Spiritual Bypassing

Tim Kenty, spiritual coach and healer, speaks about spiritual bypassing, which is when we use spirituality as an excuse not to deal with things we need to deal with. It may seem scary to face our issues, but developing integrity will not only become its own reward. It will also attract blessings far beyond what we could ever imagine. Tim describes the inner meaning of the word “yoga”

Transcript

Why do we do the things we do?

In this episode,

I sit down with the sagely Tim Kente,

A yogi,

Spiritual healer and coach.

The main topic today will be the issue of spiritual bypassing.

Hello yogi,

Welcome to my podcast.

I'm Aiko and on this show we explore ways to put spiritual theory into sustainable practice.

Welcome Tim Kente to my show.

Thank you so much for coming.

I'm really honored to have you here.

Would you like to introduce a little bit yourself for those who don't know you?

Yeah,

Sure.

Well,

I'll keep it brief.

Just simply,

I would say where I'm coming from,

What I would share is based on 20 years of training in the bhakti yoga tradition.

I live for about 10 years based in India as a brahmachari monk.

I've also spent about three years down in South America training in shamanism,

In traditional healing of consciousness.

Also,

In my younger times,

I had some very strong influence of mystic Christianity and mystical prayer.

Basically,

I've dedicated my life to studying comparative religion and what is,

Above all things,

The integration of nature and spirit.

What makes a sacred human being?

Even while we're here on this earth,

How can we be sacred now rather than living with an expectation of something after we die or living a spiritual path in such a way that's really about escaping the challenge of being alive now?

How do you become a sacred man or sacred woman?

That's where I'm coming from.

Most of who I am is my dedication.

That's what I'm dedicated to.

Above all things,

For me,

It's about the divine feminine is the most urgently needed medicine,

Collectively and personally,

One way or another.

To heal the relation with her will heal the relation with everything.

It's my most profound conviction and dedication.

Thank you so much for sharing that.

So,

Let's dive in.

In yoga and meditation circles,

There is a term called spiritual bypassing.

That's when we engage in spiritual practices,

As an escape from things we need to deal with.

Can you explain this term a little bit closer?

Such a fantastic and necessary question.

This is like a dialogue that should begin and continue.

But we can touch a little bit now to spark people's thought process.

Spiritual bypassing.

I mean,

Immediately what comes to mind is two ways to see it.

Spiritual bypassing is like bypassing the spiritual altogether.

We don't need something beyond our perception.

We bypass that.

We'll work it out with either science and technology or a philosophy that reduces everything to voidism.

There's no spirit.

There's no thing,

No object to get your head caught up on.

Just bypass the spiritual,

Which can be atheism,

Nihilism,

Contemporary,

Scientism.

One way is you just completely bypass spirit.

I don't need that.

I'm going to go forward with my life and my everything without giving respect and attention to the spiritual reality,

What's imperceptible.

That's one thing.

I think that's one mortal mistake,

Is spiritual bypassing the spiritual.

You end up with a mortally wounded culture that cannot but collapse onto itself in a nihilistic kind of self-destruction,

Which is what we're seeing.

On the other side,

I think more what the term is,

The way it is discussed is more often spiritual bypassing is like jumping steps or in the name of spirituality bypassing the real feet on the earth work that has to be done,

The healing work,

The repairing of integrity,

The dedication to truth as it is unfolding in real time in the present and not something that was said thousands of years ago.

You'll only be able to prove after you're dead,

But then you cut out the whole middle part,

Which is where you're living.

I think that it's a really important discussion because it's like the path of just truth seeking is very narrow and fewer they who find it says Jesus.

The path to life is narrow and fewer they who find it.

And there's two big ways you can go off.

And I think that the spiritual bypassing can refer to both ways that you can check yourself if you're going off the quest and the integrity of truth.

Either you bypass the spiritual,

You don't need it,

Or in the name of spirituality you bypass the natural.

Either way,

That's not going to work.

And it's probably going to augment sickness,

Psycho-emotional and cultural mortality.

And in that kind of space of avoiding one side of the truth or the other,

I doubt that a person will ever realize what the spiritual is.

So now,

If you don't mind,

Let's consider two extremes.

