and tamas that's the tama the dark retreat is learning about tamas we think oh tamas that must be like death or that's inertia or that's darkness or that's that's what we're scared of right because we think that's the opposite of light which is life which we associate with.

But the light that's the opposite of the dark is still not the clear light, the ultimate light, you know, the infinite light. And you know, I think Einstein knew that and also Spinosa. But Einstein created this fake scam called E= MC² to pretend that somehow infinite light was something mathematically achievable. But but infinity is not achievable. On the other hand, infinity is not excluded. It's a kind.

So it's kind of a good analogy like we're all in infin infinite as well as being finite but we think no we're finite and infinity is something some it's out there you know and the other thing I thought of when you mention about the birth of the universe which from our point from Buddhist point of view there the universe is beginningless actually local regions can have a kind of emanation of a livable space or not within this kind of a body but divine bodies can live in empty what we think of as empty space. They don't bother with them. Also, apparently aliens. The horrible alien lives in empty space to outside the spaceship. Remember it's clinging on to Sigourney spaceship in Alien 3 or whatever it was and landed on Earth. They were fine. So bad things too. But uh I was thinking that you know they think that the universe is finite.

The scientists have always been acting like it's a finite thing because beyond a certain distance of light years you can't see. So it would take you know the things light can't reach you. So then they think well therefore that means we're we are finite universe that that means there's nothing beyond but the dark is not nothing. It's infinite energy in the dark actually more than in the bright. Exactly. That's also what you find. So therefore, you're you're like flip out about dark energy, Andrew. That's so neat. I think it really is neat to do that. Great. And so let's let's talk just a little bit about what what people will be experiencing when they when they um come and join us in Menla. You know, by Bob and I will be sharing the platform. I'll I'll be um delivering a lot of material about well, how do you actually do direct practice? So, we'll be doing it with masks on.

We'll have four specially prepared rooms where people can go in for up to an hour at a time. I have a very very um skilled guide joining me as well who's a really seasoned practitioner. So, you'll be held um very uh carefully and comfortably introduced to the power of of dark medicine and um given basically everything you need to know to get started with this amazing practice which is now coming into light um in this day and age. Wow. You start this practice at home and so we'll be talking about gray retreat weaving in and out um experiencing it. Bob and I will be involved in also some dialogue presentations kind of like what we're doing here. So we'll be doing individual riffs and then we'll be getting together to talk about this and then obviously um lots of times for Q&A and so people can really deeply understand why is this stuff so important? How does it apply to our life?

And here's the thing that I want to get into. Well, we we won't do it now. Bob, but when we at the retreat itself, I want to um introduce to you to to the people who are participating, the extraordinary power of darkness and dark immersion is potent antidote for the upcoming AI revolution. Um AI versus um AE. So, is it artificial intelligence or authentic experience? And so, what Darkness shows is it's part of what I'm calling the human reclamation project. how to find how to how to use dark immersion to find meaning, purpose, and relevance in the light of AI. And so these are this will be a way to introduce people to qualities of the human condition that AI can never replicate.

And therefore, if you feel like you're going to be left behind by this emerging light revolution of artificial intelligence, well, intelligence is not the same as consciousness, information is not the same as as experience, and knowledge is not the same as wisdom. And so if we understand this then it's like oh my gosh these are all the qualities that depth interiority represented in the archetype of darkness represent and then all of a sudden now it's like okay we can use AI is a very powerful tool it cannot take away from us these fundamental irrevocable human properties that only the human condition can bring about and I think it's a wonderful counterbalancing gesture for this. So again, it shows once again how this immersion into dark has tremendous immediate applicability. So Bob, I can't wait to join you in a couple weeks to do this end of June to first week of July.

We'll do some Fourth of July c celebrations within our own minds in the dark and you know I will leave these deep dark things to you guide to your guidance Andrew and I look forward to learning from you about them and I will just help people rearranging the illusions a little bit so that they have the focus toward the dark thing. That's so that will be my role and love. I think that's really exciting. Me too. I'm really looking forward to it. Wonderful Bob. So, thank you all for joining us in this brief little riff on what Bob and I are going to be talking about. Can't wait to see you in a couple weeks. And do come and join us. Come and join us. We'll see you out here in amongst the trees and uh in between being in the dark. All the best. All the best.

When I want to touch the depth of my soul, I can't do it out here. I can't do it knowing there's a phone I have to get back to. Relationships I need to tend to. There's a point in my journey over and over and over that presents itself where I get called back in. So your relationship, my relationship to it, moment to moment, has to be either self-generated of like, I'm okay, I'm still okay. Or a surrender of, oh my god, it's it's crushing me right now. I I can't deal with the profoundity, the size, the scope, the weight of 28 days, 49 days, whatever it may be, where I am in that journey. It was for me Raj the ultimate lesson in surrender because there is nothing to do. Traver, good to see you. It's about time, man. Yeah. Thank you. Wow. 49 days. It's a long time.

You know, I'm like just touching the what the depth of that is, you know, like I remember doing my my vaposa three years ago and you know, 10 days with the lights on, you know, in silence was a deeply deeply deeply confronting experience. So 49 just feels like my my my psyche is like it's like it's having a hard time comprehending the magnitude of that. Yeah. And I know there's a lot of directions we can go, but I actually want to come down to something you mentioned before we hit the record button, which is that you will be engaging with the darkness your whole life. Mhm. Can you can like just define the darkness? I will put a eye mask on that's completely blocking out light or I will go back to a facility that I can sit in complete isolation and darkness. That is my jiu-jitsu. That is my path. That is my medicine. That is my practice.

It's not practical for me to do this daily, right? to go to a place a facility sit for 24 hours in darkness come out go back to my work I live in the world I exist in the world and yet I know when I when I want to go deep raj when I want to touch the depth of my soul I can't do it out here I can't do it knowing there's a phone I have to get back to relationships I need to tend to there's a point in my journey over and over and over that presents itself where I get called back in. I was called back in for these 49 days to touch something I cannot touch without days or weeks. Think about that. Weeks of isolation and no light. All of the distractional layers I have to get through. All of my egoic layers. All of the upper level grief, trauma, anxiety, challenges in my day-to-day business, relationships.

I have to get beneath that. to like the soul of the darkness and that to me that is my path. The soul of the darkness. Can you describe that or extrapolate on that? There's a energetic quality, a nurturance, a nutrition in that medicine. I get access to information. I get access to feeling. I get access to layers and depths of myself, to my own soul that I have not been able to find anywhere else. Plant medicine, I'm a multi-deade meditator, athletics, nature, you name it. I, for whatever reason, need to sit in a pitch black room by myself for a long time. And and and what have you learned about the darkness as it pertains to like a beginner's mindset? Like if you had to come back, right? Like what drew you into the darkness? How did you know this medicine was for you? And then what have what did you learn? What have you learned that you would wish you knew? It's an odd tale, Raj.

I was at uh my very first men's retreat like 10 years ago and I was on a year-long project that I had dubbed the year to live project. I was living the entire year as if it were my last and I went all in on that. Was writing publicly, blogging about it. And a guy literally sitting next to me eating a sandwich, a guy in his 60s hears this. He's like, "Oh, you're doing that? You know what you need to do? if you really want to understand death without dying, you got to do a dark retreat. And I was like, what the heck's a dark retreat? And he went on to explain that he had done over 180 days, not cumulative, like cumulatively, not in one swath of sitting in isolation in a pitch black room. And I was like, wait, wait, wait. What did you do? And he goes, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I did 49 days, 46.

And 46 was because they pulled me out on the 46th day because I was bleeding from my eyes and nose and maybe I think he maybe said my ears. And I was like, "Bro, what are you talking about?" And again, he's like eating lace chips in the sandwich. And he's like, "Yeah, yeah. The Tibetans said that I went so deep and then his face got all big." He goes, "That I encountered a demon or demons." And I was like, "I'm from Connecticut. Uh, I've never encountered demons. did you encounter demons? And he was like, "Another bite of a sandwich." He's like, "No, I think I had food poisoning." And I was like, "Okay, okay, okay, okay." And I went home that night and I Googled like, "What the heck's a darker treat and it grabbed me because it went against every strength I had. I'm an athlete. I was a pro alete at the time, a public speaker. I'm a writer, right? I'm a physical human.

I'm a jiu-jitsu. like I all of my skills and talents would be irrelevant in that room. And so I was curious a could I survive it? This is early, you know, like kind of maybe even egoic like can I do this? And then secondly, what would it require of me to get through it? And what would it show me that I currently don't have access to or conscious contact with? What part of myself? Now I was very very naive when I signed up. I signed up for 28 days having no idea that the normal intro period is about 3 to 5. And the facility that I was working with, the woman who I'm now very, very close with, said, "We'd never let anybody do more than three days on their first try before you." And she didn't tell me this coming in. I had just literally segmented the year into 12 different experiences. And so, a month was the time that fit the frame I had for that year to live project.

No idea of what I was getting myself into. And to answer your second question, man, it showed me like a a whole other side of life. It showed me what depth is. It showed me what death is. It actually introduced me to my soul. Something I don't get access to in the upand love and light of standard consciousness model that I was given, right? I was not taught go down into inside of yourself. I was taught to sit in meditation, but to get out of my mind, not to let my mind go crazy, not to let something so much bigger than I am initiate me. And when I say something so much bigger, I hope people realize there is a like almost a violence to the consistency of darkness. Does this make sense? It's like I'm going to struggle to articulate it. It never changes ever. So there's this like staticness. It never changes.

So your relationship, my relationship to it, moment to moment has to be either self-generated of like I'm okay. I'm still okay. Or a surrender of oh my god, it's it's crushing me right now. I I can't deal with the profoundity, the size, the scope, the weight of 28 days, 49 days, whatever it may be, where I am in that journey. It is, it was for me, Raj, the ultimate lesson in surrender because there is nothing to do to eat twice, go to the bathroom a couple times, maybe shower once a week, do that for three days, and your mind kind of runs out. How are you doing that in the darkness? Which one? All of it. Very slowly. So, food is brought like I'm not cooking. Food is run through like a double door system. That makes sense. Like a mailbox with two different sides. And you eat slow. Try not to drop things. Um shower. It's kind of scary, honestly.

I don't know if you've seen um remember the movie Alien Sigourney Weaver where like the alien's like right here yelling about to like right in her face. That's pretty much how I felt like Freddy Freddy Krueger or Jason from Friday the 13th like all of my childhood horror movie villains were like sitting outside the shower. So I just be like and then I'm out. Oh wow. Yeah. Working out very hard. Everything is hard. Everything is difficult. It's it's challenging to explain how much time and effort it takes to do very simple things and for me how much regulation I had to have in the room by knowing where stuff was. Where's my pen? Where's my notebook? I did take notes. Where are my socks?

Because I I feel like I spent a lot of time on the razor's edge of I'm going to lose my [expletive] So, not being able to find a sock is overwhelming on day 28. where now it's like I'll go to my drawer and get another sock, you know, not knowing what time it is and do I have seven hours until breakfast or 40 minutes till breakfast. Now, that's an exercise in surrender for someone who one has control issues and two is human and can regulate my life with agency at just about any point. I'm a free person. If I'm hungry, I go get food. I want to know what time it is. I look at my watch. If I'm bored, I call somebody. If I'm lonely, I reach out. If I'm such and such, I do something about it. Oh, yeah. It's like I could already feel like the deconstruction of every construct. Truly.

Like it's like even that whole like being a free person like it's like no no little thing gets taken for granted. It's almost like and anything you are taking for granted gets brought to your to your face with confronting like mirror like it's right there. So what I heard in the reason why you got curious in the beginning was if you want to understand death go sit in darkness. Mhm. What have you learned about death or what do you believe death to be? And can you speak to a moment where that clarity emerged? Yeah, in my first retreat, it was probably day 24, 25. And I want to set the frame that the facility at that point was very, very physically uncomfortable. It was concrete floor with a yoga mat. That was my furniture. The bed was a hardwood uh loft where the the roof of the facility was like right here. So, I couldn't turn right. So, I had to sleep on my back.

The bedding was very thin. So, my hips would just burn and ache all night. And I'm telling you this because I didn't sleep for three and a half weeks, more than like a half hour at a time before waking up and having to move or getting up or then going lying on the concrete floor. It was very, very physically uncomfortable. And I lost a significant amount of weight going from someone who feeds himself, mostly meat, to vegan food, very little of and very bland. So I've also worked through at the time I was in the middle of a divorce. My ex had had a miscarriage. So I was reeling with grief around the loss of fatherhood, the loss of this child, and then the loss of my marriage. So, I am not in a good state coming into this room. Now, three and a half weeks later, I wake up, let's call it, on the floor, and I'm pretty confused as to whether I'm actually alive or dead.

Now, that's not I'm not trying to be dramatic. Like, think of three and a half weeks of that experience. And I remember trying to like touch my face and I couldn't figure out is this real? Can I reach through my face? Is this death? I got chills. And I sat in that for hours. Maybe I've died. I don't know. Maybe this is death. This is what happens. This is what all the stories are about and religions are about. It's this. But what I came away from was this is what it's going to be like at some point. I'm I was 40 years old at the time. Unless AI changes everything drastically. I got about 30 40 more years left. Then I will be removed from society. I will be in retaken by the darkness. Society will continue around me. People will have babies. People will get married. People will argue on Facebook. Politics will happen. Wars will happen. I just won't be there anymore.

And to sit in that reality of I don't want this to sound negative or like how irrelevant I am. The world is still happening. Nothing stopped because I came in this dark room just like nothing will stop maybe a day after I pass. So to humbly be shown the irrelevancy was beautiful because it also led into wow in 30 40 years whenever this happens my slate gets wiped clean. If I come out of this room and I write a New York Times bestseller, 40 years from now, people probably aren't going to remember. 50, 60 years, irrelevant. If I come out of this room and I write a book and nobody reads it whatsoever. 30, 40 years from now, it's irrelevant. So that combination was this odd sense of pure freedom. Come out and swing for the fences, fail gloriously, right?

And also realize, be humbled, truly humbled by the fact that I can have my dramas, I can have my life dramas, my relational dramas, my business dramas, and at some point they'll be completely irrelevant. So, how much do I want to pour into them? How attached do I want to be to them? Now, I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I don't get upset if I get a parking ticket or I never get in arguments with romantic partners or, you know, I don't have stress. I I haven't evolved out of that, out of my humanity. But it truly gave me a different sense of the human experience because death went from this arbitrary cerebral idea like I know I'm going to die kind of to oh my god this is what it's actually like. This is the experience that man was telling me in between bites of his sandwich. So it's like the fear. So in the moment where you thought you were dying, I thought I was dead.

The pieces that were coming up were your relationship to relevance and mattering. What else? What was like another construct that was arriving in that moment when you thought you died? It was more of just a physical sematic experience of this is what it's going to be like. I'm not afraid. I'm not in agony. I'm just gone. Does that make sense? Like I'm just no longer an entity and I can think, but so what? So it was it was a very it wasn't I don't I don't want to make this sound too like it was just out of body. I was thinking like am I dead? I think I'm dead. Holy [expletive] I've died. Oh [expletive] And then oh wow. And then well okay what what do we do now? All right. All right. I guess there's nothing to do. I'm never going to leave this room. So the Oh [expletive] Yeah. Can you speak to the Oh [expletive] Yeah. What that was like? The oh wow. What that was like. Okay.

Oh [expletive] Is like there's so much fanfare around this. This is what religions are preaching. This is we're going to save you from here's we here's our gift. The afterlife. Here's the drama that you're afraid of your whole life. What will death be? Will I be surrounded by family? Will I be dying in a ditch? Will it be painful? Will it be excruciating? It was like, oh, it's it's like going to get a cup of coffee. It's like going to the bathroom. It's just a standard part of the human experience. It's that unremarkable despite how remarkable it is. That's the duality of death, right? It is the biggest fear. It is the biggest subject. It is the thing we don't want to touch. It is the driving force behind so many decisions. And yet it's going to be just like that. That was the oh [expletive] The oh wow was more of what I spoke to before of if this is what I'm no longer afraid of.

What's possible when I come out of here? What's the freedom? I now get to take that. Oh wow. And push if you come out of there. If I come out of there. Yeah. Because you didn't know if you were alive or dead. Yeah. I had the the conscious thought like if I'm thinking maybe I'm not. It was a tussle, right? There were definitely moments I was like, man, this is it. Cool. I hope the food gets better, you know? And then when I started to come out was the oh like, oh, okay. Holy [expletive] freedom. I don't have to worry about this. It's not death meditations, which I know a lot of practices have. It was like a little sematic dose of it without having a near-death experience, which I've I've read countless people come out of the car accident, they're like, "I'm cool now. I'm not going to argue with my ex-husband anymore, right? I'm changing my jobs.

I'm just going to live the life that I want to live." There were pieces of that. probably not as intense as if I'd, you know, fought for my life for a week on Everest and come back and oh my god, now I I have a rebirth in that effect. But it really did drop in a not a level of courage. I want to be honest here. Truly like a dose of freedom. Like, bro, don't worry about half the stuff you worry about. Yeah. Then what was the last one? Oh [expletive] What do you do next? What do I do now? What do I do now? Yeah. It invited a level of honesty into my life, a level of honesty into my writing, into my work of, hey, I'm gonna go for this thing. I'm going to swing for the fences. I'm going to speak about things that people don't want to speak about. It's going to be my path. I'm free to do that because I've now unplugged from the good opinion of the collective in a way that I hadn't before.

You guys don't like what I write about, don't read it. I think coming into that room 10 years ago, I was still very much caught up in yeah, am I allowed to speak about this stuff? And this isn't even cancel cult culture worry. It's really like am I as a human allowed to speak about these subjects that I may not not just have no qualification for, but I haven't been given permission to speak about. Yeah. And many ways like coming back to claiming the depth of claim that was possible as a result of touching the experience of death in such a visceral way in such a dark like embodied way like the mind if it had to think about death it is darkness. Yeah. It is like I can't see anything. I don't know what's happening.

I don't know what I It's like so there's such a so the medicine of darkness really does simulate the environment that one would imagine death is with painful detail which then allows for that depth of liberation. That's beautiful man. Um what's the difference that now in hindsight you can see between like the different lengths right? So like you know there's obviously like a a culture you said you know even the the facilities recommend you know 3 to 5 days and then you know you did longer which was like the 28 and then you've gone even longer than that which is like the 49. Mhm. What's the depth that's that's possible at these different stages? And what can someone expect at different lengths of darkness? And how can one know which amount of time is appropriate best for them? Uh if you have any guidance on that, I think that'd be really helpful for people.

Yeah, I don't have experience with the shorter stays. So, I don't have direct experience. The woman who was guiding me said oftentimes what happens with 3 to 5 days unfortunately or fortunately depending on what the person wants is they sleep for two or three days. They come in exhausted. They come in anxious. They come in adrenalized and then go, "Oh, well, there's nothing to do." And then most people their lives are exhausting. So they crash for a day or two and then they meditate for a day or two and then they come out. And so I can't speak to whether that's more profound than seven weeks. I only have it's restorative. It's restorative. It's restorative. And so there's medicine in restoration and isolation. Removal of distraction. Removal of all distractions where you just get to come home to rest and yourself. Yes. And that's I can see that. Yeah.

Um how did you feel when you like for the first five days of your sits? Like what was the experience like in the early for you? I still had a foot in the outer world. So I remember like I had looked on social media the day before going in and 3 days in, four days in was still like why do people care about that this this topic that had come up? I was like, why are what's going on with this? I wonder if my business is doing okay. I wonder if people listen to the podcast that we put up on Monday. So, I still had like real access to um the living world, the the the light world, society, the civilized world as I call it. And it took time for me to slowly get dropped down into depth. Yeah. It probably took nine days before I I had a huge bout of grief come up. maybe nine days in and I remember thinking, "Oh, good.

I'm not just here to plan my 2026 business calendar, you know, on an imaginary whiteboard in this room. I'm not just here to meditate like I do sitting in my living room on a Tuesday morning. There's something deeper that wants to come up and out." And the longer I was in, the more that happened. Do you feel like so without having the frame that that is the way this works, it took you nine days to get there, knowing what you knew about darkness and then going into your 49day sit, do you feel like you were able to access those states sooner? Yes. Because the room wasn't as exciting. Eating wasn't novel. Going to the bathroom without being able to see wasn't novel. Right. I also the first time can say I went in, closed the door and was like, "Holy [expletive] What's going to happen?" Uh uh a kind of waiting and and hyper vigilant for anything that may take place.

Where on this longer one, having done the 28 days and being a different person, when I blew the candle out, they light a candle for you to blow out at your own pace. I remember sitting there and having a conversation with the darkness saying like, "I'm back. Thank you for calling me in. I look forward to the next seven weeks with you. Like, let's get into some stuff. I'm fully available for whatever you have here. I want to be in relationship with you." How different than, you know, white knuckle kind of fear. Like, holy [expletive] what sound was that? I wonder what time food's coming. How do I eat without being able to see? So I was able to drop into my own depth faster. But there were things that were so deeply buried Raj that they took weeks to come out. Weeks to come out. When you say buried from your own life or from my own life. Yeah. Preverbal trauma took six weeks.

That's really profound. Yeah. I could see how a process like this would allow you to get to the preverbal developmental sematic memories that are just not you can't actually consciously access them through any process. Maybe plant medicine, the right plant medicines and the right intention and with the right level of cleanup. M that you've already done. Yeah, you might be able to get there, but not with the mind that you look at your P&L with, that you balance your checkbook with, that you figure out how to get geographically from A to B with. That mind isn't going to drop you. You almost you have to get out of that. I guess that's the that's actually part of the healing. Yeah. Yeah, I remembered years ago um I was just nomadic traveling and I stayed in an Airbnb in Asheville and it was owned by a professor of Buddhist studies at like some local college in Asheville.

I remember telling him and I was like all high and just like badass like you know super early on and I was like I've done a ton of plant medicine like I'm ready for darkness and he looks at me and he's like have you sat in meditation for more than 45 minutes and I was like no he's like I would start with a vaposa and I remember when I did my vaposa it was like it takes a minute to break down the mind like there's a level of breaking of the mind that I feel is so healthy. Mhm. For society, right? Like because the mind is is so it's so wired in control. The mind is so wired in grip, in separation, in constructs of survival and in constructs of disconnection. And there is something about these initiatory experiences and your first ones whether it's a vaposa or darkness where you're just forced to sit that it's almost like there's like a necessary breaking. Yeah. That has to happen.

And so you can't get all the medicine of these experiences on your first one. I agree. It's like it's hard I would say. Yeah. And that and and so what was the medicine you got? Like I guess what's the difference in the medicine you got from your your 28 days in darkness? So how many times have you sat Let's just start there actually. You've sat 20 twice. Okay. So what was the the difference in the medicine you received or the insight you were able to access in your first and your second? It's a great question. I've described my first like a 28-day car accident. I was so beat up going in and had so much trauma that was fresh that I was still in the midst of and I had no skill at the time on how to navigate that. I was like a straight unconscious dude, ex-pro fighter, gym owner, sober now for like six months, fresh on this path. Have not worked with a lot of therapists.

