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Q+A w/Andrew | 99 | October 6th, 2023 | Otter.ai

Q+A w/Andrew | 99 | October 6th, 2023

Night Club1h 23min

Andrew Holecek

00:00

Hello, this is our Thursday night. Question and Answer thing we started with COVID Two and a half, almost three years ago and it's just keeps on clicking. So nice to see everybody Nice to be with you. What we do is people send me questions, I do my best to address them. You're also welcome after I go through the ones that have been submitted, you can raise your hand you know how to do that that reaction column, you can type something in, in the chat column. always best if you can come online. So we can have a little discussion back and forth. I also do a little bit of announcements of upcoming events a week from tomorrow, late from Saturday, I'm in Madison, at the invitation of my dear friend Richie Davidson. Some of you may know him. He's arguably the world's preeminent neuroscientist. Studying the interface between meditation and spirituality as an amazing Center have been there several times the Center for the investigation of Healthy Minds. Really cool guy so they invited me to come on, I'm doing a program on my new book, a reverse meditation, which what a surprise I just happen to have it right here. Um, so they asked me to do a little weekend on this and Richie is actually actually invited Richie to command because I originally knew him when he invited me. Nobody has is unmuted. So can you check make sure you guys are all muted. I'm hearing some serious background music. He invited me to come out a couple, I don't know 15 years ago to do some studies on pain. Some of those studies are actually referenced in this book. And so Richie is actually going to come on and do some stuff with me during that week. So that's not this weekend, but next weekend. Madison Square feet in the area come visit. And then I fly immediately from that to the minchah which is tons of one yard mooches retreat center. In where's it, Virginia? Maybe I'm doing a six day gig with him and a couple other scientists scholar type things and Dream Yoga. So I know him. It's the first time I've actually be working with him live. So I'm super excited about that. So that's it pause for Alyssa hit she hits the record button recording in progress, recording in progress. Awesome. And so I'm just gonna jump right in because there's a bunch of these that came in and not necessarily a priority, but let me just dig these up. Okay. Some of these are currently with you. So let's see here. Okay, so here's that here's an interesting one from unnamed This one's anonymous. I am a Christian. Oh, this is really interesting. This reminds me what Mother Teresa allegedly said. She apparently at some events someone came up to her and started by saying, you know, she's going to ask a question and started by saying to Mother Teresa, I'm a Christian. And then before she could get even further, Mother Teresa interrupted her and said already, in other words, like, really? So anyway, I'm a Christian. I don't believe Christianity and hypnotism are compatible. If whoever sentences here but I would love to hear why you think that's the case. But anyway, if lucid dreaming is a hypnotic state, wouldn't that mean it is being in hypnosis like a person being hypnotized? Okay. Well, lucid dreaming is not a hypnotic state. It's actually an intimation of de hypnosis. If you're in a if you're in a non lucid dream, yes, not a lucid dream is somebody can to being in a hypnotic state. Lucid Dream is actually a form of awakening. It's de hypnosis. So it's a complete opposite of what I hear you saying. And here's something that's really interesting to be aware of, according to the neuroscientist community, especially the work of Bruce Lipton and a bunch of others, mostly from age two to seven, but from age zero to seven. So you get this is interesting. This is a word that brief introduction. So from from age zero from from birth to age two, roughly. We're mostly in Delta, the deepest dream dreamless. State and this is why babies are sleeping all the time, because they're a delta. That's what you do when you're in Delta. 04 hertz, you're mostly sleeping. From age two to seven, roughly. You're mostly in theta. four to eight Hertz. This is what's so interesting here is this is the brainwave frequency correlative to to hypnosis so in other words, when hypnotist, I'm trying to clinical hypnosis, I used it in my clinical work. He said he used to hypnotize especially children all the time. Children are highly suggestible. I could do all kinds of clinical work, without any anesthetic based on just taking them down. It was so easy to do. So this is so fascinating. Basically, from age two to seven, we're mostly in theta. Now check this out. This is where hypnotists take you down to bring about implant their posthypnotic suggestions. Think about this for a second. It fundamentally means that up until age seven this is not a metaphor, we're literally being hypnotized. This is not a metaphor. We're literally being inculcated, hypnotized in the cult of scientific materialism. In all the belief systems of our families of origin all the people around us. We are literally being hypnotized. And then what happens is the rest of our lives in the kind of stem cell mixing metaphors, dimension of life, the rest of our lives are read out from these hypnotic suggestions that have been planted by our families of origin and the people around us in these formative years. So this is what it means when that when the Buddha is the Awakened One. Another way to talk about it is the Buddha is the de hypnotized one. We are all asleep. We're all fundamentally hypnotized. And what this means is a topic way too much that I can get into here, but the idea here is it's not it's not hyperbole, it's not metaphor. We're hypnotized in data. And our lives are just basically readouts of these posthypnotic suggestions that are placed. So if you're here whoever asked this, I would love to hear why you believe that Christianity and hypnotism are not compatible. That's just a very interesting statement to me. But lucid dreaming is not a hypnotic state at all. It lucid dreaming is a deep hypnotic state. Mine lucid dreaming is the hypnotic state. Okay. Okay, from Derek. For me the selfing Okay, I'm gonna just one commentaries. I go through these. For me the selfing which is what the Hindus referred to as a hum hum Cara, which is I making. For me the selfing is something that I do intermittently. paren No, you do it all the time, Derek. Rather than something that I am. So yes, so selfing is definitely something you do. It's not what you are. It's a construct. The self sense is a construct. I would argue right off the bat. Derek, you don't do it incrementally, my friend. You do it all the time. Read the brilliant genius book on this is Evan Thompson. I interviewed him on my edge of my platform, which at that point was cylinder nightclub. Cutter framing but listen to the interview I did with Evan Thompson. I've known him for a long time. And his amazing book waking, dreaming being self unconscious. Self What is all that?

