The Space Between - Heaven on Earth

Episode 26 — Honor All Life | Unity in Stewardship

In this episode of The Space Between – Heaven on Earth, Jeffrey Aylor is joined by Purna Devi, Joel Aylor, and Joe Dermody, and for a heartfelt conversation about stewardship and our sacred relationship with all of life.

Together, they explore what it means to move beyond seeing ourselves as owners or consumers and instead embrace our role as caretakers of the Earth, one another, and the gifts entrusted to us.

From nature and food to relationships, work, and future generations, this conversation reflects on how every choice becomes an opportunity to live with greater reverence, gratitude, and responsibility.

A reminder that unity is not only expressed in how we treat people, but in how we honor all life.

What is The Space Between - Heaven on Earth?

The Space Between – Heaven on Earth is a companion podcast to Awakening – Heaven on Earth.

Through intimate, heart-centered conversations, this series explores the lived experience of awakening — the questions, integrations, paradoxes, and sacred pauses where transformation truly occurs.

This is the space between knowing and becoming…
where Heaven meets Earth through honest dialogue.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Welcome to the space between heaven on earth. This is a companion podcast to awakening heaven on earth created as a space for reflection, conversation, and lived experience. Here, we enter the pause between knowing and becoming, between insight and embodiment, between heaven and earth. These conversations are not about answers or conclusions. They are about presence, about listening, about reasoning together, about meeting one another honestly in the unfolding journey of awakening.

Jeffrey Aylor:

I'm your host, Jeffrey Aylor. Again, welcome and thank you for entering The Space Between with us. Welcome to this episode of the Space Between. Throughout this journey, we've continued to expand the circle of unity, and we began within ourselves. Then we expand out to our relationships, our families, our communities, our systems, our leadership, and today we're going to expand that circle one more time to include all life.

Jeffrey Aylor:

This episode is called Honor All Life Unity in Stewardship, because perhaps the deepest expression of unity is learning to see the sacred in everything. In every single thing, in every person, every creature, every forest, every river, every seed, every single moment. Stewardship begins the very moment you realize nothing truly belongs to us. We don't own anything. Everything has been entrusted to us to care for and to love and to honor, which is why we say honor all life.

Jeffrey Aylor:

So I'm going to start our session today, first of all, by welcoming Pornadavy. So glad to have you back with us this week, and we have Joel Aylor, my son, and Joe Dermody with us today, and again, I think we're just going to have a beautiful conversation about this topic of stewardship. So I'm going to go ahead and start with this single question for all of you. When you hear the word stewardship, what does that mean to you personally? How does that touch you personally?

Purna Devi:

Stewardship for me really speaks to, I think, the honor of carrying something with us. You know, last week, I wasn't here, but you all spoke on leadership. And leadership still, I think, speaks to duality. Me and you. I'm gonna lead you.

Purna Devi:

Right? Stewardship really requires us or asks of us to dissolve the idea of separateness. So the first time I really considered stewardship was when I was in Reiki training fourteen years ago, and the teacher posed to us that we were stewards of this tradition. And so I think of the honor of carrying, right, it is not mine. These teachings are not mine, but I'm a vessel and a channel for these teachings.

Purna Devi:

And how can I do a good job? How can I honor the masters? How can I honor the teachers that came before me? How can I honor the teachings that are sacred, right, that are universal? They're not mine, but I am a steward of these teachings.

Purna Devi:

And so we get to share, right, as a steward, but we don't own. Right? And so there's a a reverence and an honor, I think, that comes with stewardship. And leadership is in there, of course, but I think that there's an immersion piece, right, that we're not separate from these things, and they're also not ours to keep.

Jeffrey Aylor:

I have to say when we did the the Ricky one training with you here a few months ago, it was obvious to me that you had a strong sense of responsibility for the purity of what you were teaching, and you know that always comes out, I think, when someone has taken the time and energy to learn something like that. I know that's the same concept that we apply when it comes to our continuous improvement process that we we do in our work. There's a body of knowledge, and that body of knowledge is universal. But as a master of that body of knowledge, you have a responsibility for its purity and to make sure that people are doing it consistently with those principles. And it's your job to stop someone if they're not doing something that's consistent with those principles, right?

Jeffrey Aylor:

I say, hey, you know, just want to make sure you're aware. So I appreciate that very much. And I think it's a great way of defining stewardship. So

Joel Aylor:

Yes. Stewardship makes me think of relationships, a relationship to things. So we care differently for things we believe that we own more so than we do when we're just been entrusted to take care of something. So we feel like we own it. We feel like we have to possess it.

Joel Aylor:

We have rights to it. It's it's mine. It's not yours. Our stewardship usually asks, what's my responsibility while taking care of this thing? And that's, you know, whether that's your your body, your your children, the work you do, the earth, all of it is just basically us temporarily taking care of it.

Joel Aylor:

Yeah.

Joe Dermody:

It's to me, it's taking care of something. You don't own it, but you do have that responsibility, for it, how it's cared for, how it's passed on. So it's really the same thing that both Joel and Perna said. So I'll take the role of Sherry this week. I'm gonna ditto everything that they said.

Joe Dermody:

It's it's also it encompasses, people, resources, relationships, systems, all kinds of things that we're we're dealing with day to day.

Jeffrey Aylor:

And then and I'm gonna just expand on what all of you have said so far and and give another example of stewardship, and it has to do with with our children. And I say this because having been someone who's lost a child, I can tell you, you know, you you have to ask at that point, well, wait a minute, you know, I have responsibility for that child. I have responsibility for, but our children are not ours. They belong to the divine. We only have them for a temporary period, and our responsibility is to bring them up, right, to help them and nurture them and and raise them so that they can become independent functioning adults in a society.

Jeffrey Aylor:

They're not yours. They're no. It's not a possession. You don't own them. And unfortunately, I think I see a lot of people create significant suffering.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Significant suffering when they have this belief that that they own. That there is this. Yeah. I can't use any other word. They they they really believe that they're a possession.

Jeffrey Aylor:

And and they can't let go. Of them. You know, I have to say coming to that conclusion. Has helped me. In grieving over all these years to understand that.

Jeffrey Aylor:

And I think, know, maybe we'll touch on this in some future set of episodes. We've talked about it in the past about soul contracts and agreements we make when we come into this life, again realizing that everybody's life is their own, and think about how many people insert themselves in your life or where they want to insert themselves in your life, and they don't allow you the freedom to become who you are here to become. And I think it's important for us as stewards to help people become exactly what they came here, and it may not be what you want or think. Right? So anyway, I think that may be a good segue into this first section of questions.

Jeffrey Aylor:

And in this first section, we want to touch on a basic concept that everything everything is connected. Everything is connected. So you know one of the biggest shifts in our awareness and our consciousness is moving from seeing separate things. And Move to where we're seeing relationships. A relationship implies a connection, right?

Jeffrey Aylor:

So based on that, when did you first begin to experience nature? The Earth as something more than just background scenery, right, or something that we use or something that we possess.

Purna Devi:

I'm going to share a little story. You know, in my field, in the healing arts community, we often hear these little cliches, right? People say, become one with everything. I'm one with everything. And still their senses, they are so bound to basic senses that create the illusion of separateness.

Purna Devi:

Right? I'm over here and you're over there and we're in separate bodies and separate homes, right, in separate rooms, even as we're doing this podcast. And, you know, for many, many years, I was under the belief that I had dissolved that experience, the integrated understanding of separateness. Right? I can empathize and I can feel what you're feeling and I can be with you and and experience you as one until I was doing kambo frog medicine.

Purna Devi:

So this is a natural medicine from the Amazon, and I maybe I don't know if I shared this story in Reiki training to you all. So forgive me if you've heard this story, Jeff and Joe. I was doing frog medicine in Oregonia next to the river in the woods. This

Jeffrey Aylor:

is

Purna Devi:

a purgative medicine. It's a peptide medicine, and this is not a, you know, a podcast on natural plant and animal medicines. However, this is a pretty extreme shamanic medicine from the Amazonian rainforest. I was doing it with a shaman, a medicine carrier from Brazil. It was a really intense experience.

Purna Devi:

Right? We're drinking a lot of water. We're vomiting. It's really not, you know, not very attractive. So I am in the throes of this, you know, physiological suffering.

Purna Devi:

It's a very physiological medicine, not like Ayahuasca or, you know, peyote or bufo or some of these, like you're going to meet God medicines. So I'm in the throes of this very physiologically difficult medicine and your brain doesn't understand what's happening. Your brain thinks you're dying, right? Because your body has never had an experience like this and it is an ego death. So I am suffering, I'm sweating, I'm vomiting and I'm rocking and chanting and I can hear God tell me, lean in, don't you dare ask the suffering to stop.

Purna Devi:

Lean in, lean in. So I'm chanting, I'm sweating, and I look out into the river and there's this little bubbling book brook in the middle of the river. And all of a sudden, all of my senses vacuum to that bubbling brook. And something moved through me and I looked down in my lap near the dirt, right, right in front of me, and all I could see was myself. I became the dirt.

Purna Devi:

And then I turned my gaze up and looked around at the trees, and I saw my spirit in the trees. And so this natural medicine, right, this Amazonian frog, gave me direct, very uncomfortable experience of complete ego disillusion, the complete disillusion of separateness, where I experienced my spirit in everything, and I could not unsee it. I could not unexperience it. So that was my, I think, shift, right, was during this medicine ceremony where all separateness was dissolved and I was everything. I right?

Purna Devi:

There was a remembrance. It's not that I've never not been, Right? We always are, but we forget and have this delusion because of our senses.

Joel Aylor:

It's tough to follow a story like that. It's always a

Purna Devi:

big one.

Joel Aylor:

No. It's amazing. Any anytime I've ever heard anybody talk about any type of experience like that, it's always amazing to listen to. The stories are always you know?

Jeffrey Aylor:

I I don't know. I don't know. I don't that's not a very good self myth. I know.

Purna Devi:

I don't really sell it. Mhmm. Although I'm hosting a ceremony on, Independence Day, my friend and I are gonna do it. And then in two weeks, some somebody pays me to do this. Right?

Purna Devi:

So so I'm a medicine carrier as well. I make jokes. But, you know, the the feeling after is worth the twenty minutes of discomfort.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Oh, you never told me how long the

Purna Devi:

discomfort was. Minutes, man. It's only twenty minutes. You'll be okay. Die for twenty minutes to be reborn.