I've not worked with a lot of brilliant men in and or women in in this field. So just a newbie raw thrown in. And it taught me about grief of just full surrender to grief. I sobbed and sobbed and sobbed in that first room for days upon days upon days and then had the experience of death. So those were the two if I was to like categorize it takeaways. Grief is bigger than you. That was the lesson. Grief is so much bigger than you. The only thing to do with it is to surrender to it. Same with death. So much bigger than me. And yet this time coming in the 49day one, there was grief. My father had died the year before on day 47. And I didn't realize how much grief I still carried around that. But it wasn't the same as where I was a decade ago. I had ended a four-year relationship. There was grief around that.

This, as opposed to just feeling like I was getting punched in the head constantly, it was more of a longer drawn out, hey, there's things you need to clear out. And what we want to do is introduce you to a depth of yourself, a deep part of yourself, to your own soul, where you can now sit in dialogue with your own soul that wasn't there 10 years ago. I think 10 years was like, hey, we got to clear out this top layer of stuff. And then you need to spend 10 years working with people, teaching, writing, living your life, engaging in further practices. Now you're gonna come back and go to like grad school of the soul here. Welcome. This is you. Holy [expletive] Okay. Yes. Did I have to work through things to get there? Absolutely.

But I came out with a very different relationship to myself, a very different orientation to the world from myself, if that makes sense. or before I came out in 2015 2016 I was like cool I'm gonna get on the TED stage I'm gonna write some books I want to start a men's movement I I feel pretty good I worked through some stuff and this was like I don't know what I'm going to do Raj I just know I'm cool not doing anything and for the first time in my entire life that's new I didn't come out and grab a notebook and start writing down goals and things I was going to accomplish I came out took my notebook and just started crossing ing out things in my life, going, "This no longer fits. Oh [expletive] that's hard. This is going to be painful. I'm going to have to get rid of this. Oh, my business is going to have to change.

I'm not interested in talking about this stuff anymore." Okay, here's the next book I'm going to write, but I'm not going to write it for a while. Okay, we're going to come back to some things that I may have gotten away from and gotten off track that my soul and psyche are like, "No, no, no. This is this is number one." The rep prioritization of myself happened. Now I have to live into that which is that is a daytoday struggle to wake up and go cool that's truth. I need to live by that. That's who I am at my core. I have to live by that. As opposed to getting off one degree from that and then three years from now being wildly off track. Yeah. That make sense? It's a commitment to your soul. 100% commitment. And it's not something that every every being makes.

So, I want to honor that because I I I can feel the depth of reverence and humility and devotion to your soul that's calling you forward into these really deeply difficult experiences. Um you mentioned something that I think is really important to bring forward which is the skills that are necessary to truly integrate and work with the medicine of darkness. Like what do you believe are the internal skills necessary for somebody to uh like for example, you know, I I'm actually not the biggest fan of introducing people to plant medicine on day one. I'm not. Why is that?

You know, I know there's a whole culture of people wanting to wake up and go to plant medicine, but I'm like, if you don't have the internal capacity to be able to integrate the ahas and the insight and all the things that blow up for you, cuz plants will take you all the way up and you'll touch God and then you'll come back. And if you don't have the internal skill sets, the language sets, the perspective sets to be able to take what happened and apply it into your life, it's actually going to create more harm than not.

And so I've always even at Liberate everything we're doing is about giving people those foundational skill sets to be able to develop that internal awareness or that internal pattern recognition system or that internal resilience to then be able to move forward in any level of personal development and growth work with at least a bugout bag that they can have on them. you know, as they're like navigating the the the the terrain. Yeah. Which is complex and and and multi-dimensional and multi-layered. And I'm not saying you're going to have everything prepared going into a darkness, but what do you believe are the foundational perspective sets, skill sets, or awareness sets that you that that you believe are are are would be beneficial for someone to go into an initiary experience like that and get the most out of it on the back end? O, that is a million-dollar question, brother.

Truly a million-dollar question. One, you have to have a practice. If you do not have a practice of stillness, of mindfulness, of groundedness, of meditation, you're going to have a very hard time. I was meditating 3 to four to five hours a day, every single day, having decades of that practice of saying, "Okay, what I'm experiencing right now, what I just experienced was overwhelming. It required me as someone who works with trauma daily, who works with humans at their worst moment daily, who works with brilliant therapists and thought leaders daily. I still had to go to the back of my files many, many times and go, "Cool. What question can I ask myself right now? Hey man, it's us. Things are going a little bit wonky right now or things areing tough. What do we need to be okay in this moment?" Okay, I'm going to sit when I'm done here. I'm going to sit for an hour straight.

I'll be okay. So, a practice, man, that was so necessary because imagine if at some point tonight you wake up and you have no idea what time it is and you don't know if you're not what the next time marker will be. If that's eight hours from now again or 30 minutes from now, that's very disorienting. Very disorienting. Now imagine you've done that for a month. You have no idea just the simple thing of what time it is. That will send people down wormholes. That will send people opening the door and getting out of that room immediately. I was told how many people seasoned practitioners tap out in the dark. So having a practice, my promise to myself after a conversation with Arpita, the guide I had was if I woke up at any point and I had slept for length, you can kind of know if you just sort of like dozed off or slept.

If I had slept for length, right to the meditation zone, right to that little area that they had blocked out. Didn't care what time it was. I'm going to sit three rounds hopefully 30 minutes, you know, like till my right foot falls asleep. I gave it 30 minutes a practice. That's massive. Number two, can you hold space for yourself? I don't know how we quantify that as a skill, Raj, but do you have any idea how many times I had to wrap my own arms around myself and just say like, you're going to be okay. You're going to be okay. You're going to be okay. You're going to be okay. That would be the skill of self soothing. Self soothing, self-regulation, and just being with whatever happened. being with the grief, the fear, the terror, the trauma, whatever it is that was happening in that moment.

Not trying to shut it down, not trying to move past it, just saying like, "We're going to be okay. We're going to be okay. We're going to be okay." There's a So there's a So I'm hearing self soothing, the ability to regulate when you touch something that's fearful, when you touch something that's big, when you touch something that has magnitude, whether it's a trauma, whether it's a panic attack, whether it's anything, the ability to to regulate through breath, through whatever practice you have, meditation could be anything. And then the third is the willingness or maybe the resilience to be with what is. Am I am I interpreting that? So like this surrender. So so so there's a so there's a level of surrender that one active surrender. Active surrender. So and that's a practice. Yeah.

So if someone doesn't have an active relationship to surrender, they're going to have a very difficult time when they meet those moments. A thousand%. What do you define as an active like an active surrender practice? It's bringing consciousness and bringing intentionality to the fact to the idea in this moment I can do nothing about this other than breathe even if it takes my breath away. There were times in there where I was so insane, gone, off the charts. If someone had walked in that room in that moment, they would have pulled me right out and sent me to a hospital. And I knew it. A tiny tiny tiny part of my being or consciousness was like, "Let yourself go here. We have to stay here. This is the medicine. This is why we're here." It's not to design a 2026 business structure on an imaginary whiteboard.

It's this this moment that we have not been able to touch with therapy with plant medicine with guided uh what's the word where people hypn hypnosis this is the moment and then probably honestly brother losing even that tiny point of consciousness and going full into the depth of insanity having some knowing that I'm either going to come out at some point okay or being willing to Not. Now that's risking the whole farm. Okay. So that's a fourth level. Well, I guess that's the byproduct of having a surrender practice, which is having experienced some level of ego death, some level of dying, some level of risk. Yeah. I am allowing myself to be seen without knowing if it's going to be received or not. I'm going to say the thing to the person without knowing if it's going to be. So, it's like there's a level of risk that is. Yeah.

You're either you've touched, you're familiar with, you've uh you've had a relationship to and and maybe that is it. There's an active relationship to risk. Yeah. And and there's an intimacy with it. Right. My teacher Dewey Freeman says intimacy is when you go through a hard time with someone and you come out okay. Now, I think that applies to ourselves as well. I went through 28 days of hell. Hell, hell like I've never experienced and came out okay. So, I had a feeling that no matter what I was served on day 42, on day 43, no matter how deep that hell was, I've done this once, I have a relationship with it. I have intimacy with what rock bottom feels like, even if it just got dropped down another foot. I have a sense I'm going to be okay. And I guess that fourth level is if I'm not, so be it. But I have to be willing.

I think there's a point in initiation, man, that you have to get so far beyond your own capacity that you don't know if you're going to come out okay or not. That's initiation. Otherwise, we kind of white knuck or have like one eye on the like Yeah. Yeah. You're cheating it just a just a tiny bit. Well, you're cheating the medicine of death. Exactly. Right. Like there's a medicine in I remembered even when when Natalie and I when we separated for 4 months, we went we called it a death portal. And even though we came back into relationship, when we chose to close the container, both of us were like, we have to let this die. If either of us would have been like, "Oh, okay. No, we'll just maybe we'll come back together in the future or maybe there's this window open, right? It's closed." We would have not been able to access the depth of alchemy, right? Does that make sense?

Of transformation that was possible inside of that dying experience. And that's what I'm hearing in this is like your willingness to let yourself touch that vulnerable depth of surrender. That's like a and maybe that's not something you had to have practiced going into initiation. You know, I think that's what initiation brings forth. And so if you've had practice with it, great. And this will be like meeting an old friend and but maybe a deeper layer because I imagine that no matter how many times you've practiced that, it never gets easy. No, it's never easy because you're accessing a new depth of letting go, a new depth of like allowing, falling back, trusting in the divine, trusting that death is okay. It's safe. Do you do you feel safe in dying now? I don't know if I can answer that honestly. I feel safer than I ever have. Yeah.

But I think that's another initiatory moment that you don't know till you get there. So I'll project that it's going to be I have a lot less concern about it is probably the best way to say it. You don't really think about it and I don't know. I I've even checked in with therapists like am I just bypassing? Am I just, you know, am I just pretending that everything's going to be cool if I die tomorrow? Or am I truly embodied in I'm going to be okay with that? I love my life. I don't want to die tomorrow. And I've touched something that most people don't touch. I have a relationship with an entity of darkness that very, very few people have. If that's what death is, beautiful. I'm going back to a room in Tuscanyany. I've spent 49 days in there. It's amazing. I'll live there forever. I hope there's bacon in some of the vegan food, right?

I hope the afterlife has surf, you know, but I'm cool. I'm good to go. Now, maybe I don't have a partner. I don't have kids. I don't have the things that people would really cling to and want to be here for. And maybe that will change. But in this moment, a month and a half out of the dark, I would sit down with death and say, "Cool, where are we going?" I would love for you to leave if if you had a message for the individuals who are in families, who are raising kids, who are in relationships and don't have that luxury of being able to go sit Yeah. in the darkness for extended periods of time. Yeah. What might be something that you would share with them that would enrich their lives? Yeah. Meditation is still intimacy to me. Most of us when I was in relationship when I've been in relationships the orientation is intimacy with partner is more important than intimacy with yourself.

I would reorganize that totally and say even if you have five kids and you have 20 minutes once a week to sit with an I'm going to say with an eye mask on so you experience real darkness and you sit with yourself and you just go hey how are we doing? Uhhuh. Right. you doing okay? I appreciate you. I love you. I'm proud of you. Like, create some kind of relationship with yourself because you will then carry that to your partner. You will then carry that to your children. I'm not recommending people go seven weeks. Don't do it. If you want to go three days, give it a shot, right? Please don't have your picture taken the moment you come out. Be in the experience and let the experience be what it is. But we can all as a culture, especially men, we're so distracted from the moment we all wake up. What's the first thing most people do is look at their phone as opposed to feel into themselves.

Mhm. So I would say cultivate the same or not higher level of intimacy that you want to bring to your partner, you want to bring to your children. Keep that. Bring that to yourself daily over and over and over as a radical practice that you will never deviate from because there is nothing more important. Traver, [expletive] man. I'm so stoked that we did this. Like, thank you for having me. No, I was just like, you know, we I we were together, I think on my birthday. Yeah. That was the last time I saw you. Yeah. Here. Yeah. And you were just getting ready to go. Yeah. And I just had this sense that this was going to be a deeply one-of-a-kind type of experience. And I'm just so grateful that you again choose to do this work, choose to share so openly so that others can prevent harm, can choose appropriately and wisely, be prepared.

Um, and I'd love to So, what what is here for you right now that people can be aware of and you know if they want to reach out or have questions like what's the what's the way to engage with you at this moment in your journey? I published a book on Monday called 28 Days in Darkness. Oh, cool. All about my first retreat and the stories that came through me then, the lessons of that. It's a wild, wild book and you can get that on Amazon. You can get at Barnes & Noble or manunivilized.com/28days. I'm not hard to find. If you put the word univilized in podcast search URL, Instagram, I better come up. I've done a lot of work. If I don't come up, DM me uh or Torbone on Instagram. And I love hearing from people who specifically listen to a a podcast conversation, have a question, have a a thing to share. I'd love to hear from your audience. Cool. All right, brother.

Well, we'll make all those available in the show notes. And Trevor, I got one last question for you, brother. In the midst of everything you're doing, everywhere you've been and everywhere you're going, how do you stay grounded? And what's a practice that has helped you just become a more grounded human being? I try to feel the deepest part of my stomach. It sounds a bit cliche. And I just breathe into that space. And that Raj just takes me from like I have 5,000 tabs open in my brain to this is all that matters. This is where my love lives, right? I'm in love with my stomach. You can put that as a This is not a fitness podcast, but I drop down into my stomach and I find peace there. I find love there. I find joy there. I find satisfaction there.

M so learning just to breathe into and go okay I'm home brother thank you again for sharing your heart your soul with us and excited for I'm excited to watch what emerges from this this this spaciousness feels like really fertile soul rich soil there's very few people I meet who you know how are you 50 49 49 so like even at that stage age like you've lived so much life right so at this stage in life like I know so many humans including like my dad and so many people who are in their later you know my dad's in his 60s and but like I feel like that second afternoon of life you know like there isn't uh a lot of focus or education on coming into right of passage at that stage like going into your 50s and going into your 60s and being able to compost everything. And I love that you even mentioned like it was about letting go.

You know, you came out of the darkness and it was about, you know, not adding more things you wanted to do was actually letting go of what wasn't. And that in and of itself requiring deep integration. Mhm. And and I think a lot of people could I think that's a really important message to simplify to cut out to have the hard conversations like and to have the courage and the skill sets to be able to do that. So, um, yeah, I don't know what emerges for you on this next soul seed, but I'm really excited to feel the like I can already feel the quality of your next book. I think it's going to be Thank you. really beautiful, and I'm I didn't even know about your your your 28 Days to Darkness. I'm actually excited to to pick that up and and go deeper because this conversation was Primo. Thank you, brother. You got it, man. Everybody, that's a wrap for this week's episode of Stay Grounded.

I'm your host, Raj. This is your new friend, Traver. And from us, stay grounded. [Music] Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode of Stay Grounded. No matter where you're from or what you're going through, I hope it helps you remember just how incredible you are and have always been. If you're on a path of emotional healing or self-discovery and would like to learn how Liberate can support your journey, head to www.raj rajana.com/liberate that is libr to learn more about our current group programs and one-on-one offerings. I love you guys and I'll see you next week.

What happens when you remove light, distraction, your phone, and nearly every external reference point for who you are? For some people, a dark retreat becomes less about escaping the world and more about confronting everything that usually stays hidden beneath the surface. Welcome to the Psychedelic Podcast. I'm your host, Paul Austin, and today's episode is sponsored by Acraya, whose founder, Ian Gardner, joins me for this conversation. Dark retreats have been part of contemplative and monastic traditions for thousands of years, but they are only recently beginning to enter the broader Western conversation. You know, I've been curious about this practice for a while, especially after longer experiences with Vipassana, Ayahuasca, and Iboga. And what interests me is not just the darkness itself, but what can happen when the usual stimulation disappears, and you are simply left with your breath, your thoughts, and whatever begins to emerge.

So, today we'll have on Ian Gardner, who runs Acraya, a network of dark meditation retreat sanctuaries, beginning with the location at Holos Retreat Center in Costa Rica. Ian brings together more than 25 years of contemplative practice with a background in building and exiting companies across biotechnology, renewable energy, and electric vehicles. So, today we'll talk about why darkness has been used as an advanced contemplative practice for thousands of years, what can happen when nearly every external reference point disappears, how dark retreats compare with psychedelics and extended meditation, one of the most surprising and challenging parts of the experience, which I won't give away here, why preparation, screening, and skilled support matter, how technology is being used to support safety and remote facilitation, and Ian's vision for dark retreat centers in Costa Rica, Nepal, Bali, and beyond. For listeners who feel called to explore an Acraya retreat, Ian is offering our audience 5% off. Visit acraya.global/thirdwave and use the code three wave. That's 3 w a v e when booking.

All right, Ian Gardner is the founder and CEO of Acraya. He's a seasoned entrepreneur, founded and exited five companies across various sectors. And Ian began practicing yoga and meditation while earning his MBA at UCLA. In 2001, he traveled to India to attend the Maha Kumbh Mela, later spending a year in seclusion and meditating for up to eight hours a day. He has written six books on esoteric teachings and spent two years working at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur. In 2023, Ian founded the Church of Acraya to support the development of dark meditation retreat centers around the world. He currently lives in Scottsdale, Arizona with his wife and children and maintains a daily meditation practice. All right, folks, without further ado, I bring you Ian Gardner. Ian, welcome to the podcast. It's great to have you on. Thanks, good to be here.

So, dark retreats are something I've been hearing about since probably Aubrey Marcus um made it a thing in I don't know, 2019, 2020, 2021. And then Aaron Rodgers went to the same place in in Oregon, which from now what from what I understand is sort of booked out for a long time and 2029. Yeah. And then uh sort of mentor and teacher of mine um has become quite obsessed with these as of late and has even experimented with 5-MeO-DMT in these sort of dark retreats. Now, she's an indigenous elder. She's very experienced, you know, she's been working with peyote since she was 13. So, this isn't a a sort of thing of also do this at home, but it it's more and more been on my radar and in fact in 2023, I did a Vipassana, a 10-day Vipassana, and a Dieta with ayahuasca. Yeah. And immediately once I told people that I'd done these two things, the like again and again, the next question was are you going to do a dark retreat next? Uh and uh I really haven't had the chance yet, but I'm I'm curious. So, I think just before we get into the details of it, I mean, folks maybe wondering, okay, this is a podcast about psychedelics, but we might touch on psychedelics, but it's more what the dark retreat facilitates. So, talk to us a little bit about the background or especially the sort of ancient history behind darkness. Like, what is it that's so profound and so sort of transformative about dark?

Yeah. Well, this is a practice that has been sequestered in cloistered community esoteric communities, monastic communities for thousands of years. So, if you if you peer into the esoteric literature of Christianity around the desert fathers, of Buddhism, the Bon tradition in Tibet and Nepal that predates Buddhism, uh, Islam, all of them have uh, aspects of that where you go into complete darkness for an extended period of time. And in the darkness magical and transformative things happen. And, um, those traditions have very specific practices that you do in the dark over generally a specific amount of time. So, it's not like you just go in and sit in the dark and, like, you know, stare at your belly button and hope stuff happens. Like, in the Bon tradition, it's a 49-day practice. Each week there's a specific thing that you're doing. The monk comes and knocks on the door and checks in every day. You tell them what the experience is that you have. He gives you corrections or explanations or support. And And it's designed to move you through that path's um, journey in a very specific way so that you can, um, experience and identify the markers in the inner worlds that mark progression of of your development. Um, there is a Vipassana, um, um, angle where you can do it where you just watch the arising thoughts and you're acting as the observer. And so these are kind of the two ways that you can go that you can go about it.

But when you go in the dark, the reason it is so powerfully transformative is that when you are out here, when we're in everyday life, right? I'm sitting here, I can see you, I can hear your voice, I'm sitting on my chair, my arms are resting on the desk, I can hear the air conditioning, I've got my car parked outside, I went to Starbucks this morning, my wife's calling me to talk about the kids. Like all of those different experiential touch points with reality are comprised in a in a kaleidoscope that define who you are as a person. They define your personhood relative to the things around you. Um, whether you're a a good athlete, whether you're good-looking, whether you're successful, everything is in juxtaposition to something that's on the exterior. When you are in the dark and you're absent all of those connection and contact and anchor points to reality, all that exists is your breath and your thoughts. Which is very disconcerting, um, for most people. And which why which is why the the great esoteric traditions kept this as a sacred advanced practice because if you just go in and try to raw dog it and you know, say I'm just going to power through, um, it generally doesn't deliver deliver good results. You need to have a stable practice and you need to be supported unless you're an advanced practitioner and can go and do it by yourself.

And so once you get in and you disassociate from all those anchor points and the aperture of all your senses open, then all this stuff that's down in the basement, that's the subconscious and the unconscious that we don't want to deal with or have stories about or haven't sorted out, all that stuff starts to become visible and it starts to come up. And so it can it can really lead to a lot of processing of stuff that has guided our unconscious behaviors. And then on day three or four, depending on how your biochemistry works, and this is the interesting analog to the psychedelic experience, your pineal gland starts to produce DMT endogenous. And so the veil between the outer and inner worlds becomes transparent. And unlike ayahuasca or psilocybin or DMT, where it rips you out of your body, it shoves you up into the astral, you have some crazy adventure that you can't control, and then you come back down, and then you got the physical stuff that goes with it. In the dark, it's a gradual awakening and opening in the inner vision, the the oculus of the inner vision expands, and you can experience those inner worlds in full consciousness, with full sound, smell, taste, hearing, in a stable way.

And so, like if you're if you're working on a path and you're sort of skeptical, you know, is it my imagination, is it real, or is whatever, this is you're in the dark, this starts to open, and if you have a meditative practice, you can meditate, you can do your practice, and you can see the inner markers in a way that's as stable and 3D as you and I sitting here talking to each other. And that allows you to consciously um manage your spiritual development and unfoldment. Because then as you do the practice, you can actually see the inner form unfold, and the transmutation of karmic accretions and darkness, and you can see literally more light coming into your inner bodies and replacing the dark. And so so so as the West has started to awaken, these monastic tradition keepers, recognizing the great cycles of time and and turning of the wheel, have started to release these practices into the West so that you have the monastery meets the marketplace, the sky meets the street. And and and in their view and in the view of a lot of these teachings, this cycle of human consciousness is where we learn to take all these spiritual principles and embody them in everyday household or life. And this is part of me helping support that transition.

I have a lot of questions. So, I'll kind of try to pick a few different paths that we can we can explore and and being in service to our listeners. One, you know, just to trace the history a little bit more from a modern perspective, when did this start to become a little more relevant, a little bit more prevalent? Like, when did you start to pay attention to the dark retreats and what was going on there? I mean, I mentioned the Aubrey Marcus anecdote, but kind of how did this come to be in a way in the last decade or so?

