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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.
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. In the earlier episodes of this series, we've explored unity as a universal belonging, as connection, and as the dissolving of separation between ourselves and the world around us. So much more of a outside focus to unity and connection.
Jeffrey Aylor:Today, the questions are going be more intimate. We're turning inward toward the idea of our personal unity with God, the source of all being. This isn't a conversation about theology, about doctrine, or defining specifically what God is meant to be, but it is a conversation about presence, about the moments when the sense of me becomes less concrete and something deeper feels more subtly present beneath it. So I'm grateful to be joined again by my friend Joe Dermody, my son, Joel Wheeler. Welcome, gentlemen.
Jeffrey Aylor:So each of us, as we say, approach this from this idea of source from a different place, you know, through questioning, through our experience, through silence and reflection. You know, it feels meaningful to hold this space between with you guys here. And before we move into the reflection questions, I'd really love to invite each one of you to share. When you hear the phrase source of all being, what does it stir up in you? Not as an idea or a concept, but as a feeling or a sense.
Joe Dermody:For me, it it love. Just love and all. I think that's that sums it up for me. It's it's love and a big sense of awe.
Joel Aylor:Yeah. I mean, love's obviously a big one. It's definitely not something that you can name or define. It's definitely it's basically just a almost a feeling of energy within myself and a connection to the world that I'm in. That's, I don't know, just the accent.
Joel Aylor:It's the connection. It's a feeling. It's just it's just a knowing. It's not necessarily anything that's easy to define or, point to it and say, here it is. So
Joe Dermody:I love the word energy. That was a that's a great word too. Yeah. That that sums up a lot of it too. Yeah.
Jeffrey Aylor:Well, I know, you know, in my in my experience, obviously, we believe that God is love. That was the definition, right? Comes right out of Scripture. God is love, and God is spirit. Spirit is not seen.
Jeffrey Aylor:So God has to be something other than a physical creature or being. And I really have come to understand that God is the underlying energy of the universe and all creation. And it's interesting because that same energy and and, Joe, I think you used the word creator, is creative. The very energy is creative. Creative energy.
Jeffrey Aylor:When we feel creative energy, that is God in us moving. And it's really made it's made that become significantly more sacred to me. You feel the energy in your body moving, and if anybody's ever wondered what God might feel like or be like, to me that's what I'm coming to sum up as the presence within us, and I do believe that God is within us. I don't you know, I I was raised to believe that God was out there somewhere in some distant place, and and and we were separated from God, and and we're not. Understand that he's not only present in me, but he's present in you, because we all come from that same source, and it should make us look at each other differently.
Jeffrey Aylor:So with that, let's take some time and jump into these reflection questions. I really want to gently describe how we approach these. Again, the questions aren't meant to take us towards some specific definitive understanding. They're meant to bring us into noticing an awareness of what's already here inside of us, or beneath our thoughts and our experience and our words. You know, it's meant to stir up our pure minds and guide us so that we can reason together.
Jeffrey Aylor:Again, background, and I have to apologize to all the people who've known me all my life, to have been so dogmatic and think that the way I believed about things was the way, I apologize because I'm learning that that's certainly not the case, and I need to be open because there are many people who have deeper or better understanding about many of these things than I do. So and that's what I love about these conversations and the sharing is your perspective. I gain a lot from hearing it and from listening to the way you're processing this yourself. So with that in mind, let's jump into the first reflection question. So when I use the word god, what am I actually pointing toward?
Jeffrey Aylor:A belief, an image, a memory, or a presence I can see beneath those things?
Joe Dermody:I think that it's all of those things.
Jeffrey Aylor:I I
Joe Dermody:think that it's a it's a memory of what we are taught. It's the image of what we've read and seen in church growing up. But in a simple answer, yes. In a more complex answer, for me, it's a belief. For me, it's a belief.
Joe Dermody:I don't have anything concrete, of a personal experience where I can say I've felt a direct connection. Like, I haven't had a huge experience yet where I've had a I I wanna call it that that direct connection. I've seen evidence through life around us, right, that makes me believe. I've seen things that I can't explain that definitely makes me believe, so I am a 100% a believer. But you hear these stories of oh, I've had these things in my head.
Joe Dermody:Right? So because I put some thought into this. Right? There are I haven't had a direct experience where I can say that this has happened, so I have a you know, I've seen it, so I've witnessed it, and I can explain the story. So for me, it has to just be a belief.
Joel Aylor:You're trying to use your logical mind to describe something?
Joe Dermody:That's yeah. That's, like
Joel Aylor:That's hard to do. For me, the word god used to point to an idea, something that was outside of me that I tried to understand or approach. To me, it was when I was young, it was you know, there's an old old gold, old man sitting on the throne with gray hair and long you know, beard and watching over everything I did and everything I thought about. It was kind of unnerving when you think about it. It's kind of a creepy, scare based way of approaching the divine.
Joel Aylor:But over time, that shifted, big time. Now it points more towards a a presence that's, you know, almost there prior to a belief in it, something that's there before I name it. Or, you know, when I say God, I'm not no longer pointing outward or upward. I'm more looking inward and within myself. That was a big, big paradigm shift, because the vast majority of Christianity, you know, thinks of God and and heaven as being out there and something we're obtaining and we're getting to, after this life is this, as if this life isn't important.
Joel Aylor:But everything that, you know, Jesus said in his own scripture, in those scriptures, was saying everything was within. So to start to search for God within was a big shift for me, and that that's definitely where I've, you know, come to, experience it more.
Jeffrey Aylor:Well, I have to say for me, it it's obvious that God historically for me has been an image. Mhmm. I think much of God. Yeah. Especially during the Renaissance period was trying to create images that represent God.
Jeffrey Aylor:I think of the paintings in the Sistine Chapel, right, of Adam and God and their fingers are touching, and as you describe God as an old gray haired man that sits on a throne and is judging you continually, whether you're doing good things or bad things, and is always just waiting for you to slip up. And, you know, at least that image was one that helped you consider him as a father figure in some ways, right? So if you look at your father as a nurturing image, then that would be good. But if maybe you have a bad image of a father, that could be bad. Right?