The hardline believer would say there is no such thing as spiritual bypassing because spirituality is the only solution to any problem.

On the other hand,

The hardline atheist will say that the idea spirituality in itself is nothing but bypassing.

They would say that you're simply afraid of death,

So you need to imagine that there is a soul and an afterlife to console yourself.

What is your advice to the open-minded person in between who has heard both arguments?

Yeah,

Again,

It's super relevant because there's a both arguments scenario to a lot of things these days.

Take the vaccine is the responsible thing.

No,

Don't take the vaccine,

That's the responsible thing.

In America,

Where I'm from,

There was just like last year was on fire because of like black and white race issues and then red and blue like political issues.

I've never seen such manifest division.

You have people for the side that they choose storming the White House,

For example.

Yeah,

And both each side,

Like with just the red and blue like Democrats and Republicans,

For example,

Both sides think the other is completely recklessly off course of reality.

They both really practically violently,

It's like we're on the cusp of civil war in America because of this both sides issue.

And so it's an underlying dynamic that appears also in the question as you're framing it,

Like the hardline believers and the hardline atheists.

Like there's some people that are fanatical spiritualists and there are some people that are fanatical materialists.

And I think both of them are kind of rowing the same boat to the edge of the waterfall together.

They're like two sides,

Like these old Viking ships where everybody's rowing,

But you've got the guys on the left and the guys on the right.

But what they're rowing,

They're putting their energy into is conflict and division.

It's driving them together.

What they are in together is self-destruction.

You are all going to go off the edge together.

Well,

You're in the same boat,

But shouting at each other across the planks,

The left side,

The right side,

But you're both actually,

If you back up,

Zoom out,

You'd see that they're both rowing for the edge,

The end of harmony,

The end of reconciliation,

The end of wholeness,

The end of family among human beings.

Like it's augmenting.

So either you say it's Republicans and Democrats,

Or you say it's vaccine and not vaccine,

Or you say it's spirituality and atheism,

Materialism.

But the point is,

It's not to take sides in a divided reality,

It's to take the side of healing and just desire.

What do you want?

Do you want to be part of reconciling?

It doesn't mean we're just going to like hold hands in Kumbaya and we're going to just hope with our fingers crossed for reconciliation,

But it's a commitment.

You decide,

I don't want to take sides that divides the family,

Divides also nature and spirit.

I don't want to be part of that either,

That it's all spirituality and it's God.

And so like,

We don't care if the last tree falls,

You know.

How do you take a position as a human being,

As a peacemaker and not a Kumbaya fantasy utopia projector,

Because that's also escapism,

Like the ostrich that sticks its head in the sand.

Some people are so well-wishing and so sentimental about it that they're not available for the action that needs to be taken.

So the individual,

You can only give,

You can only transmit what you have.

So if the individual is divided,

If an individual,

A yogi,

Yoga means unite,

It comes from yugala,

Actually yugala means the couple,

Like yin and yang,

God and Goddess,

Heaven and earth,

The couple of life from which everything has come.

Our highest perfection would be to serve the union of the divine couple.

However,

Wherever they're manifest,

You know,

For the Bhakti yogis,

Like yesterday was the holy day of Ram,

Ram Navami.

So Bhaktas in India,

There are millions and millions of people that they just,

They adore the Supreme Absolute Truth as the king and queen,

Sita and Ram.

And their life,

Like Hanuman,

You see Hanuman in the stories,

And I reckon there's some yogis who are listening to this who might know the story,

But Hanuman opens his chest and shows my heart is the divine couple,

The yugala,

And that's a yogi.

A yogi is a person who is empathically united to the yugala.

Yoga means linking or connecting,

But connecting what?

You know,

Is it just you and like some abstract light?

Or is it starts with the original masculine and feminine,

You know,

The push and pull of the lovers who are the truth.

And all of this that expands from the Bhakti yogis perspective,

Everything that exists is the radiance,

This extremely sophisticated cosmic manifestation is the radiance of the combination of the yugala.

And there's a verse in the,

There's a scripture in India called the Raso-las Tantra.

Tantras are kind of the books of magic,

Or the books of like philosophical mysticism.