Purna Devi:

You'll be okay. You've suffered a lot longer than twenty.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Oh my

Joel Aylor:

gosh. Yeah.

Jeffrey Aylor:

You can do anything for twenty minutes.

Purna Devi:

You know? You say that until your face is in the bucket.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Well, I'm glad I was gonna say I'm glad you brought that that up as because we in this particular podcast, we're not necessarily touching on plant medicines, but we do in our living heaven on earth podcast. In fact, it was just two weeks ago, I think the episode was on that type of it was a number of different healing arts, but that's one of the elements, right, of healing arts that we certainly believe, you know, deserves more time and attention. So

Joel Aylor:

Yeah. So from for me, my connection to to nature came from studying, you know, health and pharmacy. Not not in the traditional sense, not when I was in college and being taught by professors and things like that. They didn't bring that to to me. But I when I started to look into nutrition and the soil and how it relates to our microbiomes and our metabolism and, you know, how it creates inflammation and things like that, it became harder and harder to separate, you know, environmental health from human health.

Joel Aylor:

And I started to learn that, basically, my role as a pharmacist is actually just downstream from a lot of other things that are connected. So the story of that patient coming to me in the pharmacy actually started a long time ago in their decisions and how they've interacted with different parts of the world or their environment or their people and and their food and all of it. And then, you know, realizing that basically all those decisions ultimately led them to me with some kind of illness and seeing how interconnected that all was helped me realize just we aren't separate from any of that. And it fully really and truly starts at the soil level, that we aren't separate from even just that. That literally is what makes us physically who we are, and that was really fascinating to see that connection.

Joe Dermody:

My first interaction and experience was through Boy Scouts and learning how we are responsible for taking care of the environment that we are going out into, learning what's what's edible, learning what's dangerous, being taught that whenever you go camping, you are supposed to leave the area you go into in a better condition than when you came into it. And at the time, we just think, okay. Yeah. We're just being taught stuff, and we're going out to enjoy the the great outdoors. But as I look back on it, that's really when we started to be taught something that wasn't just our normal everyday thing that we were learning growing up.

Joe Dermody:

And I I really I love that I got to go through that experience. And it's something I don't know. I'm I mean, I'm again, I don't have kids of my own. Right? So I don't know how prevalent the the scouts are, how many kids today get to go out and have the experiences that I did growing up.

Joe Dermody:

I was very fortunate to have both parents and a group of friends that respected the outdoors greatly and took me to many different places, gave me many different experiences with rafting, swimming, the ocean, the rivers, but also, you know, the Red River Gorge and all of the parks and areas around where I live now. And it's just, you know, I I I think I took it all for granted because I didn't realize what I had back then. And but I'm very, very fortunate that I got to experience it all.

Joel Aylor:

And thank you for you and everyone before you for figuring out which plants are safe and not safe to eat.

Joe Dermody:

Right? Because

Joel Aylor:

people are it's always so hard to know what's what.

Joe Dermody:

Yeah. I saw a short that that really hit me, and I love it. It said, all mushrooms are edible. Some only once.

Joel Aylor:

Mhmm. That's true. That's true. You know, there's a

Jeffrey Aylor:

significant amount of indigenous wisdom that's taught through the scouts, especially, and I think having started, you know, opening my mind and studying other sacred traditions such as indigenous beliefs and traditions, but one of the things that has really struck me is that quite honestly, all of this is taught in script in Christian and Judean Scripture. I believe all the way back in the very earliest parts of the book of Genesis, when when God says, let us make man in our image, I believe he's talking to the Earth that had just been created. Let us make man in our image. I believe our physical bodies are a microcosm of Earth. It comes from the Earth.

Jeffrey Aylor:

It is designed in exactly the same way as the Earth that has similar systems as the Earth. What we eat comes from the Earth. All of it is a is a cycle, and then we have spirit, and God is spirit. So in both instances, we are created in the image of the earth, and we are created in the image of God. Now I can tell you I didn't believe this until probably the last maybe five years ago.

Jeffrey Aylor:

I always thought the earth was a resource for us to consume, to I believe God gave it to us to use. I don't think he gave it to us to abuse it, but I think he gave it to us to use it to interact with it. But what I'm coming to understand is that it's not inanimate. It's not an inanimate object. The Earth is a living, breathing, pulsating creature just as we are.

Jeffrey Aylor:

And to understand that and recognize that I need to treat the Earth as another being, not a inanimate creation, totally changes my perspective of things. I've always had, and anyone who's been around me long enough to know I love trees. I don't know why. I just love trees, and I've it's almost like they're our brothers and our sisters. The trees to me, I'm almost like the Lorax.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Who's gonna speak for the trees? I I love them, and they and they they symbolize so much, and they are living creatures. But then you start to realize, well, if trees are living creatures, then all plants must be living creatures. Right? You think about the mushrooms Joe talked about and the network that they they that they manage to communicate among all plants.

Jeffrey Aylor:

It's just fascinating. It's just fascinating. The more you'll open your mind and understand that the earth is not just is not just background scenery.

Purna Devi:

And it's not something for us to take from. Like you said, I think the more folks that awaken to the inherent relationship that I am the earth and the earth is sacred and I am sacred, and I have a duty as a steward, right, as a temporary visitor to this place. Right? There's so much consumption and depletion and, you know, we're raping mother earth and, you know, just stripping her of her resources and she still nourishes us. She still shows up for us.

Purna Devi:

Right? She's held every tear I've ever wept. She's ever giving. And still, right, there's a population of people that see incredibly different. Right?

Purna Devi:

That say, what can I take from her? What can I steal from her? And I think as the divine feminine awakens, more of us are understanding we must take care of the mother. We must take care of mother Earth, and she will continue to take care of us. But right now, she's depleting.

Purna Devi:

Right? And she's revolting. Like, look at the environmental crisis we're in. Right? She's kicking us straight off the planet and saying, f you all.

Joel Aylor:

I'm not worried about her livelihood. I mean, she'll Yeah. End us before she ends. Absolutely. Yeah.

Joel Aylor:

And then then you see history throughout history, that's the way a lot of civilizations were they basically used up all their resources in an area, so they had to move to a different place.

Jeffrey Aylor:

So so the next question we had in this list is how how how has your understanding of our relationship with the Earth changed over the years? Well, I'm gonna tell you. If if I had been in this conversation just a few years ago, I would have thought you all were absolutely nuts.

Purna Devi:

Right.

Jeffrey Aylor:

But to Perna's point, I think as we awaken and as we become aware, this understanding will become because this is the natural knowledge that we all have. We've forgotten. We have forgotten this. So, again, I my my relationship with the Earth is totally different at this point, and I love I love that you bring up the the idea that if I if I it's okay to take something, but you have to give something in return. Right?

Jeffrey Aylor:

There's it's reciprocal. The relationship is reciprocal. You it's just like any emotional bank account. If you continue to withdraw and do not deposit, then you bankrupt. Right?

Jeffrey Aylor:

You know, you have

Joel Aylor:

to close the loop. We're not very good at closing the loop. Basically, what we take, we give back. There's That goes with

Purna Devi:

Honoring. Right?

Jeffrey Aylor:

Yeah. Well, this is so again, you go back to Christian scripture. This was the whole concept of you farm the land for a period of years and then you stop. You have to give it rest. Right?

Jeffrey Aylor:

Every seventh year was a year of rest. Right? And then you rotate, you have to rotate things, and you have to care for the soil, because the soil is a living thing. It's not inanimate. It's it.

Jeffrey Aylor:

And yet people, they don't see the life that is contained in it, So they don't understand that life. And when you when we do, just like a mother, the mother's going to love us. Love of a mother is so special because they love you unconditionally. In most cases, not all the time. We know there are exceptions.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Right? But that maternal, to your point, the the matriarch is the Earth, and I think that's a beautiful symbi symbology. So what does all life is connected mean to you? You've already touched on this point, and I'm gonna let you go first. What does all life is connected mean to you in your experience?

Purna Devi:

Again, as a steward of philosophy, I I have to quote the masters. Right? Because we don't need to reinvent the wheel. Two folks I want to touch on here. Thich Nhat Hanh said, we are here to awaken from the illusion of separateness.

Purna Devi:

Right? The Zen Buddhist master. And then, you know, our boy, Alan Watts. Right? We shout Alan Watts out every once in a while, and he has a quote that I just adore in this conversation.

Purna Devi:

And he says, you do not come into this world. You come out of it as a wave comes out of the ocean. But that is an excerpt from a larger conversation that he has, and he says, you do not look out there for god. Something in the sky. You look in you.

Purna Devi:

You do not come out of this world. You come or you do not come into this world rather. You come out of it like a wave from the ocean. You are a function of what the whole universe is doing in the same way that a wave is a function of what the whole ocean is doing.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Brilliant.

Purna Devi:

Yeah. So again, they've said it best. I don't think I could, in any way, replace, their perfect words.

Joel Aylor:

Yeah. And then to, you know, go in a different route, but it's still the same in a more biological aspect, but it's all spiritual. That you know, realizing that every everything is connected biologically as well. So every every breath that I take is actually, you know, produced by something else. You know, was produced by a tree, produced the oxygen for allowing me to breathe.

Joel Aylor:

Every meal that I've that I eat each day comes from some other plant or some other animal. You know? My microbiome is made up of trillions of other organisms living with me and symbiotically taking care of me, and without them, it wouldn't work. You take away the microbiome, those organisms inside of us, and we don't we don't break down food. We don't have the ability to live.

Joel Aylor:

So everything is really fully connected, and, basically, you everything that we take was given from something else. And in order to maintain that relationship and that connectedness, we have to also give ourselves or give something of ourselves back in order to continue to to have a healthy relationship with it all.

Joe Dermody:

And then we move spiritually. We come from the father. We come from the mother. We are all unified in love. We all are you know, we're all unity.

Joe Dermody:

We are all one. It's a beautiful system.

Jeffrey Aylor:

That's a really good word, Joe, system. Right? We recognize that it's not about independence. It's about the inter interdependence, which is a much higher level of functioning. And so, Pornay, you were gonna make a comment.

