Episode Transcript
[00:00:14] Speaker A: Hello, welcome to Call It Like I See it, presented by Disruption Now, I'm James Keys. And in this episode of Call It Like I See it, we're going to discuss some things we saw in the Power of Now, the hugely popular self help book from Eckhart Tolle.
This book is said to be the best selling spiritual book of the past 20 years and is one whose simple but transformative teachings have been read by millions. And it's really something that people swear by. So we wanted to take a look.
Joining me today is a man who paved the way for you cats to get paid today.
Tunde. Ogonlana Tunde. Are you ready to go through for the people why it's important to live your life?
[00:01:03] Speaker B: I try and do it. Every show, whether they listen or not, is definitely out of my control.
[00:01:09] Speaker A: All right, now we're recording this on October 25, 2021.
And we continue our culture series today by doing some reading between the lines in the book the Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle.
The Power now was first published in 1997, and in the time since then, it's become an international phenomenon. It declares in its subtitle that it is a guide to spiritual enlightenment. And based on how it continues to grow in popularity, it may be living up to such a name.
But Tunde, to get us started, not to be too reductive, but tell me, what do you see as the Power of Now that that is explained and illustrated in the book?
[00:01:54] Speaker B: Wow, that's a setup question.
It would almost be like you want the concise version or you want the 16 hour version of what I find interesting. Yeah, no, yeah. This was a very profound book for me. And I think, like I share with you, it's, you know that the old saying, when the student is ready, the teacher appears.
The first thing that amazed me is this book's been out for over 20 years and I never heard of it.
So that's what I mean is that clearly this information has been out there.
I am, I think, finally in a place in my life where I'm ready to receive it.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: Well, I mean, not just that though, Joe. I mean, it's been popular for 20 years as well. Like this was on Oprah's Book Club 20 years ago.
[00:02:38] Speaker B: So this is like, to answer the question directly. I think that the biggest thing about the Power of Now, as the title states, is really the ability to focus on being present and not allowing the manifestation of time, whether future or past, to creep in, to create negative thoughts, anxieties and other Things that I'm sure we'll get into in this conversation. So that's really. When you talk about kind of what stuck out to me about it was really just the whole premise of the title, which is trying to turn off the noise and being present. And it sounds a lot easier than I think we appreciate in today's modern society.
[00:03:26] Speaker A: No, for real. And you know what's interesting to me still, it has me in awe, is all the noise in large part is actually your mind. So the concept of separating your mind from your being was just groundbreaking to me. And so the. To piggyback on what you said, staying in the now, not being overly concerned with the past or the future, those are the realm of the mind, so to speak, the thinking part of your mind. And so looking at your mind, you know, like the voice in your head, so to speak, your mind as. And it's talked about in the book as a tool. Not you. You are not your mind, but it's a tool that's at your disposal. But you are much more than your mind was something that really blew my mind. Like I had never thought about that. And in fact, I purposefully and intentionally identified with my mind for all of my life. My mind has opened a lot of doors for me in my mind, in my eyes, you know, so it's like, oh, yeah, that's my ticket in, so to speak, and so to read and then to practice some of the things as far as to try to be an observer of your mind, so to speak, and not just be, not take, have the mind be what you consider to be the full complete of yourself is something that just like. Again, I just had never heard anything like that. And that leads you into the now, because the now is that the mind is concerned with the future. The mind is concerned about the past, but the now is what is real, it's what's right. What's going on right now. I mean, that's what. Where you need to be in order to be in the right kind of mindset for your. For your. For your entire health, for your body.
[00:05:04] Speaker B: Yep. No, it's true. And it's kind of so profound some of the directions he goes that what I realize when I read things like this is that's why when the student was ready, the teacher appeared. Meaning I have gone through things in my journey in this life that at this point, reading this book hit me more than I think it would have, let's say, five years ago or 10 years ago.
And that's one thing that's Interesting, right, Is that we're all on the earth at the exact same time, like now. Right. The power of now.
But we are all in different stages of the journey. Right. A 2 year old is at a different stage than a 98 year old.
And at 43, I'm at a different point than I was at 33 or 26.
So that's where this type of book may not hit everybody the same way it hit me. But I think that as a human being, we probably all are at certain points in time in our journeys, ready for this type of lessons and knowledge.
[00:06:09] Speaker A: If I can put it out. But even if you don't accept the entire premise of the book, there are things that you can read in there if you read it with an open mind, which is what I tried. That's all I tried to do. I wasn't looking for guidance. I just wanted to read it with an open mind. And for example, the accessing of the creative aspect to you and how that isn't necessarily your mind was something that I see in practice. You know, when I'm writing, I will try to get my now. And I didn't know I was doing this, but now after reading this, in hindsight, I can see this is what I was doing. I write my best when I'm not thinking about what I'm writing. When I just get to a place and time can fly by when this happens. Time is not that important when this happens. But I get to a place and my mind almost shuts off and then it just flows creatively out of me. And so interestingly enough, doing the podcast does that sometimes. Sometimes I'll be getting into something and I'll go and I'm just there. And it's not something that I had thought about before or thought something. It's just like it comes out of me. And so hearing the kind of discussion on how the creative aspect of you, how the mind can block that, you know, because the mind is caught up in anxieties and worries and about things that have happened or things that may happen or whatever. But you have to get through that noise, so to speak, to really access your creative being. And yeah, that's something. Whether again, whether you're buying everything he's selling, that's something that can be helpful in anyone's life because we all try to get to that. Whatever we're passionate about, whatever we enjoy doing, we all like to try to get to that place.
