The Reason Your Prayers Don't Work

We ask the question is God real? I'm 15 years old. My family was agnostic. I went to the dungeons of the Inquisition. I saw the horrors and the devices that still haunt me and I decided, well, that God that I don't believe in is certainly not real. So, let's imagine all the laws of chemistry, all the laws of physics, all of the light years through all of space and time and place it in a chair looking at you and madly loving you. That's God. You have to start the conversation honestly. What do you really need and why? We are created in order to need and to be needed. And how I address needing and being needed is everything. Prayer affirms the dignity of personal need. When I turn to God with my clarified desire and clarified need, God turns to us and says, "If you asked, you must surely need." I'm always held in the arms of the infinite intimate. And wherever I fall, I fall into her hands. I'm never alone. That's what prayer means. The strongest prayer comes from the most desperate need. If the God voice comes as a confirmation for your egoic grasping, careful. If the God voice comes and demands depths of devotion and points you in a direction which you might not have been brave enough to reach towards, then you have to listen. The whispers that come typically have intense consequences and demand intense sacrifices. It's so important to listen to whispers. And if the God voice is real, it's calling us to more commitment. It's calling us to more integrity. It's calling us to more kindness. It's calling us to more truth. It's calling us to more gifting. It's calling us to more devotion. That's how we know it's the God voice. Doctor Rabbi Gaffney. Doctor, sir. Lord Aubrey of the Glades. Good to see you, man. Good to see you as well. Damn. Who what is God? Is God real and can we have a conversation? Well, well, there we go on a Light work. Light light work. I mean, the God you don't believe in doesn't exist. That's a good place to start, right? We all have a God we don't believe in. We're right about that. Right? The God you don't believe in doesn't exist. That's why you don't believe in him. So, there's there's a caricature that we all have of God and everyone has their own personal caricature. That's my God caricature, right? I'm 3 years old, 4 years old maybe, maybe 5. And I run upstairs and my furious raging father or mother is running after me. I run into the bathroom. I lock the door. Right? Mother pounds on the door and says, "God's going to get you in there, too, even if you lock the door." That God doesn't exist. Right? So, right? So, we all have that frozen image of God and we say we don't believe in that God. So, we're right. So, that that's that's a big deal. You got to start there. That's like the beginning of every conversation. One of my teachers, Abraham Cook was kind of a student of one of my earlier teachers. He says, "There is faith which is heresy I mean, to deny God, faith faith in God, heresy to deny God. He says there's faith which is heresy and heresy which is faith." Or to say it another way, there are the faithful who are really heretics and the heretics who are really the faithful, and what he means by that is is if you have a small vision of God, he said I'm faithful to my small vision of God that that God you don't believe in. You know, this is the God that loves only my people. This is the God who cares an enormous amount about what you do in bed when you're naked by yourself. Right? Right? Th- This is the God who is ethnocentric and homophobic, and you are faithful to that God, you're a heretic, you're denying the real God. Mhm. Right? So so you have faith which is heresy. And then you have heretics, you know, my my dear friend who you met um briefly um at at a a meeting at one point someplace somewhere whose husband Harvey was the chairman of the physics department at the university in New Hampshire, and Harvey who who who passed, and I I remember him and I can see him in my eye mind's eye well, you know, he wasn't having any of the God thing. He's like I'm not having any of this. You know, and and what he meant was he would say to me or say to Cathy, he would describe some caricature of God, and he said I'm not having that. That's that's not God. And he was right. Mhm. And it's almost like he made a contract with God in this lifetime. You know, he he he probably subscribed to some version, I would always tell him of the the God that doesn't, you don't believe in in some earlier lifetime, and you made a contract not to settle for a small God. Mhm. Right? And you know, Cook writes, he says if you have a small imagination, you have a small God. And then you become a small person. So that's a big deal. I mean, so we have to really So that's one. That's one. You know, an interesting move, just to go back to the lineage a little bit. I believe this is scripture, but correct me. Does God say, "You shall hold no other gods before me?" That's an idea that maybe he's saying that these other gods aren't real, or maybe that he's saying that he's one of many, because there were many gods at that time. There was regional gods, there was tribal gods. This is This is something that existed all around the world. There was a kind of pantheistic vision, and then one one god comes and emerges forth and says, "I am the I am the one. I am the Hashem. I'm the most high." Right, right. That and that's to- That's one reading of the story, and and we do have scripture on this. This