Andrew Holecek

07:54

Stuff on consciousness and neuroscience meditation and philosophy. A must read for the academic types. This is a brilliant book. And in this book he riffs really elegantly on this process of aha Omkara I'm making and how the self is made is it's a construct how the self is constructed and deconstructed. In all these different states waking, sleeping, dreaming, dying, it's a tour de force. So back to you. For me the selfing is something that I do absolutely positively rather than something that I am spot on. But you don't do it intermittently. My friend you do it all the time. It's a construct made at lightning speeds constantly. The only time it completely falls apart. Partially falls apart in the dream state liminal space completely falls apart in the deep dreamless space, which is why we blackout. We, you know, we don't recognize it for just this reason, because the self is no longer being made up at that point. Back to you. The Buddha right the ultimate lucid dreamer. Thoroughly deconstructed the self illusion into its constituent parts Absolutely. Into the five skandhas everything else that you talked about here thoughts, perceptions, memories, he totally did that. He was a demolition derby this guy. Back to you after this illusory me dance finishes in the apparent body dissolves what's left or even could be left to get reborn. Oh, this is such a great question. Well, this this is again, a really big question that can be addressed relative and absolute. perspective. From an absolute perspective, what gets Corporal provisionally reborn is pure formless awareness itself that which never dies and so on an absolute level. What is you can't even say it gets reborn because it doesn't even it doesn't die does it's not reborn. In fact, in many ways, that's the Buddha's goal to discover. That which cannot die because it was never born. So on one level, what continues when gets I would say even deeper than reborn. What continues is pure, formless awareness. In the Tera Vaada tradition that's called Chitta Santana in Mahayana traditions. It's called Buddha nature. And Vajrayana Buddhism, it's called Macik, particularly the indestructible continuum. That is pretty straightforward to say, not so easy to actually experience but it's super important, Derek because it's the only thing quote unquote, that exists heartstart period that's it. That's it. Awareness. That's it, period. What creates the illusion of a separate self sense in the waking, dreaming sleeping state and again, this is where Evan Thompson's book is so brilliant, are basically various degrees of contraction and expansion of this formless awareness. But there is no there's nothing else but this formless awareness. So from a relative point of view, what gets reborn involuntarily. Again, this is another really big topic. What continues or if depends on the school. The most elegant description of this Derek that I subscribe to is the yoga Chara teachings on the eighth consciousnesses, and it's the eighth consciousness the storehouse consciousness also known as the Alia Victoriana. That's what gets reborn. So this may not be a completely satisfactory answer just because to really unpack this requires a heap of time. It's just a great question that requires to really answer it in a satisfactory way, requires some real time. This is what I do on my Bartel programs. So when I'm teaching especially on the karmic part of becoming we spend the better part of an entire day trying to answer this question. So again, they have to this illusory me dance finishes disappear body dissolves what's left to get reborn, absolute perspective, formless awareness itself, the three terms I gave you, a relative perspective. Trungpa Rinpoche How did he famously answer this, your bad habits? Your habits are what reborn in the same way that what takes place every night and in the dream state. If you don't attain lucidity, and take control over the dream, what takes rebirth what shapes your mind what forms this formless awareness, your habits that's just a Western rendering of the word karma. So I'm gonna leave it at that just because if I run down this rabbit hole, we're gonna be here all evening. So great question, Derek. I hope that at least is a shot across the bow. Okay, this is from Elio I guess if I pronounced that properly. My apologies if I don't. I Andrew in your book yoga of dreams actually Dream Yoga. You describe an exercise called the throat visualization. Yes, this comes from the bun, Buddhist tradition and also the Tibetan Buddhist tradition. You'll also find analogs in Christian mysticism. Actually know you'll find Christian you'll find analogues in Jewish mysticism, and Sufism for sure, not just Tibetan Buddhism. After I got acquainted with this exercise, I had a question how to visualize the red syllable or the red portal in the throat. I can imagine myself seeing an object in front of me but how can I imagine myself seeing a part of myself? If with my eyes open, I can only see this part in a mirror. Should I visualize my throat and syllable as if I'm looking at them from the side? This is a really interesting question. So I always pick out references here because I can never exhaustively answer these great questions. I write about this with some rigor in the book renewal guy. I'm pretty sure it's in this book. Looking to look deeper into that chapter, when I talked about the visualization thing, and I'm quite sure I talked about the ways to work with this and what's actually taking place so in terms of just practicalities the way to do this is to okay, there's good old wonderful Barry always puts up his little icons and screen screenshots. That's great Barry. So this is what he just put up there. That's the Tibetan syllable are. You visualize the only small thing Gary is you know, it's a red so it's a read, this is a read off. It's the frequency of vibration of the throat chakra. That's where the dream consciousness abides. In fact, when you were in the dream state, so you visualize either that in red, or ah, in red or red Pearl, or if you really want to get more sophisticated, the Red Lotus visualization on the descent. So do it you start by doing it, there it is. You start by doing it in front of with a pen and paper who actually know even before you do it in front of you, when I'm doing the training, what you do where you go, is you just trace it out like a kid with a red crayon, tracing out the image of aloneness. So you want to get a feel for it. So you work with around it, you work around it, you write it down. It's amazing. You guys are the best antastic so you trace it out, you trace it out, you trace it out, you trace it out, you get a feel for it. And then what you do is you is you close your eyes are there several variations One is you can do it. You can then take the the visualization as you're working with it on the paper and you can put your finger right in front of you. You can use your finger to trace it out to get a feel for it. Then what you do is it close your eyes you visualize it in front of you with your eyes closed, you trace it out that way. And then the next step is four step rather crash course here is you then bring all this to your throat and this is where it gets super interesting because of the way we have this locus of identities the scientists have actually studied where most people feel their sense of self exists. And perhaps not surprisingly, it's a couple of centimeters or an inch or so above the the eyebrow. And basically where the mystical traditions will talk about is a third eye. And so this is very interesting. I think it has to do because of the way we locate ourselves using vision. I mean vision is the most dominant sense faculty. We particularly situate ourselves in the world because of this sense faculty. So to me this is no surprise that the sense of self and therefore the visualization that we're going to be talking about seems to arise from here. But it doesn't. And this is where it gets really interesting. And so when you do the visualization at first Yes, provisionally it's okay to imagine just because we see everything from up here. That you're you're looking down with a mind's eye, right mind's eye doesn't really exist. It's just your mind. You're looking down in your mind's eye and visualizing this Lotus at your throat. Initially, this is the way it started. Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche says exactly the same thing with his teachings on this visualization. But what's actually happening this is all an illusion. It just seems that you're visualizing from here down to here. But that's actually not what's happening.