[00:07:41] Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, part of the getting into kind of the early parts of this book, you Know, he really starts with, I guess the first chapter is you are not your mind.
[00:07:54] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:54] Speaker B: And I think that's what I like about the way he comes right into it, is because on the surface, again, for an untrained mind and someone that may not be ready to hear this, that just sounds crazy on his face. Right.
But when you really get into what he's getting into is that we have an ego.
And the ego is the one that requires time because the ego has to have the past for its self identity and it has to have the future for either to dwell on its fears and concerns or to look for salvation in the future. Like, you know, the future is either going to be worse or better.
[00:08:36] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:36] Speaker B: The way most of us are conditioned.
[00:08:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:38] Speaker B: So what he's talking about is.
[00:08:40] Speaker A: That's true. And that can consume you basically. Either one, the past can consume you if you allow your ego to run the show, or the future can consume you if you allow your ego to run the show.
[00:08:51] Speaker B: Yep. And so the idea is that first of all, most of us don't recognize this. And this is what he calls being unconscious. And that's why I'm saying it this way, because he uses terms like that, that if, again, if you're untrained in hearing it, you're going to say, what do you mean I'm unconscious? I'm walking around. So what he's really talking about more of a metaphysical and kind of spiritual level of being unconscious because your ego is the one in control.
And so what he's saying is that you are not your mind. The mind is ego bodies say, is you are you. Like you are a being.
[00:09:23] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:24] Speaker B: And being is really the secret being. Present.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:09:29] Speaker B: And anytime you're not present, your ego is the one that's manifesting your reality. And the ego wants to be in the future or past to dwell on either some sort of pleasure or pain.
And so that's what I found. You know, that's why I like the way he kind of goes right into it in the book. Kind of like just hitting you in the head with a sledgehammer, like you're not your mind, dude.
[00:09:50] Speaker A: And I mean, and that hit me as well. And I'll tell you this, the piece about that that was very interesting was how he talked about how this is not like happenstance, like the ego is trying to do this. The ego wants you to think that it is your entire self, that it's created a reflection of you.
[00:10:07] Speaker B: And.
[00:10:07] Speaker A: And he wants you to think that that is you and not this Other like, you can almost think of it as depth. Not this other depth, this being, this moment, but actually just all the stuff that's in your head is all that you are.
[00:10:22] Speaker B: Yeah, and he even talks about that, you know, he makes a good analogy to a lake and he talks about, I mean, I'm assuming a big lake, like one of the Great Lakes or something. But what he's saying is that, you know, on the surface of the lake, you know, there's the. The wind can whip up the currents a bit. You know, you've got. You've got rain, you've got this, you've got that.
And that can be. That can be uneasy on the surface. But when he talks about depth is. He says, you know, but if the lake is 600ft deep, you know, at the bottom of the lake, the water is all the same like that. It doesn't respond to the disturbances at the surface.
[00:10:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:10:58] Speaker B: And so that's what he's kind of getting to, is that the ego is kind of like the surface. The ego reacts to everything.
But if you can really find. Go deep, you know, I mean, and it's funny. Well, I was thinking about things we use in the Anglo Saxon language, like the term shallow, how we, you know, we, we call people that are shallow when they're kind of superficial and just kind of not really self aware.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:11:21] Speaker B: And so.
Yeah, yeah, so that's why the analogy was good, because it was, you know, I could picture a lake, you know, let's say a hurricane or some strong winds.
[00:11:29] Speaker A: Yeah, that's.
[00:11:29] Speaker B: That's not a comfortable place to be on the surface. But if you've ever seen, you know, the National Geographic, one of these documentaries about the ocean life, you know, seems at the bottom of the ocean, no matter what's going on at the surface, you know, the conditions are relatively similar and calm. And so what he's telling us as human beings to do is, you know, if you can. If you can separate that ego part, that shallow, that superficial part from the core being and really begin to observe, get in touch with your core and observe your mind from a distance. That's the other key.
Then you can be like the lake, where no matter what is happening on the outside on the surface and the winds are kicking up and all this, your inner core will keep you grounded and balanced, just like the lake analogy. And that's where I also found that interesting too, where he gets into.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: Like.
[00:12:23] Speaker B: Like that part of the ego that by. By allowing the ego to only allow you to be on the surface.
You can't step back and look at your own reactions and emotions to things. You can't stare at your mind. And one of the things I say in the past, the baton on is he makes an interesting comment in the book where he says.
He kind of says, step back and observe your mind. And then he just says, smile at it.
I like that bit. Because, yeah, you know, what he's saying is basically when you feel yourself having an emotional reaction or a negative reaction to it, don't worry about what you're reacting to first stop and observe yourself, your reaction.