is It appears in um in Exodus, right? And in Deuteronomy, in the two tellings of the Ten Commandments, it happens to be number two. Right? So so lo yelakha Elohim akherim al panai, you shall have no other gods in my face. I think the the deep reading of that, you know, I know that there's a a kind of historical reading that talks about kind of this multiplicity of God, and then one god emerges and says, "No, it's really me." Right? I think that's a human projection on the story, right? I I think I think it's more like it's more like, and I think this is actually a universal truth, right? Not owned by anyone religion, which is there's one power, right? And there's one god. But by one god, we don't mean, and this is where monotheism is misunderstood, a one god means only this one, and all the rest are out. No, one god means this one and all the rest are in, right? Right? Right? We Meaning there's one god, there's one force. That force has many faces, many names. You know, Maten, Geisten, Atman is Brahman and Adonai Elohim and and the great sky and and Christ and and Yud Hey Vav Hey, right? And you know, the list goes on, right? And you know, and and Bohm comes and talks about the implicate order, you know, etc. So, it's the one God with many names and the only idolatry is the claim that one facet of God says, "I'm the only God." Mhm. That would be idolatry. I mean, it's really it's like, "Whoa, right?" It's like, "Whoa, it's like and if we really get that one face of God and what we will will go deeper, but just for now for a second. Let's say that one face of God is value. Let's just do it that way for a second. God's more than value, but not less than value, but let's just say for a moment, one face of God is value, right? There's a value in the world. So, if one value says, "I'm the only value." That's idolatry. Right? So, let's say we have we talked about in a different context once the abortion debate, pro-life and pro-choice. So, let's say the the choice people or the life people say, "We're the only value. We're the only God." That's idolatry. So, any dissociation of a dimension or face of God from the field of the one creates idolatry. Mhm. So, now we actually know what idolatry is also. Right. Like, whoa. >> I think that's super important. Now, Yes, sir. one of the things that I believe both of us agree on is that if >> I I just have a question in the middle. I'm sorry. Could I have you Could Could you give me your chain just as a present? I was just looking at now and I was having like the sense of envy. Just just just right now. >> If you go to a hip-hop club and I see you just get it on the dance floor. And some random island-born person just comes and starts shaking and you just you're in the flow. Yeah. You got my chance. Okay, got to got to film it. Well, I trust you. Trust you. Okay, good. All right, we're in. Okay, take it away. So, one of the things that I think is very confusing for people is that we know that there's evil. We know that there's not only value and a field of value. So, I think you explain very clearly how if you take one element of the field of value, claim it as the one only value, it becomes idolatry because you're not looking at the field. Honesty is your God and then, you know, like in Inglourious Basterds, the Jew Hunter is in your in your house and you have Jews in your attic and do you tell the Jew Hunter Nazi whether you have Jews in the basement? No, you don't because there's a field of value and that field includes life and the preservation of life. And you lie. Like so, >> Right. this is the explanation of the field of value. Then there's anti-value. There's those forces intentionally trying to undermine the goodness, truth, beauty, all the values that you could possibly have. And so, yes, it's the one power, but the fact that the one power has split into two polarities, I think it gets very, very confusing for people because most people are comfortable with source. They get less comfortable with God because then and they you know, it gets very uncomfortable. Is the source one power? Is it ultimately benevolent? Or because it allows the full flexibility of value and anti-value, is it ambivalent? Yeah. No, so this is like insanely important and let let's maybe do like this. So, we have to talk about how you can talk about God and have evil in the world. Now, that's not a small That's not a small question and anyone who gives a banal explanation to that or quickly jumps to answer it with a well-worked-out, you know, precise formula, you should walk away from the table. Right? Because it's not precise and it's not well-worked-out and it's it's infinitely painful. And there's something called theodicy. And theo- theodicy is how we hold the God who is good in the face of evil. And there's an entire world of theodicies um in the medicine lineages. There's a world of theodicies in the monotheistic faiths, right? In the pagan faiths, there's a Everyone has theodicies, right? That's not a So, here's the thing. No theodicy stands in the face of burning children. Right? All theodicies are obscene in the face of burning children. But, here's the thing. The reason burning children are obscene is because there's God. If there's no God, meaning there's no field of value. There's no enemy universe. There's no essential inherent harmony in the universe that should be. There's an ought in the universe, right? God creates an ought. And and that's what Dostoevsky meant. He said, "Without God, all is