Uh the Westerner who led the movement was a guy named uh Severin Gayser who started the Hermitage at Lake Atitlán 10 years ago. Um and he was a a Buddhist monk um became a householder, got married, had some kids, and started this dark retreat center at Lake Atitlán. And over the course of 10 years, had a took about a thousand people through the process. And along the way, he met uh Scott who manages Sky Caves in Oregon where Aaron Rodgers went that has the three-year waitlist out to 2029 and he he helped Scott get that up and going best practices and protocols. Um and that was really sort of when it started to become more prominent in the West. And I learned about the teachings through a Bon Rinpoche I was studying with over COVID and he gave the teachings um over Zoom during during the pandemic which I took and I shut down a room in the house and I tried it for a couple of days and was just completely blown away by the potency of this transformational modality. And I've been I mean I've been meditating and doing yoga since 90 1997. And have done fasting, plant medicine, holotropic breathwork, um all the Ayurvedic stuff, transcendental meditation, yoga, I mean all of it, right? Right. A peak experience junkie, right? You you you you you've done that. Well, it was I don't know if it was peak experience junkie. It was I was really committed to unraveling reality and I wanted to find the most powerful transformational methods always available that would enable me to realize that goal. And when I got in the dark and all that stuff started to happen, I was like, "Oh, this is why it's been locked away for thousands of years cuz I had 20 years of meditation experience under my belt at that point and I was still like, holy [expletive] like this is this is something." And so and so after that I was like, "Okay, uh this is something that the West is going to want and ready is is ready for." And so I spent a bunch of years, you know, trying to develop a site in in New York at some land that we had. It didn't work and and so that's how I I came on the concept for for Acraya, which is to build We want to build 2,000 of these dark rooms around the world over the next 10 years so that people can go experience it.

Okay. So so the next parallel that I have is, you know, psychedelics and the audience is very familiar. I've talked a lot about this first wave of psychedelics, the ancient and indigenous use and and oftentimes in the the particularly the the Greek use of let's say kykeon in the Eleusinian Mysteries, it was you know, if you talked about it, there was either death or you were excommunicated. There was there was a really tight ritual type container around it and this has been historically how psychedelics have been held and contained and and now we're sort of experimenting with, you know, well, I can go online and get mushrooms delivered to my house in in a week and I could just take 5 g at home and you know, Eli Lilly Eli Lilly the largest pharmaceutical company in the world just bought 5 MEO DMT and now you know, millions of people could have access to this. So you know, the dark retreat is obviously another step further because it's not just a drug that you're taking. It's a process that you're committing to that takes some time to unfold, but you know, a lot of what we talk about in the podcast is how do we prepare a people in a culture who's psychedelically illiterate to step into these experiences and not become totally destabilized and you know, actually, you know, get something decretive and and helpful from it. And so I'm curious kind of here to hear your take on that as as let's say you let's say you're successful in this vision of having 2000 centers, you know, across the globe in the next decade, how do we actually prepare people to step into a dark retreat? Like what what does that preparation look like for a population that can hardly spend, you know, 30 minutes off their phone on a day-to-day basis?

Well, it's I'll give you a little anecdote and then I'll answer your question. So it's interesting when you put teenagers in the dark for a couple days, you take teenagers who have been diagnosed with AD ADD or ADHD, you put them in the dark for 48 hours or 72 hours, when they come out, they're like, "I don't have ADHD. I just need to get off my phone for a while." And they're able to focus and and maintain maintain continuous attention and and all that stuff goes away. But anyway, that's different conversations, but to answer your question, um I have a little bit of a different take on that. So in my experience, um the reality that we live in consensually is a reflection of our state of inner development as above so below, right? And so and like Biggie Smalls had the famous quote, "If you want to change the world, you got to change yourself first." And I think that's the analog here. So, you know, I would say that like the psychedelic movement is not Westerners co-opting indigenous practices. It's all the souls who are now incarnated in the in the West who are ready to accelerate their development calling in that reality to help convince them that the other side is real and prepare them for the next stage of the journey.

And so if you kind of look back at how these waves have progressed, you know, in the '70s, you kind of had yoga and all those teachers coming through and then you had meditation and then you had plant medicine and over the arc of 20 years, you can watch the adoption of those practices in the West and the S curve is almost the same for every wave. And so if you consider if you look at the dark from a first principles perspective and if you talk to people who have done dark retreats, they will generally by and large back this up. If you look at it, people go and do these practices because they experience something that changes them that they like. Whatever that is. It could be more peaceful, more flexibility, blah blah blah, whatever it is, you do the practice, you have some subjective experience, it's valuable to you and you continue doing it. And that subjective experience has a potency to it. So you did your first Bikram yoga class you did your first TM meditation or you did your first plant medicine journey or whatever and there was a potency to that experience that grabbed you and you either said, "No, I don't want to do this ever again." or you're like, "Wow, this is great. I got to go keep doing it." And the dark, I would argue, is more potent than any of those. Which makes sense of why it's coming in the wave behind those other waves because people had to be prepared to be ready for it. Because if you had in the '50s, if you had stuck somebody in the dark for 3 days and they started seeing Jesus or you know, their soul, there's no context for what any of that means and how to deal with it, right? Because it's not in the popular lexicon. Whereas now, 50 years later, people have done all these things, they've read the books, how to change your mind, the whole kit, your podcast, doing acid in college, all the rest of it. Yeah, there's something out there on the other side. There's something to these spiritual worlds. I don't really know what it is. Maybe it's just my imagination, but there's a there there. And this is the pathway to make that a stable, integrated, lived reality versus a voyeur trip up and down.

Mhm. That's a great takeaway to my next question. Can this be a practice or is this often a one-time thing? So, in other words, the teachers that brought this over, was this something they did consistently? Was it more of like an initiation that they would put individuals through? Maybe once or twice in a lifetime? Like, how how has this been held historically and how do you perceive this in a modern context? Is it Is it something that's helpful to do once every 6 months? How often do you do these these dark retreats yourselves? Talk to us a little bit about frequency.

I think the analogy is a yoga retreat. Um you go to your yoga class every day, it's 60 minutes or 90 minutes, you go to your studio, you sweat, you get out, it keeps you kind of balanced. But then, when you want to really go deep and really like develop your practice and take it to the next level, you go somewhere for 7 days or 10 days or 3 days and you find a teacher you like and you drop in and you just focus on it and you make a bunch of progress. And then your new baseline is at a higher level. Um so, I think the dark room modality, it's not something you want to do every day. It's something you do at a cadence that is aligned with your developmental rhythm. And And typically the way spiritual development works is you do a bunch of work, you make a bunch of progress, and then you have to stabilize and integrate and establish a new baseline, and then you do a bunch of work, you make a bunch of progress, and you stabilize and integrate, and the the dark is a modality that makes that make a bunch of progress, makes that curve more asymptotic and and less gradual, so that you can get up to the next level, have the experience, and then take 6 months or 9 months or a year and integrate, and ready yourself for your next thing. So, the cadence really um is driven by your own developmental ambition and and availability of time and resources. And I would I would tell the audience that you should just listen to your to your intuition and your heart, and when you really feel like, "Okay, man, I'm ready for the next thing." That's when you go drop in and make the big push versus, "Wait a second, like there's a lot's happening. I need to integrate. I need to stabilize. I just need to chill for a little bit."

Right. Bring us through kind of the narrative of of someone's experience going into this, right? Like I think of an ayahuasca, you know, ceremony or journey. You go there, you know, if you're with the Shipibo, they they they open up with a little prayer, they blow in the the tea, you come up to the front, you drink the medicine, you go back to your seat, it hits in about 30, 45 minutes, you're in the complete block, you know, dark, etc., etc. You get the point. At some point, the purging happens, but that's that's not as as pleasant. Um And what's different about a dark retreat, let's say, like the 72-hour dark retreat is you know, we're on a rhythm in in normal everyday life, and we have a circadian rhythm, and when the sun comes up, we have energy, and when the sun goes down, we you know, we go to sleep. But if you're in dark for 72 hours, it must be pretty hard for your body to tell when it's okay to sleep and when it's not okay to sleep. And so, I'm I'm sort of curious, you know, based on your experience and and the many people that you've talked to about this, what does that trajectory typically look like for someone who's never been in a in a dark room for 72 hours or 4 days or 5 days before? And um what are maybe some psychological challenges that that may arise as as part of that?

Yeah. So there's also I mean aside from the spiritual components, there's a lot of of health benefits to this to your physiology. So most people are on a sleep cycle that's um that is that is manufactured, right? You have an alarm clock that you set that goes off when you need to get ready to go to work and take care and would do whatever your thing. You go to bed at night kind of when you go to sleep. So you don't want to do drugs in the dark. Um that's a compounding effect that works against you. So you just want to go in clean. Um when I go do dark retreats, my appetite goes through the floor cuz I'm not very active. And so, you know, whereas in regular life I might eat three meals a day, in the dark I may couple of hard-boiled eggs and an apple for breakfast, a light snack in the afternoon, and only that's kind of about it. But what happens is for the first 48 hours, most people just sleep. Because you don't realize unless you're wearing a Whoop or something and you're really like super dialed in on it, most people have a sleep deficit that they're not really aware of. And so you get in, you don't have your cell phone, there's no light, you crawl in bed, and most people sleep for the first 48 hours, which is really important because it resets your metabolic clock, and your melatonin, your testosterone, your estrogen, your hormones, um all of those different things. When your mind and senses are not taking in data from the physical world and your frontal cortex is not interpreting that as either stressful or pleasureful, then and not creating the cortisol which disregulates your body and creates a state of disease, when all that is gone, your body returns to a homeostatic stable level, and your body does what it's designed to do, which is it naturally heals itself.

And so there's all kinds of stories around people who go into the dark and have ailments that that go away. Like Joe Dispenza used a Buddhist technique to go in the dark and regrow his spinal column. I know two other guys who have gone in in wheelchairs and done his practice and walked out afterwards because they regrew their spinal column or they regrew parts of their nervous system. And so in the absence of all this external stimuli and with the right practice, you can make your body do amazing things that most people would consider completely impossible. And so part of the part of the what we're going to do with our location is we're doing a study with the Institute for Advanced Consciousness Research and the Harvard Meditation Center around the physiological impact of being in the dark and what that does to your DMT levels, to your hormone levels and all the other things that go with it to document the anecdotal stories that that people tell about about healing in the dark.

So that's sort of the first 48 hours. And then you start your wake cycle starts to and sleep cycle starts to shift. And it's very difficult to tell in the dark whether you're awake or you're asleep, especially if you're a lucid dreamer, because when your eyes are closed and when your eyes are open, it looks exactly the same. And if you are an active dreamer or a strong meditator, you know, meditating with your eyes closed and experiencing the inner world and meditating with your eyes open looks like the same thing. And so you start to go into either observing the what the phenomenon that's arising or working through your practice. And then at about day three, um that's when your brain start your pineal gland starts to produce DMT endogenously. And then that awakens the inner vision and the veil starts to dissipate and then you can and then it depends on it's very much dependent on your your practice, your state of development, and the person who's facilitating you.

And different facilitators have different like specialties. It's like going to your yoga studio and you know, do you want to do the Ashtanga flow, or do you want to do the yoga aerobics, or do you want to do the Bikram, or you want to do the the the Yoni yoga, whatever it is. When you are working with a facilitator, there's and this is going to sound even more woo than the rest of this, there's like a quantum level entanglement that happens. And if the facilitator has a special thing that they're good at, like past life regression, or family karma, or seeing into your body with your third third vision, or whatever, the the retreatant typically picks up on the facilitator's cities and emulates their experience. And so who you pick to be your facilitator is a really important question. And which is why we have like the App Store for facilitators. So if you sign up at one of our locations, there's a dozen different facilitators available, and you can pick your choose your spiritual adventure. So um around day three, all that starts to awaken, and then it's a rhythm between sleeping, meditating, and having that experience, and boredom. To be honest. And and a lot of place where a lot of people get hung up is in the boredom part. Because in the boredom part, most people are very uncomfortable just sitting with themselves and their thoughts. And just like if you take a glass full of muddy water, you sit it on the table, you leave it alone, the mud settles to the bottom, and then it's clear. In the dark, the same thing happens with your mind. And then all the stuff in the basement starts to come up. And that's when people have challenges and need the support of a teacher to help them get through it.

This reminds me a little bit I just sat with Iboga a few weeks ago. And for the listeners and and maybe Ian as well, Iboga is like a 24-hour, if not longer, experience, right? And so, unlike mushrooms or ayahuasca, where you're in it for 5, 6, 7, 8 hours, you know, and then it sort of dissipates, and you wake up the next morning, and, you know, you're not back to normal normal consciousness, but you're not still in the gunk of everything. You know, iboga was confronting precisely because of what you're you're saying. I mean, there there was really no escape. It's like all of this stuff under the basement that I had refused to confront came up. Um and what I'm hearing a little bit in what you're you're sharing is with with dark rooms, it's like that, you know, maybe for 72 hours, or 5 days, or or 10 days, especially more than a Vipassana, because when I was in my 10-day Vipassana, boredom was also the thing that got me. By like day six, I was like, I don't mind sitting and and doing, you know, the the um the sits in the the the center room, and getting up at 4:30, and but it was these 10-to-15-minute things at the end of like an hour session where I was just like, okay, how much longer do I have to continue to sit before this hour is done, you know? Um and so, that experience is it doesn't make my skin crawl, but it does it it it it definitely brings up a level of anxiety, for sure, you know, where I'm like, what do I do when there's no more meditation, and there's nothing to distract myself with, and and there's not even light, you know? There there it it it's it's like the void, basically, for that just goes on and on and on and on and on, you know?

Yeah, that's right. And it could be scary. It could be really scary if you're not accustomed to that. And so, the teacher is is super important. And also, it a lot of people say, when they get out, man, that was the hardest thing I've ever done. And then, if you talk to them in a month, or 3 months, or 6 months, they're like, that was the most transformative and beneficial practice I've ever experienced, I've ever gone through in my life. And so you you want to do it you need to do a minimum of 3 days in the dark to to kick yourself off. There are folks who do 7, 8, you know, weeks like that. A lot of people say that that's doesn't give you a lot of incremental benefit, you know, sort of if you do a 6-day retreat with four nights in the dark, three full days, that gives you a day on the front end to come, check in, get oriented, relax, unpack, go dark the second day, stay in the dark third, fourth, fifth day. The morning of the of the fifth day you you turn on the lights and you come out and you want to be in like a really peaceful environment because when you come out all the aperture of your senses is wide open. And and you're super sensitive to everything. I mean, beyond just the light, like sounds, smells. There are people in the dark who claim that they can hear the sunlight breaking over the trees at sunrise because they become so sensitive. Um so you really become highly sensitized to all this stuff. And then when you get out, like you can't drive, you can't do anything. So you got to have a day buffer zone to armor back up, put all the layers back on, ground down, get your personality going, get ready to go back to work cuz it's like being on a like a 3-day Molly Bender, you know, without any of those physiological side effects, but from a from a senses perspective and a heart perspective. And so you just got you just want to come out, get a cup of coffee, sit in nature, feel the breeze, listen to the trees, grab put your feet on the dirt, let yourself sort of come down. And then on the next day, you know, sort of around noon you can check out and get going.

Let's talk a little bit about the structure of Acraya because you've you're a serial entrepreneur, you've built and sold five companies and and and this one you you set up as a church. And so I I'd love to just hear your sort of your ethos about how you hold this, the the stewarding of this work and this contemplated practice and and how you may be approaching this differently than the startups that you've had in the past. And also how you might be approaching it in a similar way with some of the scale that you're looking to to accomplish with it.

So this is, you know, where I am in my professional journey. For me, um this part of the this part of it is about, you know, impact and making this available to people and supporting them through that journey. And so it's a three-part structure that we've set up. So we have the church, which is the nonprofit, and that promotes and makes available meditation practices and teachings. And so really we do, you know, online meditations and there's a library and we we teach people meditation and and it's everything that a normal church function would do. And then there's a separate company that does the real estate development. That's a for-profit company. That's an LLC. And so that goes what the way we do it is we go to established um wellness and centers and we build dark rooms as an amenity. So instead of building like a fancy Italian spa, put in a couple of dark rooms. They provide food and beverage. They provide housekeeping and maintenance and front desk. And then we build the rooms and then we manage them on on our system and provide all the guests and and then and then the technology. And then there's a separate company that develops the technology that goes in the rooms to make it safe and to enable um the the guest to be facilitated remotely by a teacher in any language, anywhere in the world through the cloud in in in real time. And so there's three those three separate companies that all work in concert to to bring these this experience to a broader audience.

And so we've got we're building rooms uh in Costa Rica at Holos. We're building uh six rooms in uh Nepal in Mustang with a Bon monastery there. I love this stuff. I've been there. It's It's Yeah, oh my god. Don't even get me started. Like I hiked the Himalayas years ago, you know, I was there for, you know, a day or so. I mean, in in Nepal, the monks sit in the caves in the hills for 3 years. They stay in there. It's like a totally different thing. So, anyway, that anchors us with the tradition keepers, and then we're building uh half a dozen rooms in Bali with the yoga barn in Ubud, and then we've got a whole pipeline of folks who want to do them other places. But the technology is what is different about how we do it. So, we have adopted a monitoring technology from the Israeli nursing home industry. And so, um we put sensors in the rooms that are hardwired. There's no Bluetooth, there's no Wi-Fi, and they passively monitor the guest to make sure, basically, to make sure they're safe. So, heart rate, temperature, respiration, perspiration, movement. And so, we can tell, are you alive? Are you stressed out? Are you moving? If your If your vitals start to escalate towards some sort of breakthrough, you know, psychotic break event, the algorithm will pick that up, and we can initiate an intervention and call you up and say, "Hey, are you okay?" or have someone come knock on the door and say, "Hey, do you need some help?" So, first and foremost, it's about making it safe. Because things can go wrong because it's an intense experience. And we want everybody to be to have to be safe and have a good experience.

And then the second thing that the system does, and it's all audio-controlled, is it's a note-taking system. So, traditionally, if you were in a dark retreat and you're you're in there and you're getting the download and it's all coming through and you're like, "Oh, I got to capture this." You can either press the button on a voice mic and hope the batteries are working and it's the right button and it's actually recording something, or you can stumble around in the dark, find your desk, find your notebook, find your pen, try to remember where you were, try to remember the download, scratch some chicken stuff, hopefully you can read it later, hopefully you capture it. So, with our system, you say, "House, take a voice note." And you just start talking stream of consciousness and it records it, encrypts it, transcribes it, stores it in a HIPAA compliant uh cloud storage system and then when you get done, you've got all these files for for your experience.

And then the last piece that we do is a a remote facilitation system. So, you're in there and you say, uh I need you want to talk you're seeing, you know, pink elephants and and dwarves or whatever and you're like, oh, I need to talk to my teacher. You say, House, make me appointment with my with my teacher. And the system knows when you're awake and asleep cuz we're monitoring all your vitals. And so, it sends a note to your facilitator that you want to consult. That person can see your wake and sleep schedule. They schedule 30 minutes when you're awake and then at the appointed hour the system chimes and says, Paul, are you ready for your consult? And then you just start talking. And we put 20 speakers in the rooms so that in the floor and then the walls and the ceiling and we have a radar system that tracks where you are in the room. And through the algorithm we deliver the sound to 10 in in front of your face no matter where you are in the room. So, it sounds like you are sitting there talking to your teacher as if they were right next to you. And we can translate in any language in real time from anywhere in the world. So, you could be in a room in Costa Rica working with a Russian Orthodox monk in Siberia. And he could be speaking in Russian, you could be speaking in English teaching you in real time in the dark, transcribed, stored, saved, HIPAA compliant and available you for you when you get out.

And so, the idea is that we are going to aggregate the best teachers in the world and make them accessible just like the App Store to anybody who wants to go in the dark. And so, you could do the Catholic 5-day Italian monk path, you could do the Sufi path, you could do the Russian Orthodox path, you could do the past life regression path, you could do the couples conscious conception path. I mean, like there's a whole host of things. There's There's therapists in Eastern Europe that are using the dark to treat alcoholism and addiction with the same success rates as psychedelics. Oh, wow. And so this is an entire new field of science and wellness that's emerging and our technology is the foundational layer upon which that entire industry can be built.

How do you find those facilitators? I'm I'm just genuinely curious. You know, as part of our work for Third Wave, we built out this directory. You know, I've been in the psychedelic space a long time. I I love finding like who are the best guides and teachers and mentors and body workers and things like that, but it takes time, you know, to really kind of see through just the the marketing or, you know, who's most popular. And so I'm I'm kind of curious for you like I mean, you've been in the contemplative space for 25 years. I'm sure you have a a strong personal network, but are you sort of leaning into other people on your team and and kind of how how are you discerning who would be a good fit for something like this versus who may not be as as good of a fit?

So our um we have a team that manages the facilitators. Um it's led by uh Severin, this guy who started the Hermitage in Lake Atitlán, and he's arguably the most experienced Westerner in the space. He's an investor. He's helps helps us build this network and he helps us build the protocols. And so you can go you can go and you can apply to be a facilitator and then there's an interview process and a vetting process and then, you know, either either you are or you aren't. But we've been um I've been going and embedding with monastic communities for 20 years all around the world. And so we also have relationship capital from past adventures where we have trusted relationships with cloistered communities where we know the abbot or we know the Rinpoche or we know the monks and and we can go and we can enroll them into the process as we go. But, the the long pole in the tent is experienced facilitators, and it takes it's not like a yoga training where you go for 2 months, and you know, like do your training, and then you're good to go. This is a little bit more intense, and it takes a longer time to to get good at it and understand what you're doing. And so, there also is a facilitator training program, but that that takes a little bit longer.

And and that was going to be my next question, like will there be a requirement then for for those facilitators that you choose to do the dark themselves, so they understand it pretty well, and yeah. Yeah, multiple times. Yeah, you have to it's not it's not an academic exercise. It's a lived embodied exercise. You got to do it. Yeah, we have the same thing with our practitioner training program. There are a lot out there that are online, they're didactic, and you know, theoretical, and I'm like you got to go sit with 5 g of mushrooms, or 4 g of mushrooms, and be in the dark, and you know, we do a sweat lodge, we do all these sorts of things as part of our intensive, because you got to walk the walk, and I would imagine that's just as important for especially important for dark rooms, because it's just it's so deep the experience people get brought into. Yeah, it's got to be authentic. You have to have gone through the crucible, and when stuff comes up, you have to know what's going on, and be able to speak to it and support the person. Otherwise, it's a disservice. You put them at risk. And so, and we're pretty rigorous about who we let onto the platform.