[00:13:01] Speaker A: Yeah, well, that's the. That's the separation, though, is once you can, like, it's not like your mind is going somewhere. You know, it's not like you're going to get rid of your mind. You know, your mind has a purpose. Like I said, it's a tool or like he said, it's a tool. But to disassociate your entirety from it is kind of the key there. And to be, if you observe it, that. And he talks about that being the key to being able to really step back and not solely identify with the thinking mind, but is to be able to be an observer of it. Another part. So the thinking mind was a key piece in there. Another key piece that he spoke on was with the pain body, which you and I have talked about just offline. And what it represents, basically, is something that any, anyone can relate to. I mean, really, it's. It's really quite amazing, you know, when you, like. He calls it a negative energy field, you know, and it occupies your body and your mind. And basically pain, emotional pain, can leave a residue of pain that lives in you and merges in you, you know, and becomes in you. And think of it. Thinking of it in that kind of analogous way, like thinking of it as that analogy was very help. It can be very helpful because what's fascinating to me about the whole thing is that this stuff accumulates like the. And you can feel this in yourself, like slights or things that bothered you a lot of times, you never really get over a lot of them. Like sometimes, you know, some things you're able to get past, but some things, the bigger things, things that disturb you will accumulate and accumulate and build on each other. And fundamentally, they can change you and change the person you are. And so thinking of it as, like, he termed it pain body, but just as an energy field in you was something that was just.
It was a very good illustration.
What were your thoughts on the pain body?
[00:14:48] Speaker B: No, I thought it was great. I mean, it really helped open up a lot of, I guess, thoughts and things from my own life experience.
And I would say not only personally, but also with people I deal with and have dealt with in the past. And it comes down to things that.
[00:15:02] Speaker A: I think.
[00:15:04] Speaker B: Those of us who read a lot and read about psychology and all this thing, I mean, there's a general understanding of things like, and we've talked about it on other shows where, you know, most of us are somewhat hardwired in our, in our subconscious by our, you know, 8th birthday or whatever that age is, you know, and that, and that we're getting hardwired with certain life lessons at an age when we're too young to understand what's happening through our, you know, just growing up at home and our parents and siblings and all that stuff.
So a lot of us know already that the term baggage, emotional baggage and something he refers to are things that we've discussed as well in other shows. Triggers.
And he says here anything can trigger the pain body, particularly if it resonates with a pain pattern from your past.
And what he gets into, again, going back to what we talked a minute ago is obviously it's important to recognize that in other people, but it's more important to recognize it in yourself.
Why did certain things trigger you? Why?
And you know, I think also about things that we've talked about in other shows about our society.
We probably have throughout human history in 2021 and leading up to this point, the last, let's say, 20 years probably has the most triggers in human history for people to get triggered, right? Social media, the cable news, all in your pocket. It can, anytime you want, follows you all around. We talk about like kids being bullied. When we were kids, you know, you got home at least you got a break. Now kids are getting, you know, again, like you said, they got a phone, they're getting bullied on the phone at 10 o' clock at night and committing suicide in middle school. And so that's the sad part, is that through our great innovation and our great discoveries of humanity, we've also created on the other side, almost like duality. Like there's so much advancement and progress, but in another way we've created ways to make ourselves more miserable and to create greater pain bodies. And so it's almost like this type of knowledge is even more important in today's world if you really want to navigate it and stay sane. Because I can totally see how a lot of people can go insane in this environment, especially when you look at things like this, where we're constantly being triggered and reminded of things that might be painful to us by our ego being triggered to remember past grievances and experiences.
[00:17:31] Speaker A: But that's actually one of the things about it that was very interesting with the pain body was that a lot of times for people and you see this, but really, again, to see it discussed in this way from like an impartial way, and not actually trying to look at somebody and say, oh, they did this or that, but how people can identify with their pain. And almost you embrace that as it becomes a part of you and part of you that actually you. I mean, I got to say it, whether I'm saying it again, but you identify yourself with your pain as opposed to your being, so to speak. And so with that, like the pain, the pain body, as he calls it, it takes on an entirely new meaning in your life where what you. You've become basically, if you were. If someone should try to remove the pain or lessen the pain from, you would almost resist that because they would then be chipping away at part of your identity. So the dangers of not being able to observe the pain, and again, observation is something that's helpful here. And identifying with it can be almost a subtle and subconscious embrace of the pain. And we've, we've all met people that we can see that they embrace kind of destructive behaviors or things like that. And you know, again, whether you're buying or selling what he's buying, what he's saying or not, you can at least see how that could be illustrated in this type of explanation.
[00:18:58] Speaker B: Yeah, Vanessa, very interesting point, because what he talks about, the, the. The emotional sense is that he kind of coalesces in this term pain body.
He kind of, he looked, he alludes to it like any other kind of living entity or organism. And he says all it wants to do is survive. And he says it can only survive if it gets you to unconsciously identify it with.
Can then rise up, take you over, become you and live through you. It needs to get its food through you. And it says pain can only feed on pain.
Pain cannot feed on joy. And that led me to what you were also finding is very profound because what it leads to is like you're saying a lot of people out there in our society now have their own self identity in their pain.
And I'll give you an example of someone who I met earlier this year, which intrigued me, because I met this person a series of times, you know, and with my wife there and this person Kept alluding to the fact that she grew up in a very abusive household and you know, her dad was very abusive and all that. And I remember after the third time we had been around this person and I told my wife, I was like, you know, and this was before I read this book. I just said I could tell this person dealing with a lot of pain and trauma in their past because they're wearing this like a badge of honor, like I just met them through someone else. This wasn't, you know, the first time you meet someone at a dinner. Let's say, you know, it's not normal to hear about someone bragging about their domestic abuse they suffered as a child by the hands of their parent. And so when I was reading this part, I thought about that person and I thought, that's a good example of someone who has now taken that pain body and it's now their self identity.
[00:20:53] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:20:54] Speaker B: And then I started thinking, well, I.
