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you

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Are you sick?

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New York boy, where were you born?

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What borough?

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Brooklyn.

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Born in Brooklyn.

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That's pretty awesome.

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You're a lawyer, a financial advisor, a cab driver and a photographer and a mountain
climber.

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Mountain climber.

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you've done.

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Yeah.

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You've done everything.

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And you.

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have seen the face of God or you're an enlightened dude.

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You teach people how to be.

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What do you do?

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How would you describe what you do for a living?

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You know, I was talking about this the other day and what I do for a living now.

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I think this would be my ideal job too, is people pay me for being me.

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I'm sure I have a job title anymore.

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mean, I think that these days I used to say, people say, well, what do you do?

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What do you do?

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You know, and I used to say, you know, first thing I'd say is, know, I'm a lawyer.

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I mean, because that's what I spend my time making my living.

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But I do, as you see, I do a lot of different things.

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So it's hard to say that I do just this.

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So to make life simpler for people, I usually describe myself as being a spiritual teacher
and a spiritual advisor.

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But it's hard for me to, you know, and that then people kind of have some kind of
framework.

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But actually, I think

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more and more I am just getting up in the morning and living my life and uh being of
whatever help I can be.

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along the way, you know, find ways to uh support myself.

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uh I think at the end of the day, I get paid to inspire people.

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So what kind of law do you practice?

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I have well when I got into are we kind of going this could we use this part we could do
anything

35
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think yeah, we could do whatever we want.

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I part of this is I need I want to Let me maybe Formally say Fanny Cohen here.

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I'm talking to my friend Hari Nam Singh Khalsa, right?

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That's right.

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Okay and Plainly you are a Sikh you are a turban.

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You've got a very like relaxed

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look on your face often and a nice beard.

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ah

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the stress of living here, right?

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Yeah.

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uh

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Beard, yeah, like beards seem awesome.

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If I was a guy, would totally have a beard.

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You know, I was noticing, you know, sometimes because I have a beard and many people I
know have a beard, I kind of just, that's kind of my reality.

49
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But every now and then I walk down the street and realize that very few people have
beards.

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No way, where are you walking?

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Beards are like the biggest thing.

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ah

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I think maybe for like hipsters, but I mean the general run-of-the-mill people that you
meet, you know at work or you know the subway you don't see that many and a lot of people

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wearing beards are mentally ill too.

55
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So, you know, I kind of discount that I mean the people who just don't bathe.

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Yeah, it's a good point.

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mean, if you're ever going through anything, like you just got broken up with, or you just
lost your job, or you're really sick, I mean, the first thing to go is like facial hair

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for guys.

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Like that's like the quick tell-all for a problem.

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But you know, I went to the movie Lincoln the other day and I noticed that actually most
of the people had beards, most of the adults had beards.

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That's right.

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Yeah, well, mean, facial hair in general was just more plentiful in other times of human
history.

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I mean, to me, the most striking is actually if you look at like a TV show or a movie from
the 70s, people just had more hair, like all over.

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All over.

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Well, the whole Sikh thing with the hair, it's kind of like the whole Moses thing.

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What's the seek thing with the hair?

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I don't know.

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The Sikh thing with the hair again, kind of like the Moses thing.

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It's kind of like, well, first of all, this is how God created you.

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So there's no mistakes made.

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So there's a reason you have hair.

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It's not just some uh oddity from nature that there's a reason for everything.

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Okay.

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So there's a reason that you have hair and in the animal kingdom, maybe with the exception
of lions and stuff, mean, humans can actually grow their hair to great lengths.

75
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And so, you know, on this path, we're actually taught that it's a sense of strength, that
you actually, that we're very complex beings.

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The equipment of being a human being is a very complex piece of equipment and everything
has some kind of inherent reason, including hair.

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So for us, we believe that the hair is actually uh a receptor of energy.

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Yeah, that it's like an antenna and that that's the reason it's there and that also that
uh where it's placed is actually uh involved with your emotional life.

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So for instance, for a man, one of the reasons that a man has a beard is to actually cover
his chin because that gives him emotional coverage.

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So it's almost like being emotionally naked.

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And, and, and so this is what a man looks like.

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So my teacher is very

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charismatic and controversial guy.

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And he would just say like he just found it very odd coming from where he came from to
this culture to see why it is that men want to look like boys.

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Because boys don't have facial hair.

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So why would a grown mature man want to look like a child?

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Huh.

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So that was his take, which I think there's something to that.

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Yeah, well, what do you think?

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I'd have to agree with that.

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I mean, to me, I've been wearing a beard so long that I don't know any other way.

92
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But now that I wear a beard and I look at men and they go to such great lengths to have
this very slick looking face with no stubble.

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And I'm thinking, well, that's what a six year old child looks like.

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Why would you want to look like a six year old child?

95
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Wow, I mean, to me the thing with male facial hair is all about uh conformity and kind of
like this corporate conformity, like in the 50s, like clean cut guy.

96
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And that was really important.

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I mean, the way like my dad who was around then talks about it is like, it was, there was
no choice.

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Like if you didn't have a clean shaven face, there was a

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big part of people that just wouldn't take you seriously.

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Yeah, and yet the people uh who think that way actually give so little thought to how it
actually got to be that way.

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You know, it's kind of odd.

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They think themselves being intelligent, but they don't like sit back and think, well, how
did that actually come to be?

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Why is even that the conformity and why would that be a good thing?

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You know, there's just like a disconnect.

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And of course, I think one of the more humorous sides of that

106
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is you have people who are, you know, and I, again, I'll say this, I have nothing against
Christianity or the Bible.

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I actually have a lot of respect for it.

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But to me, it's like, it's so odd that there are people like who have like short hair and
they're clean cut and they have pictures of their savior who's got long hair and a beard.

109
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But if you actually presented yourself as the savior yourself, you wouldn't get a job in
that place.

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you know, they kick you out of the church.

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would say, I mean, so if Jesus himself walked into the church, he'd be kicked on the kids
can because he'd be considered to be like dirty scruffy, whatever they think that is.

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But that's the person who they put the most on the pedestal is a person who did not cut
his hair and who had a beard.

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I don't care.

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So somebody's going to have to explain that one to me.

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Yeah, I mean, you know that that's pretty much the story of St.

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Francis is he was you know that story?

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No, he's a he was just a guy.

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I mean it was in Assisi.

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Italy and he was like, uh actually this is again kind of similar I think to the story of
the Buddha.

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He was kind of an upper class guy who was very sheltered from life and then had or the
real world and suffering and death and disease and evil.

121
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And he got out one day and saw it and was changed by it and wanted to get rid of all his
worldly possessions, give everything to charity, have nothing and just live in the world

122
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and be a saint, be a good guy.

123
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And people thought he was crazy.

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And he was really trying to embody those Jesus-like principles.

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Yeah, there's a history in almost all the religions of the people that the people put up
on a pedestal for their virtues.

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The very people who follow them, these same things, that if their own children did this,
they'd throw them out of the house.

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I mean, some of this makes, you know, it's too funny.

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That's, I mean, do think people are aware of it though?

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Or is it only, I mean, that we have, that you have a certain perspective on it?

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I mean,

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I think it's kind of a whole conversation itself, but I think in general you could put it
under the title of how religion's got hijacked.

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How true religion has been hijacked by people actually who are not particularly evolved.

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But they've hijacked religion for their own purposes, but they don't really live its
ideals.

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So what is the purpose of religion?

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Well, to me, as long as I, it's almost like we were gonna talk about today how I got into
all of this.

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It's funny, because I was coming over the subway here and I was thinking about what we
were gonna talk about today.

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About how one gets started and all this and how I got started and all this.

138
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And I was thinking, well, how would you even start this conversation?

139
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But really, you have to start the conversation.

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you're talking to a person like

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Okay, how does a person start on the spiritual path or on the path of spiritual
development or religious commitment or any of these things?

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This is the lawyer in me talking now.

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To me, it's ridiculous to even start down that road before you're even clear what you're
talking about.

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You brought up the question before really getting into how does one start on a spiritual
path or on the course of spiritual development.

145
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There has to be some common understanding of what I would even mean by spirituality and
spiritual development or religion.

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So you asked it to me, um it's really insane that I've been living so much of my life like
this and you cannot believe how rarely somebody would actually even ask me that simple

147
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question.

148
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I could be teaching a workshop, I could be invited to give a public presentation on these
themes in front of hundreds of people.

149
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And people actually are going about their business of what they think it is to be
spiritual or to grow spiritually.

150
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But data are not even clear what that even means.

151
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Yeah, well, I mean, one thing that I'm always coming up against, and especially with this
venture and, working on other shows where we're trying to document spirituality, is that

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the word is so corrupted and in some ways it's so bankrupt and so meaningless.

153
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I hold people, you know, whenever somebody uses that word around me, I put their heels to
the fire.

154
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Yeah.

155
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How do you say like, you know, the magic and glory of life and all of its infinite

156
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You know, I very rarely use the word spiritual.

157
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Like you know, it's very interesting when I teach or I counsel people, I actually very
rarely use words like spirituality because I know that there's a lot of assumptions going

158
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on and people may think I'm meaning something and I don't mean that.

159
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So to me, like this is very good example, to me, spirituality, spiritual, uh

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Development religion any any and to me they're actually mutually exclusive.

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They're not understood the same way in society But religion as such was just an
institutionalized form of just packaging spirituality in the end.

162
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It's the same thing.

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00:13:44,142 --> 00:13:56,886
I mean, it's It's a parent Yeah, now things have happened to it that's another discussion
but but all this is kind of the same family of pursuit and and so to me

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There's only two real reasons for religion or spirituality.

165
00:14:04,287 --> 00:14:09,281
For somebody being in a religion or a person pursuing, quote unquote, spirituality.

166
00:14:09,281 --> 00:14:26,172
And that is that there is a conscious intention to actually experience and connect with
the essence of what actually you are, not what you're about.

167
00:14:27,022 --> 00:14:31,704
The is about, the world itself involves what you're about.

168
00:14:31,704 --> 00:14:42,869
Meaning, what you're about is, you know, the family you're born from, your career, the
house you live in, who your friends are, what your political affiliation is, zillions of

169
00:14:42,869 --> 00:14:43,449
these things.

170
00:14:43,449 --> 00:14:49,002
And these things describe how, you know, the way in which you live your life.

171
00:14:49,002 --> 00:14:53,474
But underneath all of that, there's something that's a very...

172
00:14:53,474 --> 00:14:54,478
uh

173
00:14:54,478 --> 00:14:58,079
pure, infinite, uh never was born, never dies.

174
00:14:58,079 --> 00:14:59,560
It's your actual essence.