Andrew Holecek

16:57

What's actually happening is the mind is taking on the shape of this visualization, provisionally located up here, but it's actually taking place in cognitive space, which is not located in space and time. It's it substan space and time. And so again, like these other questions, boy to unpack this one takes a little bit of time. But the whole visualization thing is, is is colossally important it's a really big deal topic. Because what you're doing with the process of visualization is you're voluntarily shaping your mind you're voluntarily shaping, formless awareness into a shape that it's like it's like a voluntary reincarnation process. And so you do that with a throat and what you'll notice is when you're starting to do the visualization, there seems to be mind's eye looking down here. That's fine for starters, but eventually what you will notice is the mind will actually drop the sense of perspective, no perceiver perceived that dissolves, because that's an illusion and then eventually, what happens as the mind will actually drop from this location here, into the Lotus itself. So in other words, the lotus stem perceives itself. You're no longer really looking at it. And if you really think about it, just like in a dream, there is no mind's eye to look at this. The mind is just looking at itself from this illusory delusory perspective that you think you're looking at it from here to here, but that's an illusion. What's actually happening is the mind is looking at itself. So again, this is like what what, what is this guy talking about? Well, this is really an intimation of non dual perception. But the more you do this the more you will realize this, you will. This is a really cool part of training yoga, the more the mind will actually start from here, the mind drops, drops drops. And then what happens is you're no longer visualizing the lotus, you become the lotus. You become the lotus, that's the point. So I think I'm not entirely sure, but I think it's intense on one Gil's most recent book, The Tibetan Yogi's of dream and sleep. He also talks about this I know he does for sure I'm not 100% sure it's in that book. I'm pretty sure it's in my book, Dream Yoga, have a look at that in a while. But those are the ways that one works with it. And your question is a really good one. And hopefully this again, brief response to a really great question if there's some benefit. These questions are great. We could just spend the whole time with them. Okay, from Marian and Montana. This is actually more a question for our sleep doctor Dr. Ed, but I can take a brief crack at it. changes on the light come quickly in Montana, I noticed the shift from July to September in particular and asleep more in the morning with the later sunrise. Yes, this is the process of circadian rhythms kind of resonating with our sleep patterns. Super charismatic nucleus I also seem to sleep more deeply less hid the puppet dreaming this last week. Yes, that's quite common. Is this idiosyncratic or simply transitional? Something new that will even out well, this is difficult to say I mean, it sounds like you've just recently moved to Montana. Because otherwise you wouldn't be able to answer this question yourself. If you've lived in Montana and gone through this, then you would know if this is something that's evening out or not. This is a difficult thing to say. Back to you note my dream practices just over a year. Old and doing well. I'm 76. So maybe what I'm seeing is also a function of age. absolutely, positively could be that. Cheers much enjoy all your q&a insights, not to mention books, classes, etc. Thanks for that. summary on this one. This one's difficult without without doing a little bit of a like it. Even a health history, sleep study type thing. These somewhat more great, wonderful kind of clinical questions I can just give rough responses if you are a member of nightclub. This is why we bring our sleep doctor in Dr. Ed second Tuesday of every month. These are the questions that we send to him because he's a professional in this arena. But this could be completely idiosyncratic the fact that you seem to intimate the question that will it even out seems to suggest that you're new to Montana, otherwise you forget and you can answer that question yourself. But these are all these are all pretty classic factors of both aging and also the changes in circadian rhythms based on the changes in light sources. So I wish I could be a little bit more articulate about that but more information would be needed here. In terms of like your general sleep patterns, blah, blah, blah. So if you are a member of a nightclub, I can ping this to Dr. Ed and he can take a crack at it. On Tuesday, the second Tuesday of November. Okay, this is one from a named Hi Andrew. This is a question about empowerments in the Tibetan traditions, yeah, also known as AVI Shaikha, in Sanskrit, Huang and Tibetan. From time to time, I see announcements that a particular teacher Rinpoche will be visiting locally and that they will be offering empowerments for particular practices. In addition to general public teachings. Yep, happens all the time, which is wonderful. Some of these empowerments are restricted to practitioners with certain levels of practice, but also some are open to the general public. Correct. I've met people who attend every empowerment that comes through town and I've met people who tell me I only go to once my teacher tells me to do and nothing else. I haven't found either approach particularly useful as guidance in general, can you explain what empowerments actually are? And while I recognize that each person's situation is individual, I'm still wondering if there are some things you can make about attending these and what considerations one should have or things that one should keep in mind about them. Okay. Yeah, so this is a very wonderful, rich aspect, mostly in Tibetan Buddhism, but not exclusively. I have attended dozens of these in a certain point. It almost got somewhat comical because it was like an immunization sheet. You know, it's like, oh, I got my tetanus shot, or I got my Manjushri IV shaker. Oh, I got my flu shot. Oh, I got my Padmasambhava IV shake. It actually was like, okay, it was just like, clicking him off clicking him off clicking and I was like, I just couldn't get enough. So here's the way to relate to this. When you say you haven't found either approach, particularly useful as guidance, I would then have to ask you where you are. On your path. Are you a student of the Tibetan tradition? What type of guidance are you looking for? Because both of the responses that you share are, they're actually quite appropriate. So the first one is, I only go to the ones my teacher tells me to and nothing else. So if you have a teacher, and you really kind of have subscribed to their curriculum, then that is the way to do it. Then you just check in with them. If they're doing the apartments and they usually do attend those. If you're interested. Just like this person is saying you ask them and if they feel it's appropriate, you can go empowerments are there this is another wonderful big topic there. There are a number of different types of empowerments is called the vase me Shaikha the president Jahnavi shaking up the word IV shaker, there are different levels of Empowerments. But here's the deal. Some of the Empowerments they become restrictive in the sense that what what an AMI shaker does what a wand does for a tantric effort Asada for someone who's doing a relatively lofty. I say that in quotation marks largely on a tantric level practice. These apartments are super important. This is how you enter the mandala of the Deity. This is how you're given the the what's called the transmission to recite the deities mantra to visualize the deity, and in order to do all that the empowerment is absolutely positively critical. And then what comes with that is what are what are called Samaya vows so that again, this gets pretty deep into the whole tantric thing. So if you're not a Tantra Rica, the stuff the best way to approach this, if you're not a ton to Rica, is as a blessing empowerment. That means you just go as a general public person, you're not making commitments, you're not making a semi commitment. Generally, the ones that are listed that way will be available, there'll be public, and you go to those just to receive the blessings of the empowerment. So if you're at that level, then it's a really wonderful thing to do. If you're at the more kind of tantric, Marciana level than the Empowerments, those will usually be guided by your teacher, and then or restricted by the person who's giving it but here's what happens with these things is they're they're actually quite magical. Something is absolutely positively transmitted. During sometimes these also called transmissions, something's actually communicated and a particular there's several ways to talk about it another wonderfully rich, vast topic. Is that that there's a particular kind of potentiality within you latency that is represented by the deity, the mantra, the mandala that's created. And so by receiving the empowerment, something is stimulated within you something is in a kind of a

Andrew Holecek

26:20

quantum field effect approach. If you want to use that and temporary languaging something is actually communicated in something within the deep structure of your unconscious mind. And this is the super unconscious mind not that dark unconscious mind is actually activated. And so therefore doing these things, I find that they're they're first of all, they're fantastic cultural events, if you've never been to them, most of them only you know that you can get through one of these if that's the right languaging within a couple hours. The really big ones like college chakra, those can take up to four days. Those are big, massive enterprises. And just to show you how vast this is like if you want to if you want to be reborn in the kingdom of Shambala, for instance, you do like kala chakra Bobby shaker. If you want to increase your compassion, you do the chan raise the Avalokitesvara shaker if you want to increase your cognitive capabilities, your wisdom and Manjushri if you want to increase your your kind of spiritual prowess you do larger Pawnee there are hundreds of these things because they represent the archetypal nature of of our awakened being and so the transmission kind of tunes in and creates a again just metaphorically stimulates awakens a particular frequency of your own awakened mind. Stimulated activates it allows it to come to the surface. So yeah, so apartments are beautiful. They're not just cultural events. There's absolutely positively something happening. To go further into this. Again, these questions are so rich, it's one of the challenges of these events. These q&a Is that I do some of these questions are just there's so much to say. But perhaps that's enough to get you going. They're great. I have attended dozens and every single one I remember they're quite impactful. They're quite beautiful. But one has to be a little careful. One shadow side is in fact, getting on this kind of spiritual supermarket thing where it just becomes like Spiritual Materialism Right? Like how many of these empowerments Can I actually grab? Well then you might want to check your motivation, no ego could be stepping in and all kinds of slippery shadow things can happen. So if you have a teacher or someone you can really bounce this off of. That's always best. But in terms of some general guidelines, perhaps have some interest or benefit and again, anybody who's here this ask this question, that one's more always best if you can come on, raise your hand and I can be a little bit more targeted and specific. Okay, so a couple more.