permitted and nothing really matters." Right? And that's how Camus kind of after his great ostensible denial denial of God, he expresses it by beginning his novel The Stranger, which is "Mother died today. Or was it yesterday?" So, so the point is the only way we can call something evil and understand our unimaginable reprehension reprehensible the the repre our our revulsion, that's the word. It's just that that we're revolted by evil because there's a field of God. And I can't I mean, I could not live in a world of where we couldn't say that torture is evil. Mhm. We can't you can't live in that world. But without God, you can't say torture is evil because why not? Right? Well, it hurts. Well, okay, and it hurts in the jungle. Right? In other words, the notion that there is a violation of the good, right? Is because there is God. That's why David writes, "Taste and see that God is good." Mhm. And that's that's unimaginably important. I all evil is a failure of the intimate universe. >> Mhm. Evil's a failure of intimacy. If there's no intimate universe, there's no evil. There might be objective pain. Right? Pain's an objective phenomenon of the universe, but evil's not. Evil's a judgment of value. Right? And so paradoxically, and here's the this is the trickster. This is the the God trickster. The and one of the principles of Tantra, which people understand to be about sexing, but actually about 1% of Tantric texts are about sex. Tantra's about a worldview. 99% and out of the worldview, a vision of sexing comes. So, we in the West, we skip the worldview and go to the 1%, but that doesn't actually work well. But the one of the principles of Tantra is reality is a trickster. The joker. So, here's the joke. We ask the question of how could there be a beautiful force for the good in cosmos that we call God and there be evil. We ask the question. And we try and answer it. That's the Odyssey. We try and answer it. But none of the answers work because because there is no logical formula. There's no theology as theological. There's no theological that can remove suffering. But the answer is in the question itself. That's the trickster. It's really beaut- I mean it's beautiful in its own weird and strange and gorgeous way. The question is the answer. You can't articulate the question unless you're in a field. I mean and I'll try I could say it it just in a with permission and just even a in a simple way. Let's say No, let's make up a story. Let's say you're you're here walking through Miami. Right? And someone comes up to you and says, "Ah, but I can't believe this and that." And they've got this whole series of whatever they have to say. You've never met them before. You've no idea who they are. And you know, and and they they have they haven't even seen you online. They just they just were passing by. First time they saw you they got a some first impression that they got mad. You just kind of look at them like they're crazy. And you walk on and you wish them blessing. But if your close friend, your your your partner, your you know, one one of the your closest intimates offers you or me you know, the same set of critiques, we take them seriously. Because intimacy allows us to challenge. So one of the key forms of prayer in the lineage is protest. Mhm. And it's we're going to talk about six or seven, I hope, forms of prayer. But the first form of prayer is protest. So the way the lineage of Solomon understands Abraham who challenges God. God says the people of Sodom and Gomorrah are evil. I'm going to destroy them. >> I think they just like butt stuff. There There There was that. There was that. There was that. There was that. But there was a There was a deeper There was a deeper problem there. All right, there was a There was a little deeper problem, which was they were They weren't very hospitable, and they did some, you know, widow burning, and there was some >> Ah. Yeah, there was some There was some >> I draw the line. There was Yeah, yeah, there was some stuff going on there. >> butt stuff. >> Yeah, yeah, no, I Yeah, there was There was some real stuff going on there. They were Right. There So, there's this You got this kind of And God says, "These These people are These are These are bad folks. They got to go." And Abraham says, "You can't do that." And if you look at the text, you know, I'm I'm paraphrasing slightly, but only slightly. God says, "What do you mean I can't do that? I'm God." Abraham says, "It doesn't matter if you're God. We're both in the field of value together. You live in me. God, you're the field of value, but you live in me, and I live in you. And so, therefore, we can have a conversation." And actually, it's a legitimate conversation. We participate in the same field. And so, instead of Abraham saying, God said, right? Had Had Abraham gone to an Avatar seminar, or or or one of many New Age seminars, which explains to us exactly why people suffer, because you attracted it into your life, right? But But Abraham missed the Avatar seminar, so he couldn't explain suffering that way. Thank God. Right? And so, he's He's just outraged by the suffering. But God told him, "They're suffering because they're evil, and now they're going to be destroyed because they're evil." But But But Abraham says, "No, maybe there's Maybe there's 50 righteous people there." Half to shpet tzadikim rasha, will you kill the righteous with the wicked? And God says, "No, no, Abraham, you're a little confused here. I'm God. You're