175
00:14:59,560 --> 00:15:08,424
So anybody who is to me seeking uh spirituality is trying to connect with their true
essence.

176
00:15:09,384 --> 00:15:14,066
they're, when in most paths, your infinite essence, we would say.

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00:15:14,066 --> 00:15:23,544
And then the other part, which I think is actually very integrated with this, is that
there's a conscious effort, uh very

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00:15:23,544 --> 00:15:30,618
committed choice in your life to be everything that you can be in this life.

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00:15:31,159 --> 00:15:32,769
it's personal development.

180
00:15:32,769 --> 00:15:44,516
It's a very conscious choice of personal development that you're going to develop uh the
virtues that you were born with as a human being to be everything that you could possibly

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be in this lifetime.

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00:15:46,608 --> 00:15:51,350
And spirituality and religion is kind of like a recipe.

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00:15:52,026 --> 00:16:04,484
It's a it's a map to be that way and this is often left by people who figured it out You
know, it's it's very streets at the end of days very strategic There are people have been

184
00:16:04,484 --> 00:16:10,487
born on the planet who kind of figured the game out and they got there now There's kind of
like describing to people.

185
00:16:10,487 --> 00:16:18,174
Okay, I figured my way through this labyrinth and this is them because you're gonna have a
hell of a time figuring this out on your own and I actually figured out

186
00:16:18,174 --> 00:16:23,896
I figured out this puzzle so, and other people have too, but they all get you to the same
place.

187
00:16:23,896 --> 00:16:27,317
So I got through this labyrinth this way.

188
00:16:27,317 --> 00:16:33,059
if you care to make it to the other side of the bridge, this is how I made it here and
this is what you need to do.

189
00:16:33,059 --> 00:16:38,180
And that's why there's so much in common with all these paths because more or less it's
the same recipe.

190
00:16:38,180 --> 00:16:43,758
They're a little bit different, but more or less it's the same recipe to get there because
it's not that complicated.

191
00:16:43,758 --> 00:16:44,599
Hmm.

192
00:16:44,599 --> 00:16:58,672
I mean, do you think that in thinking of this as a game, do you think that religions and
spiritualities quote unquote, don't kill me for using that word, uh I'll get you to

193
00:16:58,672 --> 00:17:03,777
happiness or like a certain state or enjoyment of life?

194
00:17:03,777 --> 00:17:09,762
Or are they just sort of teaching you that it is a game and that there are

195
00:17:10,166 --> 00:17:13,398
kind of moves that you can do, but it doesn't get you to any place.

196
00:17:13,398 --> 00:17:15,726
It just teaches you how to like operate.

197
00:17:15,726 --> 00:17:20,826
I think the second, I think it teaches you how to operate and you have to do it yourself.

198
00:17:20,826 --> 00:17:29,826
See, I think that's one of the ways, I mean, again, it's a longer conversation about how
religion has become corrupted.

199
00:17:30,206 --> 00:17:33,546
I think it's become corrupted because it's become a business.

200
00:17:33,546 --> 00:17:41,206
It's become a business because what they're really kind of trying to sell you is, my
sense, often a false sense of goods.

201
00:17:41,206 --> 00:17:45,024
They're basically saying is like, you do this, you ...

202
00:17:45,024 --> 00:17:49,357
You believe in this, you take this set of goods and you know what?

203
00:17:49,357 --> 00:17:53,160
And uh we can guarantee you like a ticket to paradise.

204
00:17:53,160 --> 00:17:55,241
But you're not in paradise yet.

205
00:17:55,261 --> 00:17:57,422
And they can't actually even show you that.

206
00:17:57,422 --> 00:17:59,114
They just say, just believe us.

207
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Just believe us.

208
00:18:00,204 --> 00:18:03,236
You do what we want you to do and we'll give you a ticket to paradise.

209
00:18:03,236 --> 00:18:07,029
But you you're not actually going to know that until after your physical body dies.

210
00:18:07,029 --> 00:18:13,173
And it's amazing how many people buy into this because it doesn't make any sense.

211
00:18:13,193 --> 00:18:15,114
But people are very vulnerable.

212
00:18:15,156 --> 00:18:24,982
And if you really study the teachings of all the great teachers through history, whether
Jesus, Buddha, or whoever you would name, that they actually don't teach that.

213
00:18:24,982 --> 00:18:32,076
They actually teach that you can experience your infinite uh existence while you're still
alive.

214
00:18:32,076 --> 00:18:34,717
You don't have to wait till the next life.

215
00:18:34,718 --> 00:18:39,640
And you actually have, there's two ways of doing that.

216
00:18:39,640 --> 00:18:42,648
And it's kind of a paradoxical combination of

217
00:18:42,648 --> 00:18:46,139
You have to, not another person can't do it for you.

218
00:18:46,139 --> 00:18:48,080
You have to do it for yourself.

219
00:18:48,180 --> 00:18:59,843
So this isn't talked about a lot because, you know, it's very hard to sell that, you know,
so, so it's very hard to sell that you can be enlightened, but it's up to you.

220
00:19:00,344 --> 00:19:02,114
So I'm leaving it back to you.

221
00:19:02,114 --> 00:19:06,025
So they're thinking, okay, so why would I pay you for that?

222
00:19:06,025 --> 00:19:08,238
You know, and the, other piece,

223
00:19:08,238 --> 00:19:14,098
is that there's something that if you're a spiritually oriented person, we'd call grace.

224
00:19:14,598 --> 00:19:26,178
Grace is kind of like the paradoxical other side to that is that no matter how hard you
try, that is not actually enough.

225
00:19:26,178 --> 00:19:34,358
That things happen because there is something much bigger at play that is outside the
paradigm of your mind.

226
00:19:34,358 --> 00:19:38,218
That there's something going on that's bigger

227
00:19:38,220 --> 00:19:40,391
than your limited view of the universe.

228
00:19:40,391 --> 00:19:43,071
And so you're a child of this.

229
00:19:43,071 --> 00:19:47,953
And so it's kind of like working there even if you don't see it.

230
00:19:47,953 --> 00:20:04,758
So it's kind of like this paradoxical combination of self-intent and conscious choice and
application and also allowing in for grace, allowing in for things to just let shit

231
00:20:04,758 --> 00:20:05,598
happen.

232
00:20:05,646 --> 00:20:12,746
So it's a very odd combination, but I've learned this in my own life that there are equal
partners in this.

233
00:20:12,746 --> 00:20:24,506
It's almost like the same point and it doesn't make any sense because there's no logic to
it, but to me it's this equal mixture of just being very focused on what your goal is and

234
00:20:24,506 --> 00:20:28,590
walking towards it and on the other hand, know, letting shit happen.

235
00:20:28,590 --> 00:20:29,810
Hmm.

236
00:20:30,670 --> 00:20:36,590
I mean, are you are you opposed to all organized?

237
00:20:36,590 --> 00:20:37,550
What is your?

238
00:20:37,550 --> 00:20:46,090
Well, again, this is another paradoxical side of my life because obviously I can't be
opposed to organized religion because I'm a minister.

239
00:20:46,090 --> 00:20:46,970
Right.

240
00:20:46,970 --> 00:20:55,310
know, so I, and not only am I a minister, but I would say that I'm as religious a person
as I know.

241
00:20:55,310 --> 00:21:01,432
I'm a very, I am a, I am an unapologetic religious person and

242
00:21:01,432 --> 00:21:08,168
A lot of times my students get very upset at that because they've had very bad experiences
with religion as I have.

243
00:21:08,349 --> 00:21:13,574
so the last thing they want to hear from somebody like myself who they look up to is that
I love religion.

244
00:21:13,574 --> 00:21:17,958
ah

245
00:21:19,552 --> 00:21:30,461
Organized religion has its dangers and but you could say this about anything in life in a
marriage or anything else I mean there's you you have to be able to kind of see the whole

246
00:21:30,461 --> 00:21:30,932
picture.

247
00:21:30,932 --> 00:21:35,636
So to me uh Religion is very very valuable.

248
00:21:35,636 --> 00:21:36,877
It's very hard.

249
00:21:36,877 --> 00:21:47,406
I in my opinion is very hard to actually experience enlightenment without religion because
religion gives you content and it's very hard to apply your

250
00:21:47,406 --> 00:21:59,826
Even if you have a glorious experience, it's very hard to give it any context in your day
to day life without having the structure of religion to give it structure and context.

251
00:22:00,026 --> 00:22:10,726
On the other hand, as I mentioned, think that religion can be very dangerous because it's
often run by people who are not enlightened.

252
00:22:11,466 --> 00:22:15,254
It's like putting a gun in the hands of a crazy person.

253
00:22:15,254 --> 00:22:18,676
Religion is a very powerful thing and you put it in the hand.

254
00:22:18,676 --> 00:22:20,446
It's basically about again.

255
00:22:20,446 --> 00:22:29,760
It's really as I mentioned before to me religion is about the game of enlightenment It's
there's only two reasons for the existence of religion It's to help a person gain

256
00:22:29,760 --> 00:22:42,256
enlightenment to gain union with the soul in this lifetime to have that level of uh
infinity and the other one is which is you know kind of related to the day-to-day life is

257
00:22:42,256 --> 00:22:43,246
to you

258
00:22:43,246 --> 00:22:51,206
actually expressing this in your day-to-day life, in everything you do, so that everything
is congruent.

259
00:22:51,206 --> 00:22:57,786
So you better yourself, so your daily life is congruent with your infinite experience.

260
00:22:58,606 --> 00:23:09,606
And there's very few, you know, if you go to the church or synagogue, there's very few
people even living close to this and even of course more troubling and closer, on closer

261
00:23:09,606 --> 00:23:10,508
observation.

262
00:23:10,508 --> 00:23:16,460
Normally the people in charge are running these institutions are less involved than the
people sitting in the pews.

263
00:23:17,081 --> 00:23:21,743
And they like status, they like their position, they like everything that goes with it.

264
00:23:21,743 --> 00:23:26,184
They like the salary, they like the clothes that go with it.

265
00:23:26,424 --> 00:23:40,590
And often to get into the higher ranks of the organization of any of these religious
organizations does not necessarily require a high level of consciousness.

266
00:23:40,724 --> 00:23:52,847
It has to often to do with uh you showing that you're team player and that you're willing
to play by the rules of the institution.

267
00:23:52,847 --> 00:24:00,740
so often to get to the higher ranks does require you to be intelligent and generous and
hardworking in many of these things.

268
00:24:00,740 --> 00:24:08,152
But I often find that the most enlightened people in any particular religion often are not
the people up at the top.

269
00:24:08,152 --> 00:24:09,442
It's at the people who

270
00:24:09,442 --> 00:24:10,990
look like they're at the bottom.