Purna Devi:

Yeah. I just wanna mention, and I've mentioned this in previous podcasts. The root word of yoga is yug in Sanskrit, and yug is to unify, to yoke together. Right? That there is no separateness.

Purna Devi:

And in yoga, right, you hear again these cliches of unification of body, mind, and spirit, or unification with your mind in the present moment, or unification with the body and the breath. And so the practice of yoga is inherently a system that offers the return to the experience of unification in all ways.

Joel Aylor:

Yeah. I think there's misconception on yoga, at least in our Western society, thinking that it's just strictly stretches and postures. That's just one of seven arms of of yoga in total. And

Joe Dermody:

then it's also being able to as you come into yourself, get to know yourself, how learning yourself allows you to get closer to nature, get closer with others, share your energy with others, and and experience their energy back. And so it's a it's a, again, a system, but it's a system that you can open up and learn to take it to the next level and incorporate other systems into your own. And when you step back to look at that, it's it's mind boggling how it's all connected and

Jeffrey Aylor:

just how it If if what we're saying is true, then if I do good to you, I'm really doing good to me.

Joe Dermody:

And vice versa. When you do good to yourself, you're doing good to the

Jeffrey Aylor:

entire To the collective. Right? Because it were all that that understanding will change the world.

Purna Devi:

Because the contrary is true. To harm you must be an example of my inherent disconnection to myself. Correct. Because if I knew you in an integrated behavioral way that harming you harmed me, I wouldn't do it. Right?

Purna Devi:

We've got this internal function that we don't wanna harm ourselves. Right? That's biological.

Joel Aylor:

Mhmm.

Purna Devi:

And if I can harm you, right, really do harm to you, that means there's a fissure within. There's a disconnection with him. And we see that a great deal, right, the way folks harm one another and folks harm the earth. It really speaks to an incredible sadness of separation from themselves with their own divinity.

Jeffrey Aylor:

So let's go on to the next section of questions where we're gonna touch on the general concept of the Earth as our partner. You know, again, we touched on the fact that many indigenous traditions speak of the Earth not as a property, but as a relative, a mother, as a teacher. In fact, I can think of several different places and times in scripture where a natural example is given to teach a spiritual lesson. Because we can see nature, we can't necessarily see spiritual elements because spirit is not seen. It's experienced.

Jeffrey Aylor:

It's it's so with that in mind, what changes when we stop asking the question, well, what can I take from Earth and begin asking the question about how can I care for the Earth?

Purna Devi:

Again, it makes me think of indigenous, wisdom. Right? Native Americans and indigenous cultures really understood the inherent respect for nature and the connection to nature. Chief Seattle said the earth does not belong to us. We belong to the earth.

Purna Devi:

So again, I think when we go from the conversation of what can I take to how can I care for the earth, I have a sense of responsibility of protection, of stewardship? I want to make sure and nourish that relationship for any healthy for any relationship to be healthy. Right? There's a level of responsibility and co creation. I love that word.

Purna Devi:

I use that word all the time. Co creation. Right?

Joel Aylor:

Yeah. If I was saying something similar to what I have said already in, you know, our relationship with the earth. And that was always the belief that food is medicine, and and it is. I believe it's something that is overlooked a lot in our especially in our western society that, you know, not everything is gonna be cured with a pill. But it's actually even deeper than food is medicine because the, you know, food that we eat is actually an it's a it's a relationship.

Joel Aylor:

It's a complete relationship between, you know, us and the earth. And it it goes all the way, like I down to the soil, so the microbes that live in that soil and the overall health of the soil that the plant grew in or that the the animal ate. All of these things intertwined produces health in us. And if anything is off, if the if the soil is bad or if the animal eats unhealthy things, and then we eat that animal or we eat that plant, then we get that same disease. We we it creates disease in our own bodies.

Joel Aylor:

And and somebody who I've read extensively is Michael Pollan, who whose books I highly recommend and should be, honestly, in my opinion, his his book In Defense of Food, should be required reading in high schools just to to show high school students the actual connectedness or the how we interact with the Earth and how important it is to take care of it or how it in in ends up, you know, affecting our overall health. But, basically, it's an he he said that that eating is an agricultural act, that we actually are, you know, doing something to the earth by what we choose to eat and what we choose to ingest in ourselves. And to think that, basically, what I'm ingesting is helping me live is basically something giving itself up. Essentially, it's a sacrifice of the plant or the animal to let me live. That relationship there, my food and that relationship and understanding that goes so much deeper than just being medicine, the

Purna Devi:

fact that I

Joel Aylor:

live because something gave itself up.

Jeffrey Aylor:

You know, I've changed the way I pray when I eat, because I

Joel Aylor:

do Yeah. You did.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Yeah. I think it's really important that we give thanks, that we give reverence to, and one of the things I've started doing is talking about in prayer that, you know, thank you for all of the people and all of the elements that are part of this and all that went into the creation of this, which includes the way you prepare food. We'll touch on that when I but absolutely, is what connects you. It it's a and it is a significant blessing that we

Joel Aylor:

Yeah. And if if you pay attention, all of the examples in Christian scriptures are pretty much agricultural references. Everything that they describe and how they explain things is done through agriculture, and that's one thing that we've really, as a as a country, have really disconnected from where we used to be a very agricultural society. And we, you know, still have a lot of traditions and a lot of things in place because of that, but now only, you know, less than 1% of the population feeds the rest of the 99.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Well, I don't wanna be a conspiracy theorist, but the fact that when people can grow their own food, they can feed themselves, they can prepare their food, they can that makes them independent and uncontrollable. And, unfortunately, I think that there are people who want to be able to control. True. And they hit a society and systems that allow it.

Joel Aylor:

And I'm not gonna I mean, it's it's a lot of work to to prepare your own food and to grow those things, but it is the the benefit of it is tremendous. The sense of, like, just I don't know the word I'm looking for. Basically, the the way you feel about eating a plate of food that you grew yourself is unbelievable. I and we did that.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Has the gift to grow it. You know that, not know that. Yeah. Not everybody has that gift, but one person who does

Joel Aylor:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Can feed a multitude.

Joel Aylor:

Yep. Absolutely.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Right? They can feed a multitude because they can't eat everything that they grow.

Joel Aylor:

And that's the most amazing thing about when we had our our big garden during COVID. We produced so much food, we couldn't even we couldn't even

Jeffrey Aylor:

eat it all.

Joel Aylor:

We had give it away.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Or or we had to preserve it. Right? We had to do something that would preserve it so that it would not waste. Right. So

Joe Dermody:

What a good feeling it is to give away stuff too. Right?

Joel Aylor:

Oh, it feels great. Again, here's some here's some, you know, zucchinis because good lord, all all it takes is one zucchini plant, and you got a ton of zucchini.

Joe Dermody:

Right? I think the other side of this too, what changes when we stop asking? You know, what can I take and how can I care? I think it takes the ego out of it too. Right?

Joe Dermody:

You change you change the way that you are are stating this. You are it it's like a conversation. Right? It's so much easier, Changes your whole attitude when you change the way you ask something. So just like you were saying before, it changes the way you think about it.

Joe Dermody:

And it's you become less when you become when you take the ego out of all of this and you start thinking, how can I care for this? You become a a better steward for all of this. And when you are partnering with somebody, it is a much you get better results than when you feel like you are taking and lording over something. So I look at this just like I did whenever you're working on a problem. When you're working with somebody on that problem, you're always gonna get better results than when you are working against them.

Jeffrey Aylor:

So adds a depth and a richness that doesn't exist. Right? Other when it's when you're when you're totally focused on yourself, it's very superficial.

Joe Dermody:

Yeah. Correct. And and I think that's what you're doing when you're when you have your ego involved with this and you're working against it. Don't fight mother Earth on this. Work with her.

Joe Dermody:

Right? And I think that's what you do when you change the phrasing of that question.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Right. You go from competing with the Earth to collaborating and cooperating with

Joe Dermody:

Earth. Absolutely. Yeah. So, Joel, you've trying to say.

Jeffrey Aylor:

You've already touched on, you know, the concept of food as medicine, you know, then how that would change our relationship with the Earth and the world. And. You know, there's a preparation of food as well, and one of the there are so many different. I find people almost turn food into and eating and various things almost into religion. I know people who are so incredibly judgmental of how you eat or don't eat to the point that they've turned it into a religion, which I find also to be inappropriate.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Now I've done some some studies recently on the Essenes, who I think are fascinating people. If you've ever take the time to read about them, they were the, what I'll call the third sect of Jews that you didn't hear much about in Scriptures, right? You had the Pharisees, the Sadducees, who basically were the primary rulers of of Israel and Judaism. But then you had this rural group of people called the Essenes, and they had a significant amount of teaching around food and how it is to be prepared, how it's to be eaten. I mean, they would not even apply heat to the food.

Jeffrey Aylor:

They would eat everything basically raw as it came from the Earth. They would eat raw. They felt like if you applied heat to it, you've changed it. And now you've destroyed, in some cases, the nutritional value of that food. So there's all kinds of different paths you can take with food and things

Joel Aylor:

that To some to some extent, I can get that because anytime you apply heat to a protein, it changes shape. So if you change the shape of a protein, it's no longer exactly the same way. Your body doesn't always react to it or use it in the in the way it was intended if you've if you've changed the the chemical structure of it. So there's some design behind it too.

Jeffrey Aylor:

There's a really funny story. It came up in an episode of the telepathy tapes around animals and the fact that animals communicate through telepathy. And there was an African society where they built this beautiful garden, but they had to build walls around the garden to protect it from the animals in order to allow the food to grow to maturity before the animals would eat it. Well, unfortunately, there was a group of orangutans that they not only found it, but they found a way to get into it, And they were taking the food. Well, there was this animal whisperer who was like, you know, what are you doing?

Jeffrey Aylor:

They said, well, these people ruin it. They they don't value the food. And these what are you talking about? The animal said they they burn it. And they destroy it with heat.

Jeffrey Aylor:

We're eating it because it's pure. Something to something to be said, I think.

Joel Aylor:

Yeah. And and that makes me think of a a quote I heard once talking about, like, basically, if you have a garden and there's absolutely, you know, no animals getting into it or no bugs crawling on it, no nothing in it, then it's no longer part of the environment. It's no longer part of the

Jeffrey Aylor:

We separated it.