Abraham. Could you get this straight?" Abraham says, "No, you're a little confused here. I'm Abraham, and you need me to challenge you because because that's our relationship. We live in the field of value together and I participate with you in creating this world, which is why you manifested me. And then Abraham cries out. And he says, "Hashofet kol ha'aretz lo ya'aseh mishpat?" Will God, who is the judge of the entire world, not do justice? In in that moment is Abraham's election. He's chosen. Mhm. So, he's chosen for his prayer and his prayer is protest. Mhm. But it's actually shockingly beautiful. And the contrast to Abraham is Noah. Right? I remember Bill Cosby's routine. I know, but you're not allowed to mention Bill Cosby these days, so delete that. All right, but he used to have a funny >> He's a Gomorran. He's He's yeah, it didn't He didn't go well, right? So, so he had a routine on on Noah, which I won't try and do cuz I'll do it poorly, but but Noah is this figure earlier in the Genesis narrative, who we know builds an ark. We know Noah and his ark. So, God says, "Hey, Noah." Noah says, "Oh, I'm here." He says, "I'm going to destroy everybody. Build an ark." And here's the instructions for building the ark. And Noah says, "Okay. Okay." And then you've got about 15 verses where Noah builds the ark and six cubits here and seven cubits high and and he gets involved kind of like a kid in building their model airplane. You got all the little directions. And three times in the text it says, "And Noah did what God commanded." So, you'd think Noah was righteous. Yeah, [ __ ] that. Where is Noah going? God, what the [ __ ] You're going to You're going to [ __ ] flood the earth? Blow me away. You are the You just said You just said what the Zohar says. The Zohar says exactly what you just said. The Zohar says, "The fundamentalist view of this text is Noah's good guy. He's doing what God commanded." The Zohar, the book of radiance, right, the core book of lineage, says, "No, Noah, what are you doing, man? You're supposed to challenge God. You're supposed to protest. You're not supposed to build your ark, right? To build your island, right, Mr. Ultra-billionaire? Right? And go into your ark and save yourself? That's not the game. Yeah, the righteous one says, "God, if you're going to if you're going to drown the earth, you drown me with them." "Drown me with them and and and don't you dare drown them." Right? Yeah, like like if you want to do this, like I'm not helping you in this project whatsoever. >> participating in this process. >> like You hit you you you you you will [ __ ] swallow the salt water and I will be the last one with people climbing on my back. I'll be the first to drown. That's the hero. That's the hero. That's That's what You said exactly what the Zohar said so beautifully. The Zohar says, "The reason Noah is not chosen to begin the lineage is because he does what God commands." Right? So, because Noah is a fundamentalist in the shadow sense. And the word Noah, Noach, means comfort. So, Noah actually means Mr. Comfort. Right? God says, "Mr. Comfort." Mr. Comfort says, "Yeah, God, here I am." He says. >> also loved to drink, right? Wasn't he like Yeah, like yeah, he was He was like kind of like a little He was a bit of a drinker. That's a different story. And he had a little But that has some That has so much to do with comfort. >> He had He had you love to drink, right? >> I like a few cocktails. Obviously, I'm having a little beer right now. But fundamentally, like I also deeply appreciate discomfort. Put myself in uncomfortable situations all the [ __ ] time. So, No- Noah, that's Noah's tragedy is that he chooses comfort. And comfort means clarity. And therefore, if God commanded, it must be so. And I'm not willing to be of the lineage in which Abraham's grandson Israel is called Sarita Im Elohim, the one who wrestled with God. Mhm. It's I'm not willing to challenge God. And in God desperately desires to be protested. Because the voice in me that protests God is God. Mhm. Right? And that's, you know, the protesters in Iran that's God protesting. Yep. That's the voice of God. So, the voice of protest against injustice. Right? Against you know, the deadening of reality is the voice of God. And then when the God voice seems to demand injustice then the protest has to come. Mhm. And so it actually stunning. Not only is Abraham not punished for protesting against God, he's chosen. Right? And the text reads I choose you Abraham because I know you stand for Mishpat, justice. But where does Abraham stand for justice? Three verses before when he said to God, "God, will the God of the whole world not do justice?" Mhm. So, that's the first form of prayer. And the first form of prayer is protest. >> wasn't perfect though because he missed that opportunity when God told him to to bring Isaac up to the mountain and and [ __ ] knife him. So, you know, he wasn't he wasn't exactly flawless in his execution of challenging God. >> We we are so often not flawless in our execution, right? Of our relationship to God, right? We're uneven. We're un- we're unsteady and and let's let's come back to to to Abraham and the story of the binding of Isaac and the God voice there on the other side. But if I can, with your permission, brother, to go back to your your original question. Right? So, how do we talk about God? This is where we'll kind of go we'll kind of wind back. So, Before you go >> Please stop. I'm going to give you my >> Please. I'm going to give you my experience. Take me inside. >> atheist. Yeah. Particularly because I went to the dungeons of the Inquisition. I saw the horrors and the devices that still haunt me to this day. I wish >> you were touring in Europe? >> touring in Italy. In Italy. And they had a museum. And in the museum was a dungeon of the Inquisition. I'm 15 years old, agnostic at 15. My family was agnostic, didn't really have a belief either way, but and then I saw horrors beyond horrors. Like 90% of the devices in there had something to do with genital torture. Like like one of the most horrifying things I've ever seen in my life. And I saw that and I decided, well, that God that I don't believe in is certainly not real and there's still some people who believe in that God. So my life mission and purpose is to be like Christopher Hitchens or, you know, Bertrand Russell and try to dismantle this piece by piece until like they said about the temple, there are no two stones stacked on top of each other. I was just going to be I was going to raise the whole, you know, Yeah. fundamentalist idea of God. >> The God you don't believe in. Exactly. Then I do my first medicine journey. My medicine journey shows me conclusively that there's a continuity of consciousness, that I have a soul self. And if I have a soul self, I'm halfway to a God, you know, because at that point, you know, I've kind of crossed a threshold where I don't really know, but it wasn't until I did uh bufo journey, which is a particularly strong psychedelic medicine that comes from a toad called bufo varius. It contains 5-MeO-DMT. And I had a very, very strong journey with that. Think you've seen me in that process. And it was God. Yeah. And it was all the laughter, all the tears, all the joy, all the orgasms, but the sum totality of every scream, every laugh, every orgasm, every hug, every the sum totality of all reality was net the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. Right. And was net a love that was beyond imagination. And it was an inclusion and a transcendence of all of the good and all of the bad. It was And but the sum total of it was a love that was beyond comparison. >> So this this is right. This is so there's so so many doors open in in actually each part of your description. So just just one small door and then we'll open a bigger door together. But the small door is you can't approach the great problem of suffering from the outside. The same way you can't approach the criticism of someone unless you're madly in love with them. Right? In other words, you have to be madly on the inside with a direct taste of the field of the divine. And then from that place you actually hurl the challenge to the divine. Yeah. Right? And that's the But then you're hurling it from the inside. Then the question is the answer. It's the it's the ultimate intimacy. And it's the ultimate intimacy is to challenge God. Right? And then all of a sudden that's what it's exactly it's exactly from the inside. So So let's step inside for a second. I I want to Mhm. I want to go back as as he's just a couple of earlier encounters that were there were two men who were both beautiful men. They were actually good friends. Um one is very very much with us and a and wonderful man, Ken Wilber. And the other um was a good friend of Ken's and a a a good friend of Mariana Kaplan um who is my beautiful son Zion's, you know, great mom, John Welwood. John was her mentor. And I became friends through you know, with John a little bit, you know, at the end and we did a bunch of of of dialogues on this and John wrote a book called The Psychology of Awakening. It's one of the most John was part of a group of a a great group of people um who who wrote um Dan Danny Goleman, his wife um Joseph Goldstein, John. These guys all went east at a certain moment. Sharon Salzberg, I think was in that group and they kind of did kind of that that, you know, you know, Jewish, you know, American, you know, Buddhist thing and a very beautiful they made a very beautiful contribution. So So I'll just tell you two stories from from each of them because they're they're they're relevant. So just I'll John first. So you know, John said you know, I I I heard about you you know, from different people and he said I was so surprised to meet you because you were different than the guy I heard about. So he said I've decided that I I really like you. You're you're you know, he gave me a bunch of compliments, he said, but the truth is then all that crashes again because they tell me that you believe in prayer. Right? And he said like and I've actually now read like a bunch of your stuff and it's can't be that you believe in prayer. That just doesn't like you just lose all credibility with me. So So, you know, and John that was a major Buddhist, you know, meditator and quite quite quite serious. So I said, you know, John, why do you believe in awareness? He said I don't believe in awareness, don't you understand? I said, well well, you don't you don't believe in awareness? He said, no, awareness is a realization. I said, oh, so prayer is a realization. And it was like and he he he's he's John John's a deep guy. He just oh, like he was like okay, what does that mean? And and that's when the conversation started and I had a a a different but similar conversation with Ken and we spend um And Ken, if you're listening, you you you remember these conversations, they were beautiful at his loft in um I don't know