Again, thank you everyone for being present with me for this ultimate nature of our reality talk, and I would love to open the Q&A to whoever would like to Start us off and it would mean we can treat it like a discussion too. So Not just Q&A for me, but a discussion And make sure you talk directly. Yeah, like that. Yeah, everyone just make sure you do that. Yeah, that's not one of those. Yeah, correct You know a lot of times I do I'd like to hear others talk and that helps me kind of Gear into what I'm thinking more but I Don't mind jumping out first here, too. I Really, I mean I really like what you're what you're present You know you're presenting. I think as a post-Christian atheist, I I mean this this stuff to me is I mean I I'm asked many times about well, you know you give up Christianity.  When you start looking at what you're talking about here to me. This is Where humans can expand way beyond what we've been we've been held back and and in religion played a Significant role in human evolution. I I don't deny that and it and it and it still plays a role in current society I think it's I mean these two work for an organization that does great great work, and I I attended a funeral last week and a baptism and In a Christian both in a Christian church and so one is a evangelical church the the more upbeat music and Engaging younger generation and the the baptism was the Catholic Church So it's really profound to see the differences in their presentations however Both of these things bring people together and and people want to come together and now do I I Think that most people in those Facilities believe every word that said no do most people that go to a church Believe deeply in what said or deeply in what's in the Bible. No, I don't believe most of them do most of them I believe the majority of them go for that piece that community piece they they've developed a strong strong community and strong connection with other people and I I tend to be somebody that That I think deeper about these things and so I love this kind of thing this talk and I and I love that the expansion that it's given me in my life and in in in thinking like this and and then seeing the limitations that were put upon me by My society which which every society is going to do is gonna put limitations upon us and It is up to us and it's up. It's been up to the great Spiritual leaders of our time that have gone beyond those types of limitations. So I Think it's it's it is the next expansion into You know the great what what human beings the the potential of human beings is is phenomenal and I think you touch on this You know just even from the very beginning of I teach yoga and and I do meditation and and And just starting out at the beginning in a visualization of here I am and here's how expansive I can be and then coming back to How how micro small I can be and those are the things I I focus on in meditation too I think it's you know, it's it because it's so incredible to to see the the power of what life is and the life in me is no different than a blade of grass and I Just happen to be I think you know, I I do believe other than something that's probably out in another Planet somewhere that we don't know of there is nothing sentient at the level that we are as human beings You know, I don't want to say on the in the universe because I do believe there possibly could be something but but we are this we have achieved the highest level of sentient beings and other than what we don't know of in the rest of the universe and there is no sentient being out there pulling any strings or there's no sentient universe that has a direction of where this universe is It's only it goes to that simplicity. I like that snake Demonstration too because it goes to that simple of a thing is that life wants to continue on and Life is going to continue on regardless of we whether we survive or not Which we are not going to survive obviously. I am not Going to survive my consciousness isn't So eventually that will be gone and yet this life that's in me That's the same as a blade of grass that will continue in some way it has to That's all thank you You are Your name Allen Allen Allen. Yeah, I am Terry. Yep Before we started to talk I shared with my friends. I'm not quite sure if I'm floored or grounded It seems as if it's one in the same and But the flooring feels like a shock like a blown away like a To a new level of understanding Feeling floored though the grounding is still being here and now and With you and us and all of it. I find myself I Recognize it. I've been born again Repeatedly several times. I Think about the who I am today hurtling life I Recently branded myself as the hurdle life coach 34 I Think about being born as Terry the infant and Then as my experiences Through life or those deck of cards give me more and more identity or Substance to that identity I recall associations and milestones and benchmarks graduating high school graduating college achieving levels of success in Society and and thinking about those identities in which are those labels in which were placed upon me and how I Aligned with them. I also recall Just spiritual awakenings though beyond my name, you know beyond my brand beyond even my gender and Walking through my faith and through my understanding of God and divine and life baptisms that that outward expression of the death and resurrection Experiencing that in my life four different times being baptized and truly Believing in each one of those experiences that was a new birth and a rebirth in this interaction So it seems it feels as if I'm being born yet again Like there is a new level of consciousness and awareness and awaken this that has come through your presentation to me I'm grateful for this time for this space for this circle It's oddly familiar That we are strangers yet one in The same so it seems And so thank you You know for being a light and for sharing your understanding as you have seeked it out and You know put it together and Give it away. I Find myself learning new things today. I heard briefly of your Abilities to ask great questions And throughout your presentation were very very Life-changing thought-provoking questions several Questions and it seems or it feels as if those questions were Like the anchors or like that those were the takeaways you may get pulled be pulled away and Some of the other information but those questions were so weaved so well and Really caught my attention to really want to spend time in That place, you know pondering those thoughts. I Truly appreciate your conviction to what you're certain of What's important our relationship with God the divine the source and I appreciate your your your universal approach to Honoring, you know people's way to the source Though I align personally as a Christian as a believer Choosing to have faith in the story of Jesus Christ and His ability to be both man and human. I mean divine and human I Recognize at least in my walk that that God or Creator Is bigger than my religion and I embrace other peoples and walk and way I accept that This creator that created my Lord and my God also created this really really big universe. I Mean really really really big universe and To Love life or to accept life or to see life as an interconnected web of oneness To the blade of grass to the star in the sky to the universe is beyond You know that in which has not even been discovered that in which we know tells us that This place this thing is so much bigger than me It's just and so I share in that the appreciation of the opening exercise that we Went out and away and then back and inside and then to claim a oneness with all of it to truly really have power and authority and It's like a dominion over How far we can go Or take it. I enjoyed the conversations around portals I love that that that piece where the you highlighted the artist in which he created something on earth that truly, you know merged You know the the divine and the practical and the spiritual and the theoretical and so it seemed that there was a teleportation From Visioning from from observing that piece of art. I think the words were you said artists can create portals I found it difficult to use my logical mind while listening to you present You know the desire to take notes as a lifelong learner and want to capture that in which is being spoken But also being drawn so much to you Subconsciously and in spirit, you know feeling called to just absorb That in what you were sharing versus trying to capture or trap it with pen and pad and ink and so there was a complete failure In thorough note-taking but of complete confidence in the connection that was made and the awareness that was raised In me through you And so for that I am grateful And for you and for this presentation and and the eye-opening experience that I've had here This evening here at seal So thank you Brother We appreciate you Thank you for sharing this Experience with us tonight. I too appreciated your grounding The facilitation of grounding at the beginning of your share Very helpful. I Think there was there were only a couple of seconds where my attention diverted from What you were imparting and I was able to very quickly return To the groundedness because of your preparation So thank you for that. I Think that you successfully accomplished Giving us something in a very simple form That lends itself to great complexity So you you really modeled What you what you preached what you taught us I Might not be close enough with the mic Apologies looks like you're good. Am I good? Yeah? Okay? Talk a little louder if you'd like. Yeah, I love the the clarity that you offered about the absolute necessity of an awareness of ultimate reality and namely The importance of connection with source With our divine. I think it was really helpful what you shared about the deck of cards that our life is And that every second is a card and the importance of applying love to all of those Loving them all past present and future regardless of the trauma they're in and that we are we are a river We're meant to be a river in the midst of it loving it all It's very powerful So you indicated that this could be also a Q&A experience So I would like to ask if you would be willing to speak more to What you touched upon about the gifts the unique gifts that people discover in their life experience you mentioned that it is one of the paramount aspects of our life in this world is to know thyself and To discover and Express