Joel Aylor:

The ecosystem. We've separated it out, and we've we've tried to control it. Or yes. I know there are pests. I know there are things that get in there and cause problems.

Joel Aylor:

You have to, you know, work towards that, and that's one of the most challenging things about having a garden or growing your own food is handling the bugs or the pests or the or the animals, but it's part of an ecosystem. And that's actually natural, and that's a good thing. You need that to have healthy environment. And that's one thing that, you know, has become so prevalent in our neighborhoods even is, basically, yards are now basically just grass. There we basically spray chemicals on it just to have one plant.

Joel Aylor:

And what you've noticed is that basically there's there's very few bugs in it. It's pretty. You know? It it looks nice when we cut the grass, but there's no life in it. So my yard has, you know, clover and has dandelions.

Joel Aylor:

It has all these different things. And now now my wife's looking at me like, why do we have all these rabbits and squirrels and birds flying around all over? I'm like, because it's a natural ecosystem now. You let it do its thing, and it's beautiful. The life and that that comes out of it, I didn't have to do anything to it.

Joel Aylor:

It just naturally knows how to be. But we like to basically control that, and we'll spray it with chemicals and like I said, it just becomes grass of which we don't even consume. The only way we get the energy out of grass is to eat a cow. They eat the grass. We eat the cow.

Joel Aylor:

We we we don't even eat grass with it. It's the number one thing that we take care of in this society. We mow it, we trim it, we put chemicals on it, and we do all kinds of things for grass.

Jeffrey Aylor:

It gives retired people like me something to do.

Joel Aylor:

That's what I'm saying. You have to cut the grass still, but I'm just saying that's my rant for for today. I feel so guilty.

Jeffrey Aylor:

So, Porna, how has your spiritual practice been deepened with your relationship with nature and the living world that you now see?

Purna Devi:

You know, I think in the conversation of food as medicine and our relationship to nature, I think I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the brilliant wisdom of the Eastern world of India with Ayurveda. Ayurveda is yoga's sister science, and Ayurveda translates as the science of life. And Ayurveda teaches us to work with ourselves and nature and the elements and our own elemental disposition, and also allows us to understand that health on all levels, spiritual health, mental health, emotional health, physical health, comes from our relationship to living in the cyclical rhythms with nature. And so I think, you know, as I deep dove into, I think, yoga's, you know, my kind of first Eastern spiritual love as I branched away from Christianity and on this on my own spiritual journey, I really dove headfirst into the brilliant system and pathway of yoga and then found Ayurveda, found the science of life that helps to nourish us through herbs and through foods and, again, through elemental wisdoms. So specific practices, understanding what they call our doshik composition.

Purna Devi:

So understanding our doshas, we each have a unique elemental composition. What I say when I mean elemental wisdom. Right? Earth, water, fire, air, ether. We are all of that.

Purna Devi:

And so understanding how the elements exist within us, and how we can impact our health, right, spiritually, mentally, again, physically, with these sciences, with these practices. And so it's just deepened my relationship to all things, right, to myself, to sentient beings, to the earth, yeah, to the entire universe that we are.

Jeffrey Aylor:

You know, the famous yogi Paramahansa Yogananda and many of his writings, in fact, it's interesting, because on my desk right now, I have one of his many lessons around food. And when when I what I didn't understand, because about half of Indian people are vegetarian, probably the most significant group of people within a culture, you know, they're they're vegetarian. And today, we have a lot of people who are vegetarian or vegan. But if I ask them, well, why are you? Why do you do that?

Jeffrey Aylor:

Sometimes they don't necessarily. Sometimes I think they do it because, well, I don't know why they do it. But the fact is that his teachings on this are that we should the food should not be based on death. Our food should be based on life. When you when you take the fruit of a plant, you're not killing the plant.

Jeffrey Aylor:

In fact, it's healthy for the plant to have that fruit harvested from it. When you eat byproducts from animals that don't require the animal to die in order to provide a food source, you are honoring life, you're not basing your food on death. And that's his whole principle. It's and it's simple, but it makes absolute and perfect sense. Now mind you, I do think that there there's again, there's a give and a take, and there's a thankfulness that must be shared with anything that sacrifices for the benefit or good of the whole collective.

Jeffrey Aylor:

But I never understood the general concept of vegetarianism until that study, which I found to be just fascinating. It's fascinating.

Purna Devi:

My swami said once, and so I was vegetarian and vegan for over a decade. I now eat meat. And there's an honoring. Right? There's an honoring of that sacrifice.

Purna Devi:

And, also, I think there's a responsibility for us to know where our food comes from. Right? And the factory farming industry is a really you know, we're not gonna get on that soapbox. But my Swami said one time, how can you ingest the suffering of another and not expect to suffer yourself? So I'm not trying to convert anyone here, but that statement alone really kind of hits us in the feels, right, and maybe makes us consider, well, where is my food coming from?

Purna Devi:

What kind of lived experience did that animal have? You know? And and how does that reverberate into my ingesting that now?

Joel Aylor:

I think that comes back to what I was saying, like, just the the joy that you get from from eating what you've grown. There's something to that, you know, being connected to that food. We are very disconnected from our food now, and that's one thing that Michael Pollan does in his books. He actually follows a cow in that farming that cattle farming setup, trying to keep track of him. How is it demeaned, taken care of, and where is it?

Joel Aylor:

What's it eating? What's it going through? And it's it's impossible. And it's a complete disconnect. I mean, even just yeah.

Joel Aylor:

It's just it's it's fascinating when you actually fully connect with the food you eat, you actually feel better eating it.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Well, it again, I think that there there's the health care system would suffer significantly. Yeah. If people were healthy. Right? Yeah.

Jeffrey Aylor:

I'm not I'm just making it

Joel Aylor:

plain basic. Well, mean, to be fair, I mean, we go into the health care profession you know, wanting to help people and make them feel better. And and, ultimately, if you think about that business model, we're trying to put ourselves out of business. We're just not very good at it. There's reasons for that.

Joel Aylor:

There's a lot of money tied into it, but I'm saying, ultimately, if we if we actually lived out what we went what everyone goes into it for, we're technically trying to put ourselves

Jeffrey Aylor:

out of business. Well, it's interesting because when I look at the basic concept of the love of money is the root, right, the root cause of all evil, to me, evil is is what drives and persists to teach separation. Sin is separation. A sin is really anything that is done based on the belief or the understanding of separation, and separation is death. It's death.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Death is separation. It's the basic concept. Hell is the suffering that comes from believing in separation and experiencing separation. That's not what Christian people are teaching and hearing this today, but that's what I've come to understand. It's been the and and and this is not anti Christian.

Jeffrey Aylor:

This is what the basic foundational truth is that has been hidden Mhmm. From everybody.

Purna Devi:

And it's here and now. Right? That's I mean, that's the essence of this entire program is awakening heaven on earth. So the contrary is the separateness. It is also hell on earth.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Mhmm. Absolutely. Right.

Purna Devi:

It's not some afterlife. It's here and now in the minds and then the way we we understand our care for one another.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Well, I know that all of us have experienced different times, different moments where nature has become a great teacher. Any specific examples to you of when nature taught you some beautiful magical lesson?

Purna Devi:

Well, I didn't know you're gonna ask me that question. I'd have saved my, Campbell conversation.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Right? Okay. Well, you're good.

Purna Devi:

I have again, I have been blessed to sit with plant and animal medicines in these sacred ceremonies. And as a steward of Cambo, as a medicine carrier, I've gone and trained and shout out to tribal detox, who's a community that has a great relationship with tribes in Peru, who gives back to the tribal communities so they can sustain. Right? I've had these deep experiences and held space for others to have this deep experience. And I always say, I am a facilitator.

Purna Devi:

I just hold the space. The medicine is the teacher. The frog is the teacher. The sananga that comes from the root of this plant is the teacher. Right?

Purna Devi:

I am the space holder for the person who is sitting in ceremony to have a relationship and a connection to that natural plant or animal medicine, and that that plant or animal medicine is gonna show you what you need. So, yeah, I think, you know, that's an extreme example of nature nature's teachings. But, you know, as we're speaking about pharmaceuticals and western medicines, the original medicines are still there if we are lucky enough or wise enough to connect to them or brave enough. Sometimes it's bravery too because, whew, they're powerful.

Joel Aylor:

Or some sometimes being able to have access to those because the pharmaceutical industry likes to basically make those illegal.

Purna Devi:

Bam. Yes. Absolutely.

Joel Aylor:

It's all about control.

Purna Devi:

A 100%. Because like you said, it put pharmaceuticals out of business.

Joel Aylor:

A 100%. So Yeah.

Purna Devi:

Care industry. Right?

Joel Aylor:

Exactly. Yeah. Why why have cures when you have when you can have a, you know, customer?

Purna Devi:

Absolutely.

Joel Aylor:

Yeah. And that's what they and that's why I'm so excited to see some of these plant medicines actually making their way actually through clinical trials. They're actually allowing them to go through the pathways that the pharmaceutical industry has created, and they're seeing it. But, you know, I'm still waiting for them to try to to squash it as much as possible. Because, I mean, why kill an an industry that makes billions with a with a natural medicine that cures it?

Joel Aylor:

We don't we we have a lifelong pill for your depression, but wait here. Here's a plant medicine that will actually cure your depression.

Purna Devi:

Absolutely.

Joel Aylor:

Yeah. That's a whole other rabbit hole.

Purna Devi:

Yeah. I know. Right? Segue to another podcast.

Joel Aylor:

A moment for me in nature was was, I think, during COVID when the world shut down and things kinda hyper focused into your own world and us growing a garden and taking care of that and what it took to to produce into, you know, all that. So that was my big nature moment.

Joe Dermody:

Conversely, I tried to grow tomatoes the same years, and I failed miserably. So that was a different kind of lesson.

Joel Aylor:

It's a teacher no matter what.

Joe Dermody:

Still a teacher, but just lately, I I find that I meditate a lot better outside, so it's another another teaching moment.

Joel Aylor:

To be fair, Joe, that the the the garden plot that we had had had was a was a field that had set by itself and hadn't been grown on for years. It used to be farmed, but it sat for many decades not being farmed. So a lot of what we did had nothing to do with what or a lot of the stuff we got out of it had nothing to do with us. We just basically planted it in good soil, and it naturally happened.