Jeffrey Aylor:Maybe you look at that in a bad way. And I think it's interesting because across all the different traditions, there's different names that people have. In fact, among the Dallas, they say that the source cannot be named.
Joel Aylor:Right. As soon as you name it, that's not
Jeffrey Aylor:it. As soon as you name it, it's not it because it's unfathomable, it's unnamable. Right. And it takes so many different forms. But I do believe, as I was kind of mentioning in our opening comments, that God really is the creative energy of all of the universe.
Jeffrey Aylor:So energy now, to Joe's point, is probably the way I would consider and describe his presence in me. It's feeling anytime I feel that surge, that creative surge of energy inside my body, I know what that is now. And unfortunately, lot of people don't and waste it, right? And they don't harness that and they don't. I can honestly say that as this work has all come together, I have had the opportunity to experience that energy very directly in downloads.
Jeffrey Aylor:I mean, it has come in massive downloads, and it's exhilarating. It's an exhilarating feeling. So anyway, to me, when that I when I use the word God today, to your point, Joel, it's different than it was. But today, to me, God is is energy. It's just the energy that exists in all creation, not just people, all creation.
Jeffrey Aylor:Yeah. Everything is energy. Everything Yep. Is energy. I know when we look at things and we think that they're solid, they are not solid.
Jeffrey Aylor:We'll talk about this a lot more as we get into all the the content, the books, because in fact, there's one book called energy that we will we will dive into energy deeply, because it is the source. It is
Joe Dermody:So, you know, as as we go through these, I think I I've just learned that first of all, I don't I don't speak as well as I wanna be able to speak. My mind just doesn't work as well as I want it to work. Same. It's it's gonna get better. Right?
Joe Dermody:I I know it's going to get better the more I do this and the more I can self reflect on this, but, I think it is my logical mind too that I think gets in my way, of the creativity that I know is there. Mhmm. But I think I just need to let you guys answer. One of you answer first so that I can start getting my my thoughts in order here too because it helps me. But so by hearing what you guys get to say too, I don't wanna say ditto.
Joe Dermody:Right? But but I do get to hear what you say, and it helps me understand. I think I have put a lot of thought into it. And when you guys say, you know, thinking about god so I'm sorry to backtrack just a little bit, but, you know, the image of god, not only as a a fatherly figure, right, these images of God sitting on a throne, an old man, but you also have all the other, you know, God images of even the the Greek gods and things like that that people use, the other sources, and then they used all kinds of images, in the past. You also had Mother Earth.
Joe Dermody:You had, all kinds of other representations. So it did go from these images and then the flowing of that to the energy that I now feel. So I do feel a lot of energy, and I have the belief, and I can feel the differences of energy when I stop to slow down, when I stop to to do my meditations, when I go to workout, when I sleep. So so to Jeff, your point with the downloads, I think God is now more of a energy and knowledge based enter an entity. Right?
Joe Dermody:The the creator of all, which even goes back to I know you and I have had some discussions in the past about, you know, some of the the the Akashic records and whatnot too. Maybe that is also, it is, I believe, a part of
Jeffrey Aylor:Oh, I I totally agree with you. I think God as the source is this he you know, if you've not heard of the Akashic records, you know, some people that that comes from the Hindu religion primarily, right? It's a Sanskrit name, but it's basically the universal database of all things throughout all time, past, present, and future. I think that that's what Lynn McTaggart is referring to when she talks about the field, in her book Field. Yep.
Jeffrey Aylor:That there is this massive store of intelligence.
Joel Aylor:And it's everywhere.
Jeffrey Aylor:And it's everywhere.
Joel Aylor:It's not just in a spot, it's literally everywhere.
Jeffrey Aylor:Right, and so one of the names that I'm becoming much more comfortable using when I describe God is is divine intelligence, infinite intelligence, and that wisdom, right? That that's that now could be intelligent and not be wise, because wisdom requires action. It's intelligence and knowledge and action, and I think God is the source of all wisdom beyond intelligence, right? And to me, God also, because of spirit, you know, we're made up, I believe, of mind, body, and spirit, and I believe the spirit within us, which you cannot see, is born of God, right? It is God's essence in us living through a human form, and I believe our body comes from the earth.
Jeffrey Aylor:I think the earth is our mother. That would have been a big revelation for me. And this is what I love about this podcast is that between heaven, spirit, and earth, body, there is the ability to reason and think. And when those two things come together, it can be an absolutely beautiful thing. If they fight against each other, life can be full of trouble and turmoil.
Jeffrey Aylor:Right? So what I like about The Space Between is a podcast between awakening, which is really focused on that spiritual elements in many cases, and the other podcast that we've just launched this this last week called Living, is we go from head knowledge to experience and application, and applying it in using wisdom in that. Yeah, God is a much bigger concept to me than ever before, and God does not judge. We touched on judgment in our last discussion. God doesn't judge.
Jeffrey Aylor:That father we talk about who we think is sitting on that throne judging us every day, and you've done good, you've done bad, punish, reward. That's not God. God does not judge.
Joel Aylor:Nope. That's ego.
Jeffrey Aylor:That's the ego. Totally the ego. And if there is a God out there who's doing that, it's not the God I'm worshiping now. No. I do believe there is a lower, lesser God that people worship that does have that form and does have that image.
Jeffrey Aylor:That has probably been the most profound change in where I've come from over the last five or six years, is I have come to realize that I really wasn't worshiping what I now believe to be the true god or source. I was worshiping a lesser god, the god of this world, who does have all those characteristics of a father sitting on a throne and judging and being jealous and being, I mean, that that really is what I see in the god that's in the Old Testament. And now that I look back at that, I'm like, oh my gosh, no wonder that didn't feel very good when I would read about that God and the things that he was asking people to do and not do, and that incongruity between that and what I was feeling was a good thing because it helped me see, wait a minute, there's something I'm missing something here in my understanding, and I need to figure it out. So let's just go ahead.