[00:20:56] Speaker A: Was gonna say just to add to that what they, what people like through. But you. What's dangerous with that also is, as you noted, pain likes to feed on other pain. And so if you're around people like that a lot, they may not even because they necessarily want to, not because it's what they, you know, like, oh, I just, I consciously want to hurt somebody, but because they need other pain. Their identity is that pain body and they need other pain to feed on that. Then that's the kind of person you have to watch out for inflicting. Trying to inflict pain on you.
[00:21:24] Speaker B: Well, you know, it's interesting. So I, this person was dating someone else. We knew. That's how I met them. Right.
And I remember that's what I told my wife in the conversation we had. I said, I don't think this relationship is gonna last too long. And my wife said, why? And I said, because this person comes from a very traumatic environment and the person they're dating comes from a more healthy family unit. And I said, so what I could conceive happening. And of course, I'm just guessing now what I'm about to say.
I said what I could see happening is this person with a pain body. That's my words I'm putting in now after this book is going to self sabotage the relationship because like you're saying misery loves company and this person has pain, is not used to dealing with joy. And so. And her pain can't feed on the joy of.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: And the joy is threatening.
[00:22:22] Speaker B: The joy is correct. So, and you know, it's funny and not funny it's sad, but within six months, they had nice to see an amicable breakup, but they had a breakup. So it just stuck at me. And then I started thinking about it manifest. And I'm sure you've seen this, and I'm sure everybody listening has seen this.
How many people have we encountered in our life that did grow up on the wrong side of the tracks or some sort of harder environment, but that becomes their badge of honor, right?
[00:22:48] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:22:48] Speaker B: And you and I have seen that with a lot of, you know, young kids in the hood, like, oh, I'm so tough because of this or that, because I got my butt whipped or because I went to jail at 14 or because. And what happens is it becomes their pride and their shield.
Yet when I was young, maybe I thought that was cool or that was tough, you know, and all that. But as you know, you get enlightened with this kind of information, you start like, no, no, no. That's a. That person is an ultimate pain. And the only way they know how to express it is by making this pain a part of who they are. It becomes their ego.
And now they can't, because, like you said, the past becomes your identity.
And so if your past is painful, that becomes your identity. But then the flip side is that also means the future is probably going to be.
[00:23:33] Speaker A: Well, no. And that's actually the thought is that either you'll try to inflict pain on the people around you in order for them to reflect the pain back to you, or. Which was even crazier to me. And this was one where I'm like, oh, boy, I got to think about this a little bit more before I decide if I'm buying this, but. Or you will engage in behaviors that will bring pain to you, because more pain on you is nourishing for the pain body as well. So, like, you have pain that you have in you that you identify with, and therefore, in this, according to Tolle, that could make you more prone to engaging in things to bring you more pain subconsciously. Obviously, not purposefully going out, I want somebody to beat me up, or something like that, but doing things that will make that outcome more likely, so to speak, so that you can look at a lot of things in society with that. And so that's. Like I said, I got to.
[00:24:27] Speaker B: It's very profound. And that's what you're saying. You gotta be at a certain level of already, I think, a certain intellectual vulnerability to allow this stuff to even creep into your mind, because it does sound hokey. If you really Aren't ready to hear this stuff.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: Well, if you close your mind off to it. That's why I said, I think what's important is that you read it with an open mind. You don't have to read it and say, I believe everything the guy says. But you should. You should give it an open mind because it is a.
It's difficult to follow in some respects, but it is a coherent presentation of these different. Like, he does a good job of putting together a coherent presentation. It's. It's. The reason it's hard to follow is because ultimately it's very simple. But he tries a lot of different ways to explain these things, you know, and a lot of different ways to illustrate them. But ultimately, what he's talking about could be. You could. You could give a summary in about a minute or two, and that would be the bottom line. But again, it's hard to. When you grow up in the world we grow up in, that bottom line will be meaningless to you.
[00:25:25] Speaker B: Yeah, and one of the things that. Like getting back on this theme and not to pick on the person who I mentioned, you know, in that example, but just this idea like we talked about just now, like, even other people we've met in our lives that kind of wear their pain as a badge of honor.
It's interesting because he.
And the author makes a point in saying that.
So if we go on that theme that we just talked about for the last few minutes, it's. What would he tell those people to do is to separate from their mind. Again, you are not your mind. Right. And so he would say, you got to step back first and observe the.
[00:26:00] Speaker A: Pain and the pain. Yeah. The pain body also being not your mind and the pain body, you know, different. Yeah, yeah.
[00:26:06] Speaker B: And then. And then he also kind of speaks to the fact that you're gonna have discomfort in this moment, because that's where it goes. The pain body wants to exist, so it's gonna resist you trying to get.
[00:26:18] Speaker A: Away from it, trying to observe it.
[00:26:19] Speaker B: It's gonna resist you trying to be present and observant. It's always gonna wanna creep back in and tell you about your past or how you were wronged or how you gotta be tough so that no one does that to you again.
And the other thing, before we move just to break out, because as we're having this conversation about the pain body and all that, I could see maybe someone listening that hasn't read the book yet, kind of saying, oh, well, but then what's the other side? This utopia or euphoria or all that. And what I like about his premise in the book is that it's not about some euphoria or some utopia or finding this massive joy. What he's saying is that it's not about good or bad, it's just about what is.
And so realistically. And finding peace. Correct. And the peace really is happiness.
And that's what he even said, that the Buddha even said enlightenment is the end of suffering. That's pretty key.
