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We are a podcast that aims to provide raw, real conversations about deep topics that concern a Christ-centered lifestyle.
We want to go where no one else wants to go, and we want to showcase conversations and topics that are not easily discussed. We do this by going in depth and providing a well thought and expressed conversation about these topics.
John
All right, so the self can't overcome itself. This is an interesting topic. I know each of us has our own unique experiences with this—the journey of meditations, self-seeking, shadow work, and so on. Mariana, welcome. I know you've got some very interesting stories. You spent years training with Muji, or however you call it, discipling and so forth. Tell us a little about your journey with you trying to overcome yourself by doing self-work.
Mariana
Okay, so thank you so much for being present. I'll try my best because I feel that sometimes we cannot put so easily in words what we desire to communicate in us. It's not so easy when talking about spiritual situations, but yeah. I spent eight years following Muji's pointings. Actually, I was really trying to figure out, discovering, "Who am I in spirit?" I was putting this question into myself. I was suffering, and I was trying to figure out some kind of liberation on my own and answers to the questions that I had about life.
John
So let me just come in. For those listening, how would you describe Muji? Who is this person?
Mariana
Muji is a guru who points to the question, "Who am I?" He tries to help people on their spiritual journey to figure out who they are in spirit.
John
He's got a huge following, like, thousands and thousands of people all around the world. And you spent years in this community?
Mariana
Yes. I was there for five years. Now I'm not anymore, but I spent about eight years following him daily. I did actually learn a lot about who I am, but it wasn't enough to overcome myself. And that is your question, right? The self cannot overcome the self. Although I came to a point of understanding deeply that I am nothing—only a body, mind, and self-person. https://www.supernaturalbreakthroughs.com/ That was something very important for me to understand, that I am not my mind, and that the life I'm living apart from all the concepts that the mind believes in is much more than that. I was being pointed to as a spiritual being, but still, something was always missing.
John
So let me just recap if I understood correctly. You got a lot of benefits from being there, realizing that you're not your mind. So you could realize, "Hang on, I'm not all this mental chatter, all this dialogue." So that was a benefit, but there was something missing in terms of the feeling of what you were accomplishing there.
Mariana
True. So, the final point of coming completely out of the suffering or trying to figure out a way of being enlightened or something like being really delivered or free from ego was kind of a mission incomplete. I was always in lack of something else because when I was in what they call "Is-ness," let’s put it like that—
John
What they practiced there.
Mariana
It's like Is-ness—knowing that we are not our ego and that we are not our mind. So that was already something very important, actually, for my spiritual journey. When I, by God's grace, further on jumped into another point of my adventure with God, because this is all about me searching for the truth.
John
Yeah, got it. So let’s talk about a common theme that a lot of people say when they have this encounter with Jesus. It's like this incredible light, but many people think that we have not focused on our shadow enough. Are you guys familiar with that term—the shadow? These unconscious parts of us that haven’t been loved—the things we’re afraid of: the shame, the guilt. And there’s a lot of truth in that. There is a necessity to do that shadow work. But what I’ve found in my journeying is that a lot of times, the fantasy or the belief is that if you just face yourself in the darkest, deepest parts of yourself, then you’re going to overcome the self, and you’re going to be enlightened and liberated and free.
A lot of us are doing deep dives with ayahuasca, plant medicines, psychotherapies, and there’s a benefit to some of these things. I’m not saying there’s not, and I’m not saying it’s not worth looking at some of your guilts and fears and shames. https://www.supernaturalbreakthroughs.com/ There is that, there is a beauty in that. But when there’s the belief that’s the nirvana, that’s the solution—that’s where we found a lot of things—it’s just not the case. But a lot of people believe, "Hey, we’re afraid because we haven’t touched something in our shadow or some scary, murky, dark part of us, and we just don’t want to face it. So now we need a savior, we need to run to Jesus in the sky."
But that’s not exactly what we’ve experienced, is it?
Mariana
No, not at all. For me, it wasn’t like that. I was searching for the truth, and I was very comfortable on the path I was on. I was completely sure in myself, in a deceptive way, that this was the path for me. So that one day I would overcome myself. So I had already been doing this for eight years.
John
And what type of practices? Just meditations?
Mariana
Actually, I didn’t dive into this deep New Age kind of ritual or stuff. I was pretty much just following Muji’s pointings, and I was going more and more into detaching myself from my egoic self.