Tantra doesn't just mean like sexy stuff.

Tantra means mysticism.

It's all it really means.

And there's a verse where Shiva,

He says,

Radha Krishna Param Brahma,

That Radha Krishna,

The divine lovers,

They are Param Brahma,

Great spirit.

Prakriti Purushat Param.

They are the supreme yin and yang.

Jayate Yogi Bir Nityam Radha Krishna Mayam Jagat,

That the yogis,

Those who are dedicated to yugala,

To the connection of the two,

Jayate Yogi Bir Nityam,

The yogis are the ones who are Nityam,

Always Jayate,

Meditating on this,

That the supreme truth is a couple being,

That God is masculine,

Feminine,

Nature spirit,

One way or other,

It's the two of them,

It's two and one.

That's what makes a yogi.

And Shiva says,

Who's the first yogi,

Jayate Yogi Bir Nityam Radha Krishna Mayam Jagat,

That the yogis,

They see the whole Jagat,

The whole creation,

Radha Krishna Mayam,

It's full of the divine couple,

All that's going on,

It's like all Taoists,

The Taoists see through the lens of yin and yang,

Heaven and earth,

The push and pull of life,

And like,

When is it time to act?

And when is it time to retreat?

And everything,

The Taoist is following a principle of yoga,

Of the yugala,

The two,

How the two are dancing together in everything,

Down to the quantum level,

Down to your own androgyne nature as like,

Logical and sentiment,

You know,

Mystical and practical,

That's also yoga.

So the real vision of yoga is,

It's about bringing the couple together.

And it's the cosmic couple,

And it's the internal polarity of the being.

And then when those things are clear,

Between human beings,

There can be dynamics,

You don't have to be lovers with someone to just between two living beings,

Enter into the miracle of the magic of participating in yoga,

Because yoga is fundamentally about relationship.

Yoga is not something that any individual does individually.

It's not yoga means bonding together,

It means relationship.

And that relationship,

All relationships are guided by watching first,

The primordial relationship of God and Goddess of nature and spirit.

So the hardline,

As you say,

The hardline spiritualist,

And then the hardline materialist,

The people who are taking one side or the other,

This is like a manifest symptom of a division in the heart that you don't understand.

This,

All of this is about the yugala.

Life is yoga.

And we need to,

We are healthy,

And we create healing by being at service to the yugala,

To the polarity.

And then it will appear everywhere in our life.

So the answer is not to take one side or the other,

Red or blue or vaccine or not vaccine or,

You know,

Science or religion.

It's to be a whole person.

And to be a whole person means you have to have the vision about how everything is whole.

Om Purnam Madhah Purnam Adam,

From the complete whole,

Everything that has expanded from the whole has like the DNA of wholeness.

But the same Vedas that are telling us that the origin of everything,

The source is Purnam,

It's complete and perfect.

And everything that's come from the source has the DNA.

It's like a little expansion.

So we're also complete and perfect.

But we have to learn how to match our internal structure with the original complete and perfect,

Which is one and different,

One principle of truth that is masculine and feminine,

God and Goddess.

If we look to that,

By Bhakti Yoga,

You know,

I think that that's where the healing is for all the divisions in the world.

And how you do that.

Start by wanting to,

You know,

I,

People believe,

I like I saw a video the other day,

And I don't,

I'm not promoting either vaccine or not vaccine,

For example,

I'm not taking sides,

Because my side is about reconciliation.

You know,

That's my side.

My side is I'm on everybody's side.

So I'm not promoting vaccine or not vaccine.

But I saw a guy who is presenting how,

You know,

This vaccine is so experimental,

And it was so rushed,

And there's no tests.

And then people who take it are going to become dangerous for people who don't take it because they're going to shed like vaccine stuff.

And,

And the guy was saying,

Like,

We've been really screwed by the big pharma companies who we know,

They have a lot to gain,

You know,

By moving the human beings like pawns,

It's not a stretch of like,

Conspiracy theory,

Fundamentally,

You know,

Fanaticism to think like,

Yeah,

Big pharma doesn't have our real best interest in mind.

That's not unreasonable to think,

But leave that as at least one hypothesis on the table.