Joe Dermody:

And I overwatered at certain parts, and then I found that I underwatered at other parts. So it was all my my fault, not not any other deal. When my wife started taking it over, they grew great.

Joel Aylor:

That's a balance. You gotta find the balance between what you how much you interact with it and how much you let it do its, you know, own thing.

Joe Dermody:

Yeah. Well, and I also found now that, you know, I I sit and I talk to the magnolia tree out front, it's growing, like, unbelievably. So, yeah, it's I've learned a lot.

Joel Aylor:

Yeah. And do you do you feel weird talking to a plant? Because I I used to Not anymore. Anymore. Right?

Joel Aylor:

Yeah.

Joe Dermody:

Yeah.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Right. Yeah. Why would you not? It's a living thing. It's a living creature.

Jeffrey Aylor:

When people talk about when people talk to their plants, they grow better. Well, you know what? Because you're in an exchange. You're in an exchange of carbon dioxide and oxygen between you and that plant, and the plant loves to be acknowledged and felt and seen as a part of your environment. You know, for me, anyone who works or lives around me much knows I love to use the example of planting seeds.

Jeffrey Aylor:

That whole principle which is taught throughout all sacred traditions, it's not just Christianity, it's taught in every sacred tradition, the patience that it takes to when you plant a seed to allow that seed to nurture and to grow. It's buried in soil where it can't be seen. There are things that it has to go through. First one is death. It has to die before the light that's contained within it can come out, and all that's going on and it's not seen, it's under the ground, it's not visible, and it takes patience.

Jeffrey Aylor:

You don't dig that seed up every day to see if it's growing, then so patience, which is a principle of the spirit, Nature teaches us patience. And if there's one thing this world needs right now, it's patience. So get out there, people, into nature, and let nature help you understand patience. It is a beautiful nature is a beautiful teacher. Let's turn.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Let's turn intoward. I love this concept of questions now as we go on to stewardship of ourselves. So we've talked about it outward. Now we also have to recognize that we're stewards of ourselves. We're caretakers of ourselves.

Jeffrey Aylor:

So what does it mean to care for your own body as something that is sacred instead of something that is meant to be controlled?

Purna Devi:

Again, I think the senses create a sense of separation. Right? My body is here and your body is there. And then also, we live in such a superficial society that sees the body alone as the self. And yoga teaches us.

Purna Devi:

Right? And other philosophies teach us that we're like onions. There's so many layers to us. And I need to care for all of those layers. Right?

Purna Devi:

So there's a responsibility. And, you know, that old saying, the body is the temple. People ask me sometimes when I'm covered in tattoos, and I say, wanna be like a a mosque, a mosaic temple. Right? You know, there's so many beautiful, sacred, artistic, expressions when you go into a cathedral or something.

Purna Devi:

And and so there's a sense of honoring, right, of the temple. And so that means I'm caring for my physical form, like with, you know, everything Joel has said this whole conversation about how I eat. There's also a connection to myself with the element of water when I bathe, there's a purification and honoring of the water spirits as I bathe. And then I take time to, it's called Abhyanga, right? There's a, like an oiling that I do after I bathe that honors my temple and honors my skin and the house that my soul lives in.

Purna Devi:

There's an honoring of my energetic body because we do these meditative practices and these prayer practices and these movement practices that help the energetic layer of our being decrease its stagnation and increase its vitality. There's an honoring of the self in the way I use language because words are our spells. We've said that so many podcasts. Right? And so the frequency that channels through this being is really mindful of the language it uses.

Purna Devi:

And so I could go on and on through these layers. Right? But I think it's about what we consume, how we consume it, and then also how we take care of ourselves at fundamental levels. Right?

Joel Aylor:

And for years, I've used to view and treat the body as it was a project, something that had to be improved, something that needed to be fixed. And now it's more just a relationship to it. And one thing that I've really, over the last few years, come to understand is it's just it's just listening to the body. You know, a lot of times, it's telling you things. You know, we just we choose to ignore it.

Joel Aylor:

You know, pain is a very common way the body talks to you, and so it's telling you something's not right. Something's off. It's not and I had a a chiropractor tell me one time, and it was an absolutely blew my mind as as a pharmacist. He says, you know, when you have a headache, it's not due to a deficiency of of Tylenol. And that, you know, that that mindset really shook me as a pharmacist.

Joel Aylor:

Like, you you know what? You're right. It's not because you don't have enough Tylenol in your system that your head hurts. There's something in your body that's misaligned. That's got something going on that needs to be fixed.

Joel Aylor:

Tylenol just stops you from noticing it. And to understand that, to actually realize that, you the body's always talking to you was absolutely a a shift in my understanding with with this physical body, and it's it's really opened up a number of paths because of it.

Joe Dermody:

I never used to take care of my body near as much as I should have. I'm starting to now, and and that comes from just like you guys have said to stop, take time to listen, become a little more self aware, not only spiritually, but physically as well. So it it's a process I'm starting to learn how to do and try to do it better. So I'm I'm still learning at at 50. I'm almost 50 starting learn this.

Joe Dermody:

That's right.

Joel Aylor:

Never late. Never too late.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Nope. But you've gone through such a a a transformation over this last year. I have. Physically, emotionally, spiritually, I think in many ways. And I don't think it's one thing.

Jeffrey Aylor:

I think it's all together. It's all worked together. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

Jeffrey Aylor:

You know, I I don't worship my body. I think the example, Porny, you use of a temple, your body is a temple. I don't worship the temple. I worship the God that is dwells in the temple, and the God presence within me. This is its dwelling place.

Jeffrey Aylor:

It's a house. It's a home. For humans, unlike trees, which are stationary, we talked about that. Right? Alan Watts touched on the fact that, you know, we don't think we're like trees because trees don't move.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Well, we move. Well, okay. So we're also vehicles. Well, when I get in my car, I'm not my car. I'm in my car.

Jeffrey Aylor:

I have a responsibility to control and manage my car. I have a responsibility to maintain and take care of my car so that it lasts and that it that it it understands I value it. I take care of my home. I keep my home clean. I keep my home maintenance in a way that it it's always available to others to share it and to be but I don't worship it.

Jeffrey Aylor:

I love it. I value it, and that's how I look at my body. You know, I don't like what society has created as a definition for beauty at all. I think it actually has created an image in people's minds that is unrealistic. I think it creates significant suffering.

Jeffrey Aylor:

I think social media, which we've touched on in various episodes, is now a catalyst for a lot of that because of the images that are shared and things that are seen. Television has been the primary medium for that. Movies, the Hollywood imagery that gets created. And I don't want to go off into that conspiracy theory about who controls all that. But the fact is, is that we are so heavily influenced by what society has said beauty is, or what health is, or what I actually had a conversation with Chad GPT one day about this, and I said, well, who said that's what health is?

Jeffrey Aylor:

To be this weight or to be that or to I'm sorry, but I don't I'm not gonna give certain things up because they were given to me to enjoy. I just don't want to abuse them. Right? I I I'm a moderate in everything, and I find that middle way, which is the Buddhist way, the Buddhist principle of the middle way, which is is is is it's in every sacred tradition. It's not just Buddhism.

Jeffrey Aylor:

It's in all of them in some fashion or form. But it's it I don't want to control my body or limit it. I want it to have experiences. We've talked about this. I want to have experiences through my body.

Jeffrey Aylor:

God gave us our body so we can interact with earth. We couldn't interact with the earth before. This goes back to the the Garden of Eden lesson again, where he said, let's create man in our image. Well, when man was first created, man was spirit. Man could not interact with Earth.

Jeffrey Aylor:

That's why he said we don't have a man to till the ground. Well, why couldn't you had man already created? Why couldn't he till the ground? Well, he wouldn't have a body. There was no body he could use to interact with the ground.

Jeffrey Aylor:

So let's put man in a body. Perfect. Now he can touch the earth. Now he can be grounded. You talked about I love water.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Where do you go to rest? In many cases, people go to water. Or we sit around fire. You think of the basic elements, fire. We're mesmerized by water and by fire, and all of those elements also are in us as well.

Jeffrey Aylor:

You think of inflammation. Inflammation is just your body on fire, right? Tell me, doc.

Joel Aylor:

More or less. Okay.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Yeah. So all good stuff. So how? Here's one that I, I'm a very driven person. And sometimes it's hard for me as I I'm getting I'm entering into retirement and I'm not doing very well.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Okay. At least based on what most people think retirement is, they think retirement is just sitting around and resting all the time, but I think that's at the point where I would start to decay. So but how does rest and nourishment and stillness? Actually become an act of stewardship?

Purna Devi:

This makes me think of, again, another great master, Lao Tzu said, nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. So rest is essential. And again, there's a cyclical expression to nature that humans have gotten out of rhythm with. And so I think rest and self care, right, is stewardship of the nervous system, is reconnecting to the natural circadian rhythms of the day and of the seasons. And it is essential.

Purna Devi:

Right? There it's just a it's a cyclical necessity. And I think so many of us, right, we live in artificial ways disconnected from our own nature and the realization that we are nature. Right? We're on artificial lighting in homes, breathing artificial air, eating artificial food, right, and hurrying and rushing.

Purna Devi:

And so, again, Lao Tzu says, right, nature does not rush, does not hurry, and yet everything is accomplished. And so it seems very contrary to the modern mind that when we slow down, we actually get more done. Right? So

Joel Aylor:

I think the biggest lesson people need to learn is that rest is not laziness. You can you can rest and still basically be doing things. So the work that you're doing now isn't doesn't mean that you're not retired or that you need to be doing less or that the idea that you you stop working or you retire from a job means you just sit around and do nothing. Those are the people who pass away quickly. Those are the people who struggle and get and become ill.

Joel Aylor:

They they they they sit and they call me every day, ask them about their medications. They they they obsess over their their body and how it's falling apart. You know? That's not rest. It's just laziness.

Joel Aylor:

And it's to rest means just to take care of yourself, to slow down. And and our society is terrible about that. To take time for ourself also makes us feel like we're being selfish. You know, that self care practice to do things that you actually enjoy or to take a day just to to do what you wanna do is actually a good thing. It's not selfish.

Joel Aylor:

You have to do it, otherwise you're not taking care of yourself. And I know so many people who are in that boat, and they they just can't do it.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Well, they get shamed. I'm sorry, but society shames people. Yeah. A lot. It shames people.