Andrew Holecek

29:05

Yeah, so early. In this year. So this is the nightclub person you gave us the assignment of falling backwards on the lucid dream. Yeah, so this is something that's a really super interesting thing to do. The next time you have a lucid dream, and I made this kind of invitation to the nightclub community is the next time you take attain lucidity in a dream. It's just super interesting to see what happens when even though you don't have a dream body you think you do. There's no dream body in there. Again, it's just your mind but that's the side. When you're in the next lucid dream just fall back. Literally as if as if you were just just falling back in the drain. And then I'm not going to say it's open ended just see what happens. So this is what happens to this person in the dream. I found myself in my childhood bedroom, became lucid and remembered the assignment. Very cool, good for you. So I fell backward and then found myself on the dark floor. After a while I decided to try to look at my hands to see if they were stay so I'm gonna just run some commentary. As we go along with the cool thing to do carry. I'm curious where that kind of insight or inspiration came from. Let me just finish here when I look at my hands if I was looking at a glitchy computer screen the picture my hands kept turning on and off. Yeah, that's because your your your your hands which don't actually exist there no dream hands in there. There just isn't just like there's no dream body in there. It's just your mind. There's a dream persona and their dream avatar. Again, that's just your habit. That's the base. It's just your habits. There's no dream body in there. There's no dream hands in there. There just isn't. That's an illusion. So when you're looking at you're not like that. That's actually pretty awesome. You're starting to actually see the kind of pixelated nature of thought construct. You're actually starting to see some of that earlier connected to that issue of I'm making the Ankara process and this case handmaking you're actually making the hand up. And because you're falling backwards, you're heading down towards the major deconstruction zone which is sleep yoga. This is in fact what often happens is like this, what I playfully call the spiritual Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Where where your dream body just kind of starts to come apart. It's just like the coolest thing. It's just so crazy cool. So anyway, what you're sharing here is awesome. I decided to rub my hands together to see if I could feel them. And in fact, when I rub my hands together, I could feel them. Yes, because again, that's habit. Even though there's no hands in there. Because of the habit pattern. You think your hands that are in there, you think you're creating friction, but it's all a construct. It's actually not happening. That's relative to Absolutely. On an absolute level. That is not what's happening. Then I decided to try to fly around a bit. Also very cool. At this point, I ended up flying around in a warehouse full of boxes that's interesting or what if that warehouse full of boxes was actually your storehouse consciousness would be like the ending scene in Raiders of Lost Ark in which the Ark of the Covenant is taken to a huge storage area with other unknown ancient artifacts that could very well have been a symbolic representation of your storehouse consciousness high five very cool. Just wondering did I pass the assignment I don't know. Depends on what it means the past the assignment. You know, the idea is just to be an explorer and intrepid own IRA not right, or an IRA knots like their analog outer astronauts who explore outer space or Nyra knots explore the space of the mind. And so did you pass the assignment? Well, you passed it in the sense that you actually able to accomplish it. So high five, what I might recommend, let me see. Is there anything else that you would recommend? Yes, doing differently? We'd love to hear your experience. The I don't need to share my experience but it's more interesting to hear yours. The only thing I might recommend doing differently next time is just continue to drop. Continue to fall. In other words, as you're falling back, don't engage these other little thingies. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that. It's really actually super interesting. And maybe what I say could be of some interest in terms of what was happening. But this practice fundamentally is one way to go from Dream Yoga to sleep yoga. So Dream Yoga is a halfway point halfway house at the throat. The ultimate nocturnal meditation asleep yoga which is at the heart. This is why in the New England tradition, sleep yoga as the main practice Dream Yoga is secondary. Dream Yoga is halfway to sleep yoga. And so the way I engage this is I fall back as a way to fall down from the wake from the dream state in to the deep dreamless state. And so what I would do next time as a recommendation is fall back, and then just don't do any of this other stuff. Just try try to completely fall. It's like the mind is actually what it's doing. It's called Run Bop and Tibetan the mind is falling into itself. And fundamentally it's going to open open into wider chins and being as Rumi puts it, and you're going to dissolve into this void, which again is not a void. It's just this infinite black light. That is correlative to the luminosity yoga, of of sleep yoga. So you may want to look I think it's I can't remember which chapters in my book Dream Yoga, I talk a little bit about the transition from Dream Yoga, to sleep yoga, and I riff a little bit about this sort of thing. So you may want to look a little bit more if you're interested. There. Okay, so a couple more from a different documents a hold on all kinds of cool things can stay with me. Okay, from Dominica. In Your Dream Yoga audio program, you say that in a dream there is no subject and no object. Yes. They do say that. We experience subject and object into dream. Yes, we do. That's a construct. It's an illusion. There is no subject there is no object. It's all an illusion. Back to you, we experienced subject object and a dream and unless one is truly realized, presumably even lucid dreams are programmed with the subject object duality. Well, I wouldn't say there Well, I guess if you use the word programmed in the way I met, it meant it at the outset. That our unconscious mind a conscious mind is programmed and conditioned by what happens in these formative formative years in our younger years. Then yes, we are in fact programmed we are in culture. ated, inculcated indoctrinated to perceive the world in this what's called threefold in pure way, subject object consciousness. That's what's called threefold impurity. So yes, even lucid dreams are programmed they're programmed because of what habits it's just our habits. This basically your habits are creating this illusion in the dream that there is a dreamer that there wasn't a dream experience and there's some consciousness connecting the two there isn't. It's all an illusion. You don't see it when you're lost in the dream. That's why our habit patterns are revealed that way, but you do see it when you wake up. You look back from this perspective, onto the experience of the nighttime dream and you start to ask these questions. Is there really a dreamer there? Is there really a dream object down there? WTF is really going on here. So I developed an entire book to this so the deepest book in the trilogy dreams of light. I mean, I don't I don't know how many chapters I have on this. This is the essence of this book, the profound daytime practice of illusory form. So this is this is a really big deal thing because this practice and these types of explorations will eventually break down the subject object duality thing altogether. So back to you. However, I got the impression that you meant the appearance of subject and object in the dream world is somehow even more unreal than in the waking state. Can you speak further to this? Yes, I can. Yes, they're more unreal if it's non lucid. So the nighttime dream becomes the double delusion. So the nighttime dream becomes super samsara it becomes even more diluted than this. If it's not lucid. However, if the dream becomes lucid, then the double delusion the super samsara then becomes an opportunity to actually study the machinations and the constructive prowess of the mind, but magnificent capacities of the mind to create this duality. So on a non lucid dream, as you say, it is more unreal. That's why it's called the double delusion, implicating that this waking state is the primary delusion, and that's what Dream Yoga is about. This is what separates it from lucid dreaming. You study the double delusion, to extrapolate insights into the primary delusion. This until you get to the conclusion that fundamentally essentially they're the same. There's no separation that same day and dream is deferring. This is as meditation as it can be Milarepa. But what that dream is not lucid bubble delusion when it becomes lucid, then it becomes a magnificent Avenue where we can study the dualistic powers of the mind and use that to actually cut through into non duality. And I see that the benecos there, I'll get to you and I finished my questions. Okay. They're great. QUESTION And by the way, wonderful. Okay. Let me there's a one or two more Oh, these are the same. Okay, so I have to go to one more doc, give me a second because we get some of these buzzer shots that come in the last minute.