[00:27:13] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:13] Speaker B: Because I would have thought before hearing that, that enlightenment is some sort of euphoria or happiness or something that I think maybe in our modern world, we've been taught to believe the definition of euphoria is. But if the Buddha really says enlightenment is the end of suffering, that's a pretty profound statement, because that doesn't mean happiness. But what that means is it defines a guy.
[00:27:38] Speaker A: What it's not.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:27:39] Speaker A: You know, like. As opposed to what it is.
[00:27:41] Speaker B: Yeah. So in my example of just the person I'm picking on here with this example, that would be the end. Maybe they could come to grips with their own past and end the need to wear their abuse as a badge of honor and just accept that it happened.
[00:27:59] Speaker A: But it's not present, but it's not now.
[00:28:01] Speaker B: Yeah, correct now, now. Be present now and move forward.
[00:28:04] Speaker A: So, yeah, no, and that's interesting that you bring up the Buddha, because one of the things that stands out in the book, I believe, is that he cites script, you know, scriptures, teachings from all manner of faiths, and he, like, he calls these things out and says, yeah, yeah, like when I'm talking about this being in the now or being with the pain body, like, this is like what Jesus said, or this is like what the Buddha said, or this is like this ancient Zen text or something, or, you know, teaching and so forth. And so it's actually bringing that together, I thought was an interesting touch.
I want to get your thoughts on that, because I had kind of an ultimate takeaway from that that I wanted to get to, but I want to get your thoughts on it first. Or if there were any of those that stood out to you.
[00:28:46] Speaker B: No, I mean, several did. What I liked is he.
He gave examples from the Gospels, from the teaching of Jesus.
He also gave examples from the Old Testament, you know, from Genesis with the Garden of Eden.
But then he also gave.
Like you said, I've never. I've always heard different things about Buddhism as a religion or a way of thought. But so he incorporated Buddhism. He incorporated some Hindu, you know, and some old Vedic Stuff And I can't remember if he had any from Islam in there or not. Actually, he did Prophet Muhammad. He did a couple. So what I liked about that is he alluded to various religions and how they all have a similar grounding and rooting foundation.
[00:29:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:29:30] Speaker B: And what, what really stuck out to me is I would say this without, you know, I want to be very careful how word. When I talk about religious stuff.
I feel like he's trying to identify what all of the religions really have tried to teach is that the real ability to change is within you and that God's within you.
And that it's almost like when he's talking about the ego mind versus just being that the ego is when you get into, you know, the great high towers and the church steeples that got to be a thousand feet in the air and the riches and all the stuff that sometimes gives religion a bad name to certain people because it looks like it's materialistic.
And I find that when religion is dealt with at the more core level of your humanity as a person, I mean, personally resonates with me more than just showing up to a building and praying and feeling like, okay, just because I pray now. Indicators and.
[00:30:37] Speaker A: Yeah, well, yeah, actually that was what I was going to go to. So I'm glad I gave you the floor because what I was going to say is similar to what you said, but it seems like what the point that is revealed here is that a lot of the religions that we know today kind of start in a similar place, like where they are, their foundation, their spiritual foundations are in a very similar place, which, like you point out, is that what you're looking for is actually inside you. You're. You're a part of this, you know, like in the thinking mind obscures this. But that's what you have to cut through and you have to be in the now, like these things like. And again, I'm not going to quote a bunch of the areas where he quoted, you know, the gospel or quoted, you know, whatever religious tradition. Like, that's throughout the book. But I think it makes that point though, that this is where religion starts. And then the thinking mind, the egoic mind gets in there and changes religion into more of a thinking man's thing, a thinking as opposed to the spiritual. It takes the. The spiritual focus away and makes it more about things that the thinking mind likes, you know, the past, the future and the material and so forth. And almost obscures the.
That this actually that we should be looking inward as far as to find that salvation, so to speak. And yeah, like, that to me was, Was pretty profound of a suggestion. And that's like, when you look at like, even popular culture wise, you look at like the Da Vinci Code or something like that. A lot of times when those messages are people like, oh, you know, Christianity's been, you know, it was by, by Constantine or whoever, they, they changed it and everything like that. All that, A lot of that is. They're saying the same kind of things like, you know, what Jesus was teaching was different than what the church became. When the church became an institution, it had. It became more interested. And this sounds like the thinking mind and self propagating and keeping itself together and reflecting on itself or. Excuse me, reflecting on the faith that. Hey, no, no, the faith isn't the deep stuff. The faith is all this stuff that you can see, which is antithetical to the idea of faith anyway. But beyond all that, it really becomes like an analogy for what he's saying as far as how the thinking mind obscures the depth in your humanity, whereas these religious institutions seemingly will obscure the depth of. Of the spiritual practice in exchange for things that are valuable and that are meaningful to the thinking mind.
[00:33:06] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's interesting because he points out some very, to me, fascinating things about, like human knowledge about the universe and the earth. And, you know, he talks about how 2400 years ago in certain ancient Buddhist texts, they understood the idea of formlessness and this idea that we are kind of made up of more nothing than actual matter. If you go down to the, I would say quantum level, right? Like atoms. If you look at a.
[00:33:38] Speaker A: Well, yeah, even, not even quantum, but just to the atomic level.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: Yeah, like that's what.
[00:33:43] Speaker A: Well, or cellular.
[00:33:44] Speaker B: If I am saying atoms, it would be atomic. Thank you, sir.