And so but his vision was like,

They've really screwed us,

And humanity may go extinct because of what's going on now.

And,

And he's like,

So everybody just try to build your immune system.

And I was like,

I left it and it's like,

His vision was so sick about these guys have taken all of your power away from you,

And you and your whole species is doomed because of these guys.

And he had not one word of hope about it,

Not one word of hope that there's meaning to life.

It's like,

You think that even if it's true,

Everything he said,

But the mood that he transmitted was hopelessness,

And disempowerment.

And whether that's true or not,

He's just given a message to anyone who lets it into their psyche and affect them,

That everything is done already.

And we've been screwed and we have someone else to blame.

We're like,

It's this enormous victim situation.

And in that situation,

Like,

Because I believe in nature and spirit,

I can turn to spirit,

You know,

My training in India,

My training in mystical prayer,

My own subjective experience of reality that shows me there's something so amazing available when I just turn to look for it and give honor to it.

And it just lifts me above all of this fear.

And then when I'm lifted above the fear,

I can think practically about what I'm going to do while I'm on the earth,

That I can be part of making a useful response.

Because I don't want to practice or promote a spirituality that's just about how do you disconnect from fear of death,

And then do nothing and wait.

It's like,

How do you take the strategically necessary position of autonomous freedom and happiness in the midst of chaos,

You need to have a platform to stand on where you feel great and fearless.

And from that place,

Your brain works better.

And you can think about practically what to do.

Because if you don't take spirituality into it,

I don't see how a person,

You're just struggling so hard by your independent logic to like,

You end up like this guy with this hopeless message,

That there's no one to help us.

There's nothing beyond what we see and that it's a chaos that human beings and their stupidity could accidentally create a virus,

And then accidentally create a bad vaccine and kill themselves.

Like if you think that life is that fragile,

That there's no plan,

That there's no intelligence,

That there's no love and protection and guidance,

You're going to live a very dark life.

And it's not to like say,

God is real.

And it's not to preach.

It's like,

Even if I found out that God was not real,

And that we all came from chemicals,

Even if that was the final conclusion,

You know,

If it was totally objective,

And when I die,

I realize like,

As my brain is coming loose from its associations of my ego and everything,

And I realize that the last moment,

Yeah,

Actually,

We're all just made of chemicals.

And all this human religion and philosophy and art and everything is just some kind of weird fluke of the chemistry of a universe that we don't understand.

But there's no God and there's no soul.

Even if that's what I saw at the last moment,

I would look back and be so happy that I still lived for Radha,

That I still lived for the goddess and for God,

Like,

I would still want to live for that idea.

That idea is so amazing.

It is the subjective reality that I choose,

Because it also makes me a better person.

And I'm okay with saying,

I can't prove that there's God.

I know what experience I've had,

And what it does for me,

And what it does through me for my friends.

I'm a better person,

I can bring beauty to this world and to my friends because of what I think about.

And when I think about,

You know,

A vision of God as a divine couple that's been passed down for 1000s of years,

With the most brilliant philosophers and poets that I've ever encountered exploring all that humanity has done,

The most beautiful philosopher I've ever seen is Rupa Goswami.

And even if it all turns out that it's chaos and chemicals,

I would still want to live my brief lifespan thinking with inspiration from the thoughts of this person,

Or the fault or the lineage,

The ancient lineage that flows before and behind him,

For example.

So it's like,

We really don't know objectively.

For me,

It's time to release the unreasonable expectation that we can have an objective understanding,

Even about the vaccine,

Even about reality,

Even if there's God.

I understand God,

Not objectively,

But super subjectively.

And that understanding is that subjective reality is reality for me.

And I've seen it change things around me.

I've seen it change my relationships.

I've seen it change my health.

I've seen it have effect.

What you think about has effect.

So there's a way without being fanatical,

To reconcile nature and spirit that makes everything better,

That turns on the highest human potential without us having to fight about which religion is right,

Or fight about which path of yoga or like personalism or impersonalism,

Advaita or Bhakti,

Like there's no need to fight.

There's a,

It's not that hard to find.

And it just starts for me with this one thing is like,

Give your life to try to understand both nature and spirit and how they're related.