Andrew Holecek

39:03

Okay, I got that one that goes with me. I got that one that goes I got that one. You got that one. Hey, maybe I'm done. Oh, here's No, not quite Patrick. What's the difference between consciousness and awareness? Can you define these terms? Yeah, this is a really important question. I'm definitely connected to the medical question in some of the other questions. In the Buddhist tradition, there's a very clear difference between consciousness and awareness. In Buddhism consciousness, by definition is always dualistic. And therefore, in contradistinction to consciousness and Advaita Vedanta and some of the Hindu schools, it's a pejorative term. And the best way to say this is let's just start with awareness. Awareness is in the Buddhist tradition. There's a number of terms for it, but the most helpful term for us is je n a n a Gianna, it's basically non dualistic awareness, wisdom. This is the quality of Formless mind that the knows that self recognizes non duality. So awareness is is is the highest state. It's called rigpa. In Tibetan, associated with a bunch of other terms, but awareness is the non dual highest state it's firstly synonymous with awakening realization, enlightenment. Consciousness in Sanskrit is you put the prefix VI in front of je na na so you got your nana or if it's Bengali, it's Grenada, har G. And you put the VI The prefix vi means bifurcated, fractured divided. How interesting is that? Consciousness is Victor Manana. It literally is bifurcated fractured, divided wisdom. And so this this is actually the etymology here is actually brilliant. Consciousness is always dualistic, always associated with subject and object awareness. And this tradition by definition, is always non dualistic back to you. I stopped at a small town antique store to buy rocks a few times a year when camping Long story short, I finally met the supplier this year. And he made me an offer I couldn't refuse to Tibetan shamanic wooden masks that were not in the store. I had to go to his house to see them. The masks kind of resemble the masks that from the Jim Carrey movie. Cool, no elaborate embellishments. Just word are these used in Buddhist practices? I'd have to see them Patrick generally not. These types of masks, however, are use in Tibetan ritual. So if you're not conflating ritual with practice, there are a bunch of really interesting dances that are done. I've attended many of these that are really quite beautiful. Where were these masks, but these are these are not simple. These are quite elaborate. They're they're masks that typify deities. There are masks that typify different manifestations. So the type of masks that you're talking about, I actually have to see them to run commentary. They're not used at least as far as I know. These types of masks are not used in general practice. Or are they shamanic and tribal in nature? That would be my guest, but I don't really know. If so, do you know what they are used for? I can't say camp in the woods near where I bumped them and it is where I had my first cognitive dream a few years ago. So I find these rare items and remote us a rural area very meaningful, cool. And then finally, non secretarial question what are the best books explaining Pola had to throw that one in there? Did you Patrick? Okay. Oh my gosh, there's so much. Probably the best one. And I know it's controversial, but it's still a great book. So y'all Rinpoche is The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying. He has a fairly extensive riff on what he calls the central POA. That's the one that I will learn. Because the other types of POA they're a little bit more esoteric. You know, they're the five main types of tantric pole were a little bit harder to get data on that all the different types of sutra POA. That type of stuff is a little bit trickier. Chapter Tuco Rinpoche is wife and I can't remember her

Jerry Glowniak

43:32

name.

Andrew Holecek

43:33

Oh. sicutool Rinpoche I can't remember I apologize. She wrote a book on this. It's in my library around. She wrote a book on POA. So the best books on it. I mean, I would I would learn essential POA by Sonia Rinpoche. It's really quite beautiful. I think that's the best way to go. The other types of power really, yeah, you can learn them you can read about them in a book, but these are practices these are these have to be really effectively communicated and with a teacher who actually empowers you to do these, you know whether it's Dharmakaya, POA, samba, Kayapo nirmanakaya, POA when people usually talk about POA rejection of consciousness, what they're really talking about is neurologic higher POA. Then it's called Dream Yoga POA, it's a more esoteric aspect of it, I think, yes, I wrote about it. stage seven of Dream Yoga is connected to this creating a special dream body. This is Dream Yoga power. You can learn about this a little bit in my book, Dream Yoga, stage seven practice. And then there's what's called Kitchari, or celestial power. This is the kind of devotional yoga, devotional power. Outside of that, you know, I should have pulled it someone earlier looked at my library, I can't remember the author and the title of the book. It's a female. It's the wife of Chengdu Touka Rinpoche, she wrote a book on POA and if you gave me 30 seconds, I could run around the corner and get it for you. But I just don't remember the full title off the top of my head. Okay, but Okay, let's see if there's anything else here. Oh my God, these are great. There's so many questions here. These are great. Oh, yeah. Okay, I got that one. I can go I think I might be Yep, I got that one. Okay, Alyssa, Did I miss any or did I get them all? Let's just say I did. Oh, let me just check this doc. And then I can open this up there we go. Okay, so it's Monica. You're on and then you disappeared. You want to come back onto here. Are you done? Are you good? Yeah, far away. Unmute yourself. And say hi, it

Dominica Roberts

45:56

takes a minute. Yeah. Thanks so much for taking my question. I kind of wanted to, I don't know. I thought I could just kind of riff a little bit on the question I wrote in about the subject object duality and dreams. When I said programmed, yes, that was what I meant by program just kind of like vitual habitual that our habitual way of viewing the world and I guess it's such a juicy point, but also hard to kind of, it's so difficult to conceptualize what consciousness what experience of consciousness would be without a subject object duality. And when I when I wrote that, it seemed like you meant that the dream experience of subject and object was somehow even more unreal than waking. Our waking experience I was thinking lucid dreaming. So in a lucid dream, even once I've become lucid, because my only way of relating to experience is with subject and object, even once I've become lucid. Like that's still what my experience is going to be. And, but then on a sort of you know, the level of quantum physics or whatever or the level of the Dharmakaya, even our waking experience, you could say the same of that, you know, there isn't supposedly from the perspective of quantum physics. There's no inherent, independently existing objective reality out there and the way we perceive it. So, you know, if, if, if I as a subject don't exist in the way that I experienced myself, where I have the sense of I and here and then everything out there is other I guess I'm wondering, what your you know, your understanding or interpretation of the teachings then, am I is what is I actually supposed to be experienced as the totality of my sensory input? Or is that are we viewing the totality of sensory input? Not in terms of oneself, but as just like, false inputs? I don't know. Does that even make sense,

Andrew Holecek

48:29

does it? These are fantastic questions. There's so great. So this is why again, I'm just going to point you to some resources and then I'll run with us a little bit. This these are just fantastic. So this whole non duality nature of mind track that I started in Mexico three years ago that I'm now doing in menma. That whole track is about this stuff. To me. This is this is the juiciest, richest most profound stuff in the whole business. I just adore this stuff. So as you might suspect, it's a there's a lot to say here. A couple things again, if you haven't read, you know where I riff about this the most is in my book dreams of light which is my favorite book. I devote a lot of material to this, especially the chapters on unpacking clear light, you know, what is clear mean? What is light mean? And then this whole issue of what some traditions some writers talk about is tantric epistemology. So, boy, oh boy, there's just so much to say here, first of all, in terms of the type of dream so if your lucid dreams come in a in a gradation from entry level to really, really advanced levels and so, at relatively entry levels up until you get into the really advanced levels, we in fact do have this reified subject object threefold impurity dualistic dream just again, because the moniker for Dream Yoga is what the measure of the path it's going to show you where you are, it's going to reveal to you the way you relate to the world. Well, as you progress along the path and you start to work with formless meditations, open awareness, you start to work with non dual practices. Then what happens you'll start to notice changes in your dream and eventually just for purposes of time, you will eventually start to have the highest of all possible dreams before dreaming itself stops. And these are what I call clear light dreams. And this is what Tenzin Wangyal Rinpoche writes about it in his book, The pet and Yogi's of dream and sleep check that out. He talks about samsaric dreams dreams of clarity and then clear light dreams. Clear light dreams are intimately connected to the very first question or one of the real questions I talked about in terms of the visualization thing. And again, boy, this is just it's not easy to paraphrase this that with a with a with a visualization thing because that's what a dream is a dream is an involuntarily comically driven visualization taking place taking place in the media, a mind devoid of sensory input. That's what your dream is. It's a form of visualization. Therefore it's also connected to visualization practice. And so when you're connected back to the lotus thing, when you're doing the visualization, initially, you start you're visualizing the Lotus that seems to be outside of you, you're visualizing it, you're working with it. But just like I said, eventually when you put the lotus in your throat, and eventually when you become a little bit more facile with the visualization practice, the mind actually descends from this, this bifurcated observational point this witness awareness point in the mind actually drops into the visualization and then what happens the visualization knows itself. The visualization appears to itself it's called runway tacs. reflexively aware, that's non dual, knowing non dual presentment. Everything here has to be in quotation marks. Because perception by definition is dualistic. Even traditional knowing by definition is dualistic. So when you get into this domain, which again I This to me is the most enjoyable, profound I love talking about this more than anything. One has to be extremely careful with language, one has to really take the time to centrifuge things out. And realize that when you when you're talking about non dualistic phenomena using a dualistic medium you're screwed. Good luck. Good luck. And so what what I do is, as many other traditions do, I just do the very best I can. But eventually what you will discover as your dreams evolve, you will start to have some intimations of these clear light dreams where what happens is the dream arises in a non dualistic way it's again it's hard it's hard to put into words you actually perceive the dream actually perceives itself there's no longer a perceiver and so the the point behind all this of course, is well that's kind of cool. That's like some interesting spiritual gymnastics. Well, the point is a bit again to take these insights and bring them into the into this reality because this is also a dream. And so eventually, this leads to perceiving the world in a non dualistic way. What that's about Boy, oh my gosh, you can imagine what's involved in teasing this apart. The sensory awareness thing you said at the end. sensory awareness in itself is also dualistic. When you're talking about sensory input, you're talking about a dualistic apprehension of the seemingly external world. So what happens if this point is even what we know is as physical senses are radically transformed, this is not metaphoric, you literally see your vision changes. Every one of your senses faculties changed in a radical way, and you perceive reality the way a Buddha does the way an ultimate lucid dreamer does, which is in a completely non dualistic way. And I realized this is utterly unsatisfactory, but you know, to try to obtain something in 510 minutes, that is among the deepest topics and all the non dual wisdom traditions. I think you get some idea of what's involved here. So I recommend you look at my book, dreams of light I have a number of chapters. And I think you might find in tons of supporting statements from all these masters from all these is much outside stuff as I can bring to try to bring some support to understanding what this is because this is another way to talk about what what awakening really is what realization enlightenment actually is, is actually perceiving the world in this way. And so Heck, if it was easy, we'd all be awake, it's not. So it just takes a little bit of time. So is this the best I can do? It's really tricky stuff and is a fantastic set of questions. So thank you for sending them out there. Okay. Yeah, thank you. Appreciate it. Okay. Hey, Jerry, Jerry, Katie, and then Carol, fire away Dr. J.