[00:33:47] Speaker A: You gotta go a lot smaller to get.
[00:33:50] Speaker B: I stand corrected. I forgot, we're two nerds here, so screw you. Anyway, actually, sir, that's not what quantum means.
So, yes, at the atomic level, if you just look at an atom, like just Google an atom and look at the diagram, right? It's a nucleus surrounded by a proton, electron and neutrons. All right? And so the neutrons and protons and the nucleus and all that are much smaller entities than the actual atom itself. That, that, that the whole structure.
[00:34:24] Speaker A: And so the electrons going around like they're going around in space.
[00:34:27] Speaker B: So you really. So. Exactly. So if you multiply that up by trillions and trillions of atoms that just make up our bodies, there's more space in between all those atoms than there is matter. And you know, and that's what I mean, like when he's saying that this is an ancient Buddhist text about nothingness and all this, I'm like, wow, this is amazing that human beings figured a lot of this stuff out. And the idea, like we talked about offline, like, you know, human beings have known for thousands of years about things like vibrations and that, you know, we're, we're all made up from, you know, certain kind of vibrations at a very small level. And then you got. In the last kind of just a few decades with, with modern technology, it's been confirmed with ideas like string theory. Yeah. And you know, that, that. Yeah, it is. If you go below the quantum level to quarks and all that stuff, really all you're getting is strings that are vibrating and there's actually no matter at that level. So that's kind of what. When he got into that type of stuff from the ancient philosophies, that to me was fascinating because it was just more like. It's amazing how human beings must have been in touch, you know, we must have been in touch with ourselves at such a deeper level at a time maybe when there was less humans and it was all nature and you just had nothing to do but sit around and meditate after you hunted your food all day, you know, during the day, that maybe we could actually relate to the physical world in a much different way to understand these things that we didn't need computers and all this, you know, x ray machines and what do they call it, you know, the electron microscopes, you know, things like that. To really see the world around us.
Maybe we could feel them. Feel the world in a different way.
[00:36:05] Speaker A: Yeah, a different way of perceiving it. Basically, like we, right now we rely on certain. And that's not the poo poo science, you know, certain scientific ways of perceiving things and trying to hold theories together, you know, as, you know, like as the ability to perceive improves with tools. But ultimately, yeah, there is other perception beyond just visual, you know, and so forth. And so like. And that's kind of getting into that.
Well, let me tell you this.
He talks about, or let me ask you this, he talks about in the book several times now, this was written in the 90s.
And he talks about several times how there is an awakening happening within the human race, human beings. And it talks very optimistically about the possibilities as more people become conscious, as more people become aware that they are not their mind.
And potentially societies can evolve to account for that. And he Says our only shot with the challenges we have with the environment and so forth are to be able to evolve out of patterns that are purely egoic thinking, mind patterns. But do you think his prescription for humanity and then his optimism is that stuff realistic?
Do you think that consciousness, as a foundational piece could know. Can move societies, you know, and therefore our world to a better place?
[00:37:33] Speaker B: I would say yes and no, but I lean more towards no man. Here's why It's.
[00:37:38] Speaker A: That's a mystic Tunde.
[00:37:40] Speaker B: Yeah, no, it's, it's. It's an interesting question because, number one, several parts of the book, he. He goes back and forth, it seems, with his own thought about this, because sometimes he's very. He seems more optimistic and then other times he recognizes that, like it's. It's almost like it. It would take a lot for humanity to kind of get past where we are now from an emotional, evolutionary.
[00:38:07] Speaker A: Yeah, like he, he does acknowledge the high hurdles. Yeah. You know, it's not all roses and balloons and such.
[00:38:13] Speaker B: So what I think the problem is, though, and this is where I say it, I think it'd be difficult in our society today because of what we started kind of joking around with the show that, you know, we're in the.
Because of the technology, the fact we have 8 billion humans on the earth, all this kind of stuff.
We're in probably the greatest moment of triggering for negative thought patterns of humans than we've seen in history.
And so that's one thing that I think makes it a difficult climb. The other thing is just there's always opportunistic opportunists, let me put it that way. In every society, whether it be business, politics, religion, whatever it is, there's some sort of opportunists who themselves have such a huge pain body that they starting to drag a portion of the society along with them into whatever that, you know, disruption is. Right. Yeah. And you could have 99% of the population getting enlightened, getting all this stuff and all that. But out of 8 billion people, if 1% want to go the pain body route, 1% of 8 billion is a lot of people. Right.
[00:39:17] Speaker A: And it seems to be easier to.
To cause problems than to solve problems, so to speak. Like, it's easier to go in with less people and just break a bunch of stuff than it is to go in with even more people and build a bunch of stuff.
[00:39:32] Speaker B: And it's also because we all have our pain bodies and our triggers. So what happens? It's like you and I have. We've done shows about this stuff with social media and all that. But even recently we've talked about some of the things that have been shared with me about concerns over the next decade as relates to the economy, our society. Some people thinking that by, let's say, 2030, that's because we're not living in the now.
We're not going to have private ownership of capital because somehow all the single family homes will be bought up by Tunde.
[00:40:03] Speaker A: Tunde. You can always do that if you're not in the now.
[00:40:05] Speaker B: I think that's my point is enough people are not in the now that they can be triggered by these things that otherwise a rational person will look and say, yeah, really? You really think that? But because of the fear, something that otherwise might be irrational to you or I could be very triggering and fearful to someone else.