if it was Boulder or Denver then and Ken wrote a couple of great books um called the Sociable God and Up from Eden where he he took it understandably as a given that the God that we are reaching towards is ourselves. Meaning God is a first-person experience, which is very beautiful. Tat Tvam Asi. Thou art that. Right? And and he was very profoundly enmeshed in that very very deep Buddhist tradition. So he had a very deep sense of what we might call God in what we're going to later call God in the first person. Mhm. And that's that's deep. That's real. And he was also a very deep student of, you know, together with Ervin Laszlo, right? Of systems theory. And Ervin wrote that that kind of epic book in 1972 on systems theory. And systems theory is the third person. It's the system, right? It's the forces of physics and of nature and of >> sacred geometry and harmonics and and and harmonics and and mathematics and and and physics and, you know, the whole thing, the whole systems. That's the third person. So Ken was very strong as is much of the you know, much of the contemporary world of spirit very very strong in both of those. But the notion that there's a a personal God that talks to you, you know, Ken said to me, he says, "I'm you know, I I'm with Kant. You know, Kant said that a modern person, you know, is embarrassed to be caught praying." Right? Like who would be caught praying? And and so we spend a year or two in very deep um you know, kind of fierce you know, kind of conversation, contestation. It was very beautiful and there was a certain moment where I remembered a story. It's a very beautiful story of Levi Isaac of Berdichev who is this you know, mad, profound realized beyond realized and here's the paradox, he puts God on trial he actually holds a trial literally holds a trial to says his prayer as protest right, to kind of try God for the widow whose son disappeared, right, for the So, he's this very dramatic figure and he's also madly in love with God. So Levi Isaac tells a story of one of his students that comes to him right, and says you know, um I can never complete a blessing. Yeah, right, and and he he he he right, I can never complete a blessing. And and he says, why can't you complete a blessing? He says the student and and Levi Isaac was thrilled with this student. He says, because I say, blessed are you. You. You, you, you and I faint in ecstasy. And I I just I just say you, I just right. And and I said to Ken the student didn't faint in ecstasy because of a dogma. Right, he fainted in ecstasy from the direct experience of you. Yeah. So, that's second person. And at that moment we understood it together. We had a shared realization together. We actually prayed. And and then Ken went and formulated this very beautifully as the three persons or the three faces of God. We are in unprecedented times. And the first thing that arises is a need for safety. How do I ensure my own safety and sovereignty so I can protect myself and my family and also contribute to a better world. And so one of the things that I think is really important is to recognize where you are holding your value. And right now a lot of us are holding our value in cash. What is cash? Cash is promises made in paper or plastic from governments that we know we can't trust. But what has real value? Precious metals. And this is why I created the mint metalmark.com mtlmrk.com precious metal currency. I believe it's the future. It has real tangible value and we're combining it with the collectible value of incredible artists like Frank Frazetta and many more to come. So check that out at mtlmrk.com. And furthermore, you need to make sure that you're making the right best decisions. And so you need to have the maximum amount of energy, clarity, drive, and focus. And so I encourage you guys to check out correctlife.com with a K. Correct Edge is something I take twice a day to make sure that I am operating at the highest capacity that Aubrey Marcus can operate at. And it's actually the reason I founded that company in the first place. So check it out. There's some amazing formulations. I really think it's going to make a significant impact in your life and those decisions you'll make from that place will reap rewards that could last for generations to come. Lastly, I just want to say like I understand the stress that everybody's feeling in these uncertain times. And really focusing on financial sovereignty is going to be a big part of my message moving forward. I've had the blessing of having taken a beautiful ride. Me and my family are safe and well and we're able to support those that we love. I want you to be that person as well. So I'm going to be talking about that a lot more. So make sure you like and subscribe to the channel and follow me on social media at Aubrey Marcus. Thanks for your attention. We're in this together. All for one, one for all. Let's go. You know, one of the one of the subset of individuals who really get the second person are the Christians. Yes. >> For the most part. You know, I I remember and this will go into my own kind of >> Please. >> experiences about my own communications with God. And that's a controversial thing to say. And you know, sometimes even in my book I wrote imaginings just to make people's, you know, in case they're they got a little all tensed up because I said like communication, right? Because we're not supposed to communicate. That was supposed to happen to people 2,000 years ago and then [ __ ] stop. Right. You know, like but nonetheless, so I go to the dry cleaners. It's not a usual thing for me to go to the dry cleaners, I'll be honest. There's usually people who help me go to the dry cleaners, but this day I needed to go to the dry cleaners. It's good for you, Aub. It is. Yeah, it's good for you to go to the dry cleaners. >> Viance pregnant and you know, it's my turn to go to the dry cleaners. So, I go to the dry cleaners. And the woman there, it's she's been handling clothes that have an Aubrey Marcus tag for a long time and then finally I'm showing up. And she was so sweet. And she was like she was just a beautiful woman. And I, you know, we had a nice little chat as she finds my clothes and then I go back out to my car. And it's probably December 21st, few days before Christmas. And I just get this total message. Says, >> Yeah. whatever you have in your wallet, >> Right. walk back in there and give it to her. And I'm like, my wallet's kind of full. God. Like for sure? Like all of it? And it's like, yep. Like [ __ ] All right, I'm in. And so I walk back and I say, hey, like, you know, I I don't want this to be awkward, but like, you know, I got a message so that to give you this." And like, she gets tears in her eyes and says, "Like, you don't know, you know, it's right before Christmas and I got these many kids and, you know, this this matters so much and like, can I offer a prayer for you?" And she starts praying in Jesus' name and her relationship with Jesus was that exact second-person relationship. She's been talking to Jesus Yeah. all the time and when she was talking to Jesus, she was like talking to like I would say to my friend, like, "Hey, Derek, you know, like, take good care of Mark. I'm going to be gone." You know, like like that personal Yeah. of a relationship and it was so powerful, blew me away. Like, tears just coming down my face, just like blew me away with the power of the prayer, you know, like, probably Southern, you know, Southern Baptist church type of a type of a, you know, she's a she's a larger black woman just feeling it and like, the power was there in such a profound way. That that is it's that's such a big deal. It's such a I mean, that story is is is so right and it's it's right on so many levels, right? So, when I had this original conversation with Ken, the way that it started was, and I've I've learned so much from Ken, and and he's been so great in the exchange, our original conversation, you know, at his loft was, you know, kind of a several-hour conversation about, you know, the realizations of meditation and how meditation works and, you know, and why you you kind of can't find your way without it. And at the end of those 3 hours, I I shared with Ken, you know, my grandmother, you know, my my bubbe, you know, my grandmother, wouldn't understand a word of what you just said. She wouldn't attract a word of this. And my grandmother read the Book of Psalms of David's, where David has the exact kind of relationship you just portrayed, this intimate, close, fierce, you know, every flavor of second person relationship where he was so close to God, and my grandmother read Psalms every day, and she was closer to God and more God imbued and God intoxicated and just spoke directly to God. She understood what the lineage calls the approachability of God. Mhm. Right? In other words, she could go directly into the field of infinite was a given. To her it was a given to her. Not a superstitious given, a realization that she could speak directly to God and then God was listening in some profound way. So that and and we'll talk about I think we can actually show that to be true, not just have a realization, we can actually share why that's true. But just for now, that's the second person. In other words, the second person's not a made-up idea. Actually, reality if we know we know how reality works, the code of reality, reality has a first person, we have a first person, there's a first person of reality all the way down. So Bertrand Russell that you cited talks about this proto-interiority, this experience of first person aliveness that he says probably exists at the atomic or molecular level. There's this first person, Whitehead called it prehension, this this alive sense of desire, meaning all the way down, it's not mechanical. It doesn't go from being alive to now now it's Lego blocks. No, there's a a continuum of first person all the way up and all the way down. So there's an aliveness, the hills are alive in The Sound of Music, right? But even even the hills are not just the vegetation, the whole thing's alive. So it's a it's a living world, it's a living universe. Third person it's a coherent universe. Right? Everything fits in with everything. Right? There's this vast system of interlocking and interpenetrating pieces, right? A vast interconnectivity, vast intimacy, in which everything fits with everything in all of the mathematical codes of our dazzling, you know, billions and billions of galaxies. That's third person. But there is a second person in cosmos. And second person's not made up. It's actually a a relational cosmos. Mhm. All the way up and all the way down. It's a conversational cosmos all the way up and all the way down. But here's the crazy thing. Not as a metaphor. It's not a metaphor. It's not poetry. It's not mythopoetic. You know, one of my, you know, I say this tenderly and Brian, if you're listening, I mean it gently. My my kind of huge issues with, let's