Joel Aylor:No. Was just saying it's better that you actually notice that and ask the questions and found some other source of, truth. Most a lot of people, basically, instead of searching when they have that uncomfortable feeling, they just basically go back into the comfortable and try to make everything fit what they already believe. So that's, you know, being open and being willing to change your views if it doesn't line up with what you're reading or what you're feeling is part of the awakening process.
Jeffrey Aylor:When you start to see things align, to me it's like swimming with the current as opposed to swimming against current.
Joel Aylor:Well, life is supposed to flow like a river.
Jeffrey Aylor:Yeah. Oh, it's just flowing and things just move and it feels so much more pleasant. Yeah, so
Joel Aylor:You know, we're not supposed to resist it. So go with it.
Jeffrey Aylor:So here's a good question. Can I notice and sense an essence of being that exists before my thoughts, my roles, and my story, and what does that awareness feel like?
Joel Aylor:Yes. I mean, it's subtle. It doesn't announce itself. If you can almost it's basically the, it's like this the observer behind the thought is kinda what you have to kinda find, and it's it's a spacious quiet space. That's your true self.
Joel Aylor:The thoughts that creep into your head, those aren't you. That's just your mind talking, and it never stops. So you can feel the awareness behind that, but you have to basically sit be still and ground yourself and and be in quiet, turn off the senses, which is a big thing that I had to learn how to do. And when you do that, you can feel your awareness in the absolute infinite space that you exist in, not just in this body, but much bigger. Like I said, it's very subtle, and you basically have to learn how to shut down this body in order to kinda see the awareness behind it.
Joel Aylor:You
Jeffrey Aylor:know, was in in the recommended readings that will come out, later this week, this next week on this topic. There are several really really good books that we touch on. We introduce people who may not be exposed to Eckhart Tolle and to Michael Singer
Joel Aylor:That's a good one. Yeah, Michael Singer's a good one.
Jeffrey Aylor:Michael Singer, I think, does a really nice job of saying, who is it that you're hearing when you have
Joel Aylor:Who are you talking to in your head?
Jeffrey Aylor:Talking to in your head.
Joel Aylor:Right. It's like having a noisy roommate that you allow to talk all the time.
Jeffrey Aylor:So Joe has been reading Laura Lynn Jackson, who I just think a great great deal above, and she talks about that frontal lobe of the brain, calls it the monkey mind.
Joel Aylor:It's the It's the Indian style. It's the monkey mind.
Jeffrey Aylor:I'm talking. I'm talking. I think of that. There's there was a great commercial. It was a person in a job interview, and they're sitting in front of the person that's interviewing them, and they've got a spot on their white shirt, and the spot is talking.
Joel Aylor:Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. And they
Jeffrey Aylor:can't the first big interview, they can't even hear the interviewee because this spot is annoying. You know, and they can't get their mind off of it. Well, that's sometimes how I think our thoughts are. And people believe they are their thoughts.
Joel Aylor:They identify with them. Yeah,
Jeffrey Aylor:and we aren't our thoughts. We're the observer of our thoughts. This is why in the book Man's Search for Meaning, Viktor Frankl talks about the fact that we have the ability to stop between a stimulus or a thought and a response because we have to realize, wait a minute, where'd that thought come from? To me, are like radio waves or television signals. The thoughts sometimes that come in your mind aren't even yours.
Jeffrey Aylor:Those are signals that can be planted in your mind from outside.
Joel Aylor:Oh, yeah. Conditioning, draining, any of it.
Jeffrey Aylor:You think they're yours and they're No.
Joel Aylor:You've been taught that.
Jeffrey Aylor:You know? And, yeah, you've got these stories of your life that says, well, I'm a this and I'm a that, and because of the stories we create with these thoughts That's what gives thoughts meaning, by the way, is the story around it for your life, and the roles that we play, because we think in many cases that we are our roles. One of the things I like about Michael Singer in The Untethered Soul, he also talks about the fact that we are not our body, we are not our name.
Joel Aylor:We are not our profession, we're not yeah.
Jeffrey Aylor:You're not your role, your job role. Right. I know a lot of people that their whole identity is wrapped up in the work they do. Outside of their work, they don't have any sense of being or meaning. That's where their sense of work comes from.
Jeffrey Aylor:And this is a liberating to me when you realize that we are to be in control of our thoughts, and to question the thoughts. A lot of them are like clouds. It's another great description I've seen. You know, the sky is basically the same all the time, but clouds will come and clouds will go, storms will come, things will come and go, and you just have to let them go. Don't hold on to them.
Jeffrey Aylor:They're temporary, they're not yours to possess, first of all. And so when I find people who think they are their thoughts, and they think that their thoughts are real, and they get anxious over their thoughts, or if their thoughts are about the past, and they create depression and various things within themselves, because they can't let go of something that's not real anymore. It's over, it's done, it's past. This is where Eckhart Tolle, I think, in The Power of Now really helps you to understand, wait a minute, the only thing that exists today and in reality is right now. The past is gone, the future isn't there.
Jeffrey Aylor:The only thing that is real is right now. Joe and I were having a conversation. He is a Lego sufficionado. He loves to do Lego models, and these things are complicated and they're big and they've got all these pieces and but when you're doing something creative like that, whether it's art, whether it's music, whether it's Legos, what's beautiful about that, number one, is that you're using your creative energy. Remember I said, I believe God is creative?
Jeffrey Aylor:His energy is creation, we are co creators. That energy gets focused on the now, right?
Joel Aylor:Yeah.
Jeffrey Aylor:When you're doing that, you can't be thinking about the past or the future. So it tends to help people that are suffering from depression or from anxiety. If someone starts to feel anxiety coming on, or depression coming on, do something creative. Do something creative. Listen to music.
Jeffrey Aylor:Paint a picture. Draw. Do something. Put Legos together. Right?
Jeffrey Aylor:It's it's anything to construct the creative energy that then allows you to be present with God in that moment.
Joe Dermody:Well, and what I love about Legos even more is it will help those that feel that they're not creative. So somebody like for instance, me, I I have that engineering mind. Right? So I don't think of myself as creative. Right?