271
00:24:10,990 --> 00:24:25,250
Yeah, I mean I think you know it this is a tricky area to get into because we can both
agree that Organizing people together, you know, sometimes it works and sometimes it

272
00:24:25,250 --> 00:24:35,570
doesn't and it comes down to the individual institution I mean, we've all seen churches
and synagogues and whatever that are very positive places for people and they're positive

273
00:24:35,570 --> 00:24:40,950
communities that are doing things for its members and doing things for the community at
large

274
00:24:40,994 --> 00:24:49,820
But we've also seen the other end of the spectrum, is just bureaucracy and politicking at
its worst.

275
00:24:49,820 --> 00:24:51,922
you know, I mean, I'd like to get into that.

276
00:24:51,922 --> 00:25:00,808
think some of it is maybe structural in the way that these organized organizations have to
be organized and also maybe the origins.

277
00:25:00,808 --> 00:25:04,510
mean, a lot of them are family owned and that's why.

278
00:25:06,439 --> 00:25:14,331
Even philosophically, it's a wildly interesting topic because it really involves so many
things.

279
00:25:14,331 --> 00:25:16,602
It's so many different layers.

280
00:25:16,602 --> 00:25:27,486
ah But again, I think the real interesting thing to me is that although all these things
are so fascinating, you get into history and culture and...

281
00:25:28,510 --> 00:25:30,113
sexism and racism.

282
00:25:30,113 --> 00:25:32,969
mean, just every possible angle is involved.

283
00:25:32,969 --> 00:25:37,256
Capitalism, everything is involved in these religious organizations, but

284
00:25:38,850 --> 00:25:44,442
They can't hide one thing is that the, the, the, at the base, it's still the same thing.

285
00:25:44,442 --> 00:25:53,704
The purpose of these things, the founders of all these, all these paths really had a very
simple agenda.

286
00:25:53,704 --> 00:26:07,926
And that was to, to show mankind that there is a way that during this lifetime, you can
experience the infinity of your existence and that your life, it, once you have that, can

287
00:26:07,926 --> 00:26:13,132
arrange your life in a way that will help other people experience this as well.

288
00:26:13,132 --> 00:26:13,652
That's it.

289
00:26:13,652 --> 00:26:15,579
It's actually no more complicated.

290
00:26:15,579 --> 00:26:18,240
Experience the infinity of life.

291
00:26:18,240 --> 00:26:22,241
of experience the infinity of your existence.

292
00:26:22,474 --> 00:26:24,865
All right, so what is that?

293
00:26:26,158 --> 00:26:39,498
Well, you know, I'm a little handcuffed because now, and this again I think gets down to
the heart of what spirituality really is about, is that when I'm asked questions like

294
00:26:39,498 --> 00:26:47,158
that, all I can say is I'll do the best that can do because these things by definition
have no words.

295
00:26:47,338 --> 00:26:50,978
So it's like whenever people say, you know, can you explain love to us?

296
00:26:50,978 --> 00:26:55,874
Well, they really, you know what mean, all you have is the word love, but you really are
kind of,

297
00:26:55,874 --> 00:27:00,877
hamstrung here is like there are no words to express that experience.

298
00:27:00,877 --> 00:27:16,646
So when people have experienced, depending on the culture, it's called nirvana,
enlightenment, Christ consciousness, whatever, whatever, there's different, but those are

299
00:27:16,646 --> 00:27:17,256
just like words.

300
00:27:17,256 --> 00:27:23,189
They're just words to basically label and experience that there are no words for.

301
00:27:23,209 --> 00:27:24,610
So the best

302
00:27:24,630 --> 00:27:26,485
that I can do is, that

303
00:27:28,332 --> 00:27:33,346
to start at a platform that um you are something.

304
00:27:33,947 --> 00:27:35,908
Okay, you are something.

305
00:27:36,308 --> 00:27:41,933
And that thing um is beyond time and space.

306
00:27:42,954 --> 00:27:49,178
And it is actually in its evolution towards liberation.

307
00:27:49,459 --> 00:27:52,842
It's taking a time and space and form here.

308
00:27:52,842 --> 00:27:55,403
It's actually part of this journey.

309
00:27:55,644 --> 00:27:58,536
And the journey is just going back where you came from.

310
00:27:59,258 --> 00:28:11,784
and actually realize the greatest thing about this particular life of everything that this
life offers, people, again, spiritually or interperson, truly spiritually or interperson

311
00:28:11,784 --> 00:28:19,947
understands that the vast majority of mankind is actually just shitting their life away on
bullshit.

312
00:28:19,947 --> 00:28:27,662
now it's not that everything they're doing lacks cause and reason and all that, but there
is a lack of

313
00:28:27,662 --> 00:28:33,146
uh direction and that what is the ultimate purpose of me being here?

314
00:28:33,146 --> 00:28:48,296
Okay among many things and so the ultimate purpose for me Being in this particular
lifetime is to be liberated so uh So I don't have to kind of continue going through this

315
00:28:48,296 --> 00:28:56,852
nonsense, I just need to I need to kind of merge into what I really am

316
00:28:57,600 --> 00:29:01,372
and not continue this illusion anymore.

317
00:29:01,493 --> 00:29:11,600
So what this lifetime offers is the possibility for you to actually experience the
infinity of your existence.

318
00:29:11,600 --> 00:29:13,641
And you ask me, what is that?

319
00:29:13,782 --> 00:29:21,747
And so what it is is, that what you really are is even beyond being a human being.

320
00:29:21,747 --> 00:29:25,742
So what you are is you are like,

321
00:29:25,742 --> 00:29:32,522
pure consciousness, pure energy, and you never were born and you never will die.

322
00:29:32,742 --> 00:29:47,042
you, the creator and the creator, this is when people talk about God, from our point of
view, you are God in the sense that you can't separate the creator from the created.

323
00:29:47,042 --> 00:29:49,126
I mean, it's the same thing.

324
00:29:49,452 --> 00:29:51,330
mean, is it that you create your own reality?

325
00:29:51,330 --> 00:29:52,114
oh

326
00:29:52,114 --> 00:30:01,528
Not real not in the way that I believe you're saying it it's that Something did create you
Okay, there is a so we definitely say okay.

327
00:30:01,528 --> 00:30:14,544
There is a creator But you can't separate the creator from what the created the creator
and the create what the creator It's all the same thing so you're you're part of that and

328
00:30:14,544 --> 00:30:20,390
and so to me the human suffering and the different religions teach it in different ways,
but

329
00:30:20,390 --> 00:30:31,166
All human suffering is directly or indirectly caused by one's feeling alienated, one's
feeling separated.

330
00:30:31,166 --> 00:30:35,479
And this is very painful and then it manifests itself in very real life.

331
00:30:35,479 --> 00:30:39,401
Things, my boyfriend left me, I lost my job, how am going to pay for the rent?

332
00:30:39,401 --> 00:30:41,202
Nobody loves me, whatever.

333
00:30:41,202 --> 00:30:42,933
need to go to the bar for a drink.

334
00:30:42,933 --> 00:30:48,738
I mean, you go down the list, but the cause of all suffering and anxiety

335
00:30:48,738 --> 00:30:53,520
goes back to the same cause and that is that I don't feel full.

336
00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:57,582
To some extent I don't feel full.

337
00:30:57,582 --> 00:30:58,402
I feel empty.

338
00:30:58,402 --> 00:31:00,283
I feel disconnected.

339
00:31:00,803 --> 00:31:05,085
But actually people are disconnected from their own selves.

340
00:31:05,085 --> 00:31:07,366
They don't feel themselves.

341
00:31:07,766 --> 00:31:17,150
If they felt absolutely connected to the source and they felt deathless in every moment,

342
00:31:17,452 --> 00:31:21,584
there would be nothing to feel sad about.

343
00:31:22,465 --> 00:31:31,089
so there is a thought that spiritual pursuit is about uh finding out how to find
happiness.

344
00:31:31,650 --> 00:31:37,773
But one thing in my life I've learned, I find I'm saying this a lot, is that I've actually
lost my interest in happiness.

345
00:31:37,854 --> 00:31:46,368
That I used to, I think I originally got into this to pursue happiness and

346
00:31:46,530 --> 00:31:55,102
That was a big interest of mine and I'm finding as I'm getting older that uh happiness is
less and less attractive to me.

347
00:31:55,562 --> 00:31:55,874
Why?

348
00:31:55,874 --> 00:31:58,323
Because it's just one note?

349
00:31:58,392 --> 00:31:59,112
Yeah, that's act.

350
00:31:59,112 --> 00:31:59,793
That's true.

351
00:31:59,793 --> 00:32:00,383
You've got it.

352
00:32:00,383 --> 00:32:01,273
You're very smart.

353
00:32:01,273 --> 00:32:02,984
That it's just one note.

354
00:32:03,164 --> 00:32:04,044
That's what it is.

355
00:32:04,044 --> 00:32:06,525
And it's a note everybody wants to hear.

356
00:32:06,806 --> 00:32:10,207
But uh at the end of the day, it's just a feeling.

357
00:32:10,267 --> 00:32:12,368
And being happy doesn't mean your enlightenment.

358
00:32:12,368 --> 00:32:13,178
Just is a mood.

359
00:32:13,178 --> 00:32:14,568
mean, happiness is a mood.

360
00:32:14,568 --> 00:32:18,870
It often is a reflection of mental and emotional health.

361
00:32:20,031 --> 00:32:22,342
Okay, but that is good.

362
00:32:22,342 --> 00:32:23,753
No, that is good.

363
00:32:23,753 --> 00:32:26,464
But that in and of itself.

364
00:32:26,464 --> 00:32:27,470
So in other words,

365
00:32:27,470 --> 00:32:40,704
If I'm happy, that's generally a sign that something's right, that there is uh some mental
and emotional health, which is good, but in and of itself, that doesn't mean that I have

366
00:32:40,704 --> 00:32:41,124
peace.

367
00:32:41,124 --> 00:32:44,035
Peace and happiness are not the same thing.

368
00:32:44,035 --> 00:32:53,417
I've also found that people mix up these feelings and use them interchangeably, but peace
and happiness are definitely not the same thing.

369
00:32:53,417 --> 00:32:55,775
In fact, you could be sad.

370
00:32:55,775 --> 00:32:59,239
and have peace and you can be happy and have no peace.

371
00:32:59,600 --> 00:33:01,393
They're not exactly the same.

372
00:33:01,393 --> 00:33:03,685
Happiness and sadness are moods.

373
00:33:03,887 --> 00:33:06,622
Having peace is not a mood.

374
00:33:06,711 --> 00:33:10,942
Mmm, it and peace maybe goes back to this connection that you're talking about.

375
00:33:10,942 --> 00:33:14,710
Whereas happiness is sort of like a trick that your mind can

376
00:33:14,710 --> 00:33:16,911
Happiness is very passing.