Who is not a good fit for for dark retreats? You know, with psychedelics, it's like if you have a family history of schizophrenia, if you have a certain you know, uh personality disorder, you probably shouldn't be doing psychedelics. Um you know, when when you're looking at vetting for who's actually coming in. I mean, even when I did my 10-day Vipassana, they had us fill in an application, and certain people aren't allowed in, because they may become overly destabilized. What what sort of things are you are you looking at as part of that process to go, "Okay, yes, we feel good about letting this person come sit in the dark and and taking care of them for for the the the whole time."

Uh the screening criteria is very similar to what you see for psychedelics. So, schizophrenia, no. Addiction, no. Um PTSD uh with the right facilitator and support is okay. Um but the pre- the the predominant risk is, you know, when that veil thins and you start to experience the other side, the inner worlds, if you can't differentiate between that world and this world, and then you take action based on that experience, that can lead to unattractive outcomes. And so, you have to And And if there's if you have stuff going on in your physiology or or mentally or spiritually that that makes you more at risk for those types of experiences, then we we screen for that up front, and either we will customize a support plan for you so that it's working you're working with a facilitator who has experience like with someone who has PTSD or whatever, and they can guide you through the journey so that when stuff comes up, they can be like, nope, that's this is what's happening. It's okay. Don't worry. Here's what you got to go do. Um or it's just this is a hard no, you know, I'm sorry, but you're not a good candidate for this. So, we we want you to be safe, so we're we're going to have to politely decline.

Are there any physiological concerns? Like for example, if someone's in their 70s or 80s and they're interested in working with psychedelics and they're on, you know, high blood pressure medication or they maybe have had a cardiac issue in the past. Any Anything physiological that should be, you know, kind of checked on, or is it mostly just psychological that that you're looking at for the the dark retreats? It's more psychological. I mean, we we build special shelves in the in the rooms that have recesses for medicines so that you can if you have things that you have to take for your health and wellness that you can continue that while you're in the dark. You don't have to go cold turkey. But the body tends to relax into a homeostatic stabilized balanced state. And so a lot of those at risk things that might have something to do with your physiology actually can this can be beneficial for that versus negative. And so it's mostly the psychological things, you know, fears of being in the dark or being alone or, you know, things of that nature that are the bigger risk. And that's just on it that doesn't seem to be age-related. It's more on a case-by-case basis.

Right. So we we talked a little bit about your experience in the dark, but I don't think we touched on it quite enough. I mean, clearly it was transformative for you. You've you're you're now dedicating this next chapter season of your life to making this accessible and and available. Um so the question that I have is like what did your own longest stretch in the dark teach you that you weren't expecting? That was a surprise or sort of, you know, out of the ordinary.

Yeah. I mean, when I when I do my because I came to this practice later in my in my journey, it was it was less about convincing myself that the other side was real or kind of observing the rising and falling of phenomenon and thought. It was more about very specific things that I was working on related to the practice and path that that I'm aligned with. So So when I go in, I have a I have a specific goal of like a spiritual milestone I'm trying to achieve or or a city I'm trying to unlock or an experience that I'm curious about and want to absorb into. And so I'm pursuing a very specific practice. But I will still call a teacher I'm working with while I'm in there for support despite having a couple of decades of, you know, road under my feet and lots of scar tissue of of going through this stuff. And so it's just an accelerant. It's things that the way I use it is there's things you kind of get stuck in places like you're kind of stuck in a cul-de-sac and you can't break through and you're trying to get to that next level and the dark is just a a primordial soup where you can drop in there and it's completely pure and completely still and stable and you can you can find you can marshal the energetic strength to push through to that next level and and continue on your journey.

Have you ever taken psychedelics in a dark retreat? No. You're not mixing and matching. No, and most of the people I know that run dark retreats prohibit that because for a whole variety of reasons. So we don't allow that. I mean, obviously if someone sneaks stuff in you can't really control them, but we we do make people ask people to agree to not do plant medicine in the rooms. Now the the the one exception to that that I would say is we are co-developing retreat experiences with herbalists and people who use plants for for health benefits, not necessarily psychoactive plants because when you each plant has its own nature and personality and spirit and when you do herb my wife's an herbalist and so I've seen this firsthand when you're working with a plant you ingest a bunch of it you sit and meditate with it you connect to the spirit of the plant and you talk to it and the plant tells you why it exists and what it's good for and what you should use it for. And so we're co-developing courses where herbalists can go in the dark with like blue pea or whatever the whatever the material is and actually get to know that plant more intimately and talk to it and dialogue with it to enhance their skill and abilities as an herbalist. Which is different from you know, doing mushrooms or dropping acid or ayahuasca or something like like that.

Sure. It's It's in some ways similar to like a dieta with ayahuasca where you'll you'll kind of work with the ayahuasca as as a way to purify or or detoxify or clear space and then you know, you'll you'll establish a relationship with bobinsana or guayusa or marusa or any of these dozens of Amazonian plants and trees as a way to like kind of a tune deeper to it, but instead of ayahuasca it's the dark. As a That's right. And we do like like we do so in like at at Holos we're building entheogenic a shaman's garden as part of the location. And that will have entheogenic plants that are planted on the site and cultivated on the site around the rooms in addition to to to herbal plants with strong herbal properties that are domestic to Costa Rica because we want to create that standing frequency at the location that people can tap into with their meditation while they're on site. So every single component of the site is deliberately designed to create a resonance that enhances the user's experience and ability to connect with the other side.

Beautiful. Well, I'm interested, you know, like I I I I haven't had a this extensive of a conversation about dark retreats before and uh I'm I'm more curious than I was before we started our conversation. I'm sure there's a lot of listeners as well like myself who have heard of this and uh just haven't found the right kind of place to go or unsure, you know, how to how to sort of explore this as a practice. So I'd love to you know, just to close this out. Like let's say someone's listening to this and they're curious and and they'd love to attend one of these experiences, when are you opening up them up at Holos? Like what would next steps be? I mean, I think you know, there's a website I'm sure they can go to, but kind of what what should people do next if they they're interested in in committing to this as as a modality or as a practice?

You can go to the website. It's acraya.global. Um there's a reservations. Costa Rica is open for reservations. Uh we're conducting the study from October 1st to February 14th. So, if you want to be part of the study, you can go there's a link to the study page. You can go through you can sign up for a week and participate in the study. If you just want general reservations, you just click on Costa Rica on Holos. That'll take you you just pick your dates and you sign up. And then for our locations in Nepal and in Bali, there's a wait list. So, um Nepal will come online probably towards the end of this year and then Bali will come online in July of next year. And so, if you want to be uh notified when those when the reservation book for those locations opens, you can join the wait list and we'll let you know when when they're available.

All right. Uh um So, acraya.global, that's a c r a y a .global and Yep. um if folks do have questions, they can reach out through a contact form there. Yeah, there's a WhatsApp button on the site as well. It just goes directly to me. So, if if if you just jump on WhatsApp, um we've got a business account. It comes directly to me. I'm happy to answer any questions and have conversations about it. Great. Well, um I'll be in touch with you after this and and I'd love to I mean, Nepal sounds really interesting. I've I've been meaning to make a trip back. I I'd love to go. I'm obsessed with the snow leopard Peter Matthiessen's book and uh Matthiessen's book and I'd love to go up to like the upper Mustang and inner Dolpo area. And I've been looking for a good excuse to to make it back that way. Um so, I appreciate you coming on the show, Ian. I appreciate you sharing uh so generously about everything related to the dark. Acraya.global uh is the the website and um folks you found this interesting right into us and let me know if you're you're considering a dark retreat because this is this is something I've been curious about as well. So thank you again for joining us Ian it was great to have you on the show. Appreciate it. Thank you.

When I was 16, I wish someone had introduced me to meditation and all this stuff when I was younger. I didn't I didn't come to it until I was in my early 20s and it was like a man dying of thirst finding the oasis. So, it would have been nice to get to that a little bit earlier. And the other thing I think would have been helpful is my dad wasn't a big fan of like teaching like how to get through life. It was like here's the deep end, don't ask me any questions. Go figure it out. And it would have been nice if someone had come along and said, "You know what? It's going to be okay. You're going to get through it. It going to be tough sometimes, but it's going to turn out all right. Just keep going." And that would have I think caused me a lot less heartache and grief, anxiety and stress over the years wondering if I was going to sink or swim at the end of the day.

Yeah, right. Do we forget that with our own children to remember that that's the greatest thing that we can offer? It's going to be okay. You'll work it out. You got skills. And you got backing. No matter what happens. I think that's part of it. Part of it is knowing that you are surrounded by people who love you unconditionally and so you can go take risks and try different things. But a part of it is also giving your children the gift of explaining how the world works. So that they can, you know, it's like it's like a I think of a great basketball player, you know, Kobe or Jordan or whoever, right? The first part of that journey is a slog just putting in the hours to learn the skills. And then once you got it wrapped, then you get to the artistry and the creativity and the and the and the fun. And so at least for me, my philosophy is I want to teach my kids the nuts and bolts of how reality works so that they can get to the part of pure creation and joy sooner and contribute, find their purpose, become aligned with it, and bring that magic and creative expression into the into the world past the hurdles of like how this [expletive] work.

Mhm. Yeah, right. When I lost it, it first introduced me to this and then I on on the journey I realized that most cultures say the same thing around the masculine and feminine. The feminine role is in the first couple of years is to is to show the child how it is loved. And then it becomes the masculine role over the next few years to show the child the way the world is, the way they are in the world. North American tribes would take them to the highest peak and show them the lay of the land. This is the land. This is the way it is and this is the way that you are. And so at like the time of the coming of age ceremonies as early teens, they had a grasp on the map. It's the way the world is. It's fury of how they are loved. And then they get a chance to to then step and bring something to the world because they're grown up. They are They have gone through the initiation.

And it's something that we lack in modern culture. We've got people in our age who are still children. They're still children and they're unable to deal with this stuff, let alone the little and lineal stuff that's thrown upon them. And they keep giving themselves more and more stimulus to stop them from shutting the [expletive] up and just hearing what needs to be heard. I think one of the things we can do for humanity is the reintroduction of initiation ceremonies. Show children how they are and that they are safe and they are loved. It must be one of the most important things within a culture that we've lost. And everyone's trying to solve problems that haven't happened yet in an attempt to resolve their [expletive] instead of just being with what is coming up for them.

And everyone's trying to avoid People are uncomfortable with the discomfort and you got to go through the fire at some point. It's nice to have a bunch of tools to help you get through the fire, but ultimately you got to walk through that fire alone. There's just no shortcuts. And that's I think the difference between teaching your kids and coddling and insulating and spoiling your kids. I don't I'm not trying to keep my kids away from the experience of life. Give them a toolkit so that when they get in the [expletive] they can get through it and come out the other side. It's quite the contrary. You actually want them to lean into the discomfort of life, the adventure of life. But with the toolkit to work it out. That's right. And coddling them does not help. Keeping them away in cotton wool does not help them because their nervous system is unregulated. Yeah. Your ability to regulate one's nervous I talked about at length with Nauseum with the David B. Meadows who was my Navy SEAL I had on the podcast a couple of weeks ago and we went deep into the nervous system regulation of high performance and this is one of the key aspects.

Of all of those different practices, the dark room meditation is the most potent transformational. Plant medicine layered on top provides a gateway to go experience on a short-term uncontrolled basis the reality of the underworld. So you know that they're real and it's not faith-based. And then the dark room and deep meditation teaches you to access those states under control and full consciousness. Because in the dark after 3 days your brain starts to produce DMT endogenously and it naturally opens the pineal gland and those gateways without any class 4 scheduled drugs without any vomiting without any of the rest of it in a totally natural way.

Ian Gardner is a serial entrepreneur, urban monk and founder of Arya, a company building dark room retreat centers around the globe. In this conversation, I en reveals why the Buddhists, Sufis, and Christians kept this practice hidden for thousands of years and why humanity is finally ready to receive it. In the past, historically, it was darker times and the secret teachings and the wisdom and the light and the truth was kept in the monasteries where it was safeguarded and protected and shielded because it was such dark times.

And those monastics were the the servants of the light, the keepers of the light. They held those traditions and they passed it down mouth to ear and sometimes a year before. But where we are now is all that wisdom from the monastery. All those secrets are coming from the sky to the street from the monastery to the marketplace. Before we get into this conversation, I want to ask you to join this amazing community of consciousness explorers. This whole idea of pursuing expanded consciousness and the boundaries of human potential while living a modern life is relatively new, which is why we interview revered masters, teachers, experts, and practitioners to help you on your own journey.

To stay up to date on the latest conversations, simply click subscribe below, and you'll be notified each time a new episode comes out. I am so grateful for all of your support and comments. I love reading them. Now, let's dive into this conversation. Ian, what's up, brother? Brother, just got over bronchitis after uh two weeks in the deeps of Mustang with the monks, the Buddhists and bun monks way out in at 13,000 ft. So, I'm just back in back in fighting action. Awesome. Awesome. Well, we're definitely curious to learn a little bit more about that trip in this conversation, but you know, I I I want to just start off by just sharing a little bit about um my admiration for you and then I want you to share a little bit about your background.

You know, I think there's a lot of people out there who are getting on a consciousness journey, waking up, and they're they're trying to figure out, okay, like how do I do this with genuine intent and like a level of seriousness and also thrive, thrive in the world, you know, like build companies, do cool stuff. And I honestly don't know of that many people who are holding both. and you're one of the people that I've identified who I mean I want to talk about your background but like you've been really serious on your path and you're also out there building companies and have had a lot of success and you know I think it's awesome man um I think it's incredible and I think we need more people that are you know devout householders if you will out there doing the thing showing people that this way of living can be done.

Yeah. I mean I've I I sort of uh have come to call myself an urban monk. Um because uh for a long time I wanted to be a monk. I went to India in 2001 to the Mahakuma in Laahabad with all the with all the with all the Hindus to go look for Babai and was going to go be a sadu. But um I think early in my career when I started having some success, I observed that whenever I had some material corporate success, the excitement and the and the energy and the happiness and the joy would last for a couple of days and then I'd start feeling like, oh, I'm not doing enough.

I got to work harder. that maybe that wasn't real or I was lucky or you know they didn't know what they were doing when they promoted me or or the rest of it or and then you know that sort of translated into the hot girlfriend or the the motorcycles or the cars or the right apartment or the right um or the right stamps in my passport or the right graduate degrees or what have you. And um eventually I was like I need to I just got this intuitive nudge.

I was like I need think I need to learn to meditate and start doing yoga. And it was when I was in business school at UCLA. And so I started doing BC cream yoga super intensely. Um, five or six days a week, two a day vegan. I was down to I'm 195 now. It's down to 150 pounds. And then I I took the uh I got initiated into Maharishi's transcendental meditation. And the first time I sat down and did that mantra, it was like and I was like, "Oh, I just come home.

This wow that's like it felt so good." I sat for 20 minutes. And over the course of that, that was the first step on the journey. And over the course of that journey, I realized that the happiness that I was looking for wasn't anywhere out here. It was in here. And the deeper I went in here, the happier I got out here. And so I kind of got addicted with it and eventually evolved my world view where for me personally, my metric for um how successful I feel my life has been.

I want to be successful in a couple different domains. I want to be successful professionally and financially. I want to be successful physically and taking care of myself. I want to be successful spiritually and my spiritual achievement and understanding and I want to be successful as a family man as a father. And so I systematically went through each of those different dimensions and very deliberately undertook efforts and work to further myself in each of those different directions to the point where I felt like I had a level of achievement and a quality of life and and success that that made me feel good and made me feel like I'd achieved what I'd wanted.

And so learning how to be a householder and how to do very deep, often very challenging, very disruptive inner work was was part of that journey. I love it, man. And I and I think I distinctly remember listening a conversation to you where, you know, this sounded like it might have been before you started studying mudra ashram, but you were like, "Okay, like I want to I want to just like stay up here with the masters in this in this realm and meditate all and they were like, "No, you're this isn't what your dharma is.

Like, you got to go out and and do stuff." And I'd love for you to share more about that. Yeah. I was um [clears throat] I had rented a beach, I had rented a cottage by the beach in Ocean Beach in San Diego. Um I was working on a path called ekenar which teaches a modality called soul travel where you it's a specific spiritual technique where you focus the attention in in the third eye and then you move it up through the crown chakra and up into the spiritual worlds in full awareness and then you can go to different temples and work with different teachers within that hierarchy and in those spiritual worlds.

And so I was managing this little cafe during the day because it was pretty low friction, low brain power. And then I was meditating six or eight hours a day com teaching from the masters within this hierarchy and writing books about it. And I I had a sixbook deal with Deepak Chopra's publisher and put one out and had the other ones in draft and working through it. And I had gotten within that path and tradition as far as I could go. I had hit the ceiling.

And so, but I still felt like there was more for me to do. And so, I went to the hierarchy that I was working with um and I said, "Look at I I want to go I want to go be a monk." Like, I want to just completely dedicate and focus myself to this. And they said, "No, no, you've done that. You don't get to do that in this life." That's the old model. Um the new model with where um the collective reality is and so the cycles of time is that in the past historically it was darker times and the secret teachings and the wisdom and the light and the truth was kept in the monasteries where it was safeguarded and protected and shielded because it was such dark times.

And though those monastics were the the servants of the light, the keepers of the light, they held those those traditions and they passed it down mouth to ear and and sometimes in written form. But where we are now is all that wisdom from the monastery, all those secrets are coming from the sky to the street, from the monastery to the marketplace. and where we are in this cycle of time, the journey, the journey that we are in collectively is incorporating and embodying those esoteric principles into everyday life and living.

[clears throat] And so their response to me was, "Your job is to go and live that as a truth, as an example, and help teach other professional westerners who have your type of white guy, MBA, tech bro, finance dude background." I can relate to like take all of that. I'm going to make as much money as I can and get the hottest wife that I can and the biggest house that I can and the fastest car that I can and translate that into an embodied spiritual living um for modern times.

And they said there are two teachers left on the planet that can help you with that journey. Um go find one that can teach you about this very very specific esoteric thing. And so I started searching um and I found I found mudrash in Los Angeles and reached out and explained what was going on and started up the path. So that was sort of how that journey. That's amazing. And you know I do want to highlight Mudra Asham which I actually been studying it partly inspired by you.

Um what appeals appeals to you so much about that path and I want to just give it a quick plug for anybody who might be curious about it. Well um you know the paths I think um we call down what we need collectively for the next st stage of our evolution collective right so you know in the dark ages um you know and and even earlier than that you had sort of Christianity that came in and with the uh you know the rules of conduct kind of provided a civilizing um civilizing effect for for some of the chaos of of those early times.

And so now we're at a stage where we're ready to move beyond that and we're calling in yoga, meditation, plant medicine, these eastern modalities. Um but each of those paths are closed in the sense that if you're a student of Buddhism, if you're a student of ekenar, if you're a student of Sufism or Islam or Judaism or pick your ism ism, if you have the inner awareness opened on that path, you can only see the tracks and landmarks that are contained within that path. So, it's like um if you think about the journey to liberation as climbing up the mountain, each path has its own ladder going up the mountain.

And if you're on an ism ladder, you can't see any of the other ladders that are to your left or right because it's a closed path. You're not initiated, if you're initiated on the ism path, you're not initiated on the other ism path, and you can't look in between. But the reality is is that there's, you know, 188 paths up the mountain that are active. And the unique thing about mudra ashram of all the ones that I've studied and evaluated is it's an open path. And what that means is that as you do the practices and techniques and you start to unfold and develop the awareness and go up, you can see all of the different paths up the mountain.

And mudrash culminates in the final stages called multiplane mastery where you develop a form on different paths so that you can minister and help people and bestow the light on different paths. So you could be a mudra ashram um high initiate and you could administer in the inner worlds to to Muslims to Christians to Jews to Sufis to Zen Buddhists to Tibetan Buddhists to Vadriana Buddhists to bun bun students to Sant students to ekinar students and so in a world where we are divided based on which path we're on and which create blinders and view everybody else as enemies Right?

If I'm Jewish, I'm the chosen son of God and everybody else isn't. If I'm Christian, there's one God and only one God and everybody else isn't. And pick your ism. This is a path that can unify and integrate all of the other paths in an experiential way where you're not just taking it on faith, but you can actually see the other paths and landmarks going up the mountain and see where people are and provide service to them to help liberate them and move them forward on the path.

I think you know that is something that makes this path unique among all os and I think also why it's been called forth in this time and place particularly in California to help to help integrate and connect all the other paths and reduce some of that friction as we all try to climb the mountain together. Yeah, I mean that's that's definitely something that was very compelling to me as I learned about it as well where it was like wow like you know the highest rung of TM is not necessarily the same as the highest rung of Renue of these other things.

It's like different roads, right? And and the notion that all potential potentialities would be accessible to you um from a single unified meta meta path, if you will. Like that was like whoa. Okay. This is this is interesting. I want to dig in here a little bit. Yeah. And it also has the most comprehensive um map of the continual consciousness of of any path. So it's not like it's not like Christianity where you go and you it's it's all faith-based, right? You're just hope praying and hoping and maybe you have some kind of experience.

This is completely experiential. So you can individually validate that you're making progress at each point. So you you do the technique, you move to the next point on the ladder. That point has these characteristics. You experience it personally and you go, "Oh, okay. That's for real. I experienced it." And within the contin of consciousness which are strung like pearls on a string within those are contained every state and state conceivable and experiencable by a human and a physical body. And so as you work your way through it you can experience the gamut of human realities that an embodied person can have and understand them in a very deep and and fundamental way which allows you when you're working in the world at large to tune into somebody and go, "Oh, okay.

That person is right here. this is their world view. They think this because this is the the reality of the place that they're in. And I can't expect them to be up here or or or down here because this is where they are. And it enables you to meet people where they are in the journey and have much more effective and compassionate communication. So let let's let's switch gears to what you're up to now with dark rooms. And you know maybe to frame this up but you mentioned that right now is like kind of a shift in what's happening in this in the cycle on this planet and that you know there's new there's new technologies that are being brought into our awareness.

I guess my question would be you know let like I'd be curious to hear your perspective on that cycle and then how did these dark rooms first get on your radar? Yeah. Well, most of the great traditions have a map of cycles of time, right? And you know, in the one that I think is probably the closest is the Hindu model of the Yugas. Um, the Buddhists have a model of time also, but in in my experience exploring that, I find it to be a little bit elongated and I think the Buddhists are or the Hindus are probably a little closer to to what's going on.

But in those models you have in the beginning of the cycle of time you start sort of basically at the top of the ladder and then the cycles take you down all the way to the bottom of the ladder which would be like the dark ages and then you cycle back up as you learn things. And the whole point is designed to take a soul through that journey of all different human experience so that you season the soul and it gets experience and it has creative expression and and and all the rest of that.