John
That’s a type of meditation, though.
Mariana
It is a kind of disassociated and contemplative way of perceiving that we are all one, you know, like melting myself—coming out of my identity, delusion identity. Then I could melt with this union of everything, the living spirit. But it wasn’t enough for me to be free from a lot of things. That later, in my journey with Christ and understanding deeply what the gospel is, who God is—the living God—that’s where the difference was.
John
And we’ll get to that. I know you had an encounter, and it changed you. You were telling me some very interesting stuff before about your body vibrating. So I’m very excited to hear that. Joao, I know you’ve had some stuff about the oneness. Is there anything you want to jump in and share on this topic?
Joao
Yeah. For me, the oneness was always my pinnacle. Anything I did, whether meditation, ayahuasca, or psychedelics, I was always striving to reach absorption into the One. But the interesting thing, and the contrast with Christ, is that now I’m seeking full absorption into Him. What I found was that there were breadcrumbs of truth when I was seeking absorption into the One. https://www.supernaturalbreakthroughs.com/ Because I think deep down we all feel that this divided, chaotic, broken world—that’s fragmented—doesn’t represent the full expression. I think we all have that cry deep down, and that’s why a lot of people go and seek this blissful one experience. But it’s more than a vague thing, because I understood—
Joao
It’s not just a vague One that I have to absorb myself into. Just like I am personal and unique, that higher power is also personal, unique, caring, and relational. That took me to an even higher dimension than before.
John
I believe you. You know, you talked about earlier the separation. At least, this is how I’m understanding it. We realize we have an ego, or a mind that’s conscious of itself with values and identity, and that separates me from you. Because I’ve got my values, my ego, and my history—my personal history, as Kalas Scott describes it. That history separates me from you. I feel that’s what you’re saying, Joao. There’s this internal sense of isolation. And so, a lot of the seeking in the oneness is like, "Okay, I want to dissolve into love," and it’s beautiful. It’s a very beautiful ideal or goal.
But what we found is that dissolving the self into the One, in an abstract sense, wasn’t what we thought it would be.
Joao
Yeah, because what I found when I dissolved myself into the abstract One was that I just dissolved the filters or the layers of my being, but then it was open to anything within that One.
John
Yes. This is interesting you say this, because I did a lot of work with a Filipino mystic called Pi, the founder of Inner Dance. Deep man, beautiful man, powerful in many respects. I went and trained with him in the Philippines. I also interviewed him in my studio in Bali on the twelve stages of spiritual awakening. We had some very deep dialogues, and he also practiced a version of what Muji is describing—just unattached, unjudgmental observation of all things. What started happening in his meetings was that grey aliens, different spirits, and all kinds of strange experiences started happening. His goal was to observe it all with detached equanimity and acceptance—just accept it all.
As I entered those circles energetically, I found it strange. If you’re sensitive in the spirit, especially if you’ve had an encounter with the Lord Jesus, you can experience that high, pure vibration, which is so clean, so pure. Then you go back into those types of mishmashes of "all is one, all is welcome, we accept everything." It sounds beautiful at one level, because love's going to dissolve everything, but it doesn’t feel that way. Those atmospheres are not safe. Would you guys relate to that?
Joao
Yep, yep. Very relatable.
John
Interesting. You were saying something so interesting before, Mariana—you had an experience with Jesus, and then your whole body was vibrating or something of that nature, and you couldn’t go back to those spaces with Muji again. Could you talk a little bit about that contrast and try to language it as best as you can? https://www.supernaturalbreakthroughs.com/
Mariana
Yes, I'll try. In my journey searching for the truth, as I was saying, I spent eight years following Muji's pointings, and I really have Muji on my heart—deep respect. I hope by God's grace one day I can jump on Muji’s platform and have a conversation with him and share my testimony. But anyway, your point was about me when I received Jesus Christ when I was introduced to the living gospel. I took this step of faith to really receive Him in my heart and allow myself to go to another level of my journey—discovering more about the living God.
The experience was so strong. When I received the Holy Spirit, that night really transformed my life forever in such a way that I went to sleep, and at that time, I was with a partner. The next morning, he looked at me and said, "You are different." I was really different. I wasn’t able to explain what had happened because even I was surprised, thinking, "What is going on here?" But I felt really different. I perceived things in a different way. Something was not the same—something left, kind of like a filter, a veil from my eyes. The whole night I was perceiving this vibration all over my body, like electricity. More than that, it was really a vibration—a living vibration—that put me on another level of spiritual ranking.