377
00:33:16,911 --> 00:33:28,046
Yeah, you can't you're not gonna be happy all the time Nor should you be having like, you
know If you find out that you know, your spouse just got hit by a car and you felt happy

378
00:33:28,046 --> 00:33:36,280
you there would be inappropriate Okay, and I've seen people do that and they thought that
they were spiritually spiritually evolved.

379
00:33:36,280 --> 00:33:39,841
I thought they were idiots uh You know, that's not so much.

380
00:33:39,841 --> 00:33:41,742
What's you know this I mean

381
00:33:42,280 --> 00:33:52,818
But you can have peace through all these different moods and the peace is that you're
comfortable with yourself and you're connected.

382
00:33:53,599 --> 00:33:57,402
So that's a little bit different way of looking at this.

383
00:33:57,426 --> 00:33:57,956
yeah.

384
00:33:57,956 --> 00:33:59,028
All right.

385
00:33:59,989 --> 00:34:00,710
all right.

386
00:34:00,710 --> 00:34:02,001
So you're born in Brooklyn.

387
00:34:02,001 --> 00:34:03,492
You are.

388
00:34:04,542 --> 00:34:07,283
Sorry, I'm known to get off on a tangent.

389
00:34:07,283 --> 00:34:08,685
no, that was beautiful.

390
00:34:08,685 --> 00:34:19,768
um I mean, when did you have a revelation that took you into this into seeing the
universal oneness or how did you even

391
00:34:19,768 --> 00:34:22,600
know what, I'll tell you something, I'll tell you some surprising, you know what?

392
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:24,161
You know when I had my revelation?

393
00:34:24,161 --> 00:34:28,142
I had my revelation when I was one year old in my crib.

394
00:34:28,823 --> 00:34:30,644
Yeah, yeah, and that's still with me.

395
00:34:30,644 --> 00:34:32,545
It was a very interesting experience.

396
00:34:32,545 --> 00:34:46,313
Of course, this is a problem that many of us suffer from is that often very early in age,
you will actually have an aha moment, but it is absolutely not supported on any level.

397
00:34:46,313 --> 00:34:48,896
And so you'll squash it.

398
00:34:48,896 --> 00:34:51,908
and you won't let it flow.

399
00:34:51,908 --> 00:35:03,954
oh You won't let it flourish because the message you're kind of given uh subtly or
directly is that you're crazy.

400
00:35:04,195 --> 00:35:11,159
But yet something happened when you were young that kind of gave many people this insight
into something very big.

401
00:35:11,159 --> 00:35:16,341
And then people are discouraged from running with that because it's not

402
00:35:17,846 --> 00:35:28,872
You know can't put in the bank you can you know so you know and and the people who don't
have that experience are very threatened by people who do So so from a very young age if

403
00:35:28,872 --> 00:35:38,348
you have this uh you're discouraged so in my case I remember this is very interesting
experience that scares the hell out of my mom when I share this with her because I give

404
00:35:38,348 --> 00:35:46,318
her all the details and and the details are correct and and and and go how could you have
known that

405
00:35:46,318 --> 00:35:51,778
So I'm one year old, I'm in a crib and there's a party in my grandfather's house.

406
00:35:51,778 --> 00:35:57,258
And you know, I was from a Jewish background and he was a very religious man.

407
00:35:57,678 --> 00:36:08,518
And you he wanted to fill in the whole, you know, he, he, he, he, but it's interesting is
that, the rest of the family was, I would call like a culturally Jewish.

408
00:36:08,518 --> 00:36:11,118
They, you know, they did, went to synagogue on Saturday.

409
00:36:11,118 --> 00:36:11,416
They,

410
00:36:11,416 --> 00:36:19,451
went to the high holidays, there's this, you know, the whole thing they had to filter fish
on Sundays, you know, whatever they self-identified with.

411
00:36:19,451 --> 00:36:32,428
But the truth of the matter is, is that in this entire extended family, there was only one
pious man, truly pious man, and that was my grandmother, my grandfather, on my mother's

412
00:36:32,428 --> 00:36:33,219
side.

413
00:36:33,219 --> 00:36:39,502
And I remember being in my crib, and this was probably the first memory I ever had of

414
00:36:39,630 --> 00:36:49,510
a spiritual life is that I remember being very young and being in a very crowded room with
many older people.

415
00:36:49,850 --> 00:36:53,130
And I even can picture this even as I'm talking to you.

416
00:36:53,130 --> 00:37:01,170
And in that room amongst all these people was one person who was like, he was like from
another planet.

417
00:37:01,170 --> 00:37:03,570
He was not like anyone else in the room.

418
00:37:04,070 --> 00:37:07,450
And my attention got drawn to him.

419
00:37:08,238 --> 00:37:09,578
And it was like a tunnel.

420
00:37:09,578 --> 00:37:20,258
It was like a tunnel vision where it's like all these people were just like wallpaper and
everything kind of just went a tunnel onto this very simple person.

421
00:37:20,438 --> 00:37:28,378
And I looked at him and he looked at me with his eyes and all of a sudden the whole
universe opened up.

422
00:37:29,078 --> 00:37:34,638
And of course I had no context or reference point for this at this age.

423
00:37:34,638 --> 00:37:35,958
Of course not.

424
00:37:35,958 --> 00:37:37,526
And I couldn't even have an

425
00:37:37,526 --> 00:37:47,495
intellectual context, all that I know is that something happened to me that actually kept
with me till being an adult.

426
00:37:47,495 --> 00:37:49,016
Makes no sense.

427
00:37:49,277 --> 00:38:01,107
And so I think during my uh childhood and my upbringing, I had a little affinity for the
synagogue, but it was also dissonant to me because there was something, the only thing

428
00:38:01,107 --> 00:38:04,820
that was interesting to me in the synagogue is I went to Hebrew school.

429
00:38:04,846 --> 00:38:08,426
I was brought up that culturally religious Jewish guy.

430
00:38:08,426 --> 00:38:13,046
know, my father insists that I go to synagogue, but God was never actually spoken in our
house.

431
00:38:13,046 --> 00:38:14,306
It was very odd.

432
00:38:14,746 --> 00:38:18,006
You know, go to synagogue every Saturday, you never heard the word God.

433
00:38:18,526 --> 00:38:22,966
And nobody was really kind of connected on that to any level.

434
00:38:23,166 --> 00:38:29,526
But the one interest, the thing that grabbed my attention in the synagogue was the Torah,
the holy book.

435
00:38:29,526 --> 00:38:32,928
Nothing else actually kind of was that interesting to me.

436
00:38:32,928 --> 00:38:39,462
And I really noticed being there that um nobody else seemed to be that interested in that.

437
00:38:39,983 --> 00:38:43,425
And that seemed to be the only reason to be there.

438
00:38:43,425 --> 00:38:45,506
so I got...

439
00:38:47,068 --> 00:38:52,792
There was a part of me that was attracted to it, but I just didn't feel that place was for
me.

440
00:38:52,792 --> 00:38:55,553
And there was nothing that I heard there.

441
00:38:55,574 --> 00:39:01,908
There was no person who I met there that actually um was feeding me.

442
00:39:02,026 --> 00:39:04,015
what I needed, but I didn't even know what I needed.

443
00:39:04,015 --> 00:39:07,694
But I knew that whatever I needed wasn't on that plate for me, at least right then.

444
00:39:07,694 --> 00:39:19,796
um So, okay, when you say that you saw this man with the tunnel vision in your crib and
the universe opened up, what are you talking about?

445
00:39:20,526 --> 00:39:26,319
Well again, it's kind of unfair because I'm not sure that there words for that experience,
I would say this.

446
00:39:26,319 --> 00:39:31,192
Yeah, even especially since we're on a radio show here.

447
00:39:31,192 --> 00:39:41,638
So at the age of one, okay, or younger, I experienced something that

448
00:39:43,404 --> 00:40:02,910
visually was like pure light and it felt like somebody took my rib cage and just just
totally opened it up so even not being sophisticated on any level at that age on any level

449
00:40:05,102 --> 00:40:12,182
it would be like, you know, if you're one year old and you you're in a car accident or
something, I mean, it's shocking, but shocking in a good way.

450
00:40:12,182 --> 00:40:19,182
It was something that was so, so shocking that it stayed with me.

451
00:40:19,582 --> 00:40:23,202
But it wasn't shocking in a a a traumatic way.

452
00:40:23,202 --> 00:40:29,702
was shocking in a in a way that it was difficult to live my life.

453
00:40:30,182 --> 00:40:32,160
Because even

454
00:40:32,160 --> 00:40:36,361
Even at a young age, if you have an experience like that, what is equal to that?

455
00:40:36,361 --> 00:40:37,192
Nothing.

456
00:40:38,080 --> 00:40:43,150
Whoa, so you were like trying to get a fix when you were like one and a half?

457
00:40:43,150 --> 00:40:44,341
ah I think so.

458
00:40:44,341 --> 00:40:53,829
Yeah, I do I do but I mean again you're you're talking about something that's very you
know, it's very unsophisticated You know, I mean you're not so fit you you have an

459
00:40:53,829 --> 00:41:03,616
experience and There's a sense of knowing you know, it's like, know, it's like a cat,
know, the even cat nips They get high the cat's not like super intelligent.

460
00:41:03,616 --> 00:41:09,531
It's not gonna go to you know Harvard Business School But it knows that if I have this
thing, you know that felt very good.

461
00:41:09,531 --> 00:41:13,174
So something happened to me that made me feel

462
00:41:13,516 --> 00:41:21,650
more than very good and I think I spent a good part of my life unconsciously trying to
replicate that.

463
00:41:22,510 --> 00:41:23,630
Okay.

464
00:41:23,690 --> 00:41:32,290
I mean, I think that a lot of people can probably relate to having experiences like that
when they were children.

465
00:41:32,290 --> 00:41:34,150
And that's something I'm interested in.

466
00:41:34,150 --> 00:41:39,190
I think, well, I think we'll get around to that.

467
00:41:39,190 --> 00:41:41,210
If not now, then in the future.

468
00:41:41,210 --> 00:41:45,950
But after this experience, I mean, you're chasing it.

469
00:41:46,170 --> 00:41:49,312
When's the next time you have an out of body experience?

470
00:41:49,312 --> 00:42:03,205
Well, I think what happened to me, which again, I think this happens to a lot of people,
especially in retrospect, is that as I'm developing as a person, now I'm a teenager and

471
00:42:03,205 --> 00:42:06,890
I'm going to college and

472
00:42:08,618 --> 00:42:12,560
What I really want deep down and I had a taste of it.