And so we've sort of come all the way down and now we're starting to come back up. And the culmination of that at the end of the last cycle is the transition collectively into an astral age. So right now we're in a physical age because we're in a world of duality. We have physical bodies. We live on a physical planet. But the astral realm is the next realm above this one and it's non-dual where literally you can think something or imagine it and it creates it as a reality which is a very powerful capability to have and if you if soul was not seasoned and matured [clears throat] that ability could be abused and be quite destructive.

Just like you don't give a teenager an F1 race car, you give them your old beat up Tahoe because you know that they're going to go bang around and drive over curbs and run into trees and do stupid And so the whole point of this arc of this journey is for Soul to get seasoned and gather wisdom so that by the end when it's done, you give them the F1 car and they go do race laps, they don't go wreck the thing. And so and so collectively we gather experience and knowledge and we move through that journey together.

And so now as we're starting to come back up and head back up towards the astral age, then we're looking collectively for more sophisticated tools, deeper understanding, greater wisdom, greater awareness, greater facility, and all the rest of that. Which is why you see in the west us we're calling in you know yoga and plant medicine and meditation and all the rest of that and of all of those different practices the dark room meditation is the most potent transformationally. So like if you go do yoga, you know, you can do broom or you can do venyasa or whatever you have you and it'll clear out the body and it'll restructure things and it'll help you get peaceful and yoga was designed to prepare the body for meditation.

So then you move into meditation and that helps you settle the mind and reduce the thoughts and learn to discipline your focus. But unless you are have an advanced practice, it doesn't necessarily enable you to realize those higher states which are in in the non-dual worlds. Plant medicine layered on top provides a gateway to go experience on a short-term uncontrolled basis the reality of the underworld. So you know that they're real and it's not faith-based. And then the dark room and deep meditation teaches you to access those states under control and full consciousness.

Because in the dark after three days your brain starts to produce DMT endogenously and it naturally opens the pineal gland and those gateways without any class 4 schedule drugs without any vomiting without any of the rest of it in a totally natural way. If you're not prepared for that it can be really weird and scary. But if you are prepared for that, it can rapidly accelerate your development. Which is why the Buddhists and the Sufis and the Christians have all kept it hidden in secret as part of the esoteric teachings for the last couple thousand years.

And so now as we swing through the bottom of the curve and we're calling in these more advanced techniques to integrate that wisdom from the sky down into the street from the monastery to the marketplace. This is one of those those core practices that is is my purpose and journey is to make that modality available to westerners in a safe way so they can receive the benefits without the risks of the downside of doing it properly. you know what what can someone expect who's maybe never heard of a dark room retreat before?

Like what is the actual experience like? Well, if you've never done any meditation or yoga or anything, you shouldn't go do a dark retreat. Um you just it's not a good idea. Um, but if you have a little bit of experience either with yoga or meditation or what have you, and if you've done work in your subconscious, like if you've done Byron Katie's work or pick your modality of trying to understand how the how the furniture is in the basement and rearranging it and and cleaning it out, then this is modality that can help for that.

And what happens is, so usually you want to start with like five days. So you go in on day one and you just relax, maybe get a massage, do some yoga, turn off all your digital devices, maybe read some spiritual material, go for a walk in the woods, just sit quietly. And then after dinner on day one, you turn off all the lights. So the room is completely dark and there's no light. There's no You can't cheat. There's no light. There's not like pin holes. It's black, black, black.

Like when you open your eyes and close your eyes, there's no difference. You can't tell any difference. And so you go to sleep that first night and then generally for the first 48 hours people just sleep because um 70% of um the stuff that goes on in our brain is through our visual cortex with stuff that we see. And when you turn that and and that stuff the input from your visual cortex overrides a lot of the other ner um um balancing functions in the body.

So visual cortex stimulation creates cortisol. It creates stress. It keeps us going. It keeps us amped up. And that prevents your body from sort of healing. That's why people in urban environments get stressed out and sick a lot. And so the first 40 hours you basically sleep [clears throat] and most of your biomarkers reset, your testosterone, estrogen, melatonin, all your biochemistry resets. And this is also when a lot of people see the starts of the beginning of spontaneous healing. Because in the absence of external stimulation, your body does what it's designed to do, which is to heal itself.

Like when you're sick and your doctor says just stay in bed and sleep. That's why he says that or she says that is because that's how your body heals. So then you go through sort of two days of sort of mostly sleeping. [snorts] And then on the third day, [clears throat and cough] you're kind of out of that. Your body's reset. You're energized. You're stabilized. You're balanced. And day three to day four is when your brain starts to produce DMT. And you can do it one of two ways.

You can just passively sit there and follow the breath and observe what the phenomenon that arises. This is just called, you know, passive observing. Or if you have a dedicated meditation practice, you can do your practice either on your own or with the support of your teacher or one of the teachers that you find through our platform. And so [clears throat] generally as part of that three, four, stage three and four, you will start to experience um light phenomenon and images which is um your awareness moving up out of the body and um through the inner senses, experiencing things that are going on in the spiritual worlds.

And it could be patterns of light, it could be like sort of kaleidoscope colors. It could be seeing your past lives. It could be viewing teachers. It could be seeing this the kundalini serpent coming up the column of light in the spine. It could be lots of different things. And some people also develop special uh spiritual powers called cities like the ability to see into your body. So you can see like your muscles, your tendons, your bones, your blood vessels and cells and things like that.

So it's highly individualistic depending on sort of how you're wired and what your dharma is and what you're working on. And so the day three, four, you stay in the dark. And then in day five, you generally uh turn on the lights and come out in the morning, have a cup of tea, listen to the sound of the birds, the wind in the trees, spend some time in nature. And then it takes about 24 hours to to come back into your body and and for that that aperture of your senses, which has gotten so broad, to narrow back down so that you can deal with normal physical life.

Like on my last one, I did five days. I came out in the morning. I was like, I'm a badass. I don't know how to meditate. I'm going to drive down the hill and get a cup of coffee. Oh no. I couldn't even turn the car off. I had to go back up to the cabin, put my keys away, ask them to bring me some tea, and to literally just sit there on the porch for five or six hours while reality reality adjusts. Let's talk about bringing your whole self to work.

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It's like his dark room experience. Um, but that was the first time I heard of it. And I knew people like saw colors and stuff, but I didn't realize about I didn't know that physical healing was a thing. And I also didn't know that the emergence of cities was the thing. Yeah. That's how Joe Despensza healed his spine in the [clears throat] dark and that's how he developed that protocol which he which I have I know other people who have used it. There's a guy in Hawaii called Miracle King who went in in a wheelchair.

He fell off a balcony, broke his spine, went in in a wheelchair, did Joe Despensza's technique, and walked out 40 days later. No Wow. That's so interesting. I I did not know Joe Despensza his dark room was how he healed himself. He kind of keeps that a little bit uh quiet relative to his meditations he's slinging. Um, wow, that's so cool. And you know, you guys are innovating on this space. And so like I'd be curious to hear like kind of like a comparison of like let's say 10 years ago somebody wanted to do this, what they had to what how they had to do it and now what you're bringing forth with the cry.

[snorts] Yeah. So I I I became fascinated with this after um studying the bun teachings and heard hearing it referenced in those teachings. And then I took the bun dark room teachings over COVID from a teacher in the Bay Area and and blacked out a room in my house and tried it for a couple of days because I was so fascinated with it and it was hugely impactful. decided I'm gonna I want to bring this to a broader audience because I'm at the point in my journey in my career where really what I'm looking for is global impact um on on consciousness and in going through it and coming to the conclusion that this was the single most powerful modality for unlocking and transforming consciousness.

I went to a couple of the mana mon man mon man mon man mon man mon man mon man mon man mon man mon man mon man monastics that I knew and I was like I said what do you think about taking this to a broader audience because it's been hidden and protected for years like they didn't they wouldn't even give the teachings if you weren't an advanced student and they also did the same thing they said it's time it's time to make this the time to make this available but the challenge with the dark room experience traditionally is that you were facilitated by a monk on property who gave you the teachings mouthto ear through the door every day and so you were necessarily limited by the number of monks and the number of rooms.

And so, you know, I'm a tech builder. I build scalable platforms. I'm like, that model does not scale. There's not enough monks and there's not enough rooms. And if you want to achieve global impact, you have to have people come have the experience, experience a change, go back to their community, have people notice that they've changed, get curious, ask them what they do, and then have them come in and have the same thing. Rinse and repeat. So you create a flywheel. So I went to a bunch of friends that run dark retreats and there's not that many.

There's today there's maybe 10 locations in the west for that you can go do this. Globally there's maybe 40 or 50 rooms where you can go do it. And I said I asked these people who are running these retreat centers. I said have you ever facilitated somebody on the phone in a different location? And they all said yeah no problem. Works just fine. I was like, "Okay, there's the unlock." So if I can build the rooms and I can build a technology system that allows a monk in Siberia or Nepal to facilitate a retreatment in Cambodia, Bali, Costa Rica, New York, Massachusetts, and Germany, then one monk can facilitate 50 people a week versus two if they have to be on site.

And so since I'm a tech builder historically and I've had some success with that uh what we put together is a in room audio enabled cloud connected um technology platform where we use we took sensors from the Israeli nursing home industry that are passive and hardwired into the room. So there's no Bluetooth and no white Wi-Fi. And we monitor movement, temperature, heart rate, heart rate variability, respiration, perspiration, a couple other things. So we know you're safe, right? So if you're [clears throat] the Israelis have developed algorithms so that they can see when anxiety is going up and you're escalating towards some sort of breakthrough break event.

So first and foremost, we can make sure monitor people. The AI can monitor all [clears throat] their vitals and we can make sure that they're safe, which was the first and first and foremost consideration. The second challenge when you're in the dark is that you receive lots of information because you're the mind is quieting. It opens the gateway to the higher dimensions, soul, higher aspect, and you start receiving communication and information that is quite profound. And for artists, it could be download on music or songs.

For writers, it could be writing ideas. For regular folks, it could be, you know, an understanding of reality. And to capture those, you either have to carry a handheld recorder with all the buttons blacked out with tape and make hope that you're pressing you remember which button it is. You're pressing the right button. The batteries aren't dead. You're remember it's recording and saving what you want and you're not leaving it on when you're done. Or you have to get out of bed. You have to feel your way through the room in the dark.

Find the desk. Find your pen. Find your notebook. Try to remember where you were on the page in the dark. Put your finger where you think the line is. remember what your download was and start writing it in real time which is a terrible experience for capturing your insights. So the second thing we built was an audio system where you say house take a voice note and you just start talking and you just talk stream you talk stream of consciousness it captures it and encrypts it and transcribes it.

It stores it in your folder and then when you're done you just go and you download and you can say house replay that voice note to make sure that you got it and and it was in there. So that's the second feature we built. And then the third feature we built is the remote facilitation. So we have a plat we have a we we built basically the app store for facilitators and teachers. So you sign up for the retreat, you pick your location, your time and then you pick your facilitator and then you have a pre-conult with your facilitator where they help you prepare and then while you're in the room if you're going through something and you need help, you say, "House, schedule a schedule an I need to talk to Scott.

schedule me an appointment. And the system knows when you're asleep and awake because we're monitoring all your vitals. And so it sends you a note. You get a note that says, "Hey, Ian's in his retreat. He needs to talk to you." It shows you my wake sleep schedule. You pick an hour that works for you and reserve it. And then at the appointed hour, it chimes me in the room. It goes ding. Ian, Scott's ready to talk. Would you like to talk to him now? I say yes.

It initiates connection. We have our conversation. It records it, transcribes it, encrypts it, stores it, all HIPPA compliant. And if you're a monk, a Russian Orthodox monk in Siberia and only speak Russian, or if you're a Buddhist monk in Lantang in Mustang and you only speak Nepali or Tibetan, it translate that conversation in real time for you. And we have a speaker system. We put 16 speakers in the room on the walls, on the roof, and on the floor. And we use a the motion tracking system to tell where you are in the room and the speaker system direct to direct the sound to where you are dynamically.

So it always feels like your teacher's one foot away from you no matter where you are in the room. So it's a highfidelity teacher experience that feels like reality even though your teacher could be 3,000 miles away in some monastery in the middle of nowhere. So that system which we've got applied for patent protection for also has a research layer. So there's a bunch of Raspberry Pi compute that is is connected to a HIPOC compliant timestamp so that you can do research studies in the room and synchronize the data fields from all those different inputs and do data collection for analysis and we've got a study we're baking with Harvard and IAS for launch that will be the first of its kind to document the physiological impact of being in the dark.

Wow. Yeah. That's what immediately where my mind went was like, has anybody studied this stuff? Um, and sounds like you guys are pioneering that. Now, this is Brian Johnson territory. It's never been it's never been studied evaluated in a clinical way. And what we're the platform we're building will enable us to do those studies and replicate those at scale um across the planet. And the goal is to build 2,000 rooms over the next 15. So, it's a 40x increase in the number of rooms over the next 15 years and have this modality available ideally like a yoga studio.

So, you'd have your in any town you'd have the doctor's office, the yoga studio, and the dark room. And those three would be the three pillars of your wellness regimen. Let's go. I'm I'm I'm here for that future. So, you know, I I imagine a lot of people hear like hear about this and they're like, man, like how do you pass the time? You know what I mean? like that that sounds like like really tough. Um what would be your response to that to that objection or resistance?

I mean sometimes it's boring. Like sometimes it's just boring. But that that's part of the journey, right? Because when you're bored, you have to learn to be with yourself. And when you're not distracted with, you know, happy thumbs and screens and whatever your distraction is, um, you're just with yourself. And then when you're just with yourself, your thoughts come up. And the thoughts are the roadmap to joy and freedom and happiness. So the thought comes up and you look at it, you say, "Where did that come from?

How do I feel about that? What's behind that? And then what's behind that? And then what's behind that? And then what's behind that? And then eventually you get down the metaphor I use. It's like kelp growing on the ocean floor, right? The ocean is sort of our subconscious um or our consciousness. And then the top of the ocean is where reality hits and then the kelp are all the threads of our subconscious and where they connect to the bedrock and the ocean floor. That's usually where your childhood trauma is, where all your stuff gets put together.

And [clears throat] so as the thought as you notice the kelp floating on the top of the ocean, that's the thought. And then you follow it down with successive questions about what's beneath it. And eventually you get to the root within your subconscious of where it was initiated. And then you can decide to keep it if it serves you or you can cut it loose and let the cup strand flow away. Or you can reprogram it so that instead of kelp it turns into something else.

And so that way you can you can proactively reconstruct your consciousness in a way that serves your highest purpose. But it can get boring. It can get especially if you don't have a practice that you're engaged in. But that's part of it. Right. Right. You know, one of the things that strikes me is psychedelics are such a dice roll. Like I've had a lot of incredible experiences and then last year I had a destabilizing experience, my first one. And I, you know, and I kind of like was like, I've done a lot of this like I'm good.

And then like, you know, I got my ass kicked and and I don't know if I'll ever do that again um to be honest. And it I wonder does that type of variability exist with dark rooms where people can you know potentially traumatize get traumatized or experience something that's like beyond their window of tolerance. Not beyond their window of tolerance. So the difference between the dark and psychedelics, you know, psilocybin or Iawaska or 5me or whatever DMT or whatever you're talking about, um, that's an uncontrolled experience.

So you're you're unlocking chemistry in the brain which blasts open the doorway to the inner worlds. Your awareness shoots up and out and you have no control over where you go. Like if you have a good shaman with you who who has uh a well-developed facility in the inner worlds, they can help sort of grab you and guide you. But satin setting is hugely important. And you ultimately though you can't you can't control where you go because it's not a natural process. It's a catalyzed process through the use of these intermediaries.

[clears throat] The dark is a natural process. So your body naturally and your spirit and your soul naturally don't give you more than you can handle. You may need guidance to contextualize it and understand it, but you don't receive things that are beyond your capability to manage and and go through because by definition your soul and your spirit won't give you that because that would be counterproductive. There's the whole point of incarnation is to have experience and learn and grow and an experience that you can't handle and takes you out of your body by definition is antithetical to the whole point.

So because it's a natural experience and if you have the right facilitator supporting you which we heavily screen and vet to have them on platform then you will have a you might have a challenging experience but you're not going to have like a psychotic break and and and a bad trip like you could potentially have with some of those other medicines. I'm also I mean that's very attractive to me. Um, I'm also very curious about the like integration of of afterwards. Like, you know, I think psychedelics are famous for being a window, right?

And then you think you're like, I'm God, like all this amazing stuff, then like two days later you're pissed at somebody running late. Um, and a lot of it wears off pretty quickly. Is it is it similar with the dark room peak experiences? is are more stabilized kind of integration. It's a longer tale for integration and it's more subtle. So, um what many people report is when they're in there, they're like, "Well, that not much didn't happen." Like, I didn't see, you know, dragons eating rainbows or, you know, talk to my dad, dead dad or grandfather, what have you.

But then when you talk to them a month, three months, six months later and they start slowly because it's a more natural process, what happens is the aperture opens up. You deal with stuff and work on it and then you come back out and the aperture closes back down and then your subconscious and your conscious will work to dribble those realizations and changes out slowly over time in a way that's manageable and you can integrate them and they're less disruptive and you can handle them and they're beneficial.

So it's not like Iawaska where like you go have this peak experience, you talk to mama, you come back, you quit your job, you leave your family, you get a van, you drive off to the Amazon and decide you're going to go be a shaman or something. doesn't that doesn't happen in the dark. In the dark, you have these these more cogent and more controlled experiences that have a long tail for integration and it unpacks it unpacks more gently over time. Yeah, that's that's awesome. Um, you know, have I know there's certain like I know like for example like the Kogis like they raise their children in the dark and I'm sure there's I'm sure there's other people that do that.

Like I'm curious like what you've learned about the cultures that like make this like an intentional part of their culture. Typically they do it for for the person in the community who has the role of being the connection to the gods or spirit or the other worlds. And the reason they do it with th those children who are selected to fulfill that role is that when you as a child goes through their early development and the mind starts initially the mind is not very well formed.

That's why you have this childlike innocence because like there's no story. It's just all pure perception and presence. And then over time the mind starts to form and you get those ruts and grooves and eventually that that aperture to the other worlds closes down as the mind starts to solidify because the purpose of the mind is to tell you that the spiritual worlds aren't real and you're crazy. That's that's its function. And so by keeping kids in the dark until the mind is developed, they can maintain that connection to the inner world so that and it stabiliz it so that when they come out and they rejoin the community as part of everyday life, they keep that connection to the inner worlds and they can play that that that functional role within society of the shaman or what have you.

Who's the who's a connection to the spirit worlds and guide the community through you know whatever it is what crops or or disputes or whatever it is as that's part of it. So there's a very rational reason for for why they do it, but it's generally only for those children who are designated either by birth or by whatever their selection process is to fulfill that role. Man, so fascinating. And is the meditative experience that you have inside of a dark room? Like is there like a more heightened level of perception or awareness relative to like, you know, just doing a drop in in your in your house?

Yeah. I mean, if you, you know, if you, if you get up at 6:00 in the morning and go try to sit for 20 minutes before you gota, you know, before the kids get up and you got to get them pack them lunch and take them off to school and go to the gym and everything else, you're thinking, okay, like, what do I got to do with the rest of my day? Oh, like, is my wife mad because I didn't take the garbage out yesterday? Oh, I got that parent teacher conference later.

I got the investor. Like, there's just all that that goes on that distracts from quieting the inner discussion. And in the dark, all that goes away because you don't have any of that stimulus. So you're only left with your breath and your thoughts. And in that environment, absent those distractions, after a couple of days for the muddy water to settle out and get clear, it makes your meditations much more powerful, much more profound, much more transformative. And whereas you might be able to make, you know, x amount of progress in any given day out in the household or life, in the dark, you might make 10 or 15 or 100x progress because you're so much more focused and potent with your practice.

What do you think it's going to take for this to go more mainstream? I mean, I think it's already going mainstream. You've got um Sky Caves Up in Oregon is a three-year weight list. Aubrey Marcus is doing it. It's athletes are doing it. entertains and business people are doing it. I think it's a question of awareness and access um and people learning about it. And so when we launch the rooms, we'll do start doing a podcast where we interview people pre and post and tell their stories.

And we'll also interview the monks who are the who are the tradition keepers of these practices. And we'll start to spread good information and broader awareness and also broader accessibility, right? because right now if you want to go do it, it takes a long time to be able to even have the opportunity. So expanded awareness of the practice, awareness of best practices and safety, better access, more facilitators. Um, and I think that will start bringing this to a much more to a much more mainstream audience.

And you know, this is a dumb practical question, but it's coming up for me like how does the food situation work? Do people do this fasted? Are they are they eating? Like is there is there like some special contraption that someone slides it under without any light coming in? Well, the interesting thing about being in the dark is your appetite falls off a cliff because you're literally mostly you're just either in bed or meditating, sitting in a chair or whatever. Some people do a little yoga.

But like I'm a three meals a day guy. Steak and eggs for breakfast, a bunch of protein, a little veg for lunch, a bunch of protein and veg for dinner, and popcorn with my kid if I watch a movie afterwards. In the dark after sort of day two, I have two hard-boiled eggs and an apple for breakfast, a little fruit and some nuts in the mid-afternoon, a cup of tea, and maybe a chicken breast and some veggies or half a chicken breast and some veggies for dinner.

like you just don't want to eat because your metabolic rate gets collapsed. So you can do um you can eat whatever you want. You can eat the temple food that that we we prescribe based on these monastic traditions that and based on local ingredients. There's a whole tonic and supplement menu. So if you want to do a flush or a clean or a fast, you can do that. Um doing any sort of recreational drugs or plant medicine in the dark is highly um is not suggested.

We highly discourage that. Uh, but there's a special door. It's a double-sided door. So, there's the outside door. There's an inner door, middle door, and then the inner door. And so, the food is delivered to the outside door and closed. And then from the inside, you open it and open the middle door and bring it in. And so, it maintains the dark and then you just get it delivered. And then we have built a special section inside the room with recessed cup holders and silverware holders and whatnot.

And so, you sit there and you eat it. And then you push it back through the window and then you get the next door when it comes. Wow. So freaking cool. So I imagine there's some people listening to this be like, "All right, this sounds pretty dope. I want to do it. I want to do it Arya style with the the speaker setup and the biomarker monitoring and you know monks on demand like what is the current status of uh Acrya and these type of particular experiences that you're creating?

Well, we've been in development on a number of sites for the last 18 months. So, we'll open the doors at our first location in Costa Rica. It's in the Diamonte Valley, which is the other side of the hill from Luvita at a place called Holos. And those rooms will come online in August. We'll open the reservation book at the beginning of May. And then we're building two rooms in upper Mustang with the Tibetan Buddhists um in Nepal. Those will come online in the third quarter. And then two rooms with the Bon Monastery in Nepal.