From that moment on, I couldn’t resonate with Muji’s teachings anymore.
John
The teachings that Muji was putting out?
Mariana
Exactly.
John
So let me recap. You had this encounter with Jesus—vibrations going on all through you, something shifted, you’ve gone to another level, however we want to describe it. After that, you still have an appreciation for what you learned from Muji, you’re grateful for how it helped you, but you just can’t go back to that.
Mariana
No, no. There was kind of an emptiness there—no more content for me in that. I felt it completely. And the reason was, I had received the Holy Spirit of God into my body. So, this body started being the temple of God, without me knowing anything about the scriptures.
John
So mentally, you didn’t really know what was going on.
Mariana
I didn’t.
John
But you felt it.
Mariana
But the step of faith, and really spiritual, because this is all spiritual. It’s not mental. So something happened, and from that moment, I jumped into the Holy Scriptures, and I started the journey of knowing more about Jesus Christ, our Lord.
John
Beautiful, beautiful. I want to come back to this objection or criticism that a lot of people have about encounters with Jesus, which is, "Aren’t you bypassing...?" There’s a term called "spiritual bypassing," and the idea is that you’re bypassing doing work on yourself, and now you’re getting high on the supply of God, just like someone getting high on ecstasy or some other drug. You’re not doing the work on yourself, and now you think you’ve overcome the self through this special encounter. It’s a fair enough objection because you do see in Christianity a lot of weird Christians, let’s be honest. I’m not saying this in a mean way, I’m just stating facts. There are a lot of them that need to do emotional work.
I understand why people listening to this, especially those very high up in the New Age movements, have that criticism. What would you guys say to that? Do you have something you’d like to add or speak to on that topic?
Joao
Yeah, for me, there definitely is a point where you reach a lot of dark shadows if you're only doing "self overcoming self." There definitely is a lot of darkness within the self. But if you’re only relying on the self, it’s actually too much for the self to handle. So this objection, you can see it the other way. Of course, we need something greater than ourselves to handle this, because the intensity of dark things we can hold in ourselves—the pain—and we even mentioned earlier how it’s all like a network. So it’s not just my pain—it’s intergenerational pain, humanitarian pain that has developed for generations before me.
This is way bigger than myself. https://www.supernaturalbreakthroughs.com/ I think deep seekers, whether New Age or people in the shamanic world, understand that there’s a lineage of darkness that needs to be healed. Of course, this one isolated self could never handle it.
John
Capacity.
Joao
Exactly.
John
So it's not just "your dad didn’t love you," or "this abuse happened." You’re talking about generations of pain, hurt, betrayal, suffering, torture, and torment. How can I possibly overcome that? It’s like you’re diving deep to the depths of the ocean, but the pressure is too intense. You need some type of support—an oxygen supply, something like that. And what we’re saying is, for us, that’s an encounter with Jesus. So do you guys still do shadow work, or any of this type of stuff, with Jesus? Or how has it shifted for you?
Joao
Yeah, to make it short, in my journey, I wouldn’t call it shadow work, but I definitely take a deep dive into the hard parts of myself and the dark parts of myself. But it’s always with the understanding that I’m actually submitting them back into Christ’s hand, into God’s love. Whatever comes up, I let it go into God’s love. So in a way, the structure is the same, but the spirit I’m surrendering to is the living spirit of God. And that changes everything, because it’s only now that I’ve found true, sustainable healing within myself.
Mariana
Yeah, for me, I’ll try to put it into words. I feel that God works in a tremendous way. It is beautiful because we can see that the people who are spiritual beings—those who are trying to figure out the truth and go into New Age practices—they are spiritual beings, but they are putting the focus not on the spirit because they are confused. We are a spirit, we have a soul, and we live in a body. And most of these beings confuse the spirit—which is the spirit of the living God—with the soul. So they go into the soul, doing crazy stuff, trying to find results for the spirit.
That’s a mess at the end of the day because they will open a lot of doors into the demonic occult without knowing what’s going on. They are trying to find results and escape in the wrong direction. On the other hand, we have traditional Christians who don’t assume responsibility for the soul level. Because of that, they just say, "The Holy Spirit will do the work," neglecting their own responsibility to take care of the soul.