473
00:42:12,560 --> 00:42:22,405
So it's kind of in my DNA is really what I want is I want to feel whole and I don't feel
whole.

474
00:42:22,546 --> 00:42:29,890
So I start doing all the things that people do in an attempt to be whole.

475
00:42:29,890 --> 00:42:33,132
And that is I'm looking for recognition.

476
00:42:33,192 --> 00:42:34,733
I'm looking to get drunk.

477
00:42:34,733 --> 00:42:36,174
I'm looking to get laid.

478
00:42:36,174 --> 00:42:37,282
I'm looking

479
00:42:37,282 --> 00:42:44,646
to do all the things that I think are going to uh give me this sense of completion, this
sense of happiness.

480
00:42:44,646 --> 00:42:50,600
uh Of course, my strategy is awful and I have no idea what I'm doing.

481
00:42:50,600 --> 00:42:57,053
And in fact, not only am I not getting more whole, I'm getting fooled.

482
00:42:57,334 --> 00:42:59,795
I'm getting fooled because I have glimpses of it.

483
00:42:59,795 --> 00:43:05,006
you know, so I get laid, so I get like a little glimpse of it or...

484
00:43:05,006 --> 00:43:09,246
you know, I get high, I start using drugs and I get a glimpse of it.

485
00:43:09,246 --> 00:43:13,406
But actually that makes my life more frustrating because I can't sustain that.

486
00:43:13,826 --> 00:43:24,606
so this is again, later in life has brought me much compassion because I tend less to see
people as being good and bad people as I see them actually all wanting the same thing and

487
00:43:24,606 --> 00:43:30,126
having good or bad strategies on how to get it because we're people and we all want
something.

488
00:43:30,126 --> 00:43:34,958
And, and so it's understandable why somebody would

489
00:43:34,958 --> 00:43:45,138
engage in behavior that's self-destructive because they're actually engaging it sometimes
with the thought that it's actually going to bring them closer to this little experience

490
00:43:45,138 --> 00:43:50,338
or get a glimpse of it, but they can't sustain it and it eventually destroys them.

491
00:43:50,838 --> 00:44:01,592
So I think like a lot of people, when I was a young man, started getting involved in what
I say is in the end, a lot of self-destructive behavior.

492
00:44:01,592 --> 00:44:12,430
But I think my motivation in all those cases was that I involved myself because I thought
that this would give me a taste of the infinity.

493
00:44:12,430 --> 00:44:13,770
So what were you doing?

494
00:44:13,770 --> 00:44:18,910
Were you just I mean normal kids stuff sleeping around smoking pot drinking?

495
00:44:18,910 --> 00:44:23,270
Yeah, and No, but it was making you unhappy

496
00:44:24,602 --> 00:44:25,933
I don't think it's that simple.

497
00:44:25,933 --> 00:44:32,027
think that there were moments that it made me very happy and that's where you get fooled.

498
00:44:32,028 --> 00:44:36,131
If it was totally unhappy, nobody would actually engage in any of behavior.

499
00:44:36,131 --> 00:44:40,954
They engage in the behavior because it gives you fleeting moments of feeling full.

500
00:44:41,655 --> 00:44:44,636
And so you're grabbing at what you can grab at.

501
00:44:44,877 --> 00:44:49,931
so I didn't say it made That did not make me unhappy.

502
00:44:49,931 --> 00:44:51,872
What I think

503
00:44:51,872 --> 00:45:01,371
I realized somewhere along the line was that the strategy is not working out, that it
can't sustain itself and that eventually it will destroy me.

504
00:45:01,371 --> 00:45:02,152
Got it.

505
00:45:02,152 --> 00:45:05,094
And I saw that at a very young age actually.

506
00:45:05,224 --> 00:45:06,978
Mmm, like how old?

507
00:45:06,978 --> 00:45:12,082
Well, I think the first glimpse I got at this actually, because it's not like a one...

508
00:45:12,278 --> 00:45:15,646
I mean, there's a number of events that happen in your life.

509
00:45:15,646 --> 00:45:19,309
I think a very big event that happened in my life was when I was...

510
00:45:19,309 --> 00:45:22,362
uh Actually, it's funny how these things are connected.

511
00:45:22,362 --> 00:45:23,833
I was going to the University of Maryland.

512
00:45:23,833 --> 00:45:25,534
I was 19 years old.

513
00:45:26,255 --> 00:45:28,097
Back then, this was before the whole computer thing.

514
00:45:28,097 --> 00:45:34,242
We used to have to register for courses, you know, in person with a pencil, you know, and
to show up and wait With a pencil!

515
00:45:34,242 --> 00:45:36,464
Yeah, wait in line and actually sign up.

516
00:45:36,464 --> 00:45:44,409
And so, you we had these prerequisites and all this, but as often was the case, you know,
I was a ball player, I was a rugby player.

517
00:45:44,469 --> 00:45:49,827
played the game and then we went out drinking and I got hung over and I didn't get over.

518
00:45:49,827 --> 00:45:53,876
I actually, I was so hung over that I missed my time to register.

519
00:45:53,876 --> 00:46:02,926
So I landed up walking, but actually it was a fun kind of fortuitous moment in my life
because because I was hung over and I missed the courses I would have signed up for, I

520
00:46:02,926 --> 00:46:07,866
I had to take the only course that was left, which I had no interest in.

521
00:46:07,866 --> 00:46:10,946
was called a philosophy of Eastern religion.

522
00:46:11,126 --> 00:46:20,446
And I only took it because I needed a philosophy course and I took whatever was left
because I needed to graduate or to move ahead.

523
00:46:20,466 --> 00:46:26,506
And I ended up taking this course and I almost dropped out of it, but fortunately I stuck
with it.

524
00:46:26,506 --> 00:46:30,182
And what this course did, the age of 19 is it

525
00:46:30,463 --> 00:46:41,352
all these this new thinking in front of me that I had never ever been exposed to and that
was you know the teachings of the Buddha and the Bhagavad-gita and the Upanishads and etc

526
00:46:41,352 --> 00:46:53,092
etc all this like Eastern thought and it was the first time in my life that I ever like
read stuff and couldn't sleep at night I kept me up all night because I go my god you know

527
00:46:53,092 --> 00:46:58,426
this is actually how I see things I actually see the world like this

528
00:46:58,478 --> 00:47:02,618
And this is the first time this was actually ever validated to me.

529
00:47:02,658 --> 00:47:07,918
And so I found myself thinking about this all the time.

530
00:47:07,938 --> 00:47:12,178
And I think that gave me the first motivation.

531
00:47:12,238 --> 00:47:19,998
had that, that this was actually of all the things I did in my life, that this was going
to be the most important thing in my life.

532
00:47:19,998 --> 00:47:23,558
And the most important thing in my life was to actually find out why I was here.

533
00:47:23,558 --> 00:47:27,616
And so that was at 19, I decided that that was the most

534
00:47:27,616 --> 00:47:32,147
important job ahead of my life is to actually find out why I was put here.

535
00:47:32,167 --> 00:47:33,238
And that's a lot.

536
00:47:33,238 --> 00:47:35,628
And at the time, you know, I'm very politically involved.

537
00:47:35,628 --> 00:47:37,289
I was in the anti-war movement.

538
00:47:37,289 --> 00:47:39,279
I was around very philosophical people.

539
00:47:39,279 --> 00:47:40,320
I also was a jock.

540
00:47:40,320 --> 00:47:41,590
I was a ballplayer.

541
00:47:41,590 --> 00:47:43,080
And so I had all these little things.

542
00:47:43,080 --> 00:47:47,592
And now I had this other thing where I was into this and I was kind of on the side.

543
00:47:47,592 --> 00:47:56,684
that actually got me, oddly enough, kind of got me interested in psychedelic drugs.

544
00:47:57,378 --> 00:48:03,984
Now again, not a great strategy necessarily, but that intrigued me.

545
00:48:03,984 --> 00:48:14,151
It's kind of a shortcut because I'm reading about these other worldly experiences that
people have had through history and I want to have these too.

546
00:48:14,352 --> 00:48:18,445
But obviously I don't have the self-discipline where I'm going to sit down in there and
meditate for 10 years.

547
00:48:18,445 --> 00:48:24,780
So think maybe I'm going to get this in a pill or in a joint or in a hit of acid.

548
00:48:26,816 --> 00:48:35,458
Eastern philosophy actually got me interested in maybe I should be playing around with uh
acid and mescaline.

549
00:48:35,458 --> 00:48:38,862
So I started experimenting with psychedelics.

550
00:48:39,374 --> 00:48:40,455
What'd take?

551
00:48:41,498 --> 00:48:52,147
Whatever was in that day, mean mushrooms and mescaline and LSD and you know, I mean very,
very strong stuff.

552
00:48:52,588 --> 00:49:02,836
I wasn't that although I was a party guy, wasn't that interested in alcohol and things
like that because that to me was just kind of a downer.

553
00:49:02,836 --> 00:49:05,006
was more interested in mind expansion.

554
00:49:05,006 --> 00:49:05,873
Mm-hmm.

555
00:49:05,908 --> 00:49:08,779
And to me alcohol had nothing to do with mind expansion.

556
00:49:08,779 --> 00:49:10,200
That was LSD.

557
00:49:10,200 --> 00:49:14,581
And then I started hanging around people like that.

558
00:49:14,702 --> 00:49:22,555
And so I kind of saw that as my early on interest in what I thought uh spirituality was.

559
00:49:22,555 --> 00:49:27,567
And of course later on in life I realized that was ridiculous.

560
00:49:27,567 --> 00:49:28,638
early on I did.

561
00:49:28,638 --> 00:49:34,310
I thought this would open my eyes spiritually.

562
00:49:35,438 --> 00:49:40,681
Again, I learned later that that's not true, but that was where my interest is.

563
00:49:41,042 --> 00:49:46,666
This led me into uh other things.

564
00:49:46,666 --> 00:49:56,513
I think the next interesting thing that happened to me is I actually fell in love with a
very unpsychedelic kind of girl.

565
00:49:56,513 --> 00:50:03,126
uh I was going to get married and she um dumped me.

566
00:50:03,126 --> 00:50:06,968
And that, I never had experienced like heartbreak like that before.

567
00:50:07,029 --> 00:50:09,731
And I thought I was spiritually developed.

568
00:50:09,731 --> 00:50:11,963
Actually, I wasn't spiritually developed at all.

569
00:50:11,963 --> 00:50:17,657
I mean, it's like I was really kind of deluding myself, but I wasn't developed at all.

570
00:50:17,657 --> 00:50:21,119
And I was unprepared for that kind of disappointment.

571
00:50:21,119 --> 00:50:23,461
And at first I even got more self-destructive.