the unique gifts that each individual has so I would really like to hear you speak more to that Such deep gratitude And humility and love For you all thank you Transforming for me to hear how you feel afterward. It's a great question in a way it takes us to the Symphony that's being played and With a painting and the ways to See What our gift is within that symphony or the painting is that whatever that gift is it's our gift that we get to bring to ourselves to our families to our communities in the world and It's not for us to take our gift and start saying that someone else's gift looks like this and immediately that comparative feeling Takes away from the beauty of what the gift is and so for some the gift is Being a good friend or a good family member and that's it to the gift That's it and that's a beautiful note in the symphony a beautiful melody a beautiful paint stroke And it's a different color. Let's call that color orange So being a good friend or good family members and color orange and then you can juxtapose that with with Solving something as complex as one of the sustainable development goals or the theory of everything and So maybe that is a blue paint stroke on the canvas or a different Melody in the orchestra and the symphony and so in a sense one shooting big aiming big is Incredible and it's great to inspire Children to know that they can aim big Yet, it's all so cool to say that hey this color orange where you're a friend or a good family member That's an important contribution to the painting as well as this big blue paint stroke that Solves a grand challenge for our society Jacob Alan Terry. Yeah So to start it with the question again, though, you are Yeah, you are Alan. I am Terry you spoke to the warning of Not to be distracted by the culture war I appreciated that I appreciated that short brief quick, but clear Warning not to be distracted by the culture war I'm curious to hear you expound deeper upon that Just as I you know in myself Work to love thyself know thyself but also you know serve others and love people and solve problems and Fix things I Definitely know myself to be called to the world called to society In my work and my duty and my sacrifices So I'm curious to Hear more about the risk they're in Being in those distractions are particularly what are those distractions What they look like or what are you referring to another great question there's this Gorgeous calling for us upon birth to re commune back with source with this divine and There are so many distractions that we get in the way of us kind of like tripping over things and like forgetting that that's actually really important to do and Everyone has their own journey of remembering that we come from source and that That needs to be a first principle and everyone has their own different ways of doing that process One of the ways and we were talking a bit about your mentor before we started one of your mentors This idea that someone can come in and maybe see One of those like obstacles that someone may be tripping over and I can give an example of maybe one of those obstacles is like I mean When we wake up in the morning and when we go to bed at night Connect to that divine Drop into your body and drop into how beautiful it is that you are alive along with so many other people on their journeys and That when you tap into like what your journey is every one of those debts Of the cards in the deck and being in love with the cards of the past and in love with the fate of you the direction of the future that It makes it so that I Mean the alternative is that what do we do? We're literally scrolling through a news feed When we wake up in the morning and go to bed at night. That's the alternative So juxtapose those two things Which one is going to make you more of a divine being? It's clear. It's a very clear answer and It and we attend to that practice when we water our own Seed in our garden. It'll have fruits For us when we don't water that seed With our spiritual practice in the morning at night if we surrender our essence over to algorithms and news feeds tribalism echo chambers The culture wars Cognitive ease you can't communicate a multivariate nuanced position in a Tiny little post. It's really hard to do that. It's much easier to do it In-person and to know that It's going to take longer for me to establish these 10 Variables that some are pro some are cons some are five different other sub points But that is not just a simple binary cognitive ease answer to something so juxtaposing those two things like the culture wars and the The news feeds and algorithms and doing that in the morning and when we go to bed at night versus connecting to the divine in those pristine moments It's even more important when you have a family Because if you're rolling over and you have a partner that's laying in the bed with you And you're rolling over and grabbing your phone You are missing out on a critical opportunity to adore them in the morning and when you go to bed at night And this is and this is a partner That you may be starting a family with or have started a family with It may also be someone that's just close to you that that you may be in the same Residence with I'm staying here with my mother in Sioux Falls and we make it at least minimum a amount of adoring each other in the morning and in the evening and That's critical again That's a mother a father a brother a sister your roommate just being appreciative at least and grateful that they are there Habiting the same space mentioning a moment of thank you so much for Teaching me about this thing that we experienced together a couple days ago. Thank you for sharing life with me Thank you for that meal that you cooked for us. There's just so many different Ways of treating those more moments in the morning and the evening like they are just a divine precious gifts rather than Surrendering them over to culture wars Thank you. Thank you Because there's two things number, I guess maybe the one the first the first item that I have it engraved on the on an iPad of mine and it's a quote by Rumi and I Just I haven't thought of it in a while and And he says close your eyes fall in love Stay there that quote is just So simple and then and then the second thing is your life. I Saw a video About gee, I don't know if you've ever heard of him he In and I think I have the right name. I think if you look online, he was a yogi and Mean we hear about these yogis and I had one of these yogis that is one of these people that abused his power And I think maybe even continues to abuse his his status, but this man There's there's lots of video the these these people from the US went over there It was during the time and and I kind of think I tracked it down through You know, there's the song of I always have to think of the song by the Beatles Timothy Timothy Leary and And then Ram Dass those two practice with hallucinogenics out it and Yale and Timothy Leary continued his his hallucinogenic approach and around us went to went to India and and he was he he was had no intention to go there for the purpose of of Learning anything about himself or anything And somehow he got railroaded into going to see this this guy and And and he said he he just could not He could not leave And and he even had L and he He talked about he had a handful of LSD and he gave it to this guy and the guy just Golped it down and it had no effect on this guy this guru And and he is actually a different person, but this Baba G was Somehow associated with him and so these people had gone even before And and videotape this Baba G guy and and there's this one video and and I Think it's one of the most profound things I've ever seen. There's everything about this guy when you watch him It's this it is when people you read about Presence One of my favorite books is Eckhart Tolle's book the power of now and you read about it, but but you don't You you know you I read I read that book seven times and in love is teaching yoga in Europe and And I just was like there's something here, but in somebody somebody actually suggested to me. We had yoga Teachers that would would teach it would come to your class and they would give you feedback afterwards and and And I asked her for feedback and she said I have a one suggestion the power of now read that book And and I never talked to her about it again I do but I kept reading this book and reading this book and like what is it that? But there's something in there and And and then I went to Augusta, Georgia, and and I had this mentor who I Think he he had this sense of presence and And then it then it hit me and and there it there is there is nothing That can replace one-on-one When you're with someone there's nothing and this Baba G guy and in one of these videos I watched a Woman comes up to ask him some real, you know deep bill of philosophical question I can't think of it now and and a lot of them they would sit down and they would touch the feet of the guru and and and things and Yeah, she asked the question and and and sometimes he would get into little Things with people where there would be you could see this this mental Battle going on But in this case, I don't know what it what what I can't recall what happened to her I wish I could pull it up now because it's real short, but but they both just started laughing and He and he would laugh often this and I don't know if you've heard of Muji is another person a lot of people listen to And I like what he a lot about him. He studied under this Baba G But this guy Would always at some point be laughing and and and and that That I think that's that's something with a guru if you're if your guru Isn't laughing and and and you're not having fun and it's all serious. I Think it's a good time to hit and hit it and run because that's how my this guy that I He I was just there to learn yoga. I was not there to learn any spiritual stuff Bikram Shoudry is the guy's name and I went there and everybody went there to learn a Physical fitness yoga, which is what America is experiencing now and I I'm fine with that I'm actually even looking at possibly opening a yoga studio that is fitness driven and I think it's okay However, if I were to then profess myself as this guru to these people then then that's a whole nother deal and So I I just I I like that That that that gives me a a very Solid sense of of where you are in your presence and your Understanding and that you see it as it's light-hearted to it is it's