[00:40:25] Speaker A: Well, but are you saying though, that because of that they are not in the now and could never be in the now? Because that's kind of what your implication is is that I'm saying that there are a lot of people that aren't in the now and that will never be there because more people are in the now. Then conceivably that stuff would be less effective, even though, granted, it wouldn't need that many people to break stuff. You know, like the insurrection is an example of that. Like you have, you know, most of the country trying to, you know, not advocating for a violent attack on the Capitol, but you only need, you know, a few hundred, a few thousand people. And that happens, you know, like just in terms of bringing the violence into it is all I'm really speaking on there. Like, it doesn't take much to tear it apart, but it takes a lot to hold it together.
[00:41:08] Speaker B: No, I agree.
[00:41:09] Speaker A: I'll tell you this.
[00:41:10] Speaker B: Look at World War II, for example. It was started by Germans and Japanese, you know, and smaller factions within those countries.
You know, a few years later, you got the whole world involved and 100 million people dead. You know, I mean, it's, that's just.
[00:41:22] Speaker A: Well, yeah, he actually cites several times how many, you know, hundred million people were murdered in the 20th century by other people. You know, like. And so, and how that is just, it's a jarring number when you, when you think about it.
[00:41:33] Speaker B: And even things like, I mean, he does a good job like saying that, you know, 50 million, I mean, I think the numbers are higher than what he's stating, actually. But he says 50 million people in the 20th century basically were murdered to try and bring the enlightenment of communism to Societies, it's kind of saying like, how does that work? You know, you can't kill your way to trying to make a better world.
[00:41:53] Speaker A: It's funny because I looked at this differently than you did. I may have come to a similar conclusion because in terms of whether his prescription for humanity is realistic, I wonder whether. Well, first off, this book was written pre social media, so to give him a little bit of a pass.
[00:42:11] Speaker B: I know he didn't know, like Facebook.
[00:42:14] Speaker A: Is one grand experiment in the unconscious or in the unconscious egoic mind.
[00:42:19] Speaker B: Listen, this book was written before the NASDAQ crash. That's what I mean. It was in the 90s. So yeah, there was no fathoming what could have happened.
[00:42:25] Speaker A: So as far as how you could. Now with social media, we can connect everybody's thinking mind and egoic mind and so forth and connect everybody's pain body together and amplify, you know, so but setting that part aside because ultimately you can also connect positive. So, you know, I'm not going to say that it's all bunk because of that. My concern would be looking back into the past even further than you did. It seems like when cultures that are very egoic mind dominated come across cultures that are actually that focus more on depth, the cultures that are more egoic mind dominated outcompete the ones that are focused on depth. It seems like there is some type of competitive advantage to being in that thinking mind state from a cultural standpoint at least again, relative to non thinking, excuse me, relative to cultures that veer more conscious. And where you'll see this actually is that the cultures that would be more based on the thinking mind type of like their basis is on the past, on the future, on the aspects of the thinking mind that are explained in the book, those cultures need to continue to expand. They need to in order to survive. Like those cultures cannot find stasis within themselves. They cannot be regenerative. They need to continually consume something else in order to stay viable. Whereas the ones, the other ones, the cultures that are less egoic, less thinking mind, more depth to them from a cultural standpoint, again, like the way the routines, the rituals, all those things that are more in depth, they don't need to constantly expand in order to continue to survive. Like they are able to find balance with their surroundings, by and large. And so if you have that situation, if one type of culture has to expand, then they're going to go about expanding in a much more aggressive way. And if one culture doesn't have to expand, they're not really Looking for that stuff. They're not preparing for the need for conflict because they're going to need somebody else's resources or they're going to need something else. So inherently I think there is a. If you're again looking backwards, I think there is a problem with the idea that you can enlighten your way to stability from a societal standpoint.
[00:44:45] Speaker B: Yeah, I think we've talked about this, that, you know, we've talked about it privately, like joking that I've had this theory that we may have created through our technology a certain way of living that is going to kill us before we can evolve our way out of it.
Because like stuff we've talked about on other shows at length, things like the fight or flight responses and the idea that when it was thousands of years ago and we were out there hunting a bison and a bear showed up, your fight or flight kicked in and within 10 minutes you either died or you got away. Right. And now with the triggers we all have, it's chronic kind of fight or flight at all times every day for everybody. So people are really not able to be present because of all these triggers. And that could lead to something like more wars over time or more pollution or more things that can lead to the fall of humanity.
[00:45:46] Speaker A: And because historically, think about it, man, think about it. Yeah, we talk about how the thinking mind wants to preserve itself. The pain body wants to preserve itself. Where we now have all these creations that help those things preserve themselves.
[00:46:00] Speaker B: Like you said, they help maintain a negative energy field. Is correct, what you said? Yeah. So it's true. Yeah, it's a negative collective pain body, what he calls it.
[00:46:09] Speaker A: And those are products of a culture that is that consumption based.
It's based on the thinking mind and so forth. Our approach to solving problems, everything. It's not based on finding balance, you know, finding depth and so forth. So that's why I question whether what he's saying would be viable in any realistic sense. Because again, like the it. You don't see situations where a culture that's based on depth, that's based on the now comes across a thinking mind culture. And the thinking mind culture goes immediately. Goes the way of the dinosaur, so to speak. Like you don't see that those, when those type of. When those two types of cultures meet, nine times out of ten, the thinking mind culture, not the depth culture, the one that prevails and then propagates systems, inventions, all types of things that further entrench kind of the thinking mind approach to everything. So you know, that's not saying.