Joe Dermody:I can't I can't draw. I can't I can sing, but I'm not musically inclined, to go play an instrument. So a lot of engineers don't see themselves, for instance, as creative. They think of themselves only as logical. So we tend a lot more to things like Legos.
Joe Dermody:But Legos are very creative even if you're following the book or instructions, putting things together, putting an IKEA piece of furniture together where you're following instructions step by step by step, that is still creative. You're building. You are putting something together. Even if you're not designing it yourself, you're still putting something together. Do something to get your mind out of thinking in the future or in the past.
Joe Dermody:Just like you said, do something in the now, in the present. Just get out of your own head.
Jeffrey Aylor:Not destructive.
Joe Dermody:Yeah. That is absolutely correct.
Jeffrey Aylor:Right. It's constructive. It's not destructive. Right. And I don't know.
Jeffrey Aylor:It's me. That's been an epiphany. And so all of us know people who suffer from anxiety or depression because their mind is so heavily impacted by thought, and they think that they are their thought, that they they can't stop or control that thought. Right? And I do believe that and I actually think it was Laurelyn Jackson in one of her books who made that comment about do something creative.
Jeffrey Aylor:Because when you do something creative, it will put you in the now.
Joe Dermody:It is. Yep.
Jeffrey Aylor:Put you right in the now, which is where God is. It's where your your true being is, and it helps center you.
Joe Dermody:Allows that connection to happen.
Jeffrey Aylor:So what happens when you allow yourself not to specifically manage or define or grasp in some concrete way this concept of source, but you just simply let it sit in your mind and in your knowing.
Joel Aylor:For me, it's relief. For me, it's the feelings of stress, anxiety, worry, any of that can just fall apart can fall off, and you can just sit in that in that presence, in that moment, in that space. Don't have to do anything or be anything. It's just a feeling of of oneness. It's a feeling of connection with everything.
Joel Aylor:It's a feeling of love and and belonging. It's like I said, it's subtle, especially at the beginning, and it and it requires practice just like any other type of exercise or training or or anything you wanna be good at. You have to practice it over and over to get to get there easier, to hold it longer, because the mind, like like we said, doesn't stop talking, and thoughts will come in. It'll try to define it. It'll try to put it in a queue.
Joel Aylor:Well, what are you experiencing now? What's this? You know? Is this it? Are you sure?
Joel Aylor:You know? And it'll ask you some questions, and it doesn't stop, and you have to learn to basically ignore it or train that monkey to sit still. Sit on, you know, sit on the stool and be and just sit be still, while you're in that space. It's not easy, but it is worth it. Anytime I've ever sat in meditation and was able to sit long enough to to get into that stillness, it is always always worth it.
Joe Dermody:So this is one of the things that I am I've always had an the biggest thing I've had a problem with is trying to meditate and to not have to know and put everything in its place. Yeah. So but it is also one of the coolest experiences that I am starting to have. And for me, it is it is eye opening. Right?
Joe Dermody:So I'm I'm finally getting to the place
Joel Aylor:where I'm third eye opening.
Joe Dermody:Absolutely. Yeah. Absolutely. Is. Yeah.
Joe Dermody:And it's the thing that makes me want to take that next step to to start making big changes. Right? So, yeah, I'm I'm starting to get more comfortable. I want to see what's next. I it makes me want to sit still and and see what's out there.
Joe Dermody:It's making me explore new things, it's fantastic.
Jeffrey Aylor:I know for me, as I've read many many books on all these topics, there's one consistent theme, and that is meditation. The only way to truly connect with God within you is through stillness and quiet. You know, even in the in the Christian scriptures, talks about the still small voice of God, and and I always like to wonder, well, what's God's voice sound like? And and I think Neil Donald Walsch in the conversations with God, he talks about, well, God sounds an awful lot like me. He talks to me.
Jeffrey Aylor:Because God is me. God is in me. And the only way I think to shut down that monkey mind is through meditation. It probably is, and we'll touch on this a lot in living heaven on earth, the practice of meditation. There's a lot of different types.
Jeffrey Aylor:There's a lot of different styles. It's intimidating to a lot of people. But it is the most educational position you can put yourself in. I can remember when I first started, I was using an app, and the app I thought did a very good job of helping you understand you're not your thoughts. Because I was actually sitting in a dark room, and all these thoughts are going through my head while I'm sitting there trying to be still, and I'm thinking about what those images are, and those images were not real.
Jeffrey Aylor:Because you know what? I was sitting in a dark room. I was not actually doing or seeing what was going through my mind. Those those those thoughts were not real. So once you realize that, and you say, wait a minute, okay, and not only that, but I'm hearing that thought.
Jeffrey Aylor:I'm the observer. Joel made that comment early. When you when you position yourself in stillness, you begin to recognize, wait a minute, I'm the listener. I'm the observer of these things. I'm and that essence within you is the God essence in you.
Joel Aylor:And what you're trying to do is just pull yourself into the now. Yeah. You're trying to find you're trying to find the spacious moment right now that exists always, And it's hard to do in your mind. What it's trying to do is it's essentially, it's time traveling. Your mind is time traveling.
Joel Aylor:You can create in your own head inside without actually being in the physical space or at that time. You can time travel back to a moment in time and be there. You can see it. You can feel it. You can hear it.
Joel Aylor:But it's not real. Like you said, it's not real, and it distracts you from this moment that you have right now.
Jeffrey Aylor:You know, it's funny you say that because we would call we would call that imagination.
Joel Aylor:Sure.
Jeffrey Aylor:Right. That you're imagining
Joel Aylor:yourself. That would be the future. Imagination would be the future.
Jeffrey Aylor:Joe and I have talked about a couple different experiences people have that are what we would consider altered state. One of them is an out of body experience. Yeah. And a lot of people when they're having an out of body experience can do what's called astral travel. And I know you and I and others who travel different places can there are certain places you love that you can take yourself there
Joel Aylor:right now,
Jeffrey Aylor:right there in your mind.
Joe Dermody:Yeah.
Jeffrey Aylor:And the question is, are you really there? Mentally. Mentally you are there in that place, and you're experiencing it. You can even sense it, the sounds, the smells.