572
00:50:23,461 --> 00:50:30,636
That caused me to drink and do more drugs and to sleep around even more to kind of cover
that pain.

573
00:50:30,732 --> 00:50:40,151
And again, I think later in life that really helped me to be very compassionate about what
motivates people's behavior and through that myself.

574
00:50:40,151 --> 00:50:51,371
then, ah but after kind of like the pain wore off in that I kind of remembered, you know,
a couple of years ago I was really studying Eastern religion, these teachings, and I think

575
00:50:51,371 --> 00:50:54,805
that that's of more interest to me.

576
00:50:54,805 --> 00:50:56,876
And I started kind of getting

577
00:50:57,306 --> 00:50:59,587
And then I was in law school already at this time.

578
00:50:59,587 --> 00:51:08,773
So now I'm in my early 20s and I'm in law school and I kind of was away from this Eastern
philosophy and now I'm in the second, third year in law school.

579
00:51:09,734 --> 00:51:12,575
And I'm like, what the hell am I doing here?

580
00:51:12,575 --> 00:51:14,637
I mean, I'm like in law school, what the hell am I doing?

581
00:51:14,637 --> 00:51:22,001
I mean, I'm among people who all they care about was just get a job on Wall Street and
whatever life that I was.

582
00:51:22,001 --> 00:51:23,870
uh

583
00:51:23,870 --> 00:51:27,672
asked to participate that was not my life, that was somebody else's life.

584
00:51:27,672 --> 00:51:29,132
I never wanted to be there.

585
00:51:29,132 --> 00:51:30,033
I mean, what am I doing?

586
00:51:30,033 --> 00:51:31,021
I'm somebody else's life.

587
00:51:31,021 --> 00:51:32,734
This is not important to me.

588
00:51:33,050 --> 00:51:37,686
And I found my mind kind of wandering because I said, you know what?

589
00:51:37,686 --> 00:51:41,017
I'm being really put a life at hell here.

590
00:51:41,017 --> 00:51:43,308
I'm living somebody else's idea of what a good life is.

591
00:51:43,308 --> 00:51:45,519
This is not very important to me.

592
00:51:45,519 --> 00:51:51,918
So even though I got through law school, I found I spending a lot of my spare time um

593
00:51:51,918 --> 00:51:53,138
starting to do yoga.

594
00:51:53,138 --> 00:51:59,178
So I was doing yoga and meditation back, you know, like in the early seventies, mid
seventies.

595
00:51:59,178 --> 00:52:00,438
Now it's very popular.

596
00:52:00,438 --> 00:52:05,758
Back then, nobody was doing this and, and, all these famous teachers were coming from the
East.

597
00:52:05,758 --> 00:52:08,358
So I'd start going to the lectures at town hall.

598
00:52:08,358 --> 00:52:09,938
I'd start reading books.

599
00:52:09,938 --> 00:52:15,718
This was very, very interesting to me watching on TV and following along.

600
00:52:15,718 --> 00:52:19,278
And, and, uh, so, you know, everybody's thinking I'm a little crazy.

601
00:52:19,278 --> 00:52:20,622
I'm like, you know, I'm

602
00:52:20,622 --> 00:52:24,102
23, 24 and I'm reading about these things.

603
00:52:24,742 --> 00:52:28,842
So then I think I had shared this once before with you.

604
00:52:28,842 --> 00:52:40,642
was walking down, I don't know if I shared the story, but was walking down 57th Street in
New York one day and it was one of these things where your head is turning one direction

605
00:52:40,642 --> 00:52:46,942
instead of the other and you don't realize because your neck is like swiveled 30 degrees
to the left, you have one kind of life.

606
00:52:46,982 --> 00:52:50,350
If your neck was in the other direction, you'd have another type of life.

607
00:52:50,350 --> 00:52:58,050
So my neck was turned 30 degrees to the left as I was walking past a bookstore and this
book caught my eye.

608
00:52:58,590 --> 00:53:01,630
And that kind of set me in a whole other direction of my life.

609
00:53:01,630 --> 00:53:07,970
There was a book, was called Kundalini, The Evolutionary Energy in Mankind.

610
00:53:07,970 --> 00:53:09,350
I that's interesting.

611
00:53:09,350 --> 00:53:11,530
And I walk into the store.

612
00:53:11,930 --> 00:53:14,710
I'm going, okay, I started flipping through the book.

613
00:53:14,710 --> 00:53:20,364
It was written by a man named Gopi Krishna and he was just talking about his personal
experiences with

614
00:53:20,364 --> 00:53:25,557
having this Kundalini energy uh opened up in his being.

615
00:53:25,637 --> 00:53:30,680
And I started reading the book, I'm like, my God, it sounds like the guy's on an LSD trip,
but he's not taking LSD.

616
00:53:30,680 --> 00:53:35,653
The guy's actually sober, and this is describing very much what it felt like to be on LSD.

617
00:53:35,653 --> 00:53:37,564
I'm going, what the hell is that?

618
00:53:37,564 --> 00:53:40,105
So I kind of picked my interest.

619
00:53:41,186 --> 00:53:42,607
Yeah, picked my interest.

620
00:53:42,607 --> 00:53:44,088
I never had read anything like this.

621
00:53:44,088 --> 00:53:47,950
So the next day I look in the Yellow Pages and I look up,

622
00:53:47,950 --> 00:53:54,030
Kundalini just for the hell of it and sure enough there's a place in Brooklyn that's
teaching Kundalini yoga.

623
00:53:54,030 --> 00:54:05,350
Of course I have no idea what this is and I thought it had to do with him which of course
it didn't but I land up going there and just inquiring because I never saw that word

624
00:54:05,350 --> 00:54:09,350
before and they had an ashram there back then they had ashrams.

625
00:54:09,350 --> 00:54:16,678
It was like a cooperative community, families and children all living in the same place
and they

626
00:54:16,748 --> 00:54:23,717
I knocked on the door and somebody opens the door and the guy's got like, all wearing all
white and a turban and a beard.

627
00:54:23,717 --> 00:54:26,160
And I'm like, whoa, what the hell is this?

628
00:54:26,160 --> 00:54:26,891
You know?

629
00:54:26,891 --> 00:54:28,673
my God, the guy, come on in.

630
00:54:28,673 --> 00:54:29,835
We're having a class.

631
00:54:29,835 --> 00:54:32,928
We're having a class in Kundalini Yoga.

632
00:54:33,781 --> 00:54:35,406
Alright, so I go in.

633
00:54:35,406 --> 00:54:41,886
I do this class and I was very uncomfortable and very nervous.

634
00:54:41,886 --> 00:54:44,526
I'm like, who are these people and what am I doing here?

635
00:54:44,526 --> 00:54:45,686
Is this a cult?

636
00:54:45,686 --> 00:54:48,426
I mean, how the hell did I get here?

637
00:54:48,426 --> 00:54:55,886
But I, and all at the same time, I had already been doing meditations and yoga and all
this for a couple of years now.

638
00:54:55,886 --> 00:54:58,006
And I come in, I do this class.

639
00:54:58,006 --> 00:55:03,310
I have no idea what I walked into, but by the end of the class, I'm like high as a kite.

640
00:55:03,310 --> 00:55:05,310
I'm like super, super high.

641
00:55:05,310 --> 00:55:07,790
mean, just like tripping.

642
00:55:07,790 --> 00:55:08,010
Yeah.

643
00:55:08,010 --> 00:55:10,290
I was like tripping, but without acid.

644
00:55:10,510 --> 00:55:12,010
I'm like super, super high.

645
00:55:12,010 --> 00:55:13,610
I'm like, what the hell is this?

646
00:55:13,790 --> 00:55:22,230
And I, uh, I've stayed with a friend's place apartment in the neighborhood and I go over,
I said, Hey, you know, this is amazing.

647
00:55:22,230 --> 00:55:25,610
And I got a little manual and I said, Hey, you know, I taught my friend.

648
00:55:25,610 --> 00:55:28,140
said, I did this class that I'm going to give you this class.

649
00:55:28,140 --> 00:55:30,910
And these people, get up like four o'clock in the morning, every morning.

650
00:55:30,910 --> 00:55:33,530
They get up four o'clock and they do this yoga meditation.

651
00:55:33,530 --> 00:55:34,382
I'm gonna do that.

652
00:55:34,382 --> 00:55:36,813
I'm gonna get up tomorrow four o'clock in the morning.

653
00:55:37,133 --> 00:55:41,174
And which I did, and I did that every day for probably the next 15 years.

654
00:55:41,814 --> 00:55:46,126
And so I was on my way and I didn't really realize that.

655
00:55:46,126 --> 00:55:54,158
But of all the things that I practiced, and again this gets back to what we were talking
about before, is that

656
00:55:55,534 --> 00:56:00,967
I really, my goal at this point in my life was very different than most of my friends.

657
00:56:00,967 --> 00:56:11,981
My goal in my life was again to experience the heavens and to actually understand the
purpose of life.

658
00:56:12,062 --> 00:56:14,983
Most of my friends were just wanting to find a job.

659
00:56:14,983 --> 00:56:21,902
I actually wanted to know what the purpose of life was and I felt actually everything I do
in school was a bummer because

660
00:56:21,902 --> 00:56:32,002
It really at that point in my life I didn't see where the whole thing fit in and I just
wanted to know why Why would I even be on this planet and and all of a sudden I took this

661
00:56:32,002 --> 00:56:42,602
class and now I'm doing this every day and I'm getting Incredible experience of myself
that I I never had really experienced before and I'm doing you know what I I think I'm

662
00:56:42,602 --> 00:56:48,302
actually I I got I'm on the I'm on the I go ahead and say like the dog you're on the trail
I'm on the trail here.

663
00:56:48,302 --> 00:56:49,806
I got I got a scent

664
00:56:49,806 --> 00:56:54,246
I got a scent, actually on the trail here and I got to keep going.

665
00:56:54,766 --> 00:57:01,506
But I was really scared because I shit, this is going to really complicate my life here
because I got a very normal life.

666
00:57:01,506 --> 00:57:04,286
I'm going to law school, I got a girlfriend, I got a family.

667
00:57:04,286 --> 00:57:09,506
And now I'm hanging out with these people with turbans and beards and dripping.

668
00:57:09,506 --> 00:57:10,826
And that's how I felt.

669
00:57:10,826 --> 00:57:14,826
I I was high all of the time.

670
00:57:14,826 --> 00:57:16,566
All the time.

671
00:57:17,686 --> 00:57:21,088
And then I saw I was like between two different worlds here for a while.

672
00:57:21,088 --> 00:57:30,804
And then I started desperately trying to find another way to do this because I'm thinking,
you know, if I actually continue on this path, it's going to make my life very, very

673
00:57:30,804 --> 00:57:31,500
complicated.