it's it's You know, we're not here cracking atoms, but kind of we are Laughter helps I don't know that there was a question Also, just what what you said at full circles in the sense that there's so much of this New-age spiritual awakening at times that there can be Deception there too and it's important to be very careful because You know yoga means union with the divine and with our and you mentioned the first quote It's a fun full circle to the very first thing that you said Which was that when you close your eyes and you fall in love with that with yourself that Then you don't need a guru and that whole idea of like I am not your guru is so damn true And anyone that says that they are or that they rely on one is Is not closing their eyes and loving themselves and yeah, yeah, that I just wanted to also say that in addition what you said Thank you I think I love your expression love yourself because that is Really deep really deep if you start thinking about this if you close your eyes and start Breathe in deep inside Think about yourself go from small things as molecules to So far as universe and come back. Let's teach us a lot teach us Infinity infinity of Extensions of our self and at the same time teaching us to be present and thank you for this Pass it there pass it that way. I'm wearing the lap layer Mike. I Would like to ask a question There has been a way of viewing and experiencing and feeling the divinity and source and God In a way that is respectful to all's journeys and so That word and it's as soon as you start Trying to put source or God or the divine creation into words and to our symbols that then It's and it does no longer becomes that eternal God or source or creation Yet the one that I found so far that I think is really good that I feel like Let's start with the word the word is pantheism meaning all is God and When I was discussing that with some of my friends that have been studying the various religions they actually said that The idea of all being God is actually Present in a lot of the religions. I think believe confirmed. It's in Hinduism. It's in Buddhism it's in Islam it's in Judaism I believe it's in Christianity and I'm just like If there is some sort of a single Word that we could like pantheism like all is God Maybe there's a way to just galvanize people together around something like that to then elicit more Friendships and cooperations around the world about What is the ultimate nature of our reality? Is it like an all is God and then we can be cool Let's all like work on our progress of communing with that in our own unique ways Let's all explore our gifts and help people with the Uplifting their basic needs so that they can Explore what those gifts are and so Yeah, so I'm curious. What do you think about that? Pantheism that all is God. It's new for me to hear it Conceptualize in a way where it then becomes something besides God alone creation itself The source Though I feel like its concept is one that is universal and all-inclusive I Still have a slight sense of reservation to even Begin to Find a way to Conceptualize it as you said the moment you begin to try to put it into a word or Religion or an understanding it begins to take away from that in which a very it is And it is that about religion that I think I've seen that divides us Is say is that if it's not my religion Therefore your consequence for not believing as I believe is this place of Damnation Hell Turmoil Left behind it's the part of religion. I Reject I believe that God is love and I was just speaking to this just yesterday in a presentation. I was giving about Accepting other people as they reintegrate back into community and love being a calm to us as neighbors as humans as as workers to love Those in which you're reintegrating and in love I mean to accept and I think in religion where We begin to say what if you don't Believe this way then you won't be accepted and that's where I struggle to Take a position to leave anyone behind or to count anyone out in the God that I understand The connection that I have I have a Question in that space and in that realm. I believe we'll have time to come back to it Let's come back to it after this. Yeah, so I'll just honor thoughts on Pantheism is pantheism. Can you table the question you remember it? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah, we'll walk back there. All right Alan yes, Laura That's a really interesting question and a worthy challenge and In my experience and my belief truth is truth and When I hear someone speak truth I Identify it as such regardless of what? Religion they might label themselves as or what word they would use to describe the divine to describe God so I feel like part of Something what you're getting at can it be accomplished that there's more of a sense of unity For me that is accomplished when names and labels are Omitted and When the truth that self is spoken and Lived out it is recognizable Because the truth is evident to all regardless of where they come from Or how they were raised and what they were exposed to anyone who seeks the truth can find it It is evident in all of creation So truth such as we are all made in the image of God What book does that come from what faith does it come from it doesn't matter because the truth itself Resonates with the spirit that hears it. Hmm. So I think in omitting the labels and the names We may accomplish the goal That you posed If people can Can think about I'm looking beyond that label But I value the truth And one unifying term that I kind of feel in my heart right now is seeker hmm I'm a seeker of truth That was just used recently as well for me And I was like, wow, okay because you're mentioning it now, which is interesting In a testimonial after an interview they use that word. So please continue with your Relationship with that word To be a seeker is not connected. I think with any certain faith it might resonate more with one than another But if you're seeking You're seeking truth and you shall find it and that is the graciousness of the divine The divine being he will not He she the divine will not That love is generous enough to not withhold itself from anyone who seeks Mm-hmm the heart that seeks Will be answered and truth will be revealed to that person it's also interesting because that's the the position in JK Rowling's Harry Potter series of the Inquidditch where the seeker would be the one that's constantly flying around Trying to find the little they leave it's the snitch Was it called? Yeah Gold thing flying around So that was the seeker that was on each team that was doing that So maybe there's also there's so much Story that all points in the same Direction, which is so interesting. Yeah Yeah, it's ancient truth Yeah Ancient ancients. That's a dawn of time. Yeah, that's good. I like that I like this microphone reminds me of Bob Barker And make sure you spade and neuter your pets everyone remember Do anybody ever watch Bob Barker on what price is right? He has long microphone like this. Yeah, what's your bet $1 one dollar one dollar? And if you're over but if you're over I'd go 50 cents You know The the word that I that I started using is inner rhythm And that's the word I use for people because I agree that labels and and Though though, you know, if people do use words like God and divine then I I ask them do you believe God is sentient That's and oftentimes I find with people that they don't they don't understand that word Sentient and so then I explain to them God is God thinking or not thinking and sometimes they have to they have to pause and They don't know and and a lot of times I don't think that that religion or We challenge them to it does God thing is God thinking or not thinking and I believe that God is not thinking and so These I think that I need these were when people use the labels Then I want to have is is the universe thinking is the universe sentient is it not sentient to me? That's very important to know because if you know that that's that's what I feel I've over I feel I have overcome to not seeing that there is anything sentient. I am that Level of we as we know it we're as high a level of sentient being that that exists and It doesn't mean that that the truth that I know is any more than than a dog because I have Dogs that I I sometimes sit and meditate with dogs and I am just Profoundly moved at their inner rhythm their inner and I And and it goes back to what you were talking about is you know try to listen to your heart and And if and and so this I guess you know So you don't mind me taking up time here You know in this time when I was being mentored and and and finding this presence there was there were very many dark days and and You know they talk about Jesus having you know all this time in seven years or and and Buddha sitting under a tree for I mean long periods and and so I it was very very dark and there was one day and and I would sit in Journal and and there was one day. It was really dark And I was very frustrated and and really just With everything you know career my marriage is probably not gonna continue I don't know if I like it where I live. I don't know what I'm gonna do You know just it comes to that and I think that you know sadly that We all and maybe it's just seekers. This is kind of what you're talking about But the colors of paint maybe it is just seekers maybe you know other people don't have to experience this Maybe not everybody has to experience this but me as a seeker I think I had to experience that darkness and the words that came to me were the words from Paul Simon of the first words of that song saying Hello darkness my old friend. I've come to talk with you again And and I just could not believe you know, how could this darkness be a friend? and and You know just for some reason and I hadn't listened to that song for a long long time But I I just wrote that down and I just I just really sat with that for a long time That he must have had a profound type of an experience that that these words that darkness is a friend and so that was when to me that That I saw that all the pain I have to sit with that pain Because once I get through and I face that pain like you talked about every card I have to love and once I've sat with all that pain There's this inner rhythm this friend that's that's in it's in everyone and So that's I guess that's word I I came up with the inner rhythm I want to also mention there was a Question that you post to people about is God sentient there's