Joel Aylor:You can even you can even simulate taste. You can remember how something tastes, and all of a sudden in your mind, you taste it.
Jeffrey Aylor:You're tasting it.
Joel Aylor:You're not actually physically tasting it.
Jeffrey Aylor:Right.
Joel Aylor:But the memory of it still is tied to the to the it's it's all tied together, you and can actually experience it again, which is a cool thing. It's one of the most amazing things we have the ability to do. It's just when those become your reality, when you attach everything to that moment in time or can't get past that stuck point, that's when it becomes a problem.
Joe Dermody:Time's relative too. That's a whole another topic.
Joel Aylor:Oh, yeah. Oh, that's all. You know, if you're able to if your mind's able to go back and forth at times so easily that you it's showing it right there. It's pretty pretty relative.
Jeffrey Aylor:It's fascinating to me that we can go backward in our mind, to Joel's point, and time travel backward into experiences that we've had, good, bad. There are alternative realities, I believe, to those things that we've experienced. And there are dimensions of that alternative reality that exist that you can tap into. Then Or even pull in.
Joel Aylor:Yeah, pull it in and try to make it more your reality. Go down that path if that's the path, know, just basically pulling in another reality into your own.
Jeffrey Aylor:And if were to try to cause this is this is a concept that's really difficult to fathom. That's right. But if I were to describe it using something a lot of people can can put their mind around, it would be a video game. Yeah. If you think about it, every every potential situation that could be played in a video game exists on that one disc or that one in that one program.
Jeffrey Aylor:Whether it gets played or not, whether a situation gets played out in that process or experience or not, it's on that. It's there. And you can actually get a game, go back and replay that situation and come up with a different outcome.
Joe Dermody:Reload. Are
Joel Aylor:you saying we live in a simulation?
Jeffrey Aylor:It well, what a concept that might be.
Joel Aylor:That would be
Jeffrey Aylor:yeah. You wanna go down a rabbit hole.
Joel Aylor:And there there's there's another rabbit hole. See? There's there's there's lots of these, whether you call it rabbit holes or or just basically some things to to learn about. So yeah. There's I mean, that you're just seeing basically, you know, this conversation we've had starting off has, you know, gone into a little different area, but that's not that's not a bad thing.
Joel Aylor:They're all connected. It all makes your mind think of the next thing. Well, what about this? Oh, I had this experience or whatever. That's why I like what it
Jeffrey Aylor:not connected, though, in the sense that the same we are eternal. This is the other thing I think that through meditation you learn is that first of all, I am not my temporary body. I am eternal. Silly me again, sometimes when I'm in situations, just want to see test people's response to something. I'm like, next time I'm in a meeting and people ask you to introduce yourself, you know, most people say, well, hey, I'm Jeff Baylor.
Jeffrey Aylor:I'm 62 years old, and I am this role, this role, this role. Next time I think I'm gonna say, hey, well, hey, you know, I really don't know what my name is because I'm eternal.
Joel Aylor:I've many
Jeffrey Aylor:over all my lives. Just so happens that in this particular life, you know, the body I'm in right now is 62 years old, and it's called Jeff Aylor. But, you know, my eternal name, I'm not exactly sure. It's I am.
Joel Aylor:You're you're gonna have some serious physical looks on there too. I mean, you're like, who's this guy and who invited them?
Jeffrey Aylor:Well, that's what I mean. I love it. Wow. Wait a minute.
Joel Aylor:No. But, I mean, that that idea of being eternal, people struggle with that because they they struggle with what eternity means, especially when you tie it into a time reference. Right. Because if people ever they only can grasp beginning and endings. They don't realize just an always being, and it's it's it's very tough for people to say, yes.
Joel Aylor:I'm eternal. Think that I started when I was born, had this lifetime, and then I'm gonna have an eternal life after that even though their minds can't even grasp that either. They're just comfortable with it.
Jeffrey Aylor:But isn't that what so many people are looking for? They're looking to
Joel Aylor:They're looking. They're they're trying to get into that club.
Jeffrey Aylor:They're looking forward. Oh, I'm I want to get eternal life. Well, if you don't have it already, you're never gonna have it because if it's eternal
Joel Aylor:You never began. You never ended. It's just always you just always are.
Jeffrey Aylor:Yeah. Always are.
Joel Aylor:The essence of who are. If there are certain people to to your point, if you go into a meeting like that, you're gonna make their heads explode. Yeah.
Jeffrey Aylor:They're like It's fun.
Joel Aylor:What? It's it's because it short circuits the system, and they're not gonna be able to process. Well, Like computer an just can't you know, it tries, but it's like, no. It just yeah. Don't have enough bandwidth.
Joel Aylor:Not enough RAM. Can't do that.
Joe Dermody:Yeah. Hello, chicken and egg. I'm the frying pan. Yeah.
Jeffrey Aylor:There you go. Well, my point but I was actually making a point when I brought that up, and that is that the same soul, the eternal soul, is the same being. It is connected in all those dimensions that it has existed in. We are connected in all of those lifetimes, all of those experiences. They're all connected.
Jeffrey Aylor:We're not separate from those things, and there are a lot of people who when they use meditation as a practice, they can do past life regression, they can do future visioning, they can do because your higher self, which already exists and has already accomplished the things you're wanting to accomplish and do, it already has done it. And you can tap into that higher self, which is another dimension of yourself, and you can leap. In fact, that's called quantum leaping. We get into quantum concepts, right, which we'll touch on in future episodes as well too. You know, Joel made the comment that these episodes don't have to be just thirty five, forty, forty five, fifty minutes.
Jeffrey Aylor:We could talk for hours and hours about, you know, the top because, again, it's a domino, and there's a there's all these different places you can dive into. But we're gonna have a lot more conversation, so I don't it's it's we keep them focused.
Joe Dermody:My, favorite one of my favorite things you said, I don't remember if we touched on it here in a podcast or if it's just you and me talking, but, you know, prayer is you talking to God, and meditation is you listening to a response or answer. And that's just that that made me really stop and think of it differently too, how important that is. And it's not just meditation because you can listen when you're sleeping. It's the the quieting and shutting down of your your physical mind, right, to let you stop to hear responses.