Joel Aylor:

And and that and there's that shame is around all kinds of different topics, not just this idea of rest. There's all kinds of things that we do because or or don't do because of feeling of shame, which is just self inflicted. But, yeah, society, you know, catalyzes that, makes it worse. But, yeah, resting is required. If you don't rest, you will burn out.

Purna Devi:

I just need to mention, right, everything you're saying, Joe, really reminds me of this cultural, toxicity that says our self worth is related to our productivity.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Mhmm. We're human doings, not human being.

Purna Devi:

Right. Right. And so then if my self worth is fundamentally tied to what I produce, then rest will look like laziness.

Joe Dermody:

Think it's what you define work as too, though. Right? Because you can have a day of rest and doing stuff that you wanna do, but be still physically active and busy. I can be doing stuff at work, and it might not look like much, but be doing a lot mentally and go home exhausted. So it really depends on what you're classifying as work and what you're doing.

Joe Dermody:

I

Joel Aylor:

think it's about finding your passion, something you really enjoy. Because when you when you do that, one, it doesn't feel like work. Two, it's exactly what you're meant to be doing. You're meant to find your passion and follow it because that's what you're here for. Right.

Joel Aylor:

And as as you fight against that or you take a job that you hate, it's completely a waste of your time, you're going to physically feel like that. You're going to feel exhausted by the end of the day. Yeah. Or I'd say he is nonstop over here working because he's loving it and passionate about it. He's constantly doing it, but he doesn't feel tired at

Jeffrey Aylor:

the end of the day.

Joe Dermody:

When he's done so much even for work since he's retired, it's been it's it's mind blowing.

Jeffrey Aylor:

So I've been doing a study on and and the basic principle I'm I'm I'm doing these experiments on is the less I do, the more I accomplish. And it's true. And I can tell you right now when people see it, they do not understand it. But I have been able to do and accomplish more and do less by doing less than I've ever accomplished in my and I've been a pretty productive person throughout my lifetime. You know, I've I've read the seven habits of highly affected people years ago.

Jeffrey Aylor:

It was one of those books that just fundamentally changed my trajectory from Stephen Covey. I'm a big fan. But Stephen Covey's principle was, I'm gonna take all this wisdom knowledge from all these different wisdom traditions even though I am a Mormon, and I'm gonna put it into a book. To point, there is nothing in that book that's new. Nothing.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Every principle is a foundational principle that comes from sacred traditions. He acknowledges that. He was a steward of those learnings that he had, and it fundamentally changed my life to have learned that. And it's funny, we were at a social gathering here, and and there's a fellow that I work with who he would catch, he like I say catch me, he would see me working out. Well, I would work out at different times of the day.

Jeffrey Aylor:

I'd work out for twenty minutes here and do that. Then I'd go work out later today and I'd do this or I'd take a walk. And he's like, well, know, how do you well, I'm busy when I'm doing that. Just because I'm doing this doesn't mean I'm not thinking or I'm not creating or I'm not coming up with concepts and ideas that are related to my work. My best ideas for work come when I'm not working.

Joe Dermody:

Then I can disassociate.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Yes. Yeah. But then I can take it and create very quickly and produce something of great substance. So it's very counterintuitive. My work approach, if someone watches it, is like, how does he do that?

Jeffrey Aylor:

Because it is so unorthodox based on what most people perceive as productive. Right? It's a point that you touched on. Everybody has to be productive creating widgets, You're going to be creating widgets all the time. And unfortunately, that's killing people.

Jeffrey Aylor:

We have really touched though on the concept of stillness. We talked about rest, but stillness is a totally different thing. Which is where the the the methods of meditation and affirmation practices and various things where you stop and you quiet. Stillness is is not moving, and there's a lot of great principles and practices around how to to do stillness. But I think people struggle with it.

Jeffrey Aylor:

They struggle to be still. Very much so. So how do we recognize the difference between self care and self centeredness? You've touched on that, Joel, the the fact that some people think self care is selfish, when yet Christian scriptures teach us that in order for us to love our neighbor, we have to first love ourselves. How do how do we how do we recognize the difference?

Purna Devi:

Well, I think self centeredness, again, stems from that inherent belief of separateness and division. And so when I can begin to embody the reality that there's no separateness, care is going to arise naturally. Right? When I am not, and again, self care seems self focused. It doesn't have to be self centeredness.

Purna Devi:

Right? That I'm not doing that I'm doing it in a way that only serves myself. So there are three pillars, to life according to yoga. One is my personal practice. Right?

Purna Devi:

That's the base of the pyramid, so to speak. That's my sadhana, my daily rituals, how I care for myself. That's personal. Right? It could be incredibly self centered and selfish if I stay there, but there are two other pillars.

Purna Devi:

The next is my sangha. My sangha is my community, my connection to others. And then the third pillar that I think we, you know, move into as we ground into our self focused daily rituals, we connect with other humans and dissolve the idea of separateness, then we have what's called seva. Seva is service to others. I get so filled up with the gift that I give it away naturally, but the care arises, right?

Purna Devi:

So my self care practices help me connect to my divinity, to my loving nature, to myself as a vehicle for spirit. Then my community, my sangha helps to nourish that and reflect that and then save up in service to humanity and service to others, then I can give that gift of divinity and become a channel for the divine in that way. So then the self centeredness, the ego dissolves. The idea of separateness dissolves.

Joel Aylor:

Beautifully said. And I think the the thing is that basically so many people neglect the base. They neglect that self care out of shame or out of feeling like they don't deserve to to take care of themselves or do something nice for themselves, and that affects the other aspects. That affects how they interact with their community. It affects how they serve others.

Joel Aylor:

Because in unless you have a full cup, you're not gonna be able to give of yourself. If you're empty, there's nothing left to give. And so many people struggle with that that they they don't take care of themselves, but they're constantly giving and giving, and that's why they feel burnout. That's why they feel exhausted. And that's something that we, you know, struggle with in our society because it's just what more can I do?

Joel Aylor:

How much more can I get done if I'm not doing it? And if I'm not helping this person, then I'm not doing enough. And yet, I'm not even willing to take care of myself. And that's, honestly, it's a it's a recipe for disaster. It's just overall going to cause disease.

Joel Aylor:

It's gonna basically cause you to come see me.

Purna Devi:

I think you touched on something earlier, Joel, that was really important that was about, and Jeff, you mentioned it, right? Slowing down to begin to listen to the body, right? I was dissociated from my body for many years because of abuse. And I work with a lot of people that have been dissociated from themselves due to trauma. I couldn't hear, right?

Purna Devi:

I could not hear, I did not have that relationship. And so that, you know, daily rituals that help me slow down, and in the stillness begin to hear the inner wisdom, that inner resource and that voice that guides. Right? Without that, like you said, it's just all the other parts of our existence diminish.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Well, when you start when you're giving from a lack, a position of lack, you're really giving for yourself. You're not giving for the benefit of the other person you're serving. You're trying to fill a missing piece within yourself, and you're doing it out of fear, fear that I'm not enough, fear that I'm not out of true love, because with love there's abundance, right? So one is acting based on a scarcity, internal scarcity. The other one is acting based on an internal abundance.

Jeffrey Aylor:

I have more than I need myself. I am now able to give, and I lack nothing in giving it. There is no string attached. I need nothing from you in order. But when people give and they expect something in return, their giving is not for the benefit of the person they're giving to.

Jeffrey Aylor:

It's for their benefit to try to receive something that they're lacking. It it it's it's a vicious cycle, but to your you know, it it. You see it all over.

Joel Aylor:

Yeah. And and a simple example, the one that we've all seen and and honestly ignore half the time is whenever we're on an airplane. When when they give you that preflight talk and they say, basically, if this loses oxygen, you know, things will drop out of the out of the ceiling. And what do you do first? You put do you do you help everybody else first?

Joel Aylor:

No. What do you do? You take you you you help yourself first. And then after you've got air, you can help the other person. But you're no good if you're dead, you know, because you're not breathing trying to help everybody else.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Right.

Joel Aylor:

Same type same concept.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Same principle.

Joel Aylor:

You can't take care of somebody else unless you've taken care of yourself first. Yeah. At least not well.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Yep. So

Joe Dermody:

it's, again, you know, stating the same thing, just different words. Right? It's I take care of myself so I can live well and show up for others. You know? And self centeredness is I focus on myself regardless of how it affects others.

Joe Dermody:

You know? So the self care is stewardship of yourself, and self centeredness is attachment to yourself.

Jeffrey Aylor:

So Well, it's certainly something you know, there there's there's a self assessment I think we need to always be doing. And and, again, it's it's the concept of intention, and every sacred tradition touches on the concept of what is your intention. You know, even Jesus says he could look on the inner feelings and beliefs of the heart. He could see when someone was doing something, they said they were doing it for this reason, but their real intention was something else. So what we're really talking about here is intention.

Jeffrey Aylor:

What is your intention behind what you're doing? And that that's what makes the difference between whether it's just self care. Are you doing it to make yourself more capable of serving others, or are you doing it to consume, just consume on your own without no one else, no other connection in mind when you do it. Intention means everything. Setting intention is essential, I think, to every practice we talk about, is doing it with the right intention.

Jeffrey Aylor:

So based on that, I believe we all have gifts. Every one of us came into this world with gifts and value we are here to bring that are unique. Every one of us is entrusted with this gift. It could be time. It could be talents.

Jeffrey Aylor:

It could be relationship. It could be opportunity. It could be influence you have. So what gifts do you feel you've been entrusted with that you need to be a great steward of?

Purna Devi:

Yeah. And I go back to we're learning lots of Sanskrit words today. I go back to the yogic concept of dharma. And so we might have heard this word. In the nineties, there was a great television show, Dharma and Greg.

Purna Devi:

Right?

Jeffrey Aylor:

Yeah. Yeah.

Purna Devi:

And she was this, like, hippie dippie yogi. Yeah. So dharma, there's a word called swadharma. Svadharma is your individual purpose. So the root word dharma is one's purpose.

Purna Devi:

Right? There's a reason why we're here. There's a fundamental law that governs us. And within this individual law, right, there are these reasons and these gifts, like you said, Jeff, that we're here to to share. So some of mine, I think space holdership.