a part of that or a boros theory is that there's a as simplicity evolves to complexity that the complexity becomes kind of like a big Neural network that's becomes then sentient so I'm not sure if that would be the answer that an Ouroboros style of cyclical creation is in itself then sentient as it continues Evolving towards complexity and realizing itself and then making more creation so Because my I mean my basic, you know, I like a blade of grass I don't think is can think beyond itself though Though a blade of grass can have a million different varieties. So why did that evolve like that? I mean there is there almost seems like what maybe what you're saying It makes me think more about it that there there almost appears to be already a You know a fish that can make itself look like some other species that Is not a fish or something you know it is There seems to be some sentientness Sentient level, but but as far as I think of the word sentient is that we we are able to we are able to think beyond ourselves and into you know, I can I can think I Can see outside of myself. We're an animal or a plant or something. I just don't I don't believe that they can Can but could God could source then do that process that you're talking about It's a good question. Yeah, it seems like it's a potentially a And like an omniputton omniputton omnipresent Essence Well, and And that this gets back to where I don't I don't like the word God so much because When then it becomes when when a person uses the word God it's a and I've read other things that have stated that that God in In ancient times oftentimes did not Represent a he or she it represented like energy all that is all that is God Yeah, I still go back to that over and over again as until I find something that can In compass it greater than that Those are if you must put words then it seems as though Pantheism's a pretty decent and all-encompassing. Yeah, also. Yes, let's go Laura and then let's let's do the what you had tabled afterward So just a reflection When you mentioned today that we have become gods without wisdom is it possible That other forms of life that are not as sentient as we are Are fuller in wisdom than we with our sentience are amen and perhaps The divine or the source is the infinite intelligence that is in all of us and what's the inner rhythm of those animals and plants and insects and even the The collective essence of the entire planet as a Gaia as a spirit, I mean it's ridiculous to seems like it's ridiculous to feel like the the inner rhythm of all those things that we listed feels like that is Constantly divinely connected to source without any Like hiccups in a sense. It just feels like it's a pristine pure connection to source There was a funny meme that I saw recently, which was that there were like you know birds chirping and You know we when we like your birds were like Gorgeous, right, but like it was funny because the birds when chirping and they had little like cloud Bubbles of what they're saying and it was like Wake up humans you are enslaved The birds were chirping and the guy in the bottom frame was was like such beautiful bird chirping This is fun also a reflection and then a thought and the final question I Hadn't been challenged in that way to think of to be asked whether or not, you know, it's got thinking or not I typically intentionally skirt conversations around politics and religions I intentionally Strive to not take a position But only that in which is in love and that I accept you as you are where you're at and believe in where you're going and To model that and in a hope to inspire others to live the same but as I received the question of It's got thinking my initial Thought and responses aligns with doors that that is and I would I'm gonna go there and to say that he is not just in my relationship with God and Mother Earth But he is not thinking however. I recognize that in my thinking That and in my connection with the universe and source That though God is not thinking Yet I am thinking For sure God is still moving and there seems to be for me that My belief tells me that there is a purpose for all things and for all of us and that and in the way that I've Packaged it in my own walk. I say that man's choices doesn't change God's purpose and So it's got thinking. Oh God already has the plan. It's already written to come back to me That is the thought that is the plan that is the way that the seeker would find me and No matter what I choose to do or how I think or where I land or where I was born or which religion I identify with His thought his plan is already written and it's for you to come back to me and no matter the choices you make It doesn't change the purpose that's already written and intended and So I think in that that it still gives us the power retained that we are Godlike and we can create co-creating and step into that that godlikeness to change things and shift things and Manifest things and so I Say God is moving through me through you through us through it all through it all I Want to Celebrate your presentation to say that I love the pictures I'm curious in in my own Journey as a broadcaster and the speakers are like the way you found such majesty and such Inspiration and That in which it's not urgent to share but just to say that I appreciated the visual AIDS in the journey the beautiful picture of the being and the chakras and the connection and the people and it was just it was all there and to to see myself one in the same as a spiritual being having a human experience and In that for the first time in my life truly, I believe Alan I Was driving here Celebrating my mother. Hmm. She turned 54 today. Hmm and She is a woman of joy and laughter and acceptance and she's celebrating 54 years today and I Recall as a child Fearing to tremble the thought of her Passing on the day she died and I've had a brother who has Left already and plenty of friends and close family members who have left already I've experienced death. I know death in that way of a loved one And as I've been journey and as of late and as I've been connecting with others like us to Believe that death is only the beginning a new beginning to believe that It doesn't end That life continues after this into a space into a dimension of all-knowingness of limitlessness and of joy of love of laughter of worship and I Felt myself for the first time today. So it seemed that That I would Celebrate the day the last day if my mother was on her last day That because of my newfound belief and where she's going that I could still be as happy for her today at 54 as I would be for her if she was at the end and then that I would Wholeheartedly believe That I would see her again and be with her again, you know When it became my time to then pass over and so I'm curious in your thoughts around this What does the end look like? life after death here with your understanding of the Source code and quantums and all these things beyond my own research and understanding I'm curiousing to your beliefs on What happens after this when? The shell when the heart stops Hmm when we don't story about your mother happy birthday Shout out shout Cynthia Liggins Cynthia Lee. We love you. I'm on Nebraska Shout out. Yeah Well, also the slides as well can mention that on the way is that this the to aim to make the visual aid as much of a Compression of that key point as possible without words Just the visual aid and then yeah, just using the words I did I did write the don't get distracted by culture wars on that slide because I was like just Really wanting to hammer that one home But yeah, I would that would probably be and then just simple searches on different Everything from the search classic search engine searches all the way to There's tons of image galleries to use and Yeah, really just trying to compress all of the Keith Essence of that point Like that one where it was like how do you bring your gifts forward or the importance of bringing gifts forward? And it's just like this divine Human that looks like they're Beautifully commuting and expressing themselves like that would be like the one that I picked So I think I looked up for that one. I think I looked up Kundalini awakening You know because it's hard to find us an image like that and see if to look up specific words to Find stuff like that. So that would be another recommendation I Like saying I don't know Yeah, I love saying I don't know nice. Yeah, it does seem like if everything else is like so cyclical it's like some spiritual leaders been learning a lot from like indigenous elders and a Lot of them say that spirit Meets with body For school And earth is school and we come with Our mission that we're here to bring forth our gifts that we're here to bring forth and have schooled all the lessons That we have along that way And that afterward we go back to source and then potentially choose to Some say it's an older Spirit one that's incarnated a lot for lessons in school some say there's younger spirit Yeah, it's an interesting way of putting it Yes, sometimes it's interesting thinking about like Like your own like ancestral like lineage and you like look up the tree right like multi generations back and then You can kind of like see like your self-carrying features of the tree From the previous ancestors and so yeah, yeah, and so yeah, that's kind of also an interesting Potential some people say that there isn't but what we don't know For example, I come I like when you say you don't know Yeah, because I agree if I don't know I rather to say I don't know than guess about something and give wrong compression We exist in and coming back in recognition that is something what We don't know You don't know because you did not experience this I didn't experience this and probably nobody experienced this Some people do say that they have experienced it. It's quite interesting. That's quite interesting But that is about feeling how they feel about this This is where science and spirituality kind of that's kind of that's me But how you can say for sure if you've been already here if you walk to a different body You know and experience this life Things that is really philosophical and really technical too at the same time I Agree with children probably I don't know That's a good way to put do you guys have on thoughts on I guess I'd have one One thought and I Mean I think that it's it's it's so much More important for you to live now When you when in my in my view, I know there's