Jeffrey Aylor:Call it dissolving the ego. When you go to sleep at night, your ego goes you you separate. Mhmm. And that you know, and and a lot of these people that we've been reading and studying about, all of them talk about ego. They all talk about, you know, a lot of the people who experience psychic ability or mediumship, the way they get into that state is by shutting off the ego.
Jeffrey Aylor:Now, how nice would it be to think you can just flip a switch, right? And oh, ego ego's gone.
Joel Aylor:Now Or be like Eckhart Tolle who says he doesn't have an ego anymore. He pretty much doesn't ever entertain it. It'd be interesting to see if if that's actually true if he's just saying that.
Jeffrey Aylor:Well, you know, a lot a lot of the for instance, I'm not somebody who thinks, like some of the some some traditions do, that your body is something you need to escape or that it's a prison. I actually think God gave you that body, he created it, and it's beautiful and perfect, and there are experiences that we're supposed to have. He wants you to have the experience of senses. Well, it's because he is experiencing it through you. And So this whole idea of depriving yourself of certain things that the body was designed to experience, again, that's a story, that's a belief, that's an idea.
Joel Aylor:That's making me different than somebody else. Right. I'm holier than you. Right.
Jeffrey Aylor:So all about the ego, I think is critical. But Joe, to your comment about communication requires a sender and a receiver. If a message is being sent and there's no one to receive it, then where's the message go?
Joe Dermody:Right. And
Jeffrey Aylor:if someone is not sending, there is nothing to receive.
Joel Aylor:Well and and and I struggle just with you with you being over here the other day. You and I were just trying to talk to each other, and my beautiful, lovely daughters were just loud and rambunctious, and I was having a hard time hearing you. In order to actually, you know, hear you and what you were saying, I needed them to calm down and be quiet. It's kinda like they were my monkey mind. Yeah.
Joel Aylor:K? In order for me to actually hear you and get that message clearly in, I needed my monkey mind to be quiet. That's what meditation does. You learn how to be quiet. You learn how to quiet the mind so that you can receive the message that's there.
Jeffrey Aylor:Now what I find though is that a lot of people, and I was this way when I first started practicing, it's not easy because we are so overstimulated, we are so distracted by our senses, and quite honestly, I think that most people struggle with sitting. So what I had to
Joel Aylor:they yes. Struggling with themselves. But I going to the senses, why I would always purposely focus on a sense and see if I was sensing it any longer. Now so, obviously, I wasn't, tasting anything. That one, I can basically kinda focus in on the mouth and the tongue where you taste.
Joel Aylor:Was I tasting any of that moment? No. Was I tasting anything? No. My eyes were closed.
Joel Aylor:I was in a dark room. Without touching anything, I could feel my body against it. But, eventually, as you sit still long enough, you even lose the perception of your body feeling, you know, on sitting on your, you know, cushion or on your chair. Hearing is the hardest one because it never actually turns off, which is why it's so important to go into quiet. Because any noise, you'll hear it.
Joel Aylor:The the hearing never turns off, even wakes you up out of your dead sleep. You know? You're you're you're completely asleep, and all of a sudden, a loud noise happens. You're awake. It's the hardest one, but it's most important to be able to get into as quiet an environment as possible so that you can actually turn off the other senses to be in that space.
Joe Dermody:And there's And I'm the opposite. I'm sorry, Jeff. Go ahead.
Jeffrey Aylor:I was gonna say there's a term for what you're describing called sensory deprivation. Right. We learned this in culinary school, that there there are certain things you taste that once you've tasted it, you can't taste much more of it. Did sweetness is that way. Hardness is that way.
Jeffrey Aylor:So when you're touching something, you'll feel it initially, but if you keep touching it eventually you don't feel that anymore, that sense of touch.
Joel Aylor:It goes into the subconscious or unconscious more or less, your body
Jeffrey Aylor:It's sensory deprivation. And to your point, hearing is that one sense that doesn't experience that. And I think this is what was meant by the saying, hearing, they do not hear. And even seeing, they do not see. But hearing, they do not hear because you're so distracted by what you're hearing with your natural ear, you can't hear the messages coming to your spiritual ears.
Jeffrey Aylor:Right. And learning to The Bible talks about it all over, stillness, quietness, peace. You know, those terms, those concepts are all throughout it, and in every sacred text that we study in all this, that concept of stillness, quietness, so that you can connect with that source, that energy. And I just think some people, they misinterpret the source in them. Because that energy can be perceived as lust, it could be perceived as desire, it can be perceived as all kinds of things when in reality it's creation.
Jeffrey Aylor:It's just creative energy. And we label it as this, and we discharge it in this way when in reality it's supposed to be harnessed. But to do that, you've got to consciously be aware of it and recognize it and manage it.
Joel Aylor:You know, it comes back to awareness.
Jeffrey Aylor:Yeah. Yeah. Totally comes back.
Joel Aylor:Joe, you said you were opposite.
Joe Dermody:Yeah. So I I have the hardest time blanking out or canceling out my hearing as well because the minute that I try to I find something quiet, I start hearing my heartbeat. And I can't I can't stop that then. Right? Nor should I?
Joe Dermody:And and when I'm out in a restaurant, that's the first thing that that will start my anxiety or anything else that I have is is something loud going off, be it silverware at a restaurant, be it a kid crying or yelling, I I can't block any of that out. I have the hardest time with it. So for me, when I meditate, I have to have something music. Even if it's loud music, I can meditate better with loud music with a constant beat. It can't be words.
Joe Dermody:It can't be, anything with go
Joel Aylor:ahead. No. Yeah. What you're saying is exactly what he was talking about with sensory deprivation. Essentially, you've got something that's constantly doing the same thing.
Joel Aylor:Eventually, your mind sees it. It's like, okay. It's not it's there, but it's not important. It's not dangerous. It's okay to just be just ignore it.