As friends,

As a couple reality,

Nature and spirit.

If people are interested in that,

If they have a natural instinct and attraction,

I want to go deeper in spirit.

And I want to go deeper in being part of nature.

They're going to have a great life.

And they're going to be part of a solution if a solution is possible to the like mass extinction that we're facing.

If it's possible,

It's going to be possible through human beings whose best creative thought is turned on because they've reconciled the polarity of life in themselves by embracing both nature and spirit as precious and necessary.

That's very beautiful.

That's yoga,

Man.

Yoga is awesome.

Yes.

And I can relate very much with what you said.

Also,

You know,

I have two brothers,

Two half brothers and their father is Muslim and I'm half Italian and half Japanese.

I was baptized as a Shintoist and grew up in Italy,

Which is a very Christian country.

And now I'm following Bhakti yoga.

So all my family,

It's a big mix,

But I never heard inside my family,

Anyone talking bad about any other religion.

Like no one ever criticized Muslims.

No one ever criticized Christians.

No one ever criticized Shintoism.

My mom is Buddhist.

She got initiation from the Dalai Lama.

Wow.

Yeah.

And we all respect each other and love each other,

You know?

And when I go outside,

Sometimes I hear some people criticizing very badly,

Like Muslim,

For example.

And I really don't understand that.

It's totally out of my mind.

Like I can understand there is times and circumstances in the past that some events happen in India,

For example,

Where,

You know,

Some population behave in a certain way,

But still,

You know,

Why to be attached to that?

And why not just,

Like you say,

Like focus on your path and do yoga?

Yeah,

It's amazing power that human beings have.

Like,

Like even just as an archetypal story,

You know,

Adam and Eve,

The creation of humanity,

You know,

As I understand it,

I don't know if it's directly in the Bible or if it's like a commentary that came later,

But it was like,

There's Adam and Eve,

The first human beings,

Everything is fresh and in total balance.

And they didn't create,

They were the last thing that was created,

You know,

There was heaven and earth before,

And there were stars and there was water and fish and all kinds of stuff.

And then there's human beings.

And the human beings are not the creators,

But they're different from the rest of the creation in that they can tell a story about it.

You know,

There's this,

This thing that has,

You can't even explain it.

It's a tiger.

We would say it's a tiger.

It's a big cat that's orange with black stripes and everything,

But there was no word cat.

And there was no orange and there was no stripes.

And there was no,

That thing already existed because God created it.

But it was actually Adam and Eve who have to say,

Like,

That's a tiger.

He has stripes.

He's orange and black.

He's a feline.

Like all of that identity,

The story is created by the human beings.

The actual stuff is here,

But what it means and what it's called and what it's the story,

The interpretation of it is how we are co-creators.

We're not like going to manifest even one thing mosquito.

You can't manifest anything by yourself.

You know,

People say I have meditated and I manifested wealth.

It's like,

No,

That wealth already existed and your brain existed and your intelligence existed and all the ingredients that make up whatever happens existed before you were born,

You know,

And you couldn't do even the electricity that runs your like synapses and stuff you didn't create,

You know?

So what did you create?

But you can call it something.

You can say what it is.

And that's why,

You know,

The language now is a bit sexist,

But they always called humanity like mankind.

Yeah.

And then there's history.

And that means his story.

This is humanity telling their own story.

So this is our power and what story we tell about things is what will the direction that we're choosing.

So someone chooses a story that like,

Yeah,

You know,

I was born in India and the Muslims,

They invaded the world.

And I was like,

I was born in India and the Muslims,

They invaded and they raped my grandmothers and they raped,

You know,

All this stuff.

And they're telling a story about how those are enemies.

But you could tell another story that these are other living beings are my family and they have a different sacred tradition.

And we all got caught up in something really tragic.

And now it's over,

Thank God.

And we can do something else.

But people are telling a story that this is the enemy still over and it's the magic that happened for both sides.

You know,

Just in that situation that when,

When there was the,

They divided Pakistan from India,

You know,

It's like they split off,

Like all the Muslims need to have their own country.

It was so such a hard division that they split their nation in two parts so that they wouldn't have to see each other's face.