[00:47:05] Speaker B: And just to remind the audience in this conversation, the thinking mind is the negative one.
You know what I mean? Just like you're saying it's the negative energy versus the being mind. Because, I mean, I could hear one that's.
[00:47:18] Speaker A: That's focused and, you know, just infatuated with the past and the future and can't stop going. It's incest. I think he uses the words incessant, you know, I guess just constantly going. And it prevents. It blocks peace. It blocks you finding peace.
[00:47:34] Speaker B: No, and that's why I say, like, it would take human evolution to change the way our minds work. And I don't know if we have time for that. I guess that's my point.
[00:47:42] Speaker A: I would say I don't think it takes evolution. I think it takes social evolution. Like, our social systems, I think, are what reinforce a lot of these negative.
Like we have certain things about us that allow us to function in social groups. And they were designed, you know, like, so to speak, they came across a long time ago. And so we're not good at figuring out if somebody's lying to us or not. We're not, like, just generally, it was something that human beings just aren't that good at. We're easy to manipulate with our emotions. And so all of those things socially, like, it creates a situation, as you talked about, for opportunists to easily be able to pull people astray at any moment.
[00:48:20] Speaker B: Yeah, and that's where it's just. Just interesting and fascinating to me because I almost feel like you've said about whether it's climate change that the Earth's going to be okay in the long run. Just will it be a place we're going to be okay on the Earth?
[00:48:33] Speaker A: Will we?
[00:48:34] Speaker B: Then you've got things like the potential for mass wars and casualties and all that. So I've kind of started having this feeling lately that, you know, unfortunately, what may happen because we're at a point now with the stresses we're putting on the Earth and on our. On each other. I mean, you know, we're fighting for resources. Now I see that, you know, the Russians, Chinese and Americans are all fighting over the melting polar caps in the north and South Poles because they're exposing certain natural resources. Now we're starting to fight over space. Like everything's fighting right. And so the idea is that, like, I'm thinking, I don't know if we have the maturity to have a planet that could inhabit 15 billion humans.
So what might end up happening, which will be very Painful is this whole thing collapses and we're back down to, you know, 20, 30 million people in the whole planet. And it kind of springboards from there again. And we go through a massive dark ages and all that. And you know, we're back to hunter gatherers and you know, like. Because at this point, I think it goes one way or another.
I don't think the earth can handle this coasting in this direction with the pollution, everything else for too much longer. I mean, all the articles are reading of bumblebees are getting extinct, 23 species, those are pollinators. Like, that's what I mean. We're messing up the equilibrium. If flowers can, and plants can't get pollinated because we killed all the insects, computers can't fertilize flowers yet. So, you know, I mean, and so, and so, and also like he alludes to in the book, you know, we are part of nature.
So every time we kill these things off, it also is a little bit of more of a pain body in us, I think, you know, we understand that there's a disequilibrium with how we're living deep inside. We know this as humans and so well.
[00:50:21] Speaker A: And so it's interesting not to be all on a total negative. I'll say.
[00:50:24] Speaker B: Yeah, I was going to say because I'm not cry. And let me tell you, I think.
[00:50:28] Speaker A: It'S, it's not that I think, think that his prescription is not workable. I think that his prescription on its own, like, I think that we'll need to be evaluating the things about our culture that reinforce negative, that reinforce the egoic mind or that just reinforce the negative things about us or the negative things, excuse me, about our interactions that prevent us from moving forward. Like if we're like right now we live in a country with a gridlock government, you know, you can't really get anything done. Some of that's by design. The government's supposed to move slowly and so we don't want too many sweeping changes at once. But ultimately we will need to be able to get on the same page to some degree. And in order for that to happen, we're going to have to figure out how we interact with each other to make sure that enough of us can get on the same page. And then the ones who don't want to get on the same page can't submarine the whole thing just by throwing a temper tantrum. So. But yeah, but I mean, ultimately though, man, it was, it was a good book. This was your suggestion and I thought it was a very good suggestion, man. My life is a better place and, you know, like I said, expanded my mind. I'm always interested in expanding my mind. So to you, I thank you, sir.
[00:51:31] Speaker B: Definitely, bro. You got it.
[00:51:32] Speaker A: And hopefully, you know, the audience can check it out if you haven't already, you know, and, you know, because it's definitely read it with an open mind. You'll get something out of it. Whether, again, whether you're buying everything you selling is not really particularly important. It's just whether you can get something out of it that you can relate to yourself. So.
[00:51:46] Speaker B: But, well, and I would say this just to finish off, if you don't get that much out of it now, keep the book and read in a few years. I feel like this is one of those books that, you know, over time, you'll read it at different times and pull different things out of it. Like, I'm pretty sure if I put it down and read it 10 years from now, there'll be things that I see at that point that I can't see today. You see what I'm saying?
[00:52:05] Speaker A: Yeah, definitely. It's one of those. I agree with you. So. Yeah. Well, until next time, I'm James Keys.
[00:52:10] Speaker B: I'm Tundeguanlana.
[00:52:11] Speaker A: All right. Thank you for joining on this episode. Joining us on this episode of Call It Like I See it and subscribe. Subscribe to the podcast, Rate the podcast, tell us what you think, leave us a review, and we'll talk to you next time.