Audience Member

55:07

All right. You know, at the very beginning of this program, you mentioned mysticism like kung fu theism. I just like your comments. Yesterday, October 4 was the anniversary of the death of Saint Teresa of Avila. Are you Are you familiar with her at all? Christian mystic ballistic? You know, like, I don't know, maybe 40 years ago I read her book interior castle. And you know how much loose this is on by guessing but I'd say because I was brought up as a Catholic. And this was hardly ever mentioned if ever I had to, I discovered the book on my home. Do you have any feeling like? Like how her mysticism is her ecstatic mysticism? Because sometimes, they said that like when she was in the chapel, and she went into one of these ecstatic union with God states, she would float up off the off the ground. And they said some of the the nuns who were she was teaching would have to grab the her to keep her from falling out. And once they found her floating up, you know, right at the top of the ceiling of the cathedral, where she was completely absorbed. You know, and are you ecstatic union with God?

Andrew Holecek

56:35

Yeah, fantastic. I mean, first of all, I mean, why not? The one thing that I might just, again, I'm just shooting from the hip here, right? The ecstasy, in my experience, and also doctrinal understanding is only in direct proportion to the preceding levels of agony. And this is actually somewhat important. Because I get it, I get the absorption state, I get the Samadhi thing. I get the ecstatic thing. But then there's a potential massive near enemy here, because the near enemy of that is that somehow this ecstasy is superior to this the spiritual ecstasy this transcended again intimated by literally floating up is somehow superior to so called materiality and the earth and so I, here's what I would say, Jerry, and this is just me. The Ecstasy is basically it's only ecstatic because of the preceding level. of contraction. So if you're super contracted, then what actually takes place when the contraction opens is in fact the experience of ecstasy, but fundamentally that ecstasy when is climatized when it becomes when you become familiar with the very definition of meditation, it actually becomes extraordinarily ordinary. And this is really important, because otherwise, what are you going to do? Are you going to engage in some type of spiritual bypass where you're waiting to achieve the spiritual ecstasy that she seems to portray? So this to me seems to suggest a somewhat insidious damaging cosmological dualism. And in a theistic approach, that to me, I think is a bit problematic, because then what do you do with your earth? What do you do with your body? What do you do with with matter? What do you do with form? How do to me it's like, yes, it's great. Go up to the Dharmakaya have these ecstasies reach Turiya reach the Godhead reach whatever you want to call it. But if you get stuck there, you're just going to be reborn as a god. This is how you get reborn and God realms, and that's just the penthouse of samsara. That's just the best of samsara. What you want to do then in my playful language is you want to put a wicked U turn, y o u turn, you take that Dharmakaya awareness that that's what creates the ecstasy, and then you come back into form. You come back into the Rupa chi as you come into the foreign bodies voluntarily out of love, kindness and compassion, to elevate the seeming Earth up into that dimension. Because otherwise these things and I get it, they're great. They, they're good marketing. I'm just using speedy language here to get through it. I think they're beautiful. But I also do think they intimate a very insidious, dangerous cosmological dualism that that leads to spiritual bypassing. And so to me, it's like great high five, but then what are you going to do? What are you going to do up there? It's a little bit like, it's a little bit like the Gary Larson cartoon, right? You know, I wish this guy would come back. You know, this person is obviously attained enlightenment, or he's in heaven. He's hanging out on a cloud. You know, it's just up there as high as it can be an interesting she's flying up in the Thought Bubble is should have brought a magazine. Oh, there it is. Right there. Magazine. Right there. It is. Good old Barry. I love this guy. So you know, that's my riff on it. I think it's great, but I think the spiritual marketing is is dangerous. You know, the whole thing for me is, the path is perceptual, not actual, find the spiritual in the material. Don't Don't elevate off. I think, I think the elevation thing the levitation thing is an intimation of the Dharmakaya, leaving the form realms to answer the formless realms. I think that's what that's symbolic of. And as beautiful as that is, that's, that's, that's basically just half the show. So that's just my little, you know, wonderful endorsement of the genius of these approaches. But also, you know, I think I think a reasonable critique of what I see as these these insidious spiritual pathologies, bypassing materialism and all that sort of thing. So anyway, that's just me. Okay, but

Audience Member

01:00:47

anyways, yesterday I was reading about her on wikipedia.org Because you know, it's been so long since I've, you know, read the book and heard about her and no one talks about her, you know, in the Catholic religion, but anyways, it said in Wikipedia, that after they buried her you know, her burial Yeah, they reopened the coffin seven months later, and all her clothes had, you know, disintegrated but for her body hadn't had her.

Andrew Holecek

01:01:20

Again, it's not uncommon. There's, there's tons of data on this. I mean, we read the work of Jeffrey Crapo. This is a religious scholar of Houston, Rice University. I mean, he rolls on this stuff in the most elegant, rigorous way. Read the read, blazing splendor, the memoirs of Tokujin Rinpoche I mean, the literature This is not at all unusual. The literature is replete with these sorts of things and a physicalist materialistic world is like, boy, this is just pure BS. No, it's not. I mean, this stuff is absolutely commonplace in the spiritual traditions and why not? Okay, okay. Thanks, Jerry. Nice to see you. Katie. Hi there. How are you?