Joe Dermody:Yep. That's that's right. So it's a white noise, but it has to be loud enough to drown everything else out.
Joel Aylor:Yeah. So, you
Joe Dermody:know, it's yeah. Absolutely.
Joel Aylor:Yeah. Fair.
Joe Dermody:So different strokes. Right? Different Yeah.
Joel Aylor:No. But whatever works. Whatever you yeah. Yeah. There's no there's more than one way to get there.
Joel Aylor:There's just just one way.
Jeffrey Aylor:Different path. Right?
Joe Dermody:That's leading to the same
Jeffrey Aylor:point, and that is the ability to center inside yourself and sense and experience the source.
Joel Aylor:Well, I mean, that's just what that is is essentially our our primal mind that basically when they're hearing things, we're always on the we're always trying to find that, you know, was what was that snapping twig? Was that something that's come to attack me? Right. That you know? So, basically, it's always listening for things that are different.
Joel Aylor:Yep. So what you're what you're doing is basically get is overwhelming anything that can basically get your attention and basically allow you to sit into a a safe space and calm down and and and be okay, and that's makes perfect sense to me. One thing that I would do when meditating when I was finally still and everything was quiet, when I did hear something, my mind would try to be like, what was that? And I immediately wanted to label it. What was it?
Joel Aylor:Mhmm. And I but that but then I would okay. That was my mind just doing its thing, and I would observe that and be like, it's okay. Let it go. And told me, if to learn to basically when those stimuluses come in, you've got to be like, okay.
Joel Aylor:Is it dangerous? Is it something I need to stop doing what I'm doing and handle right now? Or can I just be like, okay? That was that, and now come back. That's the practice of meditation.
Joel Aylor:And and then people think that they're failing if they if they lose that connection right away, and it's not. You have to basically learn that that's part of the process, and it's okay. You know? Hear it. Let it go.
Joel Aylor:Come back over and over and over again. So
Jeffrey Aylor:One of the best lessons I had early in in my learning about meditation came from Paramahansa Yogananda. Mhmm. But he very clearly pointed out that the difference between meditation and sleep is that sleep is unconscious.
Joe Dermody:Right.
Jeffrey Aylor:Meditation is conscious. You consciously get into that state. Your mind allows you, and you're aware that you're in that state where sleep, you go into that state and your mind is not actively involved in it. So if you can sleep easily and get into the same kind of a state as what meditation creates, can you learn to get into the meditation state easily and do it consciously, right? So that that I thought was a that was a pretty powerful lesson for me.
Jeffrey Aylor:And and and a lot of what we do, we do it unconsciously. We aren't aware we're doing certain things. When you can learn to do it consciously, that puts you in control, right, of the circumstance. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeffrey Aylor:Pretty cool. Alright, one last question. If I trusted that I'm already rooted in the source of all being, what might change in how I listen, speak, or relate to other people? If you know and you recognize that you are already part of the eternal source, how might that change the way you interact with people and things and earth?
Joel Aylor:Me, I tend to try to listen more deeply or speak more gently to people. Still working on that at times because my regular mind likes to take over. I would I I try not to defend myself as much. I try not to always convince everybody that I'm you know, know what I'm talking about or this is the situation. You know, they need to look at this.
Joel Aylor:You know? Any number of things, still struggle with that at times just from my own childhood of how I grew up myself and in the in the my relationship with myself when I was younger. Yeah. So it's basically, when I'm when I feel rooted in myself, I don't feel so desperate to convince or correct or or be right or or any any of those feelings that normally would come up. It's much freeing much more freeing and more open, to experience life and experience people and to and to share in in this whole experience.
Jeffrey Aylor:Yeah.
Joe Dermody:It it helps me dissolve fear. I have you know? And without the fear, it helps me to better myself. Right? And it helps me to be more aware of what I'm doing, to to help me meditate, to know that it's important to listen, to be be a better person, to to be kind, which I've always been kind, but how much more important it is to be helpful and just better in general to everybody.
Joe Dermody:And and that's because I know that everybody's connected. We're all one, and and that's because of being connected, you know, with the source. We're all part of that. And being aware of that has allowed me to see that we all are. So I think that's helped me see that.
Jeffrey Aylor:You know, I look at I look at certain bible stories and parables that I taught as a pastor heard over all the years, and I wish I knew then what I know now, because I certainly would have taught them from a very different perspective. And I do believe that Jesus is the perfect example of someone who knew and understood that he was one with the divine source. I believe he came to show his people specifically that there was a greater god, that there was a true source beyond the god that they were worshiping and serving, and that it was a god of love, not a god of vengeance and jealousy and hatred and separation. But he was able, when he would look at somebody, to see beyond what was obvious about them. You know, there's so many people who teach about how he would beat Republicans and sinners, and he, you know, he spent time with harlots and different people, and, you know, there was the woman that was taken in adultery know, he tax and, collectors and all these people that we would judge them outwardly based on what we see in them outwardly.
Joel Aylor:They were low status in that society.
Jeffrey Aylor:Yeah, but he was able to see beyond what was obvious with the eyes and knew, he knew. They didn't know it, but he knew that they were one with the source. That's how he healed them. That's how he would interact with them. He saw beyond what the eyes showed him.
Jeffrey Aylor:That's why he says, Don't judge based on the outward appearance, you've got to look on the inward fleshy table of the heart, which is where the source lives and dwells with us. So if I look at people from that perspective, I'm going to be significantly more compassionate and realize they just don't know.
Joel Aylor:Right.
Jeffrey Aylor:We talk a lot about people who they don't know what they don't know. They don't know what because they they don't know what they don't know about their circumstance or their and we it is not our we haven't been I don't believe this is, again, opinion. I don't think God has given us the right to judge people in their circumstance. There's they are where they're supposed to be at that time, and it's not up to us to decide whether that's good or bad. It is what it is.
Jeffrey Aylor:That's who they are. That's where they are. That's what they and they have chosen. I do believe in free will. They've chosen to do the things they've done that have created their circumstance, and I don't like to see that for them because I love them.