I know there's nothing When I'm done There is absolutely nothing and I have and you know this goes back to you know I've I've sat with the darkest in me and so I Know that it can get no darker than that and and so therefore When there's nothing that there's nothing so now I need to do as much as I can and One one thought that came to me is you know in but this is where religion has worked well though and like in in you look at The Losing the the guy and Over a car next the China has pushed him out Why can't I think of? the Buddhist gentleman that Has been booted out of China Dalai Lama. Yeah, and I mean you look at that child when he You know he was found and they said well, there's this is the next Dalai Lama and so this child You know how this child was raised and just imagine if we raised every child Like the Dalai Lama But they don't they don't do that I mean they they have they were not very they were most of the people in in that area We're not treated very well Even prior to the Chinese coming the Dalai Lama now he got you know, he he got treated tremendously well and and and and I think why you know if we could take those types of Examples and use them. I mean if every child was raised like the Dalai Lama, I mean Wow, just imagine where we would be. I mean he is the most content and happy and and cheerful Person that one of one of the most he's a person that laughs a lot too. I like him in that sense But they'll also be slightly careful because then all of the paint strokes are like green Then they fall off the children. Yeah, everybody is raised so it's like both Interesting to unlock their spiritual connection and gifts, but also. Yeah, the same methodology But I guess I mean my maybe not the exact same methodology, but the fact that he was he was raised as as the next coming of God basically Is how you're raised when you're the Dalai Lama and so what if we raised every child that? That they I mean with that spirit that you are verses You know which which were we're all very familiar with the Catholic Church that says, you know you and you have sinned and the older days I lived across the street from children that went to the Catholic Church and and You know they had to dress a certain way their parents were extremely strict on them. They were beaten often times and I Mean, how did they you know when you have a child a child? That's so beautiful and has so much and there we have so much to learn from them and yet They're sinners that we've got to beat the sinner. I mean that's how it used to be I mean they're not I don't think the Catholics are quite that way anymore, but that's how it was when I was a child and I mean, I just think I think we're getting closer and closer I think children, you know people talk about helicopter parents and all this and in a sense That's a good thing though. I mean parents are involved when I was a child, you know come home and Here's a little bit go outside and and I was raised by the neighborhood I was raised by my older brother and my older brother was not a kind person and he was kind of a jerk Extension what do you say? I think that's really important to be present in this life and Be in full potential of you of yourself Realize all your potential because you don't know what will be next You don't know what will be it will be something else besides this life Things like you say every day take every day as your last day and ran as full potential as you can enjoy your life as you present and Like try to be happy too. I think that's really important. I think people losing happiness lately We don't know anymore how to be happy how to accept life and be happy Be happy for our self be happy for all our family and be happy for all our kids treat your kids with happiness and try to Grown the grow them up as happy as person too because kids right now is Kind of In themselves more with electronic with technology and everything else. I think we're losing touch we're losing to be in contact with our own kids with This exponential, you know technology think we needed to More be connected Be connected with family be connected with source be connected That's really important some of the Spiritual leaders that we've interviewed in that Frequently visit their teachings They speak to the exponential technology transition as a grand Challenge that society has to figure out how to handle because there's this beautiful biological Capacity for us to be a channel and anchor the divine in us biologically and it happens so much by just Having the things that we've been mentioning in this conversation working on on those things yet. We've externalized so much too of our time and Essence to Technology and the asset like appendages of our being that you can you can actually like You can physically sense your own stress levels when you're behind a keyboard versus talking to someone in person and You're much less likely to Do any sort of harm to someone else in person then you are to say something behind a Keyboard and just one more step further with what they have taught me is that if we're not careful with this whole transhumanist transition that we're going through That we basically make ourselves able to be manipulated and influenced at unprecedented rates because once you have a neuro prosthetic in you you can be mind-controlled and You got to be got to be really really really wise and aware and Collaborative and loving and compassionate and have a deep connection with source especially like if you look at all of the Is the what what what they're selling is they're selling you you not needing to Have the Bandwidth limitation of pressing fingers on Computer keyboards, but rather literally your thought can lead to creation and so When my creativity is not limited to that bandwidth But instead I can just be thinking and creating and arranging and building Well, I can have so much more potential. So that's kind of there the pitch for it We do need to be very very spiritually wise and graduated from kindergarten Prior to unleashing such technologies that have Speeds of democratization that are unprecedented and also It's a complicated transition to the exponential technologies and sometimes it feels like some of us including including me and even younger people than me that are 15 and 5 that Do they even know? opacity of their Biology for closing their eyes and loving what's there because when you're born with it, and you've never had time without it Which we all had time without it because we were born in the times prior to the devices So that's one of the big Question marks and a lot of people just say adapt There's like I just adapt like if the you know if the child is doing it a certain way just adapt to how they're doing it And whatnot which there's some truth to that but there's also this nuance of like Yeah, yeah, well Yeah, yeah, you just said that people are forgetting communication channels. It's just like there's just one probably there's just there's just one other Thought on that subject, which is that I? Love children and I want to see children find their gifts fast and Children finding their gifts fast has a lot to do with them having their basic needs met and being exposed to a bunch of different Things for them to figure out what they what is their gift? Yet so many kids around the world are not having their basic needs met and are not being exposed to this wide array of Options and so some of the promises of these exponential technologies are that if you solve the theory of everything then we will begin to eradicate all of the Poverty and malevolence is that exist and we will achieve all of the sustainable development goals and so It's an interesting multivariate Conversation Yes, please You had something You had the mic I had something Well, Mike you inspire me so much By the things that you say you just trigger things for me and One thing that you inspired me to share was that my stepdad Told all of us his kids That he knew that there was nothing after he passes away and There is no one He he died when he was 53 And I was 35 There is no one we've ever known who has been So close to us even after he's passed away than him So most of my siblings got tattoos in honor of him We talk about him regularly Miss him think of him he He is present with us somehow And I just found it so ironic that he was so adamant That there is no God and that there is nothing after and yet He lives so strongly So be careful what you say You never know Because love is what endures And one thing that he did was every moment with every person Being this very demonstrative love And it didn't leave the hundreds of people that he touched We're still saying people's names and talking about people that were dead thousand years ago It's kind of interesting how the presence of that sticks around too. Yeah Like the ancestry that you were talking about the lineage how you see your mom is absolutely Gonna be with you like yeah, especially after so much time passed together Yeah My mom has said the same thing Yeah, you're she's in you in yes. Yes. It even feels like that sometimes being in different Cities when you're literally on other sides of the planet or that you can tap into the Through that collective web you can tap into What feels like the presence of my mother Although we are thousands of miles away from each other or what can be like you can tap into someone that has Existed even a long time ago and tap into their teachings and what would be like It feels like I'm almost channeling what They they're who they are in their essence for a little bit Timeless I recall feeling that Certainty one moment looking into my children's eyes of two sons one daughter six fifteen and nineteen and And with the time shared and the lessons shared and the wisdom shared I was confident that I would live beyond me That I would still be living Though I was not present in this body like I am but my wisdom and my lessons And my experiences I am a story. Yes And my story would Continue to be shared and my personality would still shine Through my daughter, you know through the biology through the divine Biology and the creation of all in a way it works that that though I am not here. I am still here Through her through him through him and that I am not dead but alive Interesting to the transmissions that you pass to your children and you do children etc are Evident in their moment-to-moment life as well as in what they continue passing down even long after we're gone So it's as though then Out of