674
00:57:31,500 --> 00:57:34,030
You're like a closeted, enlightened guy.

675
00:57:34,030 --> 00:57:42,010
Well, I would hardly call myself enlightened, but but I was I think a closeted aspirant.

676
00:57:42,010 --> 00:57:44,210
I was somebody who aspired.

677
00:57:44,210 --> 00:57:57,970
I was somebody who aspired to live the spiritual life, but that was not going to be
socially acceptable or desirable in any of the circles that I was in, except for this

678
00:57:57,970 --> 00:57:58,870
secret world.

679
00:57:58,870 --> 00:58:01,030
So I was living in like a secret world.

680
00:58:01,030 --> 00:58:02,490
I'd go to law school by

681
00:58:02,490 --> 00:58:14,073
And at night I'd be hanging out with these people with turbans and beards meditating, you
know, so I had this like double life and and and I still hadn't given up my life of going

682
00:58:14,073 --> 00:58:17,734
out and partying and have girlfriends So I almost had three lives.

683
00:58:17,734 --> 00:58:19,315
So this was yeah.

684
00:58:19,315 --> 00:58:23,536
Well, I was I was able to put all this together Of course, you can't do that forever.

685
00:58:23,536 --> 00:58:31,168
But for a while I did and I think for the next couple years I tried to negotiate Doing
that

686
00:58:31,630 --> 00:58:43,250
And then also I was frantically trying to find the same experience in something closer to
the tradition I was born into because I knew that, I mean this would make my life very,

687
00:58:43,250 --> 00:58:47,050
very complicated and I was trying to do this on my own terms.

688
00:58:47,130 --> 00:58:50,890
But I never was able to quite do it on my own terms.

689
00:58:50,890 --> 00:58:56,650
It just didn't work out and it was almost like I was meant to be there.

690
00:58:56,990 --> 00:59:00,215
A year later I actually met the man

691
00:59:00,215 --> 00:59:01,089
who

692
00:59:01,580 --> 00:59:04,011
was to be my spiritual teacher.

693
00:59:04,652 --> 00:59:05,802
I was practicing this.

694
00:59:05,802 --> 00:59:11,555
This is what he had brought from India, but I actually didn't meet him for a year and I
was kind of scared about doing that.

695
00:59:11,555 --> 00:59:14,616
But about a year later I met him for the first time.

696
00:59:14,777 --> 00:59:18,659
Telling somebody this the other day, actually on a blind date of all things.

697
00:59:18,659 --> 00:59:19,919
Yeah, I actually brought a bunch.

698
00:59:19,919 --> 00:59:24,301
He was teaching a course, actually brought a blind date to the, my God, I think back on
that.

699
00:59:24,301 --> 00:59:25,542
It's too funny.

700
00:59:25,600 --> 00:59:27,551
I mean, she was in shock.

701
00:59:27,551 --> 00:59:32,195
mean, it's not where you bring a blind date.

702
00:59:32,195 --> 00:59:39,779
But he was there and that he walked into the room and my life was about to change.

703
00:59:40,240 --> 00:59:42,601
And it changed very, very fast.

704
00:59:42,962 --> 00:59:53,088
And I didn't, his man named Yogi Budgen and uh I immediately I didn't like him and
anything did not like him at all.

705
00:59:53,269 --> 00:59:55,028
and uh

706
00:59:55,028 --> 01:00:02,082
And I didn't understand most of what he was talking about and the little I understood I
totally disagreed with.

707
01:00:02,663 --> 01:00:16,120
And so I'm feeling very put off by him but I found the most disturbing thing was even as
I'm saying to myself, I really don't like this guy, I don't agree with anything he's

708
01:00:16,120 --> 01:00:22,830
saying, I'm also saying to myself, whatever this guy's eating for breakfast, that's what I
need to be eating for breakfast because

709
01:00:22,830 --> 01:00:30,450
And I scared myself because here's somebody who my initial reaction, him is very, I'm very
intimidated.

710
01:00:30,450 --> 01:00:32,290
I'm very put off by him.

711
01:00:32,290 --> 01:00:38,330
And at the same time I'm saying to myself, that is the first man I ever met in my life.

712
01:00:38,330 --> 01:00:39,770
He's walking the talk.

713
01:00:39,770 --> 01:00:41,250
That's the real thing.

714
01:00:41,250 --> 01:00:42,430
That's the real thing.

715
01:00:42,430 --> 01:00:45,950
And what I want in my life is I want to be like him.

716
01:00:46,090 --> 01:00:50,910
Even as I'm saying to myself, I gotta get away from this guy.

717
01:00:50,970 --> 01:00:52,710
I'm saying to myself,

718
01:00:53,614 --> 01:00:54,414
That's who I want to be.

719
01:00:54,414 --> 01:00:55,874
I want to be like him.

720
01:00:56,274 --> 01:01:01,994
And I think that from that moment, that's really what I've devoted my life to be.

721
01:01:01,994 --> 01:01:06,594
My life is to be not him, but to be that type of person.

722
01:01:06,594 --> 01:01:12,014
So that was like a defining moment in my life when I met him in person for the first time.

723
01:01:12,014 --> 01:01:17,414
I think that was the first time, even though I was going to school, I went to law school,
I did all these things.

724
01:01:17,414 --> 01:01:22,374
I think this was, was 25 when I met him.

725
01:01:22,772 --> 01:01:25,349
and I guess maybe just turning 26.

726
01:01:25,349 --> 01:01:32,485
And that was the first time in my life that I said to myself, that's what I want for my
life.

727
01:01:32,949 --> 01:01:34,531
What was it about him?

728
01:01:35,598 --> 01:01:37,758
Boy, also tough to put in words.

729
01:01:38,478 --> 01:01:50,158
I think what I liked about him was that he had all the qualities that I admired.

730
01:01:50,158 --> 01:01:55,258
That he seemed like somebody who was very comfortable in his skin.

731
01:01:55,258 --> 01:02:01,038
He seemed like somebody who was wise beyond words.

732
01:02:01,118 --> 01:02:03,526
And he seemed to have...

733
01:02:03,626 --> 01:02:11,211
on inner strength and self-confidence that I had actually never seen in my life and have
yet to see.

734
01:02:11,452 --> 01:02:15,114
Being in his presence, found to be very empowering.

735
01:02:15,114 --> 01:02:22,339
ah That's somebody who is fearless.

736
01:02:22,339 --> 01:02:26,581
That's somebody who is not afraid to speak the truth.

737
01:02:26,582 --> 01:02:32,285
That's somebody who would give their life to just do what's right.

738
01:02:32,842 --> 01:02:42,010
So he kind of encompassed all the things that deep down that I held dear, but was getting
no support for.

739
01:02:42,131 --> 01:02:43,432
And I'm going, you know what?

740
01:02:43,432 --> 01:02:45,203
I said something to myself back then.

741
01:02:45,203 --> 01:02:45,984
It was like crazy.

742
01:02:45,984 --> 01:02:49,737
I mean, he was such an impressive guy, such an impressive guy.

743
01:02:49,838 --> 01:02:52,810
But I said to myself, you know, I got two arms and two legs.

744
01:02:52,810 --> 01:02:54,441
If he did it, I can do that.

745
01:02:54,882 --> 01:02:58,365
And I said, it's not going to be easy, but if he did it, I can do that.

746
01:02:58,365 --> 01:02:59,310
And so

747
01:02:59,310 --> 01:03:00,670
That's what I'm going do with my life.

748
01:03:00,670 --> 01:03:03,310
I'm going to live my life like he lives his life.

749
01:03:03,350 --> 01:03:08,590
And so I didn't know it, but that kind of really started me down this whole road.

750
01:03:08,590 --> 01:03:14,790
then, you know, it still was a while before I can really wrap my head around where I was
going.

751
01:03:15,450 --> 01:03:21,430
But within a couple of years, I actually took on his, he was a Sikh himself.

752
01:03:21,430 --> 01:03:22,870
It was his religion.

753
01:03:22,870 --> 01:03:26,590
He came to the United States really to teach yoga and meditation.

754
01:03:26,776 --> 01:03:30,389
help people better their lives wherever they were at.

755
01:03:30,530 --> 01:03:36,875
I got taken in enough that I decided that I was actually gonna do with my life.

756
01:03:37,056 --> 01:03:42,421
I just wanted to be like him, so I just took on what he was doing even though I didn't
know what the hell I was doing.

757
01:03:43,683 --> 01:03:47,346
Just, yeah, just said, he's walking, I'm just gonna walk right behind him.

758
01:03:47,448 --> 01:03:48,258
Hmm.

759
01:03:48,720 --> 01:03:54,720
I mean, do you think that that happens to people where they just sort of get compelled to
do something?

760
01:03:54,720 --> 01:03:57,593
They don't really know why, but they just keep doing it?

761
01:03:57,790 --> 01:04:02,311
I've really come to feel that that's actually the best reason.

762
01:04:03,352 --> 01:04:06,292
Well, you know, if it...

763
01:04:07,293 --> 01:04:08,293
How do I put this?

764
01:04:08,293 --> 01:04:13,314
If you're to walk into the unknown, it infers that you don't know right now anyhow.

765
01:04:13,314 --> 01:04:16,175
If you knew it, wouldn't be called the unknown.

766
01:04:16,616 --> 01:04:25,758
I think this was also uh part of my walk into becoming, really trusting my intuition.

767
01:04:26,040 --> 01:04:29,272
that I wasn't really raised to trust my intuition.

768
01:04:29,272 --> 01:04:32,675
I was raised to believe in what my head was telling me.

769
01:04:32,675 --> 01:04:38,018
But as I learned along the way is that if you do that, you become very confused.

770
01:04:38,419 --> 01:04:41,742
And many of the answers are really not between your ears anyhow.

771
01:04:41,742 --> 01:04:43,063
I'm not discounting it.

772
01:04:43,063 --> 01:04:53,430
I mean, there are things that are important that are between your ears, but most of the
important decisions in life are made in your heart, not in your head.

773
01:04:53,742 --> 01:05:06,323
And so I, and I'm not even talking about emotional, I'm just talking in your, just trust
yourself that you're, there's a voice inside of you that most people are disconnected from

774
01:05:06,323 --> 01:05:11,096
and I was because you're just listening so hard to what's going on between your ears.

775
01:05:11,997 --> 01:05:19,803
And I think what happened back then was a very strong thing for me is that everything in
my head was telling me no.

776
01:05:20,785 --> 01:05:22,956
And it was screaming at me no.

777
01:05:23,394 --> 01:05:27,999
But there was a of me that was very peaceful part of me that's going, know, this is it.

778
01:05:27,999 --> 01:05:31,563
I was born to do this and uh I'm not going listen to my head.