Katie Love

01:02:04

Hey, and you? Nice to see you too. I first just want to say I'm very much looking forward to the Dream Yoga Retreat in two weeks with 10

Andrew Holecek

01:02:16

Yeah, he's so cool. He's such a great guy. I am.

Katie Love

01:02:19

Yeah, and I have a lot of joy that the both of you will be teaching there together and relax.

Andrew Holecek

01:02:26

I love to go.

Katie Love

01:02:28

Yeah. And so I have a question about the Dream Yoga practice. I so I've been doing a lot of work for quite a while with, you know, before I go to sleep by review the day and kind of clear out any karmic traces the day and I've just started doing more recapitulation from farther in the past. Because I've noticed that generally if I have a non lucid dream, it's it's either from the farther past, or it's from the future. But it feels like kind of a lot like there's a lot to clear out and I'm just curious if you like if there's a most efficient way of doing that. Like, for example, I've been, you know, trying to group together different experiences and kind of clear them all as one rather than doing one by one experiences from the past. But yeah, I just love to know.

Andrew Holecek

01:03:35

Right? There's a number of things you can do it the level of body and also the level of mind and mantra. So starting at the level of mind and body. Let's just start with mind. And again, mind and body are just dual aspect monism they're just two ends of the same spectrum mind is just very subtle body bodies just really gross mine. So at the level of mind, there are there are a number of practices that can help you again, depending on how deep you want to go into like contract approaches. One super powerful one is the practice of Archer Safa. If you're speaking of empowerments if you want to get Empowerments, Varsha Soph is like the king of all you don't see he's the king of all the deities. I started in Sparta because there's like, oh my god, there's just so much to say, but largest is represents and so, you I'll give you one little mantra now that you can do now on budget home, right literally just that on OMVA Jr a sh t TV, a on budget, Safa home, you can recite that over and over and over if you want to go a little bit deeper then you resize solo monitor on larger stuff as a maya mandible, I have arches after doing a bit Easter so that goes for 100 Selby powerful purification practice is associated with a visualization that is designed to clear out what the tradition talks about is Decapod and trickbot. All these like you're talking about this residue, these some scars, these habit patterns that are lodged. So this is this is just one of quite a host of indeed powerful, effective means of purification. Probably the most readily accessible one that you could start today. So I don't want to suffer homeowners yourself or homeowners versus our homeland versus our home. If you want to go deeper into it, you start to have a connection. Then you get the transmission for the plenary practice of us yourself a purification that allows you to do the 100 syllable recitation. To go even further than that. You can get the version of SAPA empowerment IV shakeout Hwang then you can actually visualize Varsha Safa you can work with that is super powerful purification thing. The other thing is to work with the inner yogas because these these residues they're there as much visceral somatic at the level of the subtle body as they are cognitive or mental. And so here you can engage in in classical yoga as we'll do it, but in particular, a purification practices like Lou Jiang body training and troop or in particular. And actually interestingly enough here, I just happen to have it right here because I was in contact with him today. This book and you see it, yeah. superstore. It's a wonderful book, Tibetan yoga for health and well being by law Humberto Chow will ch AE o UL. He's the guy that invited me on behalf of 10s on one y'all to go to Virginia. So he's a wonderful dear friend short book, wonderful introduction to these inner yogas. These practices are really great. They're super powerful, because they go after the subtle body component of these. And so the stuff can read you know, this approach Katie is really it's really powerful. I'm so glad you're we're kind of on this track. You can enter it at these board kind of entry levels. This is where I do recommend you start but eventually if you want to enter like the thermonuclear dimensions of these, then you do then you do a full blown error yoga practices that are designed to break loose all these some scars, these knots that are that are held in your subtle body system. And so fundamentally whether we do it through psychotherapy, whether we do it through bodywork, whether we do it through therapy, meditation, whatever, these these residual undigested unmetabolized Psychic cysts have to be accessed and drain I mean, that's that's part of the 95% of our unconscious mind that rules our so called conscious life. So one way or the other, this stuff has to come up and out. And so the the entire battery of ninja practices are also related to this. So this is another one of these massive questions that maybe for now I can put a little kind of pause on it. While I'm trying to think of one book that might help you hear Reggie Ray's wonderful book Secrets of the virtual world. He has quite a bit it's a fantastic introduction and overview with to a host of kind of tantric approaches to doing this. Okay, so I'll pause for a second to see if there's anything else you want to say or anywhere you wanted to go with it. But that's what comes to mind.

Katie Love

01:08:27

Yeah, I think what I'm hearing from you is that I don't actually have to directly go into each karmic trace from the past. But just these generalized purifying the mind purifying the body practices are of working with it. And I've been working with some of these practices, generally, but also just wondering, because I'm like, Oh, I just had a dream about something that happened in high school, you know, or like people from high school. So you know, as I guess that'll just over time with these generalized purification practices that we'll clear out

Andrew Holecek

01:09:07

and put out here's what I would do, Katie is I would engage on every skillful means at your disposal. And let me just share a story around this. So there's there's two ways to work with this little bit relative, and then the absolute. And so let me just share a story about the absolute I think I've shared this before. Zico contra Rinpoche who I really like, because he's, he's an awesome teacher. I like him because he's edgy. He's a little semi raffle. He just doesn't take any crap. He's I love him because he's he's like, Manjushri. He's just sharp. And he was doing a program. I don't know, maybe 20 years ago. I'll never forget it because it was it was kind of it was impactful for me. And he was doing it up in Boulder with a lot of my wonderful wonderful Naropa friends and everybody's in the MA psych program and they're doing some amazingly fantastic things. I'm not dissing this at all. But but but by the end of the weekend, all these people were saying, Well, you know, no, I want I want to process this. I want to work with this. You know, I'm going to do the psychologizing thing. And at a certain point Ziggler cultural very gently but also with a brilliant blade said you know, stop, stop the processing, just cut. Just cut. Yeah, this is this is the cutting through aspect. So that's one end just look at it, burn it. cut right through it, traction. Yeah. With that said, let me say this. I think what I would do, this is just the way I roll. Yes, theoretically, these more absolutist ik approaches for sure. Emptiness can handle everything theoretically, no doubt. But in practicality, what I have found is that some of these really deep and tractable issues like trauma for instance, are something that's really lodged in your body mind matrix. Boy, your boy I would absolutely positively engage with those like the ones you just can't seem to clear. And you'll notice this with dreams or whatever there's, there's something really this baby is stuck. You can do two things. One is work with a contemplative therapist to work through that. And the second thing is psychedelics and the psychedelics, these these puppies can really get in there and shake the snowglobe they can really help you dislodge the stuff psychedelics in my estimation. Now are type of this type of inner yoga, subtle body yoga, and I know people go like Oh my god, you can't say that. Well, I think I could defend it that tribally in my experience bears it out. So hey, here's the way I roll with this Katie, life is short. I'm going to pull out every possible plug I can This is why I do practices that work throughout the night. This is why if psychedelics work, I mean, I don't, I hardly ever do it. But if I'm really stuck and something's not working, I gotta put a little dynamite in there. I'll use it. There'll be if I need it. If something's really stuck, I'll work with my therapist. I don't care man, if something's going to help me wake up, if something's gonna break things loose and get things moving. I'm going to use it. And so you know, on one level, this approach is is a massive part of the whole path is just purifying, purifying, purifying, and you can do that from a top down or bottom. Up approach either through mind working out on body or body working up with mine. It's a bi directional thing. So I'll let it go for now because this is another really big one, but maybe something like that. Thank you. Okay. All right, Carol, fire away Carol. And then I'm going to check the chat column and then I've got to have dinner