And as the Muslim refugees were leaving India to go to now what's Pakistan,

They were,

You know,

Indian guys,

They would get on the train and murder everyone on the train,

Just kill women,

Children,

Families,

Everyone.

They were so angry.

They're trying to go to their own place,

But there was so much hatred and anger.

The Hindus would get on the train,

Murder everyone on the train till when the doors opened,

It was like flowing with blood.

And then the Muslims would do the same thing to the Hindus when they were trying to leave Pakistan to go to India.

There was mass murder,

Women,

Children,

Everything.

Each one was trying just to kill the other one as the other one is like,

I'm just trying to leave.

I'm just trying to leave and live my life on the other side.

We can't work it out together.

I'm just trying to cross this false border that we've created so that we can,

You know,

We can't reconcile.

So we have to divide.

And even that there was so much a story.

This is the enemy.

It's like,

Okay,

You can't work it out.

So like Robert Frost says,

Good fences make good neighbors.

They had to separate,

But even still the story was so strong that people who are going to be in families one way or the other,

Just to be away from the conflict,

Were still seen as an enemy and a threat that needed to be murdered.

Just one case of humanity losing it.

And it's what story that we tell.

And that's the thing we have to tell now is the story that we're telling,

Like everyone who doesn't want to get vaccinated is some crazy conspiracist hippie who's putting humanity in danger,

Or is a story we're telling that everyone who's taking the vaccine is a washed follower and they're going to shed virus and kill the rest of us,

Is the story that we're telling is that we're hopelessly divided and there's no way to reconcile it.

Because if we tell that story,

It becomes impossible.

As soon as you say it's impossible,

You shut the door of your possibility to participate in another possibility.

So we're not creating this world or creating anything,

But we're co-creators in that we create the story.

What does it mean?

And even you don't have to know,

Well,

It says in the Bible,

Therefore it's going to be like this.

You don't know what's going to be because some other book says something else.

You don't know objectively what's going to happen,

But you can tell the story of what you hope for.

And then you'll be part of manifesting what you hope for.

And whether it happens or it doesn't happen,

At least when you die,

Before you find out if there really is spirit or it's all just chemicals,

At the last moment,

You'll have one moment of clean peace that I lived a story that I'm proud of.

A story of healing,

A story of love and honor for nature and spirit and other living beings that goes beyond just being caught up in a tidal wave of division.

I chose to be above the tidal wave of division.

I chose whether I could do it or not,

But I chose in my own life to live as a healer,

As a peacemaker,

As a devotee of nature and spirit,

As a friend to all living beings.

I chose to live like that.

And whatever happens after I die,

We'll see.

And I'm going to live objectively,

But that last second,

Let me rest in the peace that I told the story and I live the story that I'm proud of.

And that's all we can hope for objectively,

Because we don't know what's coming.

That's very beautiful.

And kind of answer the last question I wanted to ask you,

Which kind of advice you have for those people who want to enter this path of yoga,

They want to make peace,

Which kind of advice you have in a daily day to day life without becoming too much fanatic,

Without forgetting about it.

One of my heroes is the author,

Amanda Scott.

She wrote a book of historical,

Four books of historical fiction about the ancient British Celts resisting the Roman occupation in like the year 60 AD.

And it's led by the Boudica,

The victory bringer,

Who was like the queen of the Celts of this particular.

.

.

It's all history.

No,

It's not some fantasy book.

It's a fictional telling,

But it's real history about people who were living a life completely dedicated to the land where they lived and to their gods and ancestors,

To spirit.

So nature and spirit,

How human beings.

.

.

It's one example out of many around the world of how people used to really live in integrity of nature and spirit and how another force,

A new kind of perversion of human potential came as colonization.

The Roman occupation came to just bulldoze over their culture and own everything,

Which right away is like,

That is born from the negation of the feminine.

The land has no identity.

We're going to make this land,

This Celtic land,

Roman.

That's already saying like the masculine bulldozes the feminine.

There's no such thing as feminine identity.

The land has no identity and no right to speak for itself.

So she's a hero of mine,

Amanda Scott.

And she's a shaman and a teacher and stuff.