Jeffrey Aylor:I don't want them to be suffering. I don't want them to do things that are gonna cause them issues, but it's not my job to fix them or correct them, or judge them, or I want to be compassionate toward them. If they ask me an opinion, that's different. I will gladly share. I've had people ask me in the past, they said, there's something about you.
Jeffrey Aylor:There's something a little different about you that and I would I said, you really want dig into that and know why I think or feel or believe or act? Sometimes I feel like I can bring peace to an environment, And people like that. Well, how do you do that? Not an easy answer. Not an easy answer.
Jeffrey Aylor:But if you want to know, I'll tell you what I believe. I'll tell you what I think. I'll tell you what puts me in a position where I think I can do that. Right? But it's really taught me compassion and patience.
Jeffrey Aylor:Yeah. And
Joel Aylor:You need lots of patience. Well, it's not
Jeffrey Aylor:our job. They are where they're supposed to be. Right. They are having delight
Joel Aylor:Just with myself. I mean, not even just the relationships with other people. Mean, the relationship with myself. Right. Patience and and and grace and understanding on my own.
Joel Aylor:That's been I mean, because we talked about that last week. You know, you can't you can't feel compassion for another person unless you feel compassion for yourself. Yeah. You can't love that person unless you love yourself. So start with yourself is would be my advice.
Joel Aylor:Work on yourself. Realize where you are, who you are, and and be okay with yourself. Love yourself. And that's a big step. That's a huge step because most people don't like themselves.
Joel Aylor:They won't tell you that they're they don't love themselves. They'll say, yeah. Sure. I do. No.
Joel Aylor:They truly don't. They they they find faults in themselves, and they fit they compare themselves to other people, and I'm not that. So they basically are beating themselves up internally. That's the biggest thing for me, and that was a huge step for me is to learn to just love myself for who I am, but, you know, realize my weaknesses, realize not necessarily weaknesses, not that it makes it sound like right and wrong, realize areas where I have work to do.
Joe Dermody:Sometimes they don't even know that, though. Sometimes they don't even know they don't love themselves. And Because they're not that reflection.
Joel Aylor:They're not aware. They're not self aware, and that is a huge first step in this awakening process.
Jeffrey Aylor:That's the awakening. So Carl Jung in psychology called it the shadow. Mhmm. And it and and the the process of individuation. Mhmm.
Jeffrey Aylor:Coming to understand that I'm having these feelings. Well, you've got to understand why you have feelings about this, or why you have this, and you have to learn to integrate that, not repress it. If you repress it, it's like water getting dammed up eventually the pressure is going to build up and it's going to explode. And it'll be worse than if you let it flow and figure out how to go with the flow of things.
Joel Aylor:Yeah, circle Right. Back to the flow. I like it.
Jeffrey Aylor:And then you know, you've got the concepts within the Paramahansa Yogananda created the Self Realization Fellowship Center, and the whole concept behind Kriya Yoga is self realization, which is the same as individuation in psychology, which is the same as self actualization, which is know thyself, be one with God. All these terms are saying the same thing just from different directions.
Joel Aylor:Different time periods, different histories, different cultures, it's all saying the same.
Joe Dermody:And not always easy. It's not easy. No. Self reflection and
Jeffrey Aylor:You know, one of the things we haven't touched on this, we did a little bit when we talked about the field and Lin Mattaggart, but, you know, there is this There have been studies that have found in science what is called the God particle. That that primordial essence or energy that exists in all creation. Now science is never going to say, hey, guess what? We just found God. We disproved God.
Jeffrey Aylor:But they're saying the same thing.
Joel Aylor:I mean, they're they're basically, science is just trying to prove God in in different ways. They're never gonna actually ever do it because once you do it, that's not it.
Joe Dermody:You know, that
Joel Aylor:goes back to Taoism, and that goes back to basically anything that self creates that can, you know, notice itself as basically going to dissolve. It's a paradox, the whole thing is.
Jeffrey Aylor:And I have to say what I love about this podcast is that it's like ending every time we do this, we end it with dot dot dot.
Joel Aylor:Well, it's it never is.
Jeffrey Aylor:There's four.
Joel Aylor:It's never ending.
Jeffrey Aylor:It's never ending.
Joel Aylor:It's not meant but that's the fun of it. But that's what makes people uncomfortable because they feel like it's something they have to accomplish and and and get a certificate at the end.
Jeffrey Aylor:If you're OCD and you have to get something to conclusion all the time, this is gonna drive you crazy. Right. We don't bring this to conclusion. This is a never ending discussion and growth and
Joel Aylor:Just like life. Right? That To makes it that much more interesting.
Jeffrey Aylor:Yeah. So on that note, as we bring this conversation to a close, I wanna honor something that doesn't need to be explained or resolved. Right? The source of all being is not something we arrive at through thought. It's something we notice when we stop trying to arrive anywhere at all.
Jeffrey Aylor:Detach from outcome. I'm finding it to be one of the most liberating things ever, right? It's to detach from an outcome and having to get something to conclusion. Let it evolve, let it naturally develop. So Joe, Joel, thank you both for your presence here today, your humility, your willingness to sit and share with these questions.
Jeffrey Aylor:I hope that you're enjoying it as much as I do, the conversation. I find that every time we get engaged in something like this, I learn from both of you, and it's always exciting for me. And to those that are listening, if this invited you even in a brief moment of quiet contemplation, let that be enough, right? I hope that it can help you get into a state where if we can just quietly sit with ourself, and allow God to speak, allow the source to speak, allow the source to acknowledge the presence within you. You don't need to carry these words forward, you can simply carry the presence within you that heard them.
Jeffrey Aylor:And with that, the space between continues. Thank you for sharing this sacred space with us. As you return to your day, may you carry whatever resonated, whatever stirred, whatever invited you more deeply into presence. The space between heaven on earth is a companion to awakening heaven on earth, where the teachings are explored through reflection and lived experience. If this conversation spoke to you, I invite you to sit with it, breathe with it, and allow it to unfold in your own way and time.
Jeffrey Aylor:Until we meet again. May you walk gently and remember the unity that already lives within you.