all of those hundred billion people that built this incredible civilization that we now live in They are all present through all of the lineage of transmitting all of the Collective knowledge over time of all that we have now. How are we feeling? Yeah, likewise How do we feel about? The discussion do we feel like there are any Other thoughts that we want to share We start talking about technology kids and everything else extension of this conversation is like Now is technology get you can modify, you know, like what you wanted in kids like more mass knowledge or something to Building genetic engineering This one is I think totally wrong you are changing creation of identity of your child What is You know only supposed to be your child and you modifying this true generics You know to addition something to Well question would be if they were to be born with a very serious disease or ailment and you chose to not Engineer that away then was there a lesson to come in and experience that ailment and then we engineered it away So they weren't able to have that lesson Talking about engineering like most smaller the kids like basically engineering, you know kid who will be already not as Much as your kid that's will be something what is artificial changed build Basically, so this conversation that we're having right now in 100 years Will they be having this conversation or will it just be such a normal thing? I don't know I don't know sometimes it feels like if we just Project the trajectory out a couple decades or a century and we just say That they'll be looking back and saying that yeah, why were you even having a normal it's gonna be very normalized That's the trajectory and same with another really obvious one is like clean meat People are slaughtering billions of animals on the planet and in the future it'll be like I can't believe you're doing that Here's clean meat grown and bioreactor as thumbs up and another one is that you right now. It's I don't know Another another one is children looking back and saying that I can't believe that you were Burning fossil fuels at such unprecedented rates and and putting the planet into such ecological Potential catastrophe and so to to again to transition to to transition to fusion at faster rates again, this is one of the most Paramount things is again is for the sustainable development goals for the theory of everything in physics to figure out how to do what happens in the sun on Our planet in as safe and as energy efficient Circumstances as possible Can unleash a whole new era of abundance and energy where? Everyone can have any amount of energy any time they want and it's all clean and yeah, but that's can also draw us back, too Yeah, there's there's ways to handle it. It would say yeah that is you know development of energy resources That's as basic, you know Progress in our lives and by limitation of this and You know limitation of fossil fuel that can be limitation to all back to one You know, I guess one thing that I think of is a so long How long have you been in San Francisco then did he so that was 19 so seven years seven years Yeah, and you know hearing you talk About certain things and these are things. I've kind of thought about too, but you know in flyover country here I don't think you you know you are With the people you're interviewing there, too I imagine I haven't looked at all your interviews, but this is a conversation like even I've never thought of You know this other thing that you talked about about basically in planning some kind of a I mean, I've not I've not Thought or read or talked about that in flyover country here at all and when you brought that up I was like, oh my god. Yeah, that is I can see that is gonna have that's gonna happen Is it's yeah, why not just have something in planet in use so you don't have to type you just think it and it's But yet yeah, eventually that's can be a control mechanism so, you know Living out living out there seven years is all and and and I mean you've interviewed just it looks like hundreds of people right and And then seeing what's happening and and the progression of things the way it's moving Yeah It has to feel so I think you know, this is one of the things I've said If if Donald Trump gets in to office again, I'm probably I'm aiming towards going somewhere more liberal and within the United States or out because I Just I'm sick of you know I'm sick of fighting him and then I got to fight a governor here, too And I just don't know how much of it I can put up with it I'm you know, I'm violent I'm doing as much as I can a volunteer but the prison I teach some yoga and stuff But you know, I just really don't know. I want to be I want to be where people are and so to you to in some degree I would guess that you you know You're in a bubble out there and in Oregon is kind of the same I've met people in Oregon and stuff It is actually one of the crazy things about that bubble is not only what you were saying about how we Can do things like be at the edge of Society's knowledge about how to jam chips into people's brains and other people around the world are not talking about that Even in the middle of the United States not talking about that let alone people that don't have basic needs around the world but then there's how ironically people in Silicon Valley have some of the Least amount of conversations about source about God about the divine about creation some of the least only really Recently with this whole idea of being in a simulation has there been more and more ideas about okay Let's revisit God or the divine or creation, but really there's a lack of Ethicists there's a lack of moral scientists. There's a lack of philosophers There's a lack of people that study theology There's a lack of all of those disciplines within every single one of the major tech companies in Silicon Valley Also the major tech companies in China. There's just a Serious lack you have people that are making AI that are mostly white guys in Silicon Valley or white or Chinese men in China and There's a lack of again lack of female perspective a lack of just philosophies from around the world and I Think it's becoming more and more clear that if you Do not have Ethicist philosophers moral scientists spiritual leaders that are within those tech companies around the world that's going to be the recipe for Disaster and yeah, and just one one interesting thing I add to this is you know when I studied yoga You've heard of the book by the biography of a yogi of Yogananda He he came into the United States and first he went to I think it was New York to the east east coast And he what he was he was like these people There is there is nothing I can do yeah with these people So he flew to California from what I understand and I I may be kind of fuzzy on some things But he decided that's where I'm gonna go and try to establish a yoga Foundation and there he found okay I can hit this I these people I can deal with and he still had a problem there and that the people He had some people that he was training and they ended up having sexual relations with People's wives and things and it turned into a big term tumultuous thing and he went back to India And he was intending to not come back. He's like that is some messed up stuff over there But he did come back, but I think it's it's fascinating that you're saying, you know there's none of this happening there and that is the bed of where a lot of this yoga existed and and There needs to be more and needs to be more and it and it came across that way where We were thinking the east coast was in such bad shape and and was I or he was or he was like so There was a recent movie in the in the 12 where they had the 12 different indigenous tribes from around the world come together at the United Nations to help put up a Calling to spirit to guide the trajectory of our planet in a more benevolent direction and one of the tribes was in a cab going from the airport into Manhattan and They said in their language and they got translated obviously in the subtitles, but they said there are no trees when they're driving into Manhattan and Yeah, when you just have a Massive concrete jungle again, you can't you can't it's hard. It's so hard.  Well, the things you guys haven't so falls is fantastic as you have a lot more Spray space. It's just it is and it and you have your own like grass that you can lay in In the sunlight, you know, you can actually go out and open your deck door and go look at the full moon Can't when you're crammed into the little boxes that are all on top of each other next to other boxes We just did it yesterday If you want to tune yourself like a tuning fork to the divine We must redesign our living situations around the planet away from Concrete jungles and towards Arcology which mixes the other architecture and ecology and yeah Yeah, that's that's that's a big one Only thing I haven't mentioned from my page And I'll speak to but I want to say thank you for the direction I'll call to discipline to dip into my body During the time during during divine times, you know in the morning the evening at night I'm a call to discipline more so than just to you know a devotion to a word or Any other thing besides, you know that in which is inside of me, you know and But I also Recall the the gift of of leaving my body and going Far far far away And then coming back, but I appreciate truly the The the reminder the encouragement the call to discipline to dip into my body and Go into That space and to love it and so I wanted to thank you for that for that for that call to discipline Thank you. Yeah What I hadn't mentioned was if we don't repair then we repeat.  