779
01:05:31,563 --> 01:05:33,515
I'm actually going to listen to my heart.

780
01:05:33,515 --> 01:05:38,600
My heart tells me that uh I was born to do this and I'm not going look back.

781
01:05:38,774 --> 01:05:39,656
Hmm.

782
01:05:40,074 --> 01:05:41,238
So you just kept on.

783
01:05:41,238 --> 01:05:43,780
I just kept on and then it put me through every test.

784
01:05:43,780 --> 01:05:50,306
And as it turned out, I was right because actually this path is nothing like what I
thought it would be.

785
01:05:50,306 --> 01:05:51,946
It's totally different.

786
01:05:52,127 --> 01:06:02,175
And when I started out on it, I just was looking at it from the perspective of somebody
who was absolutely new.

787
01:06:02,175 --> 01:06:05,117
And so most of my opinions were worthless.

788
01:06:05,738 --> 01:06:10,926
I mean, my factual, my intellectual opinions were virtually worthless.

789
01:06:10,926 --> 01:06:15,990
Because I had no idea what it would be actually, you know, you have to walk it to know it.

790
01:06:16,130 --> 01:06:19,513
I mean, you can't read it in a book and you can't figure it out.

791
01:06:19,533 --> 01:06:21,975
And so I trusted that.

792
01:06:21,975 --> 01:06:27,190
What it really came down to is the other thing is I learned to trust myself.

793
01:06:27,190 --> 01:06:30,122
It's like nobody forced me to do anything.

794
01:06:30,122 --> 01:06:32,534
So I really trusted this guy.

795
01:06:32,534 --> 01:06:36,347
But at the end of the day, wasn't him who I trusted.

796
01:06:36,347 --> 01:06:38,188
I trusted my own judgment.

797
01:06:38,269 --> 01:06:39,860
I trusted that

798
01:06:40,192 --> 01:06:45,866
I trusted that I, if I trusted this person, I trusted that my judgment was not wrong.

799
01:06:45,866 --> 01:06:57,873
And there's been many times along the way over the last 40 years that everything around me
was screaming, pulling me in another direction, but there's something inside of me that

800
01:06:57,873 --> 01:07:00,174
just goes, you know, just keep on walking.

801
01:07:01,435 --> 01:07:06,098
And I wouldn't have had what I had in my life unless I kept on walking.

802
01:07:06,253 --> 01:07:07,111
Yeah.

803
01:07:08,128 --> 01:07:10,621
So that's what this path is about too.

804
01:07:11,296 --> 01:07:12,447
Alright.

805
01:07:13,029 --> 01:07:18,766
Well, Hari Nam, this has been a great introduction to who you are.

806
01:07:21,206 --> 01:07:25,610
I think we're gonna go on a long journey here, but it's gonna be beautiful.

807
01:07:26,543 --> 01:07:35,069
it is a very long journey and it was nice that we could talk a little bit about how it
started.

808
01:07:35,942 --> 01:07:43,726
it really starts the message really that I share with people is that it's like that
Chinese saying, what do they say?

809
01:07:43,726 --> 01:07:48,769
The uh journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step.

810
01:07:48,769 --> 01:07:52,742
so I think whatever it is in life that uh

811
01:07:52,967 --> 01:07:58,717
You have to have a certain trust in yourself that where you're walking is the right
direction.

812
01:07:58,717 --> 01:08:02,114
You just got to keep on walking, find out what's along the way.

813
01:08:02,114 --> 01:08:03,841
Yeah, yeah.

814
01:08:03,985 --> 01:08:06,667
What do think it is that compels people forward?

815
01:08:08,116 --> 01:08:12,719
It's, you know, I'm a big believer in this whole kiss thing.

816
01:08:12,719 --> 01:08:14,509
Keep it simple, stupid.

817
01:08:15,170 --> 01:08:18,322
That, it's, it's the same for everybody.

818
01:08:18,322 --> 01:08:19,272
People are people.

819
01:08:19,272 --> 01:08:25,355
And I think what compels people is the same thing is that what people want is not
complicated.

820
01:08:25,716 --> 01:08:29,418
What people want at the end of the day is they want to feel full.

821
01:08:29,698 --> 01:08:35,041
They want to feel, you know, that's like the best, one of the best words in the English
language is fulfillment.

822
01:08:35,041 --> 01:08:36,562
So really,

823
01:08:36,833 --> 01:08:38,874
That's what people want more than anything.

824
01:08:38,874 --> 01:08:40,505
They want to feel fulfillment.

825
01:08:40,505 --> 01:08:42,016
They want to feel full.

826
01:08:42,016 --> 01:08:43,246
That's why they do anything.

827
01:08:43,246 --> 01:08:44,586
That's why they get married.

828
01:08:44,586 --> 01:08:45,467
That's why they have children.

829
01:08:45,467 --> 01:08:47,128
That's why they have a certain career.

830
01:08:47,128 --> 01:08:49,069
They have a mission in life.

831
01:08:49,069 --> 01:08:54,442
They want to feel fulfilled and they have various strategies they think that are going to
get them there.

832
01:08:55,033 --> 01:09:02,706
I think that people keep on going because it's something, there's some kind of

833
01:09:02,775 --> 01:09:12,467
feeling or evidence or whatever is that if I keep walking, this is going to take me
towards the day that I'm actually going to feel that fulfillment.

834
01:09:12,687 --> 01:09:20,258
And let's hope they made the right decision because sometimes people make horribly
misguided uh decisions about that.

835
01:09:20,258 --> 01:09:30,338
But I think that the thing that keeps people keeping on going is, that there is uh a
belief inside or maybe they got a taste of something to make them feel like

836
01:09:30,338 --> 01:09:36,502
If I don't get distracted, if I keep walking, then this life will promise me the
fulfillment.

837
01:09:36,502 --> 01:09:37,345
Hmm.

838
01:09:37,345 --> 01:09:38,265
Hmm.

839
01:09:38,608 --> 01:09:41,114
So I have one final question for today.

840
01:09:41,114 --> 01:09:42,877
Are you tripping right now?

841
01:09:44,014 --> 01:09:45,294
Compared to what?

842
01:09:46,294 --> 01:09:48,033
That's actually your answer.

843
01:09:48,033 --> 01:09:48,814
All right.

844
01:09:48,814 --> 01:09:49,834
Yeah, compared to what?

845
01:09:49,834 --> 01:09:50,914
Tripping compared to what?

846
01:09:50,914 --> 01:09:55,054
Because you know, even your question, you know, it's good that people think about these
things.

847
01:09:55,054 --> 01:10:06,534
So if you were feeling kind of empty and somebody gave you a pill and you were flying
through the sky, you'd say you were high.

848
01:10:06,674 --> 01:10:11,596
But if you were flying, right, but if you were flying through the sky all the time, would
you actually be high?

849
01:10:11,596 --> 01:10:12,472
Right.

850
01:10:12,586 --> 01:10:14,189
You know what saying?

851
01:10:14,189 --> 01:10:25,885
So I would say this is that I believe that my experience of my being is such that um I've
come to just...

852
01:10:25,885 --> 01:10:26,886
uh

853
01:10:28,930 --> 01:10:30,151
just expect

854
01:10:31,710 --> 01:10:43,840
certain experience that if somebody else would just plunked in their body, if they were to
plunk their head into my skull, you know, they'd probably have a nervous breakdown.

855
01:10:43,960 --> 01:10:44,937
Hahaha!

856
01:10:46,019 --> 01:10:52,310
You know I'm saying it would be they couldn't hate I mean But it's just normal because
this is just how I am all the time, right?

857
01:10:52,310 --> 01:10:54,364
But that doesn't mean that I don't have up and down days.

858
01:10:54,364 --> 01:10:57,318
It just means that on a vibrational level

859
01:10:57,890 --> 01:11:00,490
you're just intuiting a lot more information.

860
01:11:00,490 --> 01:11:03,950
even intuiting this, it's all about frequency.

861
01:11:04,270 --> 01:11:05,830
It's about frequency.

862
01:11:05,890 --> 01:11:17,790
The average person is operating on a very low frequency and then if you do something in
your life that just puts you harmonizing on another frequency, you just get used to just

863
01:11:17,790 --> 01:11:19,030
dealing on that frequency.

864
01:11:19,030 --> 01:11:22,370
That's the frequency that you're playing the game at.

865
01:11:22,550 --> 01:11:25,870
so you don't feel like

866
01:11:25,870 --> 01:11:30,830
maybe the highness that you're talking about because that's just your normal way of being.

867
01:11:30,930 --> 01:11:31,710
Got it.

868
01:11:31,710 --> 01:11:39,150
So to kind of answer your question, I guess, yeah, I probably am very high now, but this
is just, but it's compared to a lot.

869
01:11:39,150 --> 01:11:46,110
I mean, I feel pretty much the same as I did this morning, you know, and this morning I
feel pretty much the same as it is yesterday.

870
01:11:46,110 --> 01:11:48,230
So that's my normal way of being.

871
01:11:48,230 --> 01:11:55,302
But I think that a person who is, is aligned with their soul,

872
01:11:55,882 --> 01:12:02,824
is just vibrating at a higher frequency and it is a very good way to live.

873
01:12:04,216 --> 01:12:08,615
All right, well, we're gonna find out more about this frequency.

874
01:12:10,420 --> 01:12:12,386
Maybe, yeah.

875
01:12:12,525 --> 01:12:15,022
Maybe we'll be able to hear it, hopefully.

876
01:12:15,022 --> 01:12:26,547
Well sure, as we go forward also, I hope to, instead of only talking stuff
philosophically, I really hope that I'll be able to actually even share things that people

877
01:12:26,547 --> 01:12:32,939
will be able to use in their home to actually increase, higher the level of their own
freedom.

878
01:12:32,939 --> 01:12:34,066
That's it.

879
01:12:34,102 --> 01:12:35,971
Okay, sounds good.

880
01:12:53,651 --> 01:12:57,032
The music in today's show is by Auntie Depressant.

881
01:12:57,032 --> 01:13:02,993
Follow Hari Nam, your spiritual guide, at HariNam11 on Twitter and on Facebook.

882
01:13:02,993 --> 01:13:06,670
That's H-A-R-I-N-A-M 11.

883
01:13:07,095 --> 01:13:09,195
This has been a Stinky Production.

884
01:13:09,195 --> 01:13:13,597
Find us at StinkyProductions.com for more unavoidable podcasts.

885
01:13:13,597 --> 01:13:18,298
And like us on Facebook, Facebook.com slash likeitstinky.

886
01:13:31,832 --> 01:13:38,577
Forgot the ways in the distant past, you shaved I tried and it says so

887
01:15:38,190 --> 01:15:39,710
Hmm, stinky.