Carol

01:12:44

Yeah, oh my goodness. So many wonderful good things that I've been writing down. Yeah, I love your last suggestion about the contemplative therapy and the psychedelics. Because the last time the last q&a I had asked you about the fears of being trapped like in a small tunnel or something and no I'd have those dreams from time to time. And I could never you know, it was like, ah, you know, and then it was then we linked the I have linked it to that experience of the upper section of the forum formulas dichotomy. So that, you know, where there was just, you know, no foothold anywhere. And then, and then when the sense of the separate self returned, it was like, the moment that it dawns on you that you're like, Oh, I'm off the cliff. You know, I'm about to fall. Right. So then you when you told me that, it was like, become a bikini, and I like really, I don't I that just really percolated in my head, you know, the sky dancer, you know, dance with the, with that and that really like worked on me. So I've been working with some of the techniques for the lucid dreaming that you present and also the Claire John Claire Johnson's work. Yeah, that you recommended her and so I did I reentered I, I, you know, got into whole that whole space of reentering and being trapped in a small tunnel. I asked for that and to not have the fear. And then I just I did you know, I My Spirit just flew. It just flew. And and then yeah, and then I realized, you know, that that that fear of the human instinct to survive, actually could be transcended. And then I could fly into the sky, because my body form is also formless, emptiness form. So that was pretty exciting for me, you know, I don't know if that's going to you know, cure everything. I'll probably I'll see what happens. You know, how, how that is going forward. Anyway, I just wanted to to do a weather report with you on that.

Andrew Holecek

01:15:26

Thank you. That's awesome. Yeah, so cool. So cool. You know what you may want to consider and I don't recall if I mentioned this, do December. Browns, really beautiful book called bikinis warm breath. If you haven't read that, yet, she's a dear friend. And this is one of the best books on kind of a dakini principle, skip the first chapter. It's a little academic, a little heady. She even said that, but start from chapter two and read the rest of the book and you're going to learn a lot about feminine principle and how to dance in space. So I really recommend it's a beautiful book outside of that. All they can do is just give you a high five and say, beautiful, fantastic. Keep it up. Yeah,

Carol

01:16:11

what is her? What was the author's name again?

Andrew Holecek

01:16:14

Judith, simmer Si, m en er, dash, brown br O.

Carol

01:16:19

Okay. keep us warm breath. I've been working with I'm sorry, go ahead. No, no, I'm done. I've also been working with the with the white terror mantra. Also so

Andrew Holecek

01:16:35

fantastic. Yeah. I was just in contact with my friend who I haven't seen in quite a while. Allama Paul, and she's like the white. She's like the Torah Queen the Torah expert. And so we're setting up I'm going to be interviewing her for edge of mind. I think we have a date set up for like two weeks. And so I'm going to riff a lot with her on just dakini principle on the deity principle, especially Tara because she's she's a real expert on on white and green Tara. So stay tuned in a couple of weeks. I'm going to record that and put it up. She's a rock star. She's super cool. You and a lover.

Carol

01:17:11

So thank you so much, Andrew,

Andrew Holecek

01:17:15

nice to hear from you. Okay, hold on just a second Jerry. Let's make sure I'm not missing anything here.

Andrew Holecek

01:17:27

Okay, some of these have already been addressed from Tim Andrew technically, what is the Lama and Tibetan Buddhism Lama just means teacher. It's yeah, I've heard is that if you've done a three year retreat, you qualify as one if that's Is that true, and if so, are you a lama? Yeah, I'm a kind of llama they carry shit around. Right there's different types of llama. You know, I'm a kind use put crap on my back on that kind of llama. Yeah, if you do a three year retreat, you get that but I you know, those kinds of credentials just creeped me out. Right. I mean, even even when people refer to me as a spiritual teacher just kind of creeps me out. I'm just a dude that rolls in this area that might have one or two things to say the whole teaching. But yes, technically llama just means teacher. Yes, if you do a three year retreat, you qualify as one but that's not the reason to do a three year retreat. Oh yeah. Chuck did Kojo There you go. Thank you. That's it. Dr. Couto? Yes, thank you Rhonda, high five spot on. Yes, POA commentary instructions for the practice of consciousness transference. That's it. You are the best. Thank you so much. You are the best Rhonda. Thank you. Thank you. Between you and Barry. I'm covered. I don't have to do anything. Okay, excellent. Okay, Jerry better be quick for a buzzer shot. I gotta get some food.

Audience Member

01:18:50

In essence psychedelics you know, they've been decriminalized here in Michigan. The state you know that I live in. The there is one place in the United States. I'm sure you heard of it. It's attached to Harvard Medical School. Bayview Hospital in Oregon happens Excuse me. Where the federal government has given you a emergency use approval to use psychedelics to treat you know, various conditions.

Andrew Holecek

01:19:21

Yeah, this is amazing support Exactly. And also and also Oh, just drawing a blank. A little tired. I can't remember. But you know, yeah, in Colorado, it's the same. It's not just the criminalizes legal, but you know, the implementations and all that kind of stuff. Has to be obviously very carefully, kind of doled out. So again, I've talked a little bit about this. Listen to the podcast. I just did did my my was recent one was with Chris Timmerman. He's one of the world's in fact probably the world's leading authority researching DMT five Meo DMT and ayahuasca and so I just interviewed him out of Imperial College. London. He's a total Rockstar in this area. So more I'll be doing more and more of this sort of thing. Anthony of assets. That's the name I was thinking of. This stuff definitely has a place. Again, I don't want to get into it right now because it's such a huge topic. But these agents absolutely, positively have a place in places like Johns Hopkins with Roland Griffiths, NYU with Anthony bosses, Imperial College. I mean, there's an amazing group of really cool rocket scientists, rocket level sciences that are taking place here that that I just love stuff definitely has a place. But again, I have to do a disclaimer. In most places this is illegal, right? I have to do this thing. So I'm not sued. my political career is already ruined. So it doesn't really matter what I say on that front. But one does have to be a little careful, you know, categorically endorsing these sorts of things. I'm not doing that. Please understand that, like this gets out on the public domain. No, I'm saying that these agents will present and setting under under controlled environments with a guide. They have a place and when I did the big maps conference here 12,000 People we had our presenters, even Governor Rick Perry from Texas, right like the most conservative person you can imagine. He gave a keynote address. Out there, he came out there and people were you know, he's like, Okay, I know. I know what you're thinking. I know what you're thinking like, why is me? Why am I here? And he goes, because I trust the data. I trust the science. Seven people a day seven vets a day are committing suicide. And these agents are saving lives. And so it's just a matter of time, we get over this draconian Nixonian BS that shut that stuff down. That if it's done properly, this time around, and that's the key. Don't screw it up again. These agents really have a place and there's so much happening in the world right now. But we just have to be careful with these things. So anyway, gotta go see if I we dedicate the merit if that means anything to always remember, if what we're doing here is not a benefit to others and not a benefit to the planet. What we're doing here is irrelevant. It's just spiritual narcissism. So what we're doing here, always remember we're doing it for the benefit of others. Never forget that. Never forget that. So at the end, we dedicate the merit if that means something to you, send it out to all sentient beings throughout the cosmos to be a benefit to them. And then you know where to find me. I'll be back in the usual venues for hanging out with you all so much fun to see. Oh, did I miss anything here? I think I got it. Excellent. Great. Nice to see everybody again. Till next time, ciao. Ciao. recording stopped

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