John
So it’s almost like they’re not partnering with their soul, they’re just trying to, in a sense, bypass and be in—
Mariana
The spirit. Because they feel that the Holy Spirit will do the entire job, which is not true. We have a responsibility. And the beauty of this is that we must open ourselves in a humble way, knowing we can all learn from each other, but always using the laws of God, the principles of God, and the Holy Spirit to validate and bring revelations, allowing us to transform. Plus, it is only with the spirit of Jesus Christ that we can go into the spiritual realm with authority to unblock and remove certain situations.
John
Whether it's a spirit or a certain part of the soul trapped. There are a lot of avenues we can explore that go beyond the context of this podcast. But let’s perhaps wrap up with this contrast for each of us—the liberation from the self through union with the Lord Jesus, the Holy Spirit. What did that feel like when suddenly there’s something so much higher, vibrationally, spiritually, love, light—something beautiful? We’re probably going to start giggling and getting all ecstatic here, so bear with us. I want us to feel that because it’s deep, beautiful, rich, alive—freedom from the self.
Mariana
It’s really the Is-ness of the spirit. It exists, and it’s the peace that transcends all comprehension. It exists, but only through and with the Holy Spirit.
John
So you said peace—the peace that goes beyond understanding. That’s a really good point because we experience this crazy peace and joy where we laugh, and there’s no reason—no one made a funny joke, right? We didn’t overcome anything. But hang on, there’s this liberation and joy and exuberance of light because Christ is—
Mariana
In us. We were made to worship God, to love God. When we receive the spirit of God inside us like this, we are aligned—it’s like a portal that gives us direct access to the source. Without this, we’ll only have glimpses of it through crazy soul stuff.
John
Yeah. Joao, what about for you—this overcoming of self through Christ? Any liberation moments? We all have big smiles on our faces here.
Mariana
Drinking in the spirit.
Joao
I mean, if I can simplify what it’s been like for me, I’ve had many encounters where I’ve been taken far away from myself and just laughed, seeing the bigger picture and thinking, "Wow, this is amazing." But to simplify it, imagine you're in a hamster wheel, so focused on yourself. Suddenly, someone kicks the hamster, and it catapults away. As it’s flying, it looks back and thinks, "Wow, I’m free!" Because you’re far beyond this rut that—
John
This repetitive loop.
Joao
Yeah, repetitive loop. What Jesus does is cannonball me out of my repetitive loops and shows me who I truly am because I see who He truly is. That explodes this joy in me.
John
And this is the thing, ultimately—the big point of difference with the self not overcoming itself versus an encounter with the Lord Jesus is relationship. We were talking about it before the podcast started. We need breath. We’re breathing right now—all of us partaking in this podcast, listening to this, we’re all breathing. Where did that come from? The sunshine—where did it come from? Ultimately, we are in a union, a dependency. We enjoy each other. You’re listening to us right now, we’re producing this for you right now. There’s a dance of union going on.
What we’ve discovered is at the ultimate level of the dance, it is this fusion, this union, this oneness with the Lord Jesus.
Mariana
It is definitely the missing part.
John
It’s the missing part. Our spirit comes alive, and we’ve spent decades, combined, in many other places, tasting, checking, spiritually experimenting—vibrations, bliss, explosions. Then you have this taste of the Lord Jesus, and something deep within you says, "This is home. I’m free. This is it." For me, this is the freedom of being in Christ.
Mariana
In some ways, it’s definitely lifting the veil. If we are trying to live this union on a soul journey, when we come into Christ, when we align completely in union, it’s like this veil is lifted from our eyes. Our spiritual eyes are opened, and we can perceive, live, and embrace what we were looking for in enlightenment moments.
John
Just to bring context for everyone listening to this: just because we’ve had these encounters doesn’t mean we walk fully in that revelation all the time. We still have vicissitudes, challenges, and things that bring us back into the self, if you will. But ultimately, we have so many reference points for this experience of the Spirit with Jesus—so far beyond the gravity of the self, the duality, the ponderings, the struggles of the self—that we realize something much deeper and more beautiful is going on here. But we still have a journey to walk, and it’s still very human.
Mariana
Absolutely.
John
Yet it’s supernatural and powerful at the same time. Guys, thank you for tuning in. We trust that was valuable. Thank you to each of you.
Joao
Thank you, everyone.
Mariana
It’s amazing. Thank you so much. Bye.