Those will come online in the first quarter of 27. and then two rooms in Bali in partnership with the yoga barn and new boot. Those first two rooms will come online in July of 27. And then we have locations in Cambodia, Germany, uh Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New York, and the in the Hudson Valley, California, Austin that'll come online in sort of the back half of 27 and beyond. So you can do we will launch we'll open the reservation book on our website beginning of May which is acryat.global and then you can book your reservation book your teacher book your location and then we will add locations as they become generally what we'll do is we'll add a location and open it for reservation six months before the rooms are going to open up and then that'll give people a chance to book and plan trip.

That's epic. Who are you partnering with in Austin to build one? We've got a couple of different sites that we're eval partners we're evaluating right now. We haven't locked into anything any one yet, but we're going through the we're going through the vetting process right now. Very cool. Very cool. Well, count me interested. Um and and you know, I just love what you're doing, man. It's it's really epic. And um obviously there's there's when these when these open up, people can book, but how else can people support you with this?

Um well if ever if if someone wants to participate financially um there is an investment opportunity if they want to if they want to uh buy equity in the company so that they can get exposure to the global portfolio. So the goal is to build 2,000 rooms around the globe over the next 10 or 15 years and that would enable our guests to sort of go to Costa Rica and have that protocol and visit and there and have that local experience and then go to Bali and have that local experience and then go to Nepal and have that local experience.

So, it's designed for sort of conscious adventurers and travelers. And eventually, I think it evolves into sort of like the Aman resorts for conscious travelers where you have these communities, these luxury high-end communities that are dedicated to deep consciousness practices that you can sort of go around the globe and experience different cultures. That's epic. Sounds way better than an all-inclusive in uh Cancun if you ask me. Long as you don't have kids with you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, that was another thing that I was thinking in my head.

I was like, man, I got a budget uh when I can sneak away uh for a week or something. Um but seems like there it's totally worth it. It's worth it. And it's good for teenagers. We're actually um interesting. got to launch two rooms in San Diego at the youth homeless center uh to and put youth homeless kids through the dark room experience and train them to facilitate other teenagers of going through this modality because it's very powerful for teens who think they have ADHD or cell phone addiction or whatever.

And so we'll enable these homeless kids to go around the world at different locations and facilitate teenagers from those local geographies of having the dark room experience. It's going to be really cool. Can't wait to wait to launch it. That's epic, man. Well, Ian, this has been awesome. Um, you know, Arya Global is the website. If people want to follow you or stay in touch, what's the best way for them to do that? Just over the website's the best place to find me. Um, I'm on X.

Also, I'll put all the details in the in the show notes and people can track it down there. Awesome. Well, thanks Ian. Keep up the amazing work. And, you know, everyone listening, go check out a dark room retreat. I appreciate it. I appreciate it. Thanks for the time today. I need

I started looking around and I ended up getting initiated into Transcendental Meditation into TM and so I did the initiation I got connected to this woman in Beverly Hills who had initiated like Madonna and Lenny Krav it was totally an LA thing right you know she initiated all these fancy people and she gives me the Mantra I go back to my place I sit down I close my eyes I hit the mantra and I was like boom everything goes silent I go straight down to the

bottom of the well there's this immense Stillness and I just sit there in the Mantra sitting right in the third eye and I'm just spinning it and I can feel just the energy pouring down on me and so that sort of I was like oh I've been looking in all the wrong places that thing I've been looking for it's not out there and all that stuff it's right in here good shit's about to go down I'm feeling something in my spirit chops and Taps with Aaron

dellavedova Hello friends welcome back to chats and tats with me your host Aaron dellavedova a lot of you who know me probably also know that I have um a pretty extensive journey in philosophy and and I guess some people would call me a Seeker I've read a lot of spiritual books most of my um the stuff I lean on what I guess you would consider Eastern Buddhist Taoist but I've also experimented with a lot of different types of meditation throughout my life experimented with a number

of different uh plant medicines and and it's just something I find to be very very important it's something I can't seem to turn off as much as I try to turn away from it it always finds its way to creep back into my life and uh so I don't know at some point I just said screw it this is what I like to do so I keep trying to meet people and have conversations that are deep and meaningful especially with folks that are very involved with

you know spiritual paths and seeking spiritual knowledge and in that Journey I've met quite a few remarkable people one of those folks is here with me today he is a lot of things I mean he's a very successful businessman he's a father he's a husband he's but I think for me one of the most profound things I know about him is his path of spirituality it's more extreme than anyone I've ever met in my 51 years and when I say extreme I just mean maybe a

better word would be committed so this is a person that I I've grown a deep connection to we have done some meditation seminars together I've extensively tattooed him and through this all these different experiences we've become very very very good friends and I just thought it was appropriate to share him with you guys so with all that being said and without further Ado please welcome my guest today Ian Gardner hey Aaron thanks yeah I'm glad you're here you know it's been a long time it has

too long five years maybe at least and you're only an hour away I know it's embarrassing I blame it on you it's usually my fault Alex does that too and that's usually makes things peaceful so go ahead go ahead just you'll take that's a smart man well no it's just life is busy and I don't know it's it's funny when you know someone is there and you have access to them I know for me I tend to just not maybe give them the time they need

it's when you find out like oh my friend you know they're moving and suddenly you're having to order the house for dinner it's like why didn't I do that when before he was moving you know why do I only show up at that you know what I don't want to just be at the person's funeral like you know suddenly the just we should all make more time for each other but life is busy and we're all hyper connected I've never had so many friends you know

I mean my clothes in her Circle probably pretty small but my extended circle like the rest of us is hundreds and hundreds of people and I I actually do care and like so many of those folks but with the touch of a button they can text you and they can call you and suddenly you wake up in the morning and it's like there's just a lot of communication that happens in my world I'm sure in yours too but separate subject we went on we went on

off on that one on the last episode how to manage time and how to how to manage all of this connectivity that we're involved in nowadays good or bad but let me switch it back to how I introduced you you know back when we met um I might get some of these details a little bit wrong because it was probably 15 years ago I grew up Catholic you know saw a lot of hypocrisy in the Catholic religion obviously I mean obviously but I think we've all

heard some of the things that happen but you can't judge a religion by the folks that are in it but I was a young man I just thought [ __ ] this these people are hypocrites you know I've got these guys I go to church on the weekend they get drunk you know in the on Sunday after church and they're like this doesn't feel right so I just said I kind of went Anarchist really for me it was just [ __ ] everything go punk rock

burn it all down and then I I carried that through high school and then I got out of high school and joined the military and realized the Anarchy thing wasn't really working like there were ways to evolve myself in life that were more productive and then I started the seeking path and for me it was Buddhism I just found some books on Buddhism and I was like holy [ __ ] these guys out there yeah it made sense to me like just the simple laws of

Karma and now reincarnation I don't know I haven't I don't have memories of past lives separate stuff just the basic laws of karma um and also the biggest thing for me for going to you know Catholicism to Eastern religion was they allowed you direct access to God right you know I felt like and it probably is true that you know I guess you can correct people around but Christian religions kind of put a barrier there a gatekeeper I would call it the new version does yeah

the new version right we're not talking about agnostic or you know Dead Sea Scrolls and all that because I'm the hermetics went direct but the modern modern monks don't which was a form of control sure and then I but I didn't know that at the time I just thought all Christianity was they were just trying to create it for profits and control that's why they got a gatekeeper I'm the priest you're the person in church if you do what I say you might get into the

club and I didn't like that where the Buddhists came along and said no no you don't need anybody you could be all alone and connect to God it's inside you in some way to put it might be you are God you know which that was a you never said that around a Christian you are God you Blasphemous son of a [ __ ] but that was such a those are the two very wildly different ways to look at spirituality um I don't think what I'm talking

about right now is so crazy now that Buddhism and so many different spiritual paths are very in the now and everyone's trying them out and talking about it so maybe not so crazy to say now but the point is I got into reading these books and I I really became a Spiritual Secret not even knowing it at the time and then at some point I had an experience on dimethyltryptamine in which I ended up you know I had already been meditating but I never left my

body I never entered another realm I mean I had brief moments where I thought I was maybe feeling a presence or you know subtleties were occurring but nothing like my DMT experience in which I was Thrust out of my body I was an orb of light with 360 degree Vision I was thrust into an actual reality it was a temple giant almost like a Saint Petersburg type Temple but it was made of light and a vibration and there were entities in there made of pure white

light not Angels just just uh they were humanoid in shape but they were just made of light they didn't have eyeballs with just a and they were walking around like they were doing their daily business and someone them knew me and spoke to me and that whole thing just shattered everything for me and I remember telling you about it and you kind of very calmly said oh yeah you know what do you think I where do you think I'm doing with all my meditation that these

are these do exist Aaron totally normal totally normal and I've never seen anyone say that before I was like what you're like oh yeah you can learn to do you can access the this place exists it's a matter of meditation and training to learn how to access these places and you should come to a meditation seminar with me I met this man George Boyd right last name Boyd and we'll get into I'm gonna let you talk a lot here in a second but at the time

you had been flying around the world seeking out various monks and gurus and swamis and and for the finding silence project and I'll let you explain more about what that what that is for you but I'm I'm thinking man this this guy's got some experience he's flown all over the planet meeting people that you have to hike into a mountain you know that don't even take you know visitors and and you had told me Aaron I'm telling you as a man who's done that this man

George Boyd is the real deal he's a actual enlightened Soul ascended Soul came here with only one purpose to spread Spiritual Awakening to others that's you know some of us come here learning he's not here to learn he's here to teach he's the real deal and I was like no [ __ ] well if anyone's gonna tell me that I would probably tell most people they're full of [ __ ] but from you it meant a lot and so I did that of course A lot

of people do say that well it's you you mean you got to understand for the common dude who just goes to work every week and you're telling them things like that they're like huh but I'll tell you I might have thought that too if I hadn't seen what I saw on DMT because yeah to me I had to see it this this other dimension and and I do believe it truly exists my access to that without plant medicine isn't just isn't there and it's probably because

I haven't taken the time like you have to really work at it it's like anything right you got to work at it you want big muscles you got to go to the gym that's right exactly but there's that's my story and that's how we got involved at a deeper level with uh meditation and in spiritual discussions and you've of course shared your your books with me and we'll get into some of the books you've written and some of the manuscripts you share with me very exciting

stuff but having said all that why don't you take us through that journey I mean from the we don't have to go from birth but the point in your life where I know you you were going through some troubling times which led you to becoming spiritual seeker and then once you did that the different steps in that Journey that have brought to you where you are today sure that's a big layup so uh a little bit at a time so I wasn't really inspired by much

when I was in my teens or even in college my dad was kind of a hard ass most of my teams was spent trying to avoid his wrath went to school to be a doctor uh ended up not going down that path and doing some other stuff instead but was pre-med got out got my first job and my old college roommate gave me this book called The Way of the spiritual Warrior by Dan Millman and he's like here you might like this just kind of casually

hand it to me and I read that and that just turned on a whole bunch of lights for me because we had been raised Methodist and my parents would dutifully take me to church every Sunday and my dad would teach Sunday school and we'd do the plays and I was The Little Drummer Boy and the whole kit but we didn't really talk about what it actually meant it was like a social custom that you did because you were part of the fabric of the community and

that's just what you went and did and for the first time Dan talks about this other world in such a real live way that really affected me really deeply and in my 20s my 20s were a bit of a rocky real Rocky ride for me I was sort of manic depressive and I get on these big highs and do all this work and then some nights I'd come home from my job and I'd pour a scotch and turn off the lights and listen to Wagner and

just kind of sit into the deep of it and so I was searching for this purpose and this meaning and this happiness but a happiness that wasn't ephemeral a happiness that if I got the promotion or if I got the hot chick or if I got the motorcycle or the car or the clothes or the apartment or the corner office all those things provided a lift but they always dissipated very quickly thereafter and in the back of my mind our spirit or Soul whatever I was

like there has to be something there has to be a place or a way of being that endure where happiness endures and is unshakable and so I chased all these things in the outside world that I thought would make me happy and I got I was a millionaire by the time I was 30 and I had a fancy car and I had the house and I had the girl that was the model and like the whole all the things that you know if you grow up

on MTV and and have Instagram or any of that back then but all the shiny magazines you're like oh that'll make me happy ooh that'll make me happy and they did make me happy for a few minutes but ultimately they didn't and so when I was 27 I needed a I felt called to take my life in a different direction but I didn't really know what that meant and so I decided to go to business school because I was in the professional world and that's sort

of a professionally acceptable way to take a few years off and so I went to UCLA I did my master's degree and when I was there I was like I got this inner inner nudge I was like I gotta learn how to do yoga and I'd grown up in New York and in the South you know going to the gym and yoga was like the furthest thing from any of my reality and so I I went to through a friend of mine I went to a

Bikram Yoga class in Beverly Hills back when Bikram was still teaching and it was the studio on the second floor above a furniture shop on Wilshire and it had these ugly salmon carpets with these white lines you go stand on and it was about 110 degrees and he was up there in his little bikini all oiled up with his hair up in a bun and I'm like what the hell am I doing here this is like as far from Charlotte North Carolina as you can get

in the first class I almost passed out like I drank like two gallons of water and a sweat pouring down me my legs my whole body was shaking but when I got out of that I was like oh this is what I've been looking for like this is and so I did it and I got deep into it I was doing two a day classes five or six days a week I was vegan I lost 30 pounds I was down to 160 pounds in retrospect what

I realized was happening is I was breaking my body down all the way down to its Essential Elements so that I could be open and build it back up and so on the back of that after I had gone through some of that then the nudge was like okay you learn how to meditate and so I started looking around and I ended up getting initiated into Transcendental Meditation into TM and so I did the initiation I got connected to this woman in Beverly Hills who had

initiated like Madonna and Lenny Krav it was totally an LA thing right you know she initiated all these fancy people and she gives me the Mantra I go back to my place I sit down I close my eyes I hit the mantra I was like boom everything goes silent I go straight down to the bottom of the well there's this immense Stillness and I just sit there in the Mantra sitting right in the third eye and I'm just spinning it and I can feel just the

energy pouring down on me and so that sort of I was like oh I've been looking in all the wrong places that thing I've been looking for it's not out there and all that stuff it's right in here I was like okay [ __ ] now I got it so I'm going down that rabbit hole and I was like how far can this go how far does this path go and so I did TM I started I read yogananda's book autobiography you got on the Shelf

it's like classic in the pantheon Babaji the whole kit and so I went to the srf temple and I started getting the creas I started doing the Creos at home and and I just started in my sort of professional life business school and all that kind of started to fade into the background a little bit and so I spent those two years riding my motorcycle up to Big Sur and reading and meditating and writing and at the end of that I viewed the world in a

completely different way so I I moved to San Diego and threw some friends there I got connected to Deepak chopra's crowd and Ken Wilbur's crowd and I started spending a bunch of time in that Circle and so I had read about this Festival in India called the kumela and the kumila is uh where all the Hindus gather every 12 years at one of these three holy sites and the sadhus come out of the caves the sadhus is the Indian term for for a monk wandering monk

usually they're covered in Ash and either naked or in a loin cloth and they come down out of the jungles and out of the caves and out of the mountains and they gather at one of these three holy places for a 30-day Festival and I heard about that and I was like oh [ __ ] I got to get there like I'm gonna go find Babaji straight out of autobiography of a yogi and so I was living in La Jolla at the time I quit my

job I sold all my [ __ ] I put a few things in storage and I found a guy from Beverly Hills who was a monk in was a sadhu in India and I got myself an invitation the no soul and uh flew to India to the Camella and when I got there I found out this wasn't just the kumaila this was the mahakumbela so the kumails every 12 years this was the 12th cycle of the every 12 years so this was every 144 years it

wasn't going to happen again in our lifetime wow and so I go there and I'm part of his camp and and I would go down in the morning at 4am with all these naked sadhus covered in Ash for initiation with the elephants and the tridents and we'd go down and you'd bathe in the ganga and there'd be dead bodies floating by and then you'd come back and they'd be smoking Chillum and marijuana and they'd be chanting and giving discourse and everything else and so I went

I went looking for Babaji because I was going to go be a monk and not come back I was like I'm done this is it and I didn't find him he didn't show up for me it wasn't my path in this lifetime it was an echo of past lifetimes a remembrance that I needed to recapitulate so I came back to San Diego started working again and I heard about this guy who was a breatharian Who lit who taught and lived up in the Redwoods outside of

San Jose at a place called The Heart Mass center guy's name is Doc Childer and through that sort of community I was part of they would go up and sit and he does something called camp where you go up and you sit in the in the redwoods in an old barn and you just sit there and you talk about metaphysical [ __ ] till three four five six in the morning and and he's a he used to be a breatharian so no food just living on

water in Prana he had managed to learn the practices to do that and he was he was fully illumined and completely he's one of he and George are the only two people I've ever met that are completely in Integrity all the time and never vary and when I was hanging out with a Deepak crowd like in the Ken Wilbur crowd I met and where I worked at esselland for a couple of years in Big Sur and I met a bunch of the folks who are sort

of luminaries in these fields and as soon as the mic was off a lot of these people become totally different completely different than what you see in the books or on the shows or during the seminars and these two guys uh Doc and George were always completely in Integrity in alignment and I'd never experienced that before so I started sitting with Doc and we had a bunch of us we'd go up there and through that I met a guy who was can I pause you for

a second yeah yeah a breath Aryan it sounds fantastic well I I mean I I didn't even know what it was so you just explained it so it's somebody that just drinks water and doesn't eat food well there's some Prada meaning the energy that's sort of the the universe is made of yeah the the practice involves getting taking the energy from the Sun and transmuting it into energy that can sustain the body but you have to drink water because otherwise you get dehydrated you die but

you don't need any food and it's a gradual like you start with you start with like vegetarian and then you there's a progression towards it there's a physical progression where you gradually wean your body off of solid foods just to water but there's also a and more importantly there's a spiritual progression where you learn how to and he would go walking in the to back fields in North Carolina and absorb the sunlight but you have to learn how to take that energy and transmute it into

the etheric body in a way that you can sustain your physical form and so if you don't have someone to teach you the esoteric aspect of it you can't do it just on the physical aspect of it makes sense yeah so people do it this guy did it people do it and they do it there's people that do it in different parts of the world today but it's a very specific spiritual practice that has a physical manifestation of that practice sorry I just I got you

off track continue so I met somebody who was studying on this path called eckankar which is a path that a guy named Paul twitchell reopened in the 50s and it's based on the uh the spiritual technique is called Soul travel and so you do the spiritual practices and what it does is you teaches you to you go close your eyes you go into meditation you focus on the third eye and you project your awareness up out of your body and into these different spiritual planes where

the reality that you experienced on DMT exists as normal and functional as this plane of the physical reality is except it's just at a higher vibrational level and so by utilizing the techniques the spiritual tools in this path you can learn to go within and shift your attention to different plants there's 10 different planes of awareness where we have a soul and a body and a complete existence on each of those planes but in our normal waking awareness because we are shut down generally it takes

a drug like DMT or a spiritual meditation practice to access those we're just not aware of what's going on it shows up as like intuitions or hunches or my gut says this or my heart says this or something like that is that what's happening when we dream anything are we kind of floating it around these different dimensions well there's different types of Dreams some of this the body the soul leaving the body or the attention leaving the body and going up in the astral and having

fantastic that's where the world of creativity is so like as those great the great artists in history have a conscious connection to the astral where they bring that information down and they manifest it in the physical okay and so you can dream and go there but you can also have spiritual dreams where you go and study at these temples of learning on different planes of reality there's gonna be lots of different experiences with it and so I for me this was a practice that immediately resonated

for me and so I spent three years just going completely down the rabbit hole on that path I read every book written by every student I went to all the seminars I did all the workshops it felt like I was plugged into an electrical socket because there was so much spiritual power coming through my body some days I would get up like I couldn't even barely tie my shoes because it was just like and so I like when one of my friends were would go out

they'd be partying and you know doing all this crazy stuff on Friday and Saturday night I'd be at home reading spiritual books and meditating and like watching these worlds open and unfold in front of me and just like trying to not have my head explode and figure out what's going on and so it was so intense I ended up getting a job just managing a cafe on the beach in Pacific Beach during the day because I just couldn't do much more than that and so I

would go and I would manage the breakfast shift in the lunch shift and I'd come home and I would meditate for six or eight hours a day and what I I would what I would do is I would go into these spiritual Realms and I would connect and find these teachers of different traditions and I would ask them questions and they would give me answers and I learned to do it while I was conscious and I would take dictation and so I would go talk to

Jesus and the 12 disciples and I would talk to Merlin and King Arthur and I would talk to Muhammad and I would talk to the Buddha and these big spiritual luminaries and I would just do a q a with them and so I wrote I ended up writing five books about my my journey in those worlds I had a five book deal with Deepak chopra's publisher the first one came out did pretty well and it was about Jesus and the 12 disciples and churches started to

build study groups around these books and people started having miraculous experiences and I wasn't like I wasn't involved I was writing meditating but my publisher would come to me and like show me these testimonials of people who had had these experiences reading the book because when you write a physical book I'm just the conduit but the energy of the book Is Anchored on the place in the spiritual worlds where that knowledge or truth originates and it would come through me into the paper and so when

you read the word on the paper and focus on it and merge with it you actually are connecting to that place in the inner worlds and that energy from that place is coming through those words and into you and people were we're having all these spontaneous Awakenings and things like that healing like all kinds of just crazy experiences and I was kind of like I was in the cave mostly because my my publisher was Sheltering me because I was continuing to write and I was working

in a bunch of my books that I wrote were about my Journeys on the eckankar path with the the the group of the Masters on that path they're called the order of the varagi varagi and Sanskrit means detached means Detachment from worldly concerns and so I started writing about my experiences with them there was a uh a guy within that tradition who was sort of guiding me because I was like I didn't know what the hell was going on I was having all these crazy experiences

I had no context to them whatsoever except for some of the books like yogananda's book that I'd read and so he was kind of mentoring me and helping me like make sense of this craziness and so I started to write these books about my experiences and they started to get into the econ community and the leadership found out and they contacted me and they said you can't do that you've only been doing this work for three years and you can't talk about that stuff and write

about that stuff and I was like I mean it's happening to me like what do you mean I thought this was a path of love where we're like where you and So eventually it got to the point where they were like like no you can't I'm like it's just happened it's my truth I have to be I have to be in Integrity with my truth and so they excommunicated they uh they sent me the blue letter and they said you're not allowed to affiliate or talk

or write or anything else I got kicked out and then the guy that had been sort of helping me through this started a new and offshoot of eckankar A New Path called the way of Truth Eternal that was based on my books and my writings and so then it got really weird and um the African Community really attached to the works because they found a lot of a lot of value in them and were having experiences with them but people would start coming up to me

and they were asking for past life readings and healings and all this stuff and like you know they come up and they touch your feet and like that and it got super weird to me well yeah suddenly you're like some kind of idol that you didn't expect that to come here that wasn't your intention no not at all and suddenly it's happening and you're like whoa yeah and my and the guy that I was working with was really into it he wanted to be a teacher

so I gave him all my books I assigned the copyrights to him and I wrote the Bible for this path and the sacraments and the study lessons and the whole kit I gave it all to him I said go do it and I said I'm going back I'm going back to the cave and so I went to these inner teachers that I was working with and I said I want to go be a monk and they said no not this time the world doesn't need more

monks it's got plenty of those that's the old model what your job is is to take all this stuff all this knowledge from these inner planes in the sky and bring it to the street where people need it I was like come on like that monk thing sounds really good like are you sure like yeah and they said these are the things you need to go and learn more about and they give me a very specific list of esoteric topics they said there's two teachers on

the planet who can teach you this go find one and start doing it and at this point I was living in PB I had a 1987 Land Cruiser with 250 000 miles and that was really it like nothing else besides my student loan debt and so I went I started searching after some search I found this guy named George Boyd who's living in Venice who had opened a new path called the bridge path he talked about these topics on his website and so I emailed him