And I saw one thing on her website where she says the smallest thing you can do to start,

To be part of a possibility of avoiding the mass extinction that's already underway,

That could easily include the human beings that have provoked it,

Is it's such a critical moment in history that we're in.

And she said,

The only thing you need to do to start to be part of the solution is care about something beyond yourself.

And it's really that.

It's egocentrism is the problem.

We need to start living a life of devotion.

So devotion and trying to extend that,

Like how do I live a holistic life of devotion?

There's some people that they're devoted to the God of their religion,

But they're not devoted to the land where they live.

They're not devoted to the human family as a whole.

They're really spiritual people,

But they're devoted to the God of their religion.

And one way or another,

They think this is the only thing that humanity needs and they don't care what other religions say or what other philosophy.

They think this is the answer.

And they think that that's how they express their need to be part of the human family is by praying that everyone will accept the salvation of their path.

That's no,

That's actually just one piece.

Okay.

You have devotion to your tradition and we should have,

I think also part of our identity is to honor your ancestors,

Your bloodline,

Your heritage,

But also at some point you need to honor a tradition.

If you're a spiritualist like you,

It's a pride to be part of a lineage,

A cosmo vision,

A way and a taste for how to relate with life,

But one that doesn't exclude or like demonize others,

Ideally.

But to care about something beyond yourself is the medicine,

The cure for the egocentrism that makes us into like a sucking void.

There's a little switch deep in our heart that has two settings,

Giver and taker.

And we're born into a culture where we're trained from the beginning that it's just set and it's at a deep place.

It's at a subconscious place that you wouldn't notice it unless you went digging down there in your heart,

You wouldn't notice that there's a little switch that is flipped to the taker setting.

And that makes you a sucking void.

But if you could flip that to giver,

To care about something beyond yourself,

Like what I want is to give.

I want to be part of what I need is not to be loved like St.

Francis,

No?

Let me not seek to be understood,

But to understand,

Not to be forgiven,

But to forgive,

Not to be loved,

But to love,

Like that is a human set appropriately to their proper original setting,

Giver.

So if you can,

As holistically as a person can do it,

How can you be a giver to the land where you live?

How can you be a giver to the spiritual truth beyond time?

However you need to understand it,

But something beyond time and your body,

You know,

Even how can you be a giver and care about your descendants and your ancestors,

And the other human beings that live around you and the species and the future generations,

Not just of your bloodline,

But of human potential.

If the more that you just try to care and serve,

And you realize that we were trained by our culture,

Especially capitalist,

You know,

Gaining,

Gaining,

Gaining,

Gaining,

Win,

Make more,

Make more money so you can get more stuff so you can enjoy more.

The value system under that is all just about comfort and convenience.

People are living their whole life,

Do anything just for comfort and convenience.

It's complete egocentrism.

Okay,

I want also to take care of my family,

My wife and my kids,

But it's just because you'll be more comfortable if you feel like you're a good provider.

You know,

It's extended egocentrism.

So comfort and convenience actually contradicts human destiny and potential.

We're not here to live for our comfort and convenience.

We're here to make sacrifice.

We're here to live in but a festival sacrifice.

You know,

It's not we're here all to be like martyrs.

We're here to be noble,

To be creative,

Noble givers who care about something more than ourselves who care about everything.

I care about God,

I care about the world that God created,

I care about the people that live on the world.

You have to care about all of it.

And you put yourself last,

But not in the sense of altruistic self negation.

You put yourself last on the list of what you're worried about.

Because if you care about the macrocosm,

The macrocosm is going to care about you and take care of you in a better way than you could if you were just trying to get your own.

That's the miracle of like,

That's the vision of shamanism is if you care about the directions and the cosmos and aho mit koyasan,

All of my relations,

I do this prayer,

You know,

We go to sweat lodge,

You know,

Or we go to the ceremony,

And you're going to make it to sweat and to pray all night and to make a hardcore endeavor with every drop of energy you have.

And you pray,

You know,

The Lakota say,

Aho mit koyasan,

I'm doing this for all my relations.