Purna Devi:

Right? I just think stewardship in its purest form. I like to support folks in an unconditionally loving way. So Pornadevi, right, my spiritual name that I was bestowed with from my Swami in 2016. Pornah means fullness or wholeness, completion.

Purna Devi:

And Devi is divine mother to all. All of creation is her child. And so some of my personal back story, we don't have time to get into it, but I had an estranged relationship with my own mother and she's been a great teacher to me, right? Sometimes of what not to do. But then I find the divine irony that there is this maternal loving, unconditional, nonjudgmental essence that comes through my gifts, my holding space for others in a way that makes folks feel safe, that helps them begin to look inward and transform themselves.

Purna Devi:

And really just to listen, to be a steward of these beautiful ancient philosophies and to be a bridge between ancient wisdom and modern life, and and how to, you know, how to create community and connect with others and to have them connect with themselves. Yeah. It's a great honor to be that kind of steward.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Well done.

Purna Devi:

Thank you.

Joel Aylor:

Yeah. It's beautiful. And I don't think I have an answer that's as definitive as that to know exactly what what I you know, bring. I know I have many gifts, many things that I can offer. I think, you know, I'm still learning, you know, what those gifts are and and how to share them.

Joel Aylor:

I think that's the biggest thing is how to share those gifts because I think, you know, gifts, if you just hold on to them yourself and don't share them, become can become burdens. So I think that a lot of people are burdened by not knowing exactly how to how to share them or how to use them correctly. But now I think I think I'm still trying to figure out exactly what it is. You know? And I'm I'm always always aware and always open to to see where things take me to learn.

Jeffrey Aylor:

You're at that age, and, you know, there's the philosophy that Carl Jung taught that we spend the first forty years of our life, right, building our ego, building our sense of who we are, and then we spend the next forty years totally deconstructing all of it because and you're at that point, right? You're at that point in life where I think, you know, you've done all the work to build to build your your your persona, and now it's a question of, okay, what is real? What is not real? How do I purify, and how do I dig into my shadow and figure this all out?

Joe Dermody:

So I'm just past that point where I'm starting to deconstruct, but I'm also kind of in the same boat there, Joel, where I don't really know what all of my gifts are. I do know that I am good at listening to people. I know that I am very empathic. I can feel what other people feel. I'm a very good listener, and I can people tell me things a lot of times people tell me things that they really shouldn't be telling me.

Joe Dermody:

I'm also very good about keeping what shouldn't be said, not said. But I I did a little research on this and just to see, like, what are some of these gifts. Right? What are gifts that we are given just to kinda give me some ideas and say, okay. What what Kind of things might we be talking about.

Joe Dermody:

I mean, so life and presence, you know, the gift of consciousness and awareness, the gift of free will. Right? The the gift of love and connection. Gift of reason and wisdom, the gift of creativity, the gift of empathy and emotional intelligence, gift of purpose, gift of growth and transformation. And as I looked some of these up and I'm listening to all of us, right, I'm like, we we all have all of these gifts, you know, in some way or other even if we're not you know, our ego is not big enough to accept that we have all of these and that we use them all the time.

Joe Dermody:

I because I know all of us here. Right? And I see these gifts in all of us. I think a lot of us are just also have that gift of humbleness where we don't wanna accept that we have them all, right, at least out loud. But I know that we do because I know all of us here, we're pretty close.

Joe Dermody:

So I know that I have a lot of these gifts. I don't use them very well all the time or in abundance. I know I normally don't have the gift of speaking very well, getting my thoughts out clearly, where the three of you have that gift in abundance. You you do it beautifully. And it's a it's a skill that I would like to learn better.

Joe Dermody:

And I think I'm trying to do that through this. And as a group, we have the gift of being able to communicate with each other and hopefully pass some information along to the people that are listening. So just to have that that ability, that chance to be able to do that is a a beautiful thing.

Jeffrey Aylor:

I love the the fact that you point out. The question says, what gifts? Plural. Not singular. Right?

Jeffrey Aylor:

Because we do all possess the gifts of the spirit. You think of love, joy, peace, long suffering or patience, gentleness, goodness, faith, weakness, self control, temperance. For me, it's become very, very conscious to me that one of my my gifts is teaching. And it's not just me teaching. I've learned that originally I thought it was just me teaching In a didactic kind of a way, right?

Jeffrey Aylor:

And I I'm a fairly. Skilled teacher, and I love it, and I know I know it's one of my gifts because when I'm doing it, time doesn't exist. It doesn't it just doesn't exist. But one of the things I'm learning is that the other great skill I have is that of the facilitating learning beyond just teaching, and that's pulling the knowledge out of other people through the gift of facilitation and the ability to to manage a conversation and guide it in a way that is cohesive, and and that's what we're doing here. In this podcast, I'm the facilitator of the discussion, but the knowledge isn't just mine.

Jeffrey Aylor:

The teaching though is foundational, and I think that's beautiful. But I think the one thing that has come, I've become aware of in myself is the I have the ability to bring peace to a room, to settings where people feel peaceful. There's a peacefulness, which my name, actually, if you look up Jeffrey, is the peace of God. That's the meaning of the name, and I do think names have a purpose. They have a meaning.

Jeffrey Aylor:

This is why, porno, you would be given a different name. You think of Christian scripture where someone had an experience, and then they were given a new name because of that. They now had a different identity as a result of that. So your name, I do think, has a lot to do with who you are, and some of that I think comes as a result, again, of our soul contracts that we that we enter into. But peace, I believe, is something that is is it's it's the essence of who I think I am.

Jeffrey Aylor:

And I I feel a responsibility to radiate peace and to to and and if there's one thing again I think the world needs right now is peace. And and I hope that this work, this podcast, these teachings, these principles from all these different traditions we touch on will help. People feel that connection with each other and a peacefulness that comes with with recognizing that everybody, we are okay. Everything is okay. The world the the the god loves us.

Jeffrey Aylor:

The universe loves us. The universe wants what's good for us. Stop fighting it. It's about flow. I I think of Alan Watts again in the watercourse way, the water method that he would teach.

Jeffrey Aylor:

We don't control the river. You can try, but reach in there and grab a handful of it and see if you can control it. You can't. The more you try, the harder things get. So I watched the world today, and I see so many people who want to be in control, and they're they don't have control.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Stop. It's amazing how much more peaceful your life will be when you realize you don't have the control you think you do. If anything, you're messing up the natural flow. Allow things to happen and and peace will come as a result of that. So with these gifts, though, comes responsibility.

Jeffrey Aylor:

You know, we know that when we use these gifts, we're to use them in a service larger than ourselves. And and and with that, though, comes the responsibility with these gifts. So what responsibility comes with your gift?

Purna Devi:

Well, first, I want to bow to all three of you. Right? As the divine feminine holding it down in these podcasts, you know, Sherry's with us as well in spirit. But, you know, I'm sitting in circle with three men in modern society talking about giving up control and discovering their God given gifts. So for for Joe and Joel, who are still right in the season of really exploring those and giving those away, being in circle with three men in this modern age who are deconstructing.

Purna Devi:

I see you deconstructing toxic patriarchal programs before my eyes. I mean, it just I have to bow to each one of you and say thank you because part of your gifts, right, part of your gift is to be an example and propagate healthy, divine masculine within yourselves, within your families, within your relationships, and then on the larger scale within the viewership and the listenership of those who will be touched by this podcast to have three very different men coming at the divine masculine in a healthy way is just the absolute most beautiful thing. So I know I'm not answering your question directly, but I just had to take a moment and really honor the three of you. It's such a gift to be in circle with you.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Thank you.

Purna Devi:

Yeah. Yeah. Likewise. Yeah. My brother.

Purna Devi:

Honestly, you three have been beautiful examples of the divine masculine through what I've been going through personally too. It's just been really powerful to be in relationship to you three, so thank you.

Jeffrey Aylor:

That is love.

Purna Devi:

Yeah. Oh, I love you three so much. So what was your question?

Jeffrey Aylor:

Oh, did I ask a question?

Purna Devi:

Yeah. I forget what it was because I just really had to honor the three of you for a moment.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Well, it's really it really just what responsibility comes with these gifts. Right?

Purna Devi:

I think honing them honing them. Right? Honing our gifts, recognizing that we are a vehicle of the divine, that it's not ours. So so many folks, I think in my profession can really feed their ego because people look up to you. And I always say I will fall from grace.

Purna Devi:

So do not do not put me on a pedestal, but so many folks will find themselves in leadership and stewardship positions that then become really filled with that ego. So I think part of the responsibility is that humility, Right? Humbleness to recognize that my gifts are channeled wisdoms from the divine, and I am merely the vessel for these, and they can be taken away. God will say, oh, no, no, no, sweet child. If you do not hone these in a responsible way and support them in a responsible way, they will be taken from you.

Purna Devi:

I've experienced it personally. I have fallen from grace many times until I realized what a gift this life is and what a gift it is to steward these ancient teachings in these ways that now we do not shirk at the responsibility. We know what a great honor it is.

Joel Aylor:

Yeah. I'll just repeat what I said last week in the leadership discussion is that with great power comes great responsibility. In this case, great you're having these gifts. You have a responsibility to use them wisely, to actually use them. I guess to your point, if you don't use them, they'll be taken away or your life will be cut short because you're not you're not using what you were sent here to do.

Joel Aylor:

So we all you have to find what you're good at and what, you you know, drives you each day. Otherwise, you know, basically, you become, you know, stagnant. You become something that gets replaced or something gets removed. So there is great responsibility in these gifts to to use it for yourself and to help others.

Joe Dermody:

Yep. I have four words written down. Use them, help others.

Joel Aylor:

That's That's all I need.

Joe Dermody:

Just comes down to that. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's also to improve them, though. So use them, improve what you have, Learn new ones if you can.

Joe Dermody:

Always help improve them and learn more. But do it all in in a way to help others.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Well, I think that's that's probably the most critical point is that I think the Apostle Paul said that you can have great gifts, but if you have them without love, you're just a sounding brass and a tinkling symbol. You're just making noise. Without love, if you're not executing these out of true and unconditional love, then then you're you're you're using them in the wrong way. It gets back to intention. I know people who have great gifts, great gifts of intelligence.