I sent him a couple of the books I said this was going on for me like am I crazy or and he wrote me back he's like no here's what's happening for you come on I'll help you out and so uh that was like 13 or 14 years ago and so he has opened A New Path that's similar to other path Buddhism or Islam or Christianity or Jainism or you know whatever and uh what he has built by opening this new path is he has created

a map and in his model Consciousness exists on a continuum so we're here in our physical waking state of awareness in the physical world and at the very highest is a place called such a denanda everything that's in between you can think about as a string with pearls on and each Pearl he calls it a nodal Point embedded in each nodal point is a different state of awareness and as you unfold your Consciousness as you bring down the light burn Karma and allow yourself to access

those higher places you can focus on each Pearl and successively go through each one in the entirety of Human Experience will unfold before you everything that is possible within a physical form I was like ah you're [ __ ] me that's a bunch of horseshit and I didn't blame for years for probably six or seven years I thought he was full of [ __ ] but something behind my in the back of my head was like you've looked at a lot of other stuff because I'd

gone to Myanmar and I'd sat with a taravada Buddhists and the monasteries there for months I had gone to Siberia and I sat with the Russian Orthodox monks I found a monk who was way up high in the mountains who you could only get to by seven days on a horse at the base of this mountain he was a hermetic Christian I sat with the Buddhists from Mongolia who would come into Russia and build monasteries I I went to a monastery where they had a Buddhist

monk who had seen the rise of stalinism coming and had dug a hole in the ground built a box gotten into the box went into samadhi and had given his disciples the instructions to unearth him and bring him back on a specific date and I went to his Monastery and they had Unearthed him a few years before and there he was in a glass box full Lotus kind of desiccated and leathery looking and on this day I just happened to show up on the day when

they allowed people to come in and you could go in and I sat from me to you and I sat there I went into meditation and I could see that guy alive inside that body in the spirit who had been buried underground for 40 years and so I'm like there's some like the this physical world is like just like nothing compared to the reality of what exists and so George's path is completely experiential he doesn't ask you to take anything on faith he says if you

do this you will eventually have this you'll come to this place and when you have this experience it'll look like this and you can go and do it yourself and so I would do it I go there and I go and then I would unpack the point and it would be what he described and I was like wow like I don't have to trust somebody there's no intercessionary there's no clergy that says no I'll do it for you it's you going Point by point and so

the only limit on how you can unfold is your willingness to expend effort and so I spend my 30s basically working and meditating and so and along the way I got married I had a baby I got divorced I was a single dad for 10 years recently I got remarried had another baby so I got a 14 year old girl and I got a 18 month old son I started a couple companies sold one took one public have done business all over the world and so

now I've sort of at the end of this 25-year journey and along the way people are going you need to teach you need to teach you need to teach and I'd look at all these you know spiritual teacher influencers you know doing Ayahuasca and in La there's a shaman on every you can like go online and get your Shaman training and oh no I'm a shaman let's go do Ayahuasca together they're like okay come on like but I always I never wanted to go do that

because I felt like I was not complete and it didn't feel like to me that that would be being in Integrity to go to someone and say here's my knowledge it may help you when I didn't feel like I'd made it as far as I thought was required and so now I've been doing this for 25 years and I have realized over that time I've sort of surveyed almost everything that's out there I've completed the majority of George's work and so it feels like now and

my professional career is you know I've worked with the most powerful and you know successful people in my Field's electric vehicles and clean technology in my field and so the next step is like how do I take that journey into inner silence because all the answers that I had hoped were out here I had found in and I see people and Society people I work with professionally or my children or people in the community all scrabbling and striving like like like mice in a maze chasing

after that little piece of cheese and it's like that's not where it's at that's it's here but it's not like oh yeah it's here let's close my eyes it's like there's a way to get there the next part of my journey I think is is trying to be of service and help people to help people to find that that is exactly what I was hoping you would deliver um and I know most of that there's some highlights in there that are new to me or maybe

I forgot a couple of them but that's exactly it that's why I wanted to have you on today because the idea that you can practice meditation to the point where you leave this reality and meet with others and learn from those teachers that are in these other dimensions I think for most people it's just it sounds crazy like no way you know but and I would have maybe said the same thing until my DMT experience and of course I think you would agree that was just

a flash you know by you know whatever that taste it's a taste and it changed I don't know what it does to make that happen but it did and I and it was so incredibly real to this day I can see it and feel it and that's what made me think well I I do think there are other dimensions and I just popped into one and so whenever then what the things you were saying I got more I was listening and I'm still listening and uh

yeah I guess I have my own levels of regret with some of the choices I've made up until this point in my life like I'm very proud of my career I'm very proud of my creative the things I've created with my art on my family and my beautiful kids and my wife and my businesses and all the great folks I've pulled together and there's so much I don't want to say that I I'm not happy with my life but I and I'm not done yet but

I didn't lean in as hard to this as you have and perhaps I will maybe that's my next chapter but you've been my inspiration right because I mean I'm nobody special like the only difference between me and anybody else is just where I put my attention and how much effort I put in there's nothing unique about me that I did that what somebody else can't do but you have tattooed you call you're the guru tattoo right the reason I came to you to start getting Inked

because I was super nervous and scared about it and I was like the guy's shop is called Guru he's a grown-up he's got a wife and kids and but you had you turned on all your artists to Consciousness and you got them all through the network but definitely had quite a few who've come and hung out with me enough you know they're reading books they probably would have read and and you spread that to all your clients so you've had a much bigger impact than I

have because I've been stuck in the cave and you've been actually out here doing it yeah well you're you're not done I think this next move you're about to make is gonna be the big one but thank you for the compliment and perhaps you know maybe that's a destiny I don't know if that's the right word perhaps I'm right where I need to be but um yeah I don't know I I know I could have I could and I still May um put more time into

this I would love to be able to get to these levels of consciousness without Ayahuasca or GMT or these other you know plant medicines and you know on that note you know a lot of people who are going to be listening to this show I I think this is pretty extreme I mean I think you represent kind of the furthest edge of where people can take meditation at least in my and I've done my own fair share of talking to people that meditate they're very serious

and I've met a few what you might call gurus in my life and and I don't know anyone who's put the amount of time that you've put into this and I know they're out there I just haven't met them and I think having said that most of the people listening show are probably in that same boat you know and you know there's is there's is this spiritual awakening Revolution something happening in culture right now with Ayahuasca you know Burning Man and suddenly people are talking about

taking macro doses of mushrooms under a full moon with with clear intention and I mean none of this was even happening 20 years ago if you ate mushrooms it was to party and see weird [ __ ] you know people don't talk about them like that anymore and like you said uh and a lot of it and of course whenever an expansion like that happens you get a lot of charlatans and a lot of [ __ ] but let's take the charlatans and bullshitters out of

there I mean I think is truth in these plant medicines and and I know that your heart drove you towards doing it I guess we could call it the old-fashioned way like meditating putting the time and really focusing your attention inwardly practicing the art of finding Stillness these things are not to accomplish that is it takes time it's time even my short journey in meditation like on the stents where I would go six months not even daily like four days a week you know as the

months would go on I could suddenly be alone in silence for longer and longer periods of time and I think to get places like you've gone it's going to take years like you've told the story years and years and years however in culture today we I don't know how to put it like we're all on phones we've you know there's it's a very busy world out there and I do wonder when these met plant medicine seem to just just drop onto the scene I mean I've

had people tell me from the Ayahuasca community that no real shamans that they mother Ayahuasca sent a simultane because they take the Ayahuasca with their participants and so they're all down there in South America this is like 15 18 years ago and they simultaneously start getting her saying take this to the west and they I mean that phenomenon did occur so I kind of wondered about that your opinion to that how it does seem to be something that might serve the West in their short attention

span type thing to just inject them with at least it opens a doorway because I don't I don't know and that's the other thing I will before you speak on this is I first thought it was like maybe the the solution like oh Ayahuasca and DMT are showing up in the west we've got powerful CEOs of companies politicians are doing these things this is going to be it man give it a couple years Whole World's Gonna Change Utopia is on the way boys and girls let's

go and and and it didn't happen that way and you know when even when I look at my friends that have gone deeply down some of those have done you know Ayahuasca 40 50 times I've yet to meet anyone who I think it's brought them I don't know pure Enlightenment or any of that it just seems to me now looking back on it like it seems to just open a doorway and then once the doors open the work you've done seems to be the next step

the returning to it is just redundant and that's just where the opinion I have of it after being around it and in the community Unity of people that are using those types of things for this law I'm not saying it'll hurt you I don't think it does I don't really know many people have been hurt by it but is it going to get you to the place you're describing I don't I don't believe it does but but having said my little speech what is your take

on that this is this plant medicine Awakening in the west I mean the medicine has been part of human culture since the beginning right but these class uh and plants have Consciousness too this this Consciousness is sort of it's our it's our remembrance right it's our Gateway and so as the as the Western mind has matured and the mental body has fully matured then we're ready to continue our spiritual Evolution to to where now we're in a physical level of Consciousness The Next Step would be

the astral level of Consciousness and so we would as a as a collective Consciousness raise our vibration until we don't have physical bodies anymore and we exist on that astral plane which is where we go in our dreams and we're iOS where Ayahuasca and all these plant medicines take us and so they are catalysts they're gateways they're keys of remembrance and so they're they're really designed to enable us in our physical Consciousness to be reminded that there is and to taste what is out there as

to motivate us to look within and to do that to do that inner work and the problem is I don't know if it's a problem but people can get caught in this Loop where like oh that's it and so the 50 60 70 80 times versus using it selectively as a therapeutic to untangle a specifically naughty issue you're dealing with or as a motivator for the other work but with you and I took when I was running my first electric vehicle company I took my executive

team out into the desert in New Mexico and we sat with a shaman and we outed Ayahuasca together as the whole c-suite from this EV company and it was a powerful and transformative experience but the medicine sin is asking to be brought to where it is needed and where the world is in need of healing and is ready for it and if you think about all of the different cultures and states and governments on the planet the one that is the most violent in warlike is

ours this is where we make the most weapons we kill the most people we incarcerate the most people we are the most broken culture in America I love being in America I'm a patriot I love California I love America Freedom Independence democracy but beneath that the shadow side of that is this violence and so the medicine is finding its way to where it is needed to help with the healing and it's California is a high vibration place it usually starts here sometimes it starts on the

east coast up in the Northeast but then it what happens here spreads out to other parts of the country and so this General Nation now that is going to experience plant medicine and having these experiences other worlds and this healing as they grow and continue in their Journey they will gather more power in the systems of government and commerce that run our society and that Consciousness that they are learning to embody those frequencies like tuning forks will start to resonate outward and begin to help heal

and so there's a lot of talk about cultural misappropriation and this is the the shamans and you shouldn't be stealing it and and there is an element you do need to give credit where credit is due but the medicine is asking to be brought here to where it is needed and so it is an Awakening in combination with yoga and meditation everything it's all linked to this Rising vibration to help us heal and move to a higher place I agree I agree that's that's exactly not

only how I feel about it but also just anecdotally I've seen it happen I've seen that happen with individual individual friends that I guess sort of lack of a better word were or like much like United States in uh 1950s you know I mean you know perfectly acceptable to come on home and if dinner was late might need to give the old lady a good slap across the face the neighbor wouldn't even judge you for it you know like yeah well she should learn to make

dinner on time you know that's how [ __ ] up or how our dads disciplined us or how our dads my dad was pretty he's Stern but he he from that gen he was pretty kind but yes many fathers we can go down that point is that's only from 50s till now and so there's an incredible amount of change there towards empathy compassion and cooperation and things you know and that's why when people say the world's so [ __ ] up I kind of always refer

to that tiny chunk of time like man just the 50s it's so close like you could scream out you know blasphemy at people that weren't your race and probably be high-fived by the dude next to you you did that today the whole room would just stop and be like what the f did that guy just say probably kick you know so we've made tremendous progress and I do think the needle is going in the right direction and I agree with you that and again back to

my individual friends I've had guys that have worked with me here who are who kind of were of that vibration and then through plant medicine not through deep levels of meditation they're not that way anymore now whether or not they'll continue that path in their lifetime to take it to the levels you have I don't know but even if it stopped there that's a huge jump so yes I do agree plant medicines are showing up probably right on time at the right location to crack that

door open for some some of those people will walk through that doorway and continue some at the very least they've at least peeped in when someone brings up stuff like you're talking about you're not just some crazy guy it's like you know that's the thing I bet you if if all these people hadn't done DMT in Ayahuasca and peyote rituals all different things the West has been doing in the last 20 well really more years but heavily for the last 15 years there would be more

much more people being like the dude's nuts but there's no once you've taken that stuff and seen what you've seen a guy like you didn't seem so crazy anymore so yeah these things all work together right and we need people going deep and we need people at least acknowledging it that there are other ways to consciously exist to interact with our spirit and with each other on this planet so I agree with what you said when you look at Evolution things tend to change relatively slowly

but in the eye of time it isn't that slow I mean we view things from our lifetime say you're lucky enough to live to be a hundred years you know you want to see I want to see this whole world be enlightened and living like the days of Atlantis in my lifetime and it might and I don't want to ever give up hope but why do you want to see that why do you think that's good well good question well for me I have a really

hard time knowing there are so many people suffering that's what bothers me you know like my life can be great and I can have the best day of my life and swimming in my pool with my kids and me and the wife go out for date night and then I eat a beautiful meal and drink a great bottle of wine and but there's always a part of me that just Whispers in my ear like good for you dude but so many people are suffering and and

I believe that suffering can be easily eradicated with just human cooperation and our lust for collectively our lust for material possessions and the things that you talked about in the beginning that never really satisfied you is so strong in human still to this day the majority of humans to this day that that corruption perpetuates itself and and so I I guess that's a selfish thing to say because I'm saying I want it for my own peace but there's just a part of me that feels like

I am that I feel connected I feel like I am part of everything I mean I have that might sound crazy to some people but I've had experiences that make lead me to believe that's true yeah I'm looking at You Through The Eyes of Aaron but I don't believe I'm 100 Aaron I think I'm you and so when I see the world suffering I see myself like there's parts of me that are being treated unfairly and so I'd like to see that go away that would

be my my main reason let me offer you a different take on it okay so it gets down I think to your fundamental belief about why all this exists why is there a physical Earth why are there people why do we have emotions why do some things feel good and some things feel bad and one of the conclusions that I've come to over this journey of the different things that I've seen of experience is that Earth is a school and souls come down and take human

bodies to go to school to learn makes sense and one of the interesting things about the way humans are created is that when everything's good they kind of just enjoy it but when they suffer then they start to look deeper and peer within and so I was at a I was in an event in Japan can the other day with a bunch of people and and there was a similar conversation I you know I'm this was a person who teaches like Tantra and other things and

they're like I want to alleviate all the suffering on the planet I was like really how come well because I wanted us but without that suffering if all you did was feel good and were happy and making love to your wife and playing your children and having wine and a nice meal would you ever go really deeply work on developing yourself most people don't most people look for answers because they're in pain and so if you could have abstract above it and go why does pain

exist well maybe because otherwise people wouldn't go look and so while I agree we want to end suffering I think the at least for me the way that I address that Dynamic is I want to make the knowledge and tools available to people who are suffering so they can fix themselves teach a man to fish I mean a couple things you said there I do agree with you and I've had those same thoughts I mean one would be everything is fine as it is I do

believe in some weird way there's that's true I say it lightly because there are people that are suffering acutely in such ways that you sound callous sure to say something like that it hurts bad but I and I don't know if that's true I just I have there's part of me that just it must be a system in place the thing that made this whole universe obviously was very intelligent and I don't think it would create mistakes so I have to assume even the worst tragedies

somehow fit into some longer story of into maybe if I could look at it all from a million year perspective I would click and I'd be like oh I totally I was all everything was fine the whole time so it's like the acute now moments it can seem you know atrocious yeah when it's right there right there happening Is No Escape right but then you know you have to ask yourself you know little things like well if perhaps reincarnation is actually true then we come back

and we do this possibly thousands of times that particular Soul that's going through that particular horrific event is going through that horrific event to learn a specific thing to drive them inward to or maybe that's a payback of karma of some kind so you could extrapolate these things to to make that okay and I yeah I I guess more as you said that I was like I kind of agree with that too it's a slippery slope I mean I deeply I have been to the bottom

of suffering in the depths of my 20s in the darkness I know how much that pain feels and when I see someone I have deep empathy for what they are going through and I also know that within them is the power to resolve their own suffering each person has the power to resolve their own suffering if they choose to look and seek and apply the effort and the dedication now there's some types of karma where like you just did really something shitty in a past life

and you just got to pay and then you just got to get through it like that's just how it is it's called Uh there's a special kind of karma that uh that that is but for most people the suffering they experience in life is usually oftentimes is self-imposed but there is almost always a way out of that if they choose to seek that and apply themselves and go let's go search for it well put I I would agree with you you know as you were speaking

it got me to thinking with all the different paths you've been a part of what are some common threads okay so one one big topic would be reincarnation do all the paths that you found to be truthful and real and reincarnation seems to be a consistent that that's what's going on we we you know we we die our soul goes to another plane we choose to come back as you said for to burning burn off Karma or to learn or to be of service to a

certain cause that's what's happening right yep the only and I believe it and you'll probably tell me this is true even even if you go into Christianity that is the Core Essence of Christianity before it got manipulated am I right about that yep so really they're yeah they all share that in common so that's what we're doing so the way to think that in my experience there is a one of the low frequency bands of Consciousness is that which is characterized by fundamentalism and fundamentalists who

believe in the literal word of whatever scripture it is that they follow generally don't believe in reincarnation because they're just so crystallized at that low level they're just they're not capable of it it's like expecting the kindergartner to understand theoretical physics like it's just that's and that's not bad that's just where they are if you drive from San Diego to New York you gotta go through Los Angeles doesn't make San Diego better good it's just where you start and that's perfectly good but the soul is

like it's like if you think of yourself as the soul then your think of your body as the car and in your life you've probably had five or ten different cars and each time you buy a different one and you have a different experience in that car and sometimes it's a red one or a silver one or a white one or a sports car or an off-roader or whatever and your soul uses bodies like cars to go have experiences on its journey and if you go

and if you look at the the esoteric teachings of every path that I've ever encountered including Christianity if you read the teachings of the desert fathers from the early days of Christianity the letters that they when they meditated and prayed in the caves in the desert and wrote to each other they are very clearly talking about reincarnation every single religion when you get to the true esoteric teachings and you have an experience of Realms beyond the physical it is self-evident that the soul exists Beyond time

and space and has multiple experiences in the Physical Realm to learn and grow and be of service and that reincarnation is as vanilla as you know Diet Coke there's just nothing special about it yeah and I will add that if your goal is to control a population removing reincarnation from the teaching is a is a good way too right because if they're you know if you've got that reincarnation thing floating around it's hard harder to motivate people to do what you tell them to do you

tell them they got one life this is it they're listening they're like all right what do I got to do follow my rules or else yeah and this is it you got one um but it also creates a a crazy level of sadness when you believe in that model because then when the when the baby dies or the you know you just like that was it that that one only got this this way is you can find peace with some of the tragedies of this existence

much more quickly with with that well understanding brings peace right understanding right understanding the truth so then this is getting a little weird but the universe is so big but I mean infinite possibly we typically reincarnate on Earth because and I would I would I would assume it has to do with almost like tribes you you kind of choose to go back to a tribal area that you're familiar with because I mean I would assume there's life all over the universe and reincarnation happening everywhere and

souls coming in and out of existence you know God how big it is right so that would that would is that why we reincarnate like if you if I could remember all of my past lives most likely they were all Earthly lies I I wasn't on some other planet million light years from here and then back to here where does that occur too I think there's different schools of thought in my experience as you go through the Journey and you you go to different parts of

the Continuum your Vista changes right if you're standing in San Diego on the beach and looking at the ocean you have one view of how the world of what reality is if you go up in a spaceship and you're up in the space station and you look down on Earth you describe reality from a very different perspective right because you're looking at it from a different place and so as you do these as you do the meditation and as you open yourself you're able to see

your perspective goes to higher and higher places and your your view and your perspective changes on what reality is comprised of and if you get high enough then you can see our universe and within our universe there's all these stars and around all these stars are all these planets and on all these planets and in all these Stars within our universe are this infinite not infinite but this this huge variety of different forms of life and within those forms of life there are paths for unfoldment

relevant to those forms of life and and that's in our universe and if you rise up above it even further there are trillions of universes with billions of stars with trillions of planets and life forms and different paths that come and tunnel up through the different layers of reality if you get home so as souls are created in my experience they do sort of tend to form cohorts within a cycle of time or a particular part of reality and then they they tend to journey together

as they go through that but that after you go through that cycle of time in that Journey you may be off to different corners of a different galaxy or whatever gosh that's that's psychedelic think about this this side it's just the scope of it right it's it makes you realize how silly all this yeah stuff is that we get so worked up about right right so true man that's crazy you gotta laugh about it a little bit you do no it's funny too on on almost

every deep psychoactive Journey I've taken one of the messages they always give me is to laugh more they're like you're way too serious man but you gotta live here you got I got a wife I got an ex-wife I got two kids I got more bills to pay I got a car I gotta like I'm getting older I gotta try to stay in shape so you know my wife thinks I'm cute and I gotta like you got all this stuff this is real it's here we

live this life and we exist timelessly all out there as well at the same time you know when I was a little kid I don't know I can always remember doing this I used to lay in bed at night not every night and I would try to imagine nothing like I was just fascinated that there's anything like what why is there something and I would I guess it was type of meditation I would slowly try to think of nothing like they imagine it like trying to

imagine that nothing ever existed no trillions of galaxies no stars no planets no people just I would just see white and it would terrify me I would every and I kept doing it like I almost like the terrifying feeling and then I would oh man that's [ __ ] scary like and then that got me into like and then you know I guess maybe you do know the answer but I don't know who has the answer to this but why is there something what started something