I need to learn and I haven't learned yet And and it actually allows for me to embrace The hard times that in which the the the deepest lessons are learned of the most rich Lessons are learned, you know people in you know business sense will say, you know embrace failures and all these different things that coach you and Call you to embrace the fall Because of what you learn while you're down and I've seen so many Downs in my life growing up in the inner city drugs violence and gangs everywhere a lot of criminality My own, you know experiences with incarceration and reentry and I have Learned the most through those setbacks I've become better and stronger because of the process of the comeback Yeah, and as I continue to embrace Again another mantra of mine personally that life is not wins and losses, but life is wins and lessons and that I Am here to learn as many lessons as I can and everyone that I'm learning I it was meant for me to experience And so I look forward to the time in which I leave and don't have to come back And that I just exist not here But there and I'm able to just be in the all-knowing and the all-present and in the The everlasting flow of all of it and just to watch Myself in other versions and forms learning lessons along the way and so I celebrate this time as Terry Liggins and then 34 and start in the starting of business and just fun learning so many things along the way the value of mentorship New friendships and just the lessons you learn along the way But I subscribe to life being a classroom and that I'm here to learn How our world view profoundly changes when we see everything as lessons everything everything Even when we do something as simple as we're like moving a little too fast instead of kind of flowing a little more Spiritually as we're moving and we like stub our tour.   Yeah If you if you can also tap in at the same time of like whoa, what are they actually trying to like teach me right now? What is this teaching me? Yeah, yeah, yeah that that activation in body is a call to learning You know, we're experiencing it together and we're both going and growing through something It's not just happening to them or me. It's happening to us. Love it And whatever the experience is even though it may seem as if I am on the The the shorts the short side of it You know anger if something angers me What is that about? You know something irritates me irritation agitation frustration That's a call to learning. Yes, all those things are a call to learning It is grateful to experience bliss and joy and laughter, but when you find yourself irritated agitated aggravated it is a call to learning for yourself and and when you get Consumed by wanting to change that in which was already called to teach you my friend one of the one of the Preachers I followed the guy. What's his name furtick? He said he said sometimes your it's your opposition that shows up But it's truly an opportunity ah Opposition knocks on the door and you think that why the hell are you here? You know what the hell's going on? It's an opportunity for you both. Yeah, it's so interesting Opportunity for both them and for yourself to both learn. Yeah. Yeah, all of it from all of it So it calls me to embrace those pains those dark places that I've been that I know The roots have to reach down to hell sometimes for the leaves and fruit to reach the heavens.  Yeah, so fire Some of the best stuff comes from the interplay of the spirits afterward, so I love it. Yeah, it's good Thank you So when we talk about concern of what will happen to youth and and what will come of the future with the Developments of technology that supersede our wisdom It is it is possible That in the process of destroying ourselves We will come to our senses And already the mental health profession points to mindfulness and And it's possible that as wisdom infiltrates as source has its own energy and power perhaps Mindfulness apps, you know, there there may be things that then counter That destruction as we realize that we cannot survive as only thinking beings But we need that spiritual component in life. Yes, I Think perhaps we put maybe too much stock at times in Into thinking mm-hmm Rather feeling spirituality for sure Does the divine source Think maybe not as Significant as acknowledging that the divine is knowledge and wisdom mm-hmm in and of itself And our thinking doesn't necessarily get us there either Beautiful, but it is the receiving of truth That taps into the eternal truth And When we look again at the the stack of cards that is our life and Terry talks about being born again tonight I'm reminded that we are born again Now moment to moment and now and now every moment and As we receive what truth is right now rather than thinking thinking We receive what we are learning From each other and through these experiences and through whatever pain or discomfort is teaching us We are more one with the need to not even think at all But we are part of the knowing and the truth itself With every moment every moment every moment and Regardless of what technology does we will find ourselves needing to focus on the fact that we are human beings and and Who we it's it's about what? It's about the being You know and if the source is the I am what we are at each moment That taps in more than the I'm thinking I'm doing I'm striving mm-hmm It's good. Thank you. Wow given us good good discussion So Moment to moment We are born again every moment. Yes, and and there's The more that we seek towards truth The more we see all as lessons the more moment to moment we keep leveling up more and more towards that divine communion Or returning to it returning to it remembering The source from once we came We're in his awfulness of truth With laughter with laughter along. Yes Yes In so important to export this feeling to the rest of our Evening and tomorrow and the next day and our friends and our families and our communities and the world to continue that As you build up more and more of those moment-to-moment experiences to take and to be able to share at the gift Critical and it's not an it's not an overnight Flick of the of the light switch in that direction either it's definitely a very slow Process of being better than we were yesterday and incrementally making those improvements And just more by calling for more seeking out more yeah, I think about the gift they're in and showing up There was a call there was an answer. Yeah Now there's a fullness Yes, because of the unity Take forth the unity into the evening into tomorrow into Our families and our friends the togetherness The oneness the likeness The inner rhythm this was such Blessing. Yes. Yeah, even closer and so I I Had this thought I work with the Native Americans up at the up at the prison and and You know, I would just like to put out Something I shared to a band that was here in town recently that was thanking veterans I would like to I just want to thank the native people and people that were enslaved in this country and and that died Defending their homes that defending Their land and their way of life and I just Want to acknowledge those People before us. There is no greater honor than time no greater Experienced than to escape it To leave time I'm grateful and thankful to spend time with you friends use it wisely Share it place it Or honor is due Those who are living out love looking to strengthen love to inspire love Mike I appreciate so much you honoring those that have Gone before us and their way and then our sacrifice Honor is due this was so special So grateful for it. It's good. Thank you. It's forever. It goes on forever, too You never in damn special. I would like to I'd like to thank everyone that has been tuning in for the Discussion, yeah, well, yeah, we've been recording and so it will yeah, we will put put it Yeah, we won't put it it will be it will be the whole thing will be up. Yeah. Yeah, so Thank you everyone for tuning in and checking out the discussion in Q&A portion of the ultimate nature of reality We greatly appreciate you. We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below on The topics that we discussed we'd love to hear from you have more conversations with yourself with your friends your family co-workers people online about Source about bringing your gifts forward But understanding the source code and check out the links in the bio to everyone Support the artist entrepreneurs the Organizations the spiritual leaders that you believe in around the world support them help them grow you can find all of our links below to our Paypal cryptocurrency patreon design cool merch and get paid all those links are below And go and build the future everyone manifest your dreams into the world We all love you very much. Thank you for tuning in and we will see you soon


Good morning, Dr. and Gamble, CTO David Taylor. Good morning, board of directors, shareholders, and employees.  We can't go with Charmin until we know Charmin isn't wiping out our forests and our future. We can't go with Charmin until we know Charmin is made responsibly with recycled or nonwood fiber. We can't go with Charmin until we know Croctor and Gamble works to protect sensitive boreal forests, the critical carbon sink, and home to countless indigenous communities and sensitive and threatened species like caribou. We are in a climate emergency. Croctor and Gamble's forest destruction is part of that problem. For more than 30 years, the science has been clear. I ask that you guys take a look deep inside of yourself, deep inside of who you are, and understand that we, as human beings, depend on this curse for everything. Commit to cut your use of natural forest fiber by 50% by adding alternative nonwood fiber and recycled fiber to your Charmin toilet paper, bouncy paper towels, puffs tissue, and all of your paper brands. Croctor and Gamble, nature is calling and she wants her forest back.