Jeffrey Aylor:

I think about people who are stealing data. I think about people who are hacking systems. I think about people who are are thieves. Many of them are absolutely brilliant. They have great gifts and talent to do what they do, but they're using them for the wrong thing.

Jeffrey Aylor:

I think of people who use their gifts to consume them on their lust. Could be beauty, and they use that in a way that they they they really eat people, as I like to say. They consume them, and and it's out of an appetite, a selfish appetite that that they they cannot control. And I also think that anyone who says, well, I know I had this gift, but I'm I'm just I just don't feel like I'm worthy to do it. Well, what you're doing is you're being arrogant to God.

Jeffrey Aylor:

God didn't give you that gift to that's not that's not that's fake humility. That's not real humility. There's a difference. And I think if you don't, to Joel's point when he first said, you've got to use them. Otherwise, you're not fulfilling the responsibility that God gave you by giving them to you.

Jeffrey Aylor:

And you know, sometimes people and they're gonna they're gonna why do you do that? Why does this I don't understand why you take all the time and you do all those things, and and what benefit are you getting from it? Well, you know what? It's not my job to determine what benefit. I often think about this podcast and the time and energy that goes into doing this, and I honestly don't care who or how many people listen to it because I believe the Universe knows exactly who the message is for, and that the universe will find them and will at the right time at the right time to share it.

Jeffrey Aylor:

It's not my job. It's not my responsibility. I'll use the example of Noah and the Ark. Can you imagine what all the people thought about him building this great big ship? What are you doing?

Jeffrey Aylor:

It didn't it didn't get built today. It took for a long time to, you know, if they were real, right? I know it's a it can be a metaphor

Joel Aylor:

of a story that

Jeffrey Aylor:

is more open. This concept is right. Whether it's a metaphor or not, the principles are saying, Imagine what people thought of him. Right? It had never rained before.

Jeffrey Aylor:

What are you building this ark for? There's never been a flood. What are you doing? Well, guess what? The day the flood comes, he's brilliant.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Absolutely brilliant.

Purna Devi:

Crazy. Right? And

Jeffrey Aylor:

so Everybody else will look at him.

Purna Devi:

As he comes.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Exactly. So, you know, it's not us. It's not for us to question in some cases. Our job is to do what it is we are being called to do. Do it with the right intention.

Jeffrey Aylor:

You do it with reverence, and and God will give the increase. Paul says we use another metaphor. He said, you know, Apollos would plant, I would water, but God gives the increase. So let's give credit to each one of them for what they do, but recognize the relationship in all of it. So in this last part, we want to talk about living with reverence because stewardship isn't measured by necessarily great big actions.

Jeffrey Aylor:

It's ordinary things in many cases, ordinary choices, ordinary. You know, I tell people all the time a lot of small actions when they're added together have the same impact and effect as one great big one. Well, it's much easier to do a lot of little things than it is to focus on one big thing. So with that in mind, how how can we? Take what we've been given these gifts we've been given the knowledge that we have been given in a way that will help us.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Care. For those around us and ourself and the world as a collective, I mean, this is what daily practices. There's a number of things that we want to touch on here. How does this? How does it work?

Purna Devi:

I think it comes back to the idea that we need to do big acts. And really, there's a simplicity to life and to presence. And reverence comes from slowing down and not you know, and really disconnecting from that idea of these grandiose movements. Right? It's daily presence with my body.

Purna Devi:

Right? So then it's, you know, moving and breathing meditating and praying and connecting with myself and slowing down to have the stillness so I can hear the divine wisdom and the consciousness that seeks to move through me and help me understand my gifts to be in service. It's being present in community, in my relationships. It's allowing myself to be a steward of the earth, right, and not continue to rape and pillage and take and consume and capitalize and manipulate, but rather to honor, right, and to care for and to be more mindful of the choices that we're making and the way we show up in service to others. So it's in the daily things, right?

Purna Devi:

Again, Thich Nhat Hanh says peace is every step. It's in every breath. It's in every step. It's the way my foot touches the earth.

Joel Aylor:

Yeah. A lot of it comes from from gratitude and just being grateful for what you have and what you're able to do yourself because it is easy to get sucked into the idea of changing the world or a grandiose idea of, hey. I see how this is all connected now. I know the solution. I know how to fix it.

Joel Aylor:

Let's go out and do this real big only to realize that, one, you're not that powerful. Two, not everybody's ready for it. It's not gonna be received the way you're hoping it's gonna be received. So, really, what you have to do is focus just on yourself, and then that strip that ripples out into your family life, and your family ripples out into your community. So that's why Gandhi said, if you wanna change the world, go home and love your family.

Joel Aylor:

Go home and take care of your family, and it will change the world over time. You can't you're not going to affect everyone all at the same time. No one's that powerful. So being able to understand that and focus on yourself and how you actually can influence your circle of influence, you know, knowing what your circle of influence is and and staying within that. Otherwise, you're just going to stretch yourself too thin.

Joe Dermody:

Baby steps. Right? So keep moving, but small steps in in the right direction.

Joel Aylor:

Now I wanna watch what about Bob?

Jeffrey Aylor:

The moon

Joe Dermody:

dream. What

Purna Devi:

about Bob? That is one of my favorite movies

Jeffrey Aylor:

of

Joe Dermody:

all

Jeffrey Aylor:

the time.

Purna Devi:

Baby stepping to the door.

Joel Aylor:

Yes.

Purna Devi:

Baby stepping outside. Take eagle with us.

Joel Aylor:

Oh, no. Some peace and quiet in here. Okay. I'll be quiet. I'll be peace.

Joel Aylor:

Love that scene.

Purna Devi:

Don't even get me started. Oh, one of my favorites. Bill Murray classic.

Joe Dermody:

Mhmm. So same same yeah. I I'm just gonna agree with what you guys have said. It's keep moving. Keep moving in the right direction, and, you know, take take your take your baby steps and be be gracious with what you've got.

Joe Dermody:

Mhmm.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Yeah. Well, I think we touched on it at the very beginning of the podcast that, you know, the whole podcast series here of unity this season of awakening is, you know, we start inward, we work outward, we we've we've built a bigger circle as we've gone in our discussions, and and that same approach is appropriate, not just for this podcast, it's appropriate for each one of us individually. Internally, as within, so without the Hermetic principle, it will expand. It will naturally expand. If you're expanding, you're expanding the collective because you're connected to it.

Jeffrey Aylor:

You're not not connected. Your growth is a growth of of all of humanity. Every individual growing is a growth for all humanity. That's the whole concept behind unity. And, you know, we're getting very close to the end of this season.

Jeffrey Aylor:

We're only a few episodes away from finishing up this first season, and, you know, it's it's it's been such a great learning experience for me, I think, in in learning how to bring this kind of content to people in a way that could be meaningful. I hope people realize, you know, the goal here is not for you to just sit and listen to this podcast or any of our podcasts of the three that we do and not be involved in it. Every podcast is asking you to participate. It's asking you to be involved in it and learn and grow and and actively respond. It's and and and we're hoping that this space between is helping you process things in a way that allow you to truly respond, be to respond to awakening, respond to the principles and concepts of unity.

Jeffrey Aylor:

And, you know, it's been a great learning experience for me, but I I think we. And we're all growing. I don't know about you. But I think all of us are growing collectively as we have these conversations now. To me.

Jeffrey Aylor:

This is more valuable as church congregating ecclesia than going to what most people consider church. Where they're told what to think. Where you're told what to think in many cases, right? And then being judged and held accountable to a certain standard. And we're here.

Jeffrey Aylor:

I think this is very open and explorative and and we even though we may have different experience and different level or opinions even about specific things, that's okay. It's an open environment to talk and to grow into and know that all of you are safe and all of you are loved.

Joel Aylor:

And the fact that we're sitting here having this conversation today and all four of us have come from very different paths, very different backgrounds. We've all come to the same the same conversation.

Jeffrey Aylor:

So I encourage all of us to think about this. Are we are we borrowing the earth from our children? Are we borrowing the earth from our children, or are we stewarding the earth so that our children have a healthy, strong, and wonderful earth to enjoy? Or have we appropriately received it from those that were before us? Maybe they stewarded better than we did, and we're not being good stewards.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Right? So we're sitting in this path of creation, and, you know, in some cases, maybe we're we're failing at both of them. I think it's important for us to realize that what we do today is not isolated in its impact. It has an effect backward and forward. It's either a lack of reverence for what people did in the past, or it is a a lack of love and concern for what people are going to experience in the future.

Jeffrey Aylor:

So based on this, as we bring our conversation to a close today, maybe stewardship begins with just one simple realization that life is not something we possess. It's something we participate in. We're active participants with every tree, every river, every animal, every person, every single breath is a part of one consistent living whole. So Porna, Joel, Joe, thank you again for sharing all your thoughts and love today. And to everyone who's listening, I hope that perhaps honoring all life doesn't begin with changing our entire world.

Jeffrey Aylor:

We've said that many times, but perhaps it really begins in how we treat the living people and things that are right close to us. Whether it's a person, a plant, it could be an animal, you know, the earth that we walk on that's under our feet. Every act of reverence, every act of reverence, matter how small it is, is gonna help us reveal and live and experience heaven on earth. And with that, the space between continues. As we come to a close, remember that this journey continues in many expressions.

Jeffrey Aylor:

This podcast is part of a family of partner podcasts. Awakening heaven on earth. The space between heaven and earth, and Living Heaven on Earth are three companion podcasts exploring spiritual awakening from complementary perspectives. Awakening heaven on earth offers the core teachings and mystical reflections on unity, love, and conscious living. The space between creates room for dialogue, reflection, and lived conversation around those teachings.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Living Heaven on Earth focuses on basic spiritual practices that help embody these insights in daily life. Together, they form a unified journey of understanding, experience, and integration. Inviting listeners to remember their connection with the divine, with one another, and with the living world. You can find all of them available on the same podcast streaming platforms wherever you listen. And if music helps carry these teachings deeper into the heart, The Unity.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Awakening Heaven on Earth album is available on all major music streaming services as a musical companion to this journey. Wherever you engage, through listening, reflection, conversation, or music. May it gently remind you, you are not separate. You belong to the one life and heaven is already unfolding within you. Until next time.

Jeffrey Aylor:

Walk gently, love deeply, and embody heaven on earth.