that is such a [ __ ] weird thing man where did something come from why why not nothing that's the big question that's a god question I don't have the answer to that this exists why did I just work with what we got yeah no I think I mean in my experience there's some things that you just don't get the answer to well you have a physical body yeah you just don't like maybe somebody else has got the answer but I know that if you go

to like the most immediate thing that people typically encounter in the inner worlds when they shut their eyes they go into the darkness and they encounter the light is the soul which appears as a glowing ball of white light and when you when that awakens within you your eyes are shut and all of a sudden with your eyes shut it's blinding bright white light and that's because typically you have moved up and encountered the soul but in this physical Incarnation where there's 10 or so planes

of reality you have a soul on each plane of reality to technically have 10 souls and you have a body on each plane of reality each of those bodies runs independently but you there's like a Master Soul on the top That season coordinates all of those and so so the journey is to to reintegrate all of those into one in a conscious experience so that you're conscious of all that going on well you know there's a lot of talk um about ancient history changing on the

planet right now all the new discoveries that are being made uh Atlantis and all these weird pyramids and now they're re-dating them and they're kind of like I mean I believe there's a lot of things I've watched and read that there was Advanced civilizations on planet Earth I know the exact timeline fifty thousand hundred thousand hundred fifty thousand years ago that somehow either left or got obliterated by a comet who knows but you know when they find these these perfectly you know straight cut lines and

stone in uh Granite we could barely do today with laser beams I mean there's just piles and piles and piles of evidence proving that some kind of advanced civilization is existed on Earth do you think that those civilizations went through a similar cycle that we're going through like they went through you know the point where they integrated into higher level of Consciousness and then when I'm often there they go after that and now we're another cycle of that and we're just finding their leftovers laying around

buried under the oceans and under the dirt I mean they're billions of years old I think it's a good point unlikely that we're the first folks who have been here to do this um you know how many in what form and how long ago I don't know I haven't really appeared at that I think that at least for me the I'm I don't think that big in that Dimension it's like a more immediate experience like I'm here I have a body there's a reason why I'm

here what is it and what am I gonna do about it and whether that I think that probably is true that there was other things other races other that happened over the course of human history as the crust has recycled itself and the classroom got renewed for the next group of students that were coming through that needed a fresh perspective I'm sure that that probably happened but to me that falls into I've always had a a screen on knowledge that was sort of how I decided

where I was going to place my attention and that was like the big so what question like if you knew that the lemuria was true or Atlantis was true how does that impact your experience of coming here and doing the Pod and tatting folks and taking care of your kids and like how does that actually affect you and for me the so what is how do I get to the top of the mountain in the time that I have and make the most of it and

so that's sort of where I've filtered and Screen I agree with you there is that that what does it matter I mean you're here now and you have these tools and these resources and what am I going to do with them but I do think that that question would be Paradigm shifting for the planet though I mean you got a lot of people that are they're guiding star for existence is based on our current history books and the denial of pre these things is you know

which shake up Paradigm which I kind of get up I get up on on shake-ups you know and controversy and I and I love it you know but um I just wanted to hear your take on that people out there that are just starting the the path meaning they're they're curious they they want to know more about spirituality they want to know more about their own soul the different levels of consciousness I mean you've been doing this work for uh 20 plus years hard and uh

any words of advice for those young Seekers out there or any traps to avoid it might save them time or anything like that you know what I've found is that each person at this moment in time with their own Consciousness and their own body is the is the result of countless lives that have come before that are that are Blended together in this Kaleidoscope to create this Mosaic of who you are now and and that the energy of those past lives and those patterns of your

experiences exist in different proportions in how you have been put together and shown up today and so the result of that most often is that there are some spiritual paths or technologies that resonate or are more harmonic for you than others like I'm not really drawn to Judaism I'm not really a drawn to Islam I'm not I'm sort of drawn to Christianity but I'm drawn to the thing the soul travel some of these other things and so the most effective way that I have found to

to get on the path in a way that doesn't just sort of deal with the level the personality but actually moves you forward and transforms your and reshapes your Consciousness is to sort of sample a little bit of everything and what I have observed is that when you find the path that right is right for you you'll touch that page or hear that talk or meet that monk or that person or that teacher or ended a click and you'll be like it's aha it's like ah

okay that's my thing and then the mind immediately because the mind doesn't want you to the mind's job is to keep you separated from truth and mine will go no that [ __ ] ain't real and so the trick is to to to recognize what the mind is doing which is its job and its function and why it exists and to develop the discipline and Independence and courage to go deep and see where it takes you and then do it until it no longer serves you

and you'll know you'll feel like okay I've I've come to the end on this one and then see where to go next but but keep follow your intuition and your soul tries to talk through you via intuition and it comes as these little Whispers listen to that and trust it and go explore and see see where you land because invariably your soul will guide you to where you are supposed to be to help you return home see man it's [ __ ] like that it's why

I love you so much that's a great answer see that's it's it's you say things like that and I just anyone listening right now that might think a lot of this is a little crazy I've spent 30 years sifting through [ __ ] artists as a tattooer you know I mean not everybody but I mean I I've got a pretty good meter and I've never seen a moment out of you that didn't feel completely honest and sincere and I think that answer exemplifies that because you

could have easily said oh yeah I can tell you we should do here's my website and here's where you donate the money and you know what I mean like there's two people in the spiritual Realms I think have always been too quick to tell you oh yeah it's this way what should I do come to me that's I'll tell you exactly what to come to me and well you didn't say that at all you said don't don't come to me or any of the paths I've

mentioned here please don't come to me but also you know I think you're right you got to find out what resonates with you and especially in a spiritual context you know and and and for me I think I'm younger I haven't spent as much time doing these things but it's always been at least for now Buddhism yeah great advice perfectly nailed it nailed it if it's interesting if you look at it from the if you look at the paths from the interview they're like parallel lines

going up and you've got you've got Islam here and parallel to that is Christianity in parallel to that is Judaism and parallel to that is zeroasterism and Jainism and Hinduism and all the isms and and as you absorb into the parts of those the the Revelation that often comes is that it's a similar wine but it goes into the bottle that can be that is culturally relevant to the group of people in the geography and time and place that are in need of it and so

that it could be uh Underneath It All the Same truth but it's cloaked in a way that the people at that time and place and culture can connect with it so that they can follow the thread right no it makes it makes perfect sense I mean if you in a more just straightforward way if you take somebody who grew up in the Middle East and try to plop them into a Buddhist Monastery can can Buddhism get you to the top of the the rainbow yeah so

could um Islam but and he's going to relate right and they so there's these different paths that are meant for these different cultures and and then there's the weird one where you could be born possibly a white Anglo-Saxon male but your last 20 lies were spent as a as a child as a man living in China so for whatever reason you just find you need to fly to China and get back to that right that system that doesn't mean it doesn't necessarily mean where you were

oh you were born in the South you've got to be a Baptist you know I mean you might be been born in the South and you're not connecting with with that type of Christian religion and you find yourself drawn to the Middle East to become Islam you see people do that too and it's probably for the reason that you said earlier which is the Incarnation and maybe many many lives you spent working your path from a different perspective yeah that makes total sense but they all

are parallel and they all end at the same location they're just different ways to to get there well different ladder I mean different ones go to different places so they're not not all pets are created equal some take you you know some letters have ten rungs some have 20 some have 50 some have a hundred but they're all designed it's like that game where kids called Shoots and Ladders where you kind of you know you go up the ladder and it gets you to this one

place and then you gotta go and you go around and you get to another ladder and it goes up this way and you kind of go around like Percival and in the story of Percival like it's the journey is very is not always super linear but it's designed to allow you to go and then experience and then go and then experience and and eventually over time through the Journey find her way to the top but the the kind of the irony of it is that like

you have all these like Islam and Christianity that are sort of at odds with one another or these other religions that are odds with one another all these people who are Islam in this life might be Christian in the next life or Buddhist in the next life or the man who is oppressive to women in his community might be a woman in the next life and so it's kind of once you can sort of get up above it you see the sort of the Ridiculousness of

a lot of the things that we fight about in in our daily lives it's a good system if everyone truly believed in that system we don't we'd sure be a lot more careful about how we treated one another you know when you start believing in karma like I do and reincarnation like I do yeah I think about that stuff heck I'm even are you vegetarian I'm not I worry about that I'm not a vegetarian either and I worried a little not I mean just this whole

Karma thing like well I'm a part of a system that really creates a lot of um unneeded pain and suffering for other forms of life but each of those forms of life is here for us to fulfill its purpose yeah sometimes its purpose is to provide sustenance right like I would I've done 10-day Retreats at different places like in met you know a lot of monsters a lot of them in Aztec Traditions have a vegetarian tenant that that is essential to being part of the journey

but then you go to Mongolia and you sit with the Buddhists in Mongolia and if you're a Buddhist monk in Mongolia and you grew up in Mongolia there aren't any vegetables all you eat is meat right and those guys are completing the journey so of being a vegetarian is a prerequisite to whatever higher state of consciousness you attain to and the guys over there are still doing it and eating meat does that really is that really true so I've experimented with both I think for some

people being a vegetarian totally works for them for some people it doesn't for me it doesn't but I think it's a personal decision I don't think there's a there's an absolute rule that says You must do this I kind of agree with you on that and I've thought the same thing how is it we have seemingly extremely enlightened people who eat like you said Buddhist monks in Mongolia then and they're not vegetarian but I just thought I'd ask your opinion of that like if there if

you would have said nope you're eating meat you're developing Karma you just have to pay back later oh [ __ ] well it's how you eat it right being conscious about right having gratitude for the sacrifice of the sustenance but it's I find it works a little bit differently so there are all these rules that people make about oh you should fast and you should be vegetarian and you should do cleanses and you should do notes caffeine or no alcohol or whatever but Yogananda used to

tell his students do whatever you want but do the krias and do the work and what he meant by that is as you cultivate yourself internally and as you remove the density and darkness the things that you are attracted to consuming will change as you change and so as you move higher through the Spheres up the ladder alcohol or caffeine or whatever it is just won't feel good anymore and you naturally Falls away it just Falls away you don't have to try to avoid it it

becomes incompatible and you choose to avoid it because you have changed and I think that is if you do the inner work the outer World becomes a reflection of your inner journey and those things may stay or they may go and they may come back later down the road but it's it's a it's a reflection of your inner process versus having to adhere to some strict rule that somebody on a Pulpit or on a mat or on a cushion or in a book set that makes

perfect sense your your desires and Cravings are a result of what's Happening inside not you change your desires and Cravings to change what's happening on the inside right that makes perfect sense well buddy a week ago I could I'm kind of bummed that I haven't made more time to hang out with you dude I I think I'm gonna I think it's perfect I'm feeling I'm gonna meditate tonight it's been a while like I'm feeling like a exchange happening between us and and I'm just glad you're

here stoked we had this time together I'm gonna switch it up a little bit because we can't go all day unfortunately I mean I guess we could but we both have things we got to do later so tattoos that's where our journey began um let's talk about that for a second I've done two full sleeves on you um I think we started the first one 15 you said 15 years ago I think I was 38 yeah so 15 years ago and we've been I don't know

the exact schedule but over the last 15 years we did a little here a little there a little that side little that side now you ended up with these two two full sleeves by me which is our connection and bond thank God for tattooing because I don't know if we'd even have met each other one for that yeah probably not that art form but we've had a lot of fun tattooing and of course every time we hunt we hang out and tattoo basically we do this

for except it's four or five hours you know and I just those memories of us doing this um I'll cherish them forever but they were also really transformative for me you know guiding me in these different directions I've taken myself spiritually was from those hours we spent together but on that note we are gonna do another tattoo today because it's kind of the show chats and tats and we don't always do a tattoo and I asked you hey you want to do a little something on

the show and you said I do and I believe we're gonna do a golden dolphin we are just tell us a little bit about why why you're gonna get a golden dolphin yeah so yeah we started I decided to do the sleeves when I was 38. um I'm 51 and I also asked yeah almost 15 years and um I wanted initially to do the full sleeves with the back which we talked about and the right side for me is the feminine so you've got the goddess

the mother the baby you've got the golden fishes from Buddhism you've got the Russian Orthodox cross from my time in Siberia and then the left side for me was the masculine so you got millarepa the great Tibetan Sage sitting on the deerskin with the monastery in the Himalayas in the mountains and then it crosses the is the dragon which is him fighting this is symbolic of him taming the mind and as I've arrived at this point in my journey and I now have a wife an

ex-wife a daughter and a son um I realized that unconsciously what we were creating was also the constellation of my family and so you have my daughter here this guy who is the little baby you have my my ex-wife the original mother you have me the urban monk sitting on the mat my son's name is dragon and so you've got the dragon up on the chest and so my new wife um Alexandra my brother gave me the nickname The Golden Mojo and I was in my

early 20s he thought it was funny and it kind of just stuck and so we call my son the Golden Dragon and we call Skye the golden leopard and so my wife is she's sort of long and smooth and golden and lean we call her the golden dolphin and so I really wanted to to do something to honor our relationship and she's had a huge huge impact on my life super healing and multiple levels and it's just created a beautiful container for us to go and

explore and enjoy the world and so it's really to honor her I wanted to do a golden dolphin and at the reflective of who she is I love that I love that story and it is funny that our tattoos were half premonition right Guru the guru brings the future under the onto the skin on the guru but I will say that it has happened a lot I can't tell you how many times I've I'll meet with people for a consultation I try to be very present

with people when I'm with them I try to shut down my thinking and just listen you know you know it's pretty pretty superficial most of the time they want this they want that and I just take some notes and then I usually like a couple weeks or three weeks where I call I call it meditation I I always feel like my brain is working on things without me doing it I I talk to it that way well he's like hey subconscious I've got a sleeve to

draw in three weeks I need to be meaningful and badass and I just go back to you know making dinner with my wife and then it comes time to draw things and then little Inspirations just pop out like I don't know man I'm gonna I think this would look cool and that would look cool and then I bring it to the person they're like how did you know my grandfather it'd be some imagery I've drawn in there and it happens so many times and I don't

like saying it because I feel like I'm trying to tell people that I'm like at this magic power and I don't think I do I think I'm a regular guy that somehow when you tune into another person tune in to another person and and it's happened so many times that it doesn't surprise me anymore when people tell me things like it is it power it's a city it's a special power you know I guess I guess it's like Jordan being good at basketball it's like yeah

well thank you for that compliment I love the story of how we kind of pre-tattooed your family and life in some way as it was happening before some of it already happened and today kind of finishes that Circle which is super dope sounds great foreign welcome back everybody the golden dolphin has arrived in a minute landed on your shoulder blade so that was cool that was cool I mean especially hearing the story earlier about how the tattoos we previously done represent all the significant people in

your family and full circle as always with us we plopped that last one on you today and it was funny when I was tattooing you there because it's been a few years and you've gotten a lot of like nipples in yours chest and under boob and those are gnarly areas and you sat through all those mini long sessions five six hour sessions we've done together many and now it's been five years and you even said like whoa I forgot how much this is Prickly yeah it

is it is I went through the same thing recently because you asked me because you're like when's the last time you got tattooed and like actually recently and I got the first one in a minute in a few years three years maybe on my foot kind of the foot ankles Zone and it was the same for me man I was kind of cold sweat broke out I was like [ __ ] I'm getting old yeah look I could be getting a massage right now what am

I doing here yeah they people say they hurt more when you get older I don't believe that to be true because I've had it's in you know what it is it's enthusiasm enthusiasm can get you through a lot and when you're getting your first tattoos you're so enthusiastic that enthusiasm just you brush off that pain and you get all and you get a lot of tattoos and they just don't carry the same amount of fire that those first ones do that lack of enthusiasm you just

you get you're willing to be a little more with that pain and be like [ __ ] this is what I've noticed yeah and you know there's more drugs involved when you get older that half bottle of Advil certainly helps to go down a little easier so doing a cold turkey after five or six years out of the chair it's a little prickly yeah yeah but you know it's for a good cause and yeah and you didn't tap out you look strong you held it together

yeah the numbness set in yeah well that was cool buddy I'm glad we got to do this and I got got to do one more tattoo on you maybe it won't be the last but if it is I think it was an appropriate last tattoo we'll see oh man before we close out I mean it's such a cool story what you've done with your life so unique and so rare at least in the in my circles I don't know anyone has done the amount of work

you've done especially in regards to meditation and all the different things you've achieved and it's it's cool to see it all kind of coming full circle into this moment where it's just been your development a lot of this has been your development and now it seems like you have some plans to hourly focus and bring this stuff to others tell everybody a little bit about that yeah I've had a um in all of my explorations of these different paths and these different traditions and the practices

and how they've done things over the years you know you hear a lot about these monks that would go and sit in the caves and meditate and at some level I think that was about just the Solitude and the quiet and being away from distraction but at another level it's I'm finding it's it's also about the darkness and that in the darkness like when you shut your eyes there's Darkness but in the physical Darkness it has a transformative effect and particularly uh like in the bun

tradition and in the Buddhist tradition they would sometimes go for seven or eight weeks in complete darkness with a set of practices that you do every week that are designed to in a predictable way unfold your awareness to different levels and so they um they build these special houses these special Huts to do it in that has circulation and that has these these special doors to pass food through so light doesn't come in and then every morning the the master teacher would come and check in

on you and hear about your experience and what each week they would give you a new a new exercise to do for your meditation for that week and you're in complete darkness so there's no light and and you would do your practice your body would adapt this sort of Rhythm without seeing the light but what happens is in the absence of the stimuli from your visual senses your other senses become much more sensitive and your pineal gland starts to produce more DMT because you're not receiving

visual information and that naturally produced DMT ends up opening those channels to the higher gateways and so I've been fascinated with this for a long time I wanted to go do it I found the place that does it in the U.S and they are sold out until December of 2024. and so I decided I'm just going to do it myself so I've got 10 acres in Upstate New York right on Cayuga Lake just outside of Cornell University and I'm going to build a dark Meditation Retreat

Center where if you're in New York or you're in Boston or even if you're in California you can go and you can come and they're built into the hillside kind of like Hobbit holes and you go in and it's completely dark and you can meditate for three five seven ten days three weeks 10 weeks however long you want to do it and so we're we're going through the permitting process right now we'll hopefully break ground and and get out of constructions and the launch in the

summer of Summer of 24 and then the idea is to create a place where Seekers can go and have these in a supported way have these transformative focused intense meditation experiences and then we'll we'll do one in California and then the idea is to to take all of this experience and knowledge over the last couple of Decades of doing this and build a network of these meditation sanctuaries around the globe where where people can go and continue their practice wow I didn't I didn't understand the

dark aspect and that is going to be the the defining difference between the centers you're building and other places each one that it's it's very much focused on giving the people the ability to have that dark experience that's right yeah well it does make sense I mean it makes a whole lot of sense just on a very surface level right if you think about how much of our Consciousness is occupied by what we see you know I mean I would guess probably 90 I mean you

open your eyes and there's just airplanes and cars and people I mean you're only left with a little bit behind there that it can be can light up and become active that does make sense I didn't know that why they would go out in decays why so many gurus you'd cut you'd find them in caves right that's right and that's interesting that it increases the yeah because the the pineal gland I've done a bit of research on that does produce dimethyltryptamine and if you weren't looking

and using your visual cortex it would uptake that production that's cool it also sounds a little scary I bet you for a lot of people that sounds a little scary yeah I think it's you it's also you're also separated from it it's not just sight you're alone you're alone it's those things happen to face yourself yeah yeah I don't know why if that's giving you guys the eb-jeebies like me you probably need to do it yeah you know what I mean oh intense work well yeah

I have a uh my assistant Brittany works with me very metaphysical very spiritual woman very cool person I'm very blessed to have her part of the show she gosh I wish I knew the name went to a very intense meditation facility East County you might know this place it's uh you don't you meditate 10 hours a day and I don't think you're you speak there's no speaking Yeah that's right no obviously no phones and you don't talk every morning starts off with a lecture from the

guide and then 10 hours a day I mean they walk around and keep your your back I guess it's very painful the first three days because you yeah yeah and she did she just got back from that and said she's done a lot of things including a ton of Ayahuasca and other different metaphysical experiments and meditations and she's like that was the most powerful thing she's ever done bar none by far period and uh I've really had the ability to talk to deeper about it I

haven't seen her she went on another trip but it reminds me of what you're talking talking about except also light being removed and being alone she was at least in a room with other other people around yeah I think not Han has a center that's in East County and you can go and do vipashna there for seven to ten days and you literally the the passion is the practice of sitting and observing the thoughts and so as You observe the thoughts eventually the mind is like

a computer that's running a complex program and you cycle through the CPUs and eventually you end the program and the computer becomes rests because it's completed it's it's computations and the mind will eventually be rest because it's completed its processing and then that allows you to pull in the other side and for the normal person it doesn't do a lot of this practice how many days does it take typically for somebody for that computer to kind of stop or slow down to a significant measure I

think for most folks it's probably around three three or four days like in the absence of that stimuli how disciplined you are with not checking your cell phone or you know sneaking a conversation and really just being present with where you are some people like some people get it on an airplane if they just don't talk on the plane the mind will come and they'll drop in and the ethers are much thinner up there in the air 30 000 feet so you can connect much more

easily but down on the ground here most people it seems to be three or four days it's interesting so the actual atmosphere plays an effect on this is that why a lot of monks and stuff go to high altitudes possibly it's the atmosphere and it's also because where there's lots of people that create the mental field becomes there's a lot of static like there's a lot of like like all the radio stations in a big city right you know but there's lots of people and even

if you go the difference between San Diego and Los Angeles once you cross Newport you can feel Los Angeles field because it's all these people and all this stuff going on in San Diego is just much more cleaner and a much easier frequency because there's less chaos and there's less stuff going on that makes sense wow you got me thinking about a lot of new stuff today that's cool this is fun this is fun well awesome stuff dude thank you so much maybe tell people like

you want to tell people where to find you or is there some websites they should be paying attention to or anything like that yeah you can uh we'll put the links uh post the links for folks but the Instagram is at the finding silence project okay and the website for the dark Retreats is uh acrya.global a-c-r-a-y-a dot Global sign up there very cool well I wish you the best on this new adventure I have a suspicion I'm gonna be in a dark room soon damn it

save the mad at the king's sweet for you I keep saying hey Universe if you want me to do something just send me the open the doors and then here you can hear you was hoping was going to be somebody that was going to invite me for you know I don't know three weeks in Cabo or something but nope you come I have to sit in a room with myself for 10 days thanks I'm sure it will be powerful and I I think I have to

do that at least once at least I can say I did it you know well very cool wish you the best of luck on all of it I know I'll be right there paying attention the whole time I know our paths will cross again soon I look forward to that thank you for everything you've shared with us today and until next time my friend it was a great conversation thanks brother yeah it was all right my man all right that's it for today everybody thank you

for tuning in every Wednesday new episodes dropping keep those comments coming keep those subscriptions coming I want to be doing this in a year from now I need your support I appreciate your support thank you very much so with that being said we'll see on the next one peace out