Per usual, I'll just start out reading an excerpt here to get us rolling and we'll see where it goes. So I'm on on page 17 of the PDF and we'll link this in the show notes as well for anyone who wants to follow along. Rand writes, psychologically, the choice to think not is the choice to focus or not. Existentially, the choice to focus or not is the choice to be conscious or not. Metaphysically, the choice to be conscious or not is the choice of life or death. And she goes on to write that that which his survival requires is set by his nature and is not open to his choice. What is open to his choice is only whether he will discover it or not, whether he will choose the right goals and values or not. He is free to make the wrong choice, but not free to succeed with it. He is free to evade reality. He is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free to avoid the abyss he refuses to see. So, you know, she's obviously putting the primacy on choice here, you know, making the point that, I guess, we're free to choose our own means and ends. But if we choose improper means, then we will not necessarily get to the desired ends, in particular, referring to reason and or ethics here. Sorry, go ahead. Yeah, I mean, she's really, you know, arguing here that there's one fundamental choice that all other choices are derivative, but really, there's one fundamental choice. There's one core to the whole idea of free will. And that is, do you choose to think or not to think? Do you choose to focus your mind or not?  Or do you choose to not? Be conscious of it. And once you make that choice, once you make the choice to focus, everything else, you know, leads from that. Because once you're engaged with reason, once you're focused, once you're conscious, then now, you know, what does consciousness do? It's integrating the facts of reality. You're thinking, you're doing the work that's necessary for human survival. She's also staying here. So that's one is kind of, it's a unique perspective on free will. Free will is not about, am I flicking up my finger now and am I doing that because I chose to do it or whatever?  Free will is the fundamental choice that you make in some sense every morning when you get up, but in some sense, every every minute, at least you're, you're engaged with the world to think or not to think. So if you think about Hamlet's to be or not to be, she's arguing fundamentally that is to think or not to think. And if we, if we want to live a good life, we have to think. And that's the second point she makes. The second point she's making here is human beings have a specific nature. And that nature requires specific action in order for the human being to be successful. So think about, it's like a nutrition. We have a particular, you know, biology and certain foods are good for us, certain foods are poison. And it's sometimes hard to tell, you know, we know nutrition is a pretty, pretty dismal, dismal field sometimes. But we know that some food is probably good and some food definitely is poison. The same thing she's saying about human life in a more spiritual sense, you know, in a more integrated sense, mind and body. Some things are poison, some things are good for you.  And therefore, the choice to think, the choice to reason is the fundamental choice for life and to choose anything else above reason is a choice towards death, towards poison. Yeah, that makes sense to me that I recently just did this series on platonic and neoplatonic philosophy. And it was making this, one of the core points there is that reason, human reason has this ecstatic dimension to it, that it's always somewhat paradoxically trying to undermine itself. Like, you know, if you have, you use reason to figure something out, but the idea of figuring something out is so you can figure something better out, right? So this is kind of the process of civilization, the process of maturity at the individual scale, right? So we're constantly learning and then reforming our, I guess, lens or presuppositions about the world to, you know, improve, right, to become more civilized and more mature in the process. Well, to discover the truth, to discover the nature of the world around us and, you know, I mean, this is not exactly, this is different than Plato in a sense that for a random reason is very much tied to reality. It's to this world. Plato reason is always tied to another dimension, another world, because for him, there's a world of forms which we cannot observe directly and which reason connects us to that world of forms. Rand rejects that there is no world of forms. What reason is tying us to is the reality in front of us is the world that's out there and it gives us the tool to understand it, to know it and then to know how to deal with it. And yes, it's a constant process of improvement because constantly we get new data, we learn new things, we build microscopes, we build telescopes, we develop the tools to refine our knowledge of reality over time. Makes sense. I guess the question I would have here is, though, is if reason is that which properly couples us to reality, who is the arbiter of whether we are being reasonable or not in any given action? You know, you use the example of nutrition, for instance, and I agree. There are objectively some foods that are good for the human body and some that are bad, but there's also this, you know, element of subjectivity as well, right? Some people I don't do well with carbs, for instance, my partner can eat carbs all day long, no problem. So there's this little bit of this individual element to the consumer as well. Is that similar to reason that, you know, one person could think a certain action is reasonable, another person could say it's not? Like, who are the two? Absolutely. So, so, you know, for you, it would be unreasonable to eat carbs if you don't do well with carbs, right? And for your partner, it's not an issue. So one of the inputs that you need to decide what food is good is my biology. It's not just what the characteristics of the food, it's the interaction between the characteristics of my food and my biological nature as an individual human being. And we know that individual human beings have different somewhat different natures in a sense of how we process food and how some people are allergic to gluten. Other people are not things like that. We take that into account when deciding what food is appropriate. And that is true of other things. But there are certain principles, for example, that are true of all human beings. That is, for all human beings, all adult human beings, thinking is the way in which we survive. Thinking is the means, and that's not individualized, if you will. But it is true that the particular values, the particular things that turn out to be good for us or not good for us, will depend on who we are and what our specific nature happens to be. So the core choice being to think or not to think, what does not thinking look like? Is that the pure imitation that she talks about? I can't remember if it was earlier or later. Is that what does not thinking look like? It looks like what most people do most of the time, I think. I mean, I think it's true. I think most people drift. Most people are, you know, they're awake, but they're not engaged. They just go through life accepting what's around them. Or maybe they engage, they turn it on, like the thinking when they're at work, right?   So but some people even at work, they're not ambitious. They don't really care or they just they're good at following orders or they're good at mimicking the co-worker, but they never engage. They're never on. They're never pushing things forward. And I think it works. Most people somewhat engage because they know in the sense their paycheck depends on it.  They do what their parents tell them. They do what they say, you know, what society tells them. They do what they co-workers tell them. They don't actually think for themselves. They don't engage fully. And that would be just hypothesizing here. But I'm presumably you're going to be a bit more challenged at work and that will activate your engagement to some extent. Whereas at home, you can it's easier to fall into a pattern of of not being challenged. So you can just veg. Yeah, that's part of it. I also think that it's it's there's a direct survival. Instead of motivation, right, you don't get to paycheck. How do you feed your kids if you don't do anything at home or if you don't think about politics or you don't think about all these other things? The consequence are not direct, right? We all we all are suddenly awake and alert and focused when the tiger is right in front of us, right? And we plan strategies on how to get away. Or we we we keep. But if somebody tells us the tiger is a week away, how, you know, so many people just just they can't think a week. You know, they don't they don't engage, right? So so one guy will prepare. And one guy will not.  One guy's a Robinson Caruso and another guy will just eat the coconuts and survive somehow, but the Robinson Caruso will thrive on the island. And the other guy will not. So people this is a this is a fundamental choice that I think people make.  Don't ask, stop asking. Don't be obnoxious. Why do you want to know? Why do you have to know everything? Right. And so some kids, the lesson they learn from that is, you know, being engaged, being focused, asking questions. Not worthwhile. I'll just shut it down. It's just not worth it. So partially it's education, partially it's some fundamental choice people make that's impossible to explain. But the fact is that we see so many adults out there who don't think for themselves, who don't, who are not really alive, not really engaged with being alive. Yeah, that's actually kind of scary to think about if we're living in a world of mostly unengaged, unawake humans. I think there's probably a lot of negative consequences to that. Well, I mean, we've talked about, you know, there's so many, for example, economic truths that are pretty straightforward, right? We've talked about central banking and so on. This is not rocket science. And, you know, right now people are living through inflation and they're living through and everybody's like, OK, there's inflation. It's not good. I don't like Joe Biden, right? And but there's no thinking beyond that. Well, what about the system? What about the Federal Reserve? What about other bouts of inflation? How does this compare? What causes it? What are the relationships? Some people engage in that thought and some engage in the thought and come to the wrong conclusion, right? But very few engage in the thought, right? Most people just, OK, it sucks to have inflation. I hate Joe Biden today. And that's the level at which they engage with it. And they don't go anywhere else. And that's the world in which we live. That's a world in which we live where a Russian, you know, people can engage in war. Why would anybody ever want to go to war? I mean, it's lose, lose, right? Nobody wins in a war.  If people actually want to live good lives, they shouldn't be doing this. And the only explanation is they're just not thinking. They're just not engaged. They're just not aware. They're just drifting along or following the leader. Thank you for listening or watching the Iran book show. If you'd like to support the show, we make it as easy as possible for you to trade with me. You get value from listening. You get value from watching. Show your appreciation. You can do that by going to Iran book show dot com slash support.  Also, if you'd like to see the Iran book show grow, please consider sharing our content and of course, subscribe. Press that little bell button right down there on YouTube so that you get an announcement when we go live. And for those of you who are ready, subscribers and those of you who ready supporters of the show, thank you. I very much appreciate it.