You know,

In America,

You have the sun dancers,

The Lakota,

They would pierce their skin,

And they would bleed on the earth so that they could fast and cry and bleed and make the most complete expression of sincerity in front of God under the open sky,

Great Spirit,

Please see me,

I'm praying for my people.

You know,

Human being means warrior heart means priest heart means healer heart,

It means to care for life for all of life makes you a human being.

And the greatest temptation that we have is to live for our own comfort and convenience.

Because that shuts down our answer and response to what life is calling from us,

Stand up and be noble.

And you're not to be a martyr.

It's not self negation.

But when you the shot the vision of shamanism is when you do this yoga,

The yoga is not just masculine and feminine.

It's also the the included in the inclusive.

You know,

The microcosm and the macrocosm are also friends.

So you're a little microcosm,

Om purnam adaha purnam idam,

You're a tiny little complete and perfect microcosm with the same structure of the totality.

And when the little microcosm dedicates to the whole macrocosm,

It's what they call in the Andes is called aini,

The natural symbiotic exchange,

Where one takes care of the other,

And vice versa.

When the microcosm,

The little individual soul,

A little individual being dedicates to the macrocosm,

I care about all of it.

Then the macrocosm dedicates and takes care of the microcosm.

That means the whole cosmos,

Everything that exists in all the ancestors and even unborn souls,

Like that's the vision of I'm not arguing this scientifically,

I'm telling you the mystical vision of shamanism,

Even unborn children are praying for you and supporting you better people than you and I who are yet to come,

Are praying for us.

And ancestors who used to know the old ways and had real nobility and character,

They're all praying for us if we pray for the macrocosm.

Then the directions,

The elements,

The water,

The fire,

Everybody,

That's the thing about the Vedas and about shamanism is they both tell us that everything is someone.

The wind is a person,

The sun and the moon are persons.

And you enter into a personal relationship with the macrocosm where everything is someone and you make family relation with the elements,

With time itself,

If you could understand the identity of time and be friends with time,

You cannot imagine what that allows time to do for you in return.

To make friends with,

You know,

Mother nature,

You can't imagine what power rises up under your feet to hold your path.

It's just about caring beyond yourself.

I'm not here to live for my comfort and convenience.

I'm here to take care from my little position in the weaving of life.

I'm here to serve every living being.

That's in Sanskrit called das anudas.

Everyone is serving the cause of everything.

Everyone,

Every little bumblebee is pollinating all day long out of service to the cause and the purpose.

So to serve the servant is the perfect position of the human.

So that's yoga.

How do you make the reconciliation?

Yoga is actually,

Yeah,

It means healing.

Yoga means yoking,

Means putting back together what's been divided,

What's been injured,

What's been wounded.

How do you close that wound?

Bring it back to wholeness.

And some people think that,

You know,

Oneness,

It's all one,

It's all love,

Man.

They think that that's the answer.

But it's over simplistic,

Because if everything is one,

Then you're in,

You know,

It's a knee jerk response to the pain of duality,

The pain of division and conflict.

We know by instinct that the wound of division is not right.

And so some people have a knee jerk response.

And they have presumed a whole philosophy that everything is one and there's no difference.

There's no duality.

But if that's true,

In the end,

There can be no love.

There can be no sentience.

There's no creativity.

Who will relate with who finally in a real way,

If all is one?

Oh,

It's all just me.

It's all just God.

And I'm that and you're that.

If you come to the conclusion of that philosophy,

There's nothing but emptiness.

There's no diversity with which to have loving exchanges,

With which to have a future expansions.

It's all just to come back to zero.

So that's a,

For me,

It's a,

I understand that the motive,

The root motive of oneness as presumed as that's medicine for division,

But it's not.

Oneness is not the cure for division.

Complementarity is the cure for division.

Very beautiful.

Thank you so much.

I think this was a very,

Very wonderful end to our discussion.

Thank you so much.

And I really hope to do this again with you.

Yeah,

It was fun.

Thank you so much for,

For having me,

For trusting me to speak.

That's a wonderful one.

Thanks a lot.

Thanks.

I hope this episode fulfills its purpose of inspiring you.

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And if you have any questions,

Please get in touch at aikoyoga-eiki.

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Namaste.

Reviews

Really interesting talk.