say, the universe story people like Brian Swim and that gang. And they're doing a great job, but they're they're they're basically doing they believe in standard evolutionary theory of the old neo-Darwinian kind and then they do mythopoetics. But let's give you the poetic reading. No, it's not poetic. It's the science. It's the prose of reality. Is that reality's conversational? Meaning meaning three quarks that go two up and one down and become a proton, right? Are having literally a conversation with each other, which means you have two first-person experiences that meet in the second-person space and they exchange information. That's That is actually true. That's not metaphorically true. That's the nature of reality is that reality is all the way down and all the way up a conversational cosmos. Reality is actually literally a series of conversations. That is literally ontologically, scientifically what reality is. Reality is second person. All of reality is conversation in which information and information's just the third-person way of saying meaning and value is exchanged between two parts. And that exchange creates a reaction, maybe a chemical reaction. It creates a new emergent, a new wholeness. So, it's literally a conversational cosmos all the way up and all the way down. Now, in what in our conversation, right? You run podcasts, which are conversations. Right? And you actually go, "Oh, conversations matter in a conversational cosmos. Conversations move cosmos." So, when we talk about prayer, when we initiate the conversation and we invoke and we turn to the divine, we call that prayer. That's one kind of conversation. When the infinite divine initiates the conversation and invokes the conversation, we call that prophecy. But, prophecy in the reading of the genuine lineage interior scientists like Abraham Cook, prophecy is not something that they did in the ancient near East, you know, in fertile crescent at a particular moment in time. No, prophecy is a feature of reality. Right? Meaning reality is encoded with information. And that information is in different ways shared and transmitted and accessed. And prophecy is a real both category in reality, but more writes Cook, who's one of the greatest kind of rational intellectual mystics that ever lived, a dazzling, you know, mind. Prophecy is a potentiality of every human being. You know, I I wonder how you resonate with this with this definition. So, Father Shawn O'Leary, who I've become also very close with, he says, "A prophet is not someone who sees the future. It's someone who sees a possible future and decides to alter that possible future through his own will and effort." >> so so, so a prophet is not only seeing a static future, right? A prophet is participating in creating that future. Yeah, absolutely, right? And and that is that is absolutely true. And and for our purposes, and I I look forward to talking about it with with Shawn, with Father Shawn at at the right and perfect time. What it means is is that the universe is talking to me. And the universe is not silent. Yeah. And the conversation didn't stop. No, I know. And and that's the thing, too, for me is like I look back and I look back at the times where there's been very clear communication. And sometimes I've listened. You know, there was very clear clear communication when Bode Miller invites me to go to the Kentucky Derby, and I had fought very hard to get a 30-minute coffee meeting with Joe Rogan. 2008. Mhm. The Kentucky Derby was the highlight of what I was into at the time, which was partying. Right. This was 30 minutes of coffee with Joe, who was not the Joe Rogan megalith that he is now. He wasn't the the Jupiterian planet that he is at this moment. That was 2008. And I just felt this thing, like go have the coffee. Don't cancel it. Don't try to reschedule. Have the [ __ ] coffee. Then my life changed. Now, so, listened. Listened to the whisper. You know, that that little whisper that came through. Good. Good on me. Other time, I got a very clear communication that I needed to go start in the coast of Australia and make a walkabout to Uluru in Australia. Super clear. I was like, [ __ ] that's going to be such a [ __ ] pain in the ass. Like, I don't want to go. You know, and that's not that's just my like wimpy voice. Like, "Uh uh uh." And I didn't do it. And I wonder what would have happened Yeah. if I did that. And I I know always wonder what would happen. But, God didn't give up. God kept talking. And I don't always listen. Sometimes I do. Sometimes I don't. And and that's the interesting thing is like this it's just remarkable to me in my own personal experience that God loves so much that God's not going to give up. And that God's going to talk to me directly, and that that is not narcissism. And that it's very important. Narcissism is this kind of self-loathing, right, which which has a narcissistic cover, right, or a kind of more mild narcissism is it's it's only me. Yeah. So, the notion that God talks or God through the universe whispers to us, what's called the chishad or righta, the divine whisper, it's not a whisper only to me. There actually is a personal personal intimate whisper between the divine and every individuated expression, right, of reality. And we certainly know that's true on the human level. Right? We don't We know less about what's happening on the animal level, but we know clearly that that animals that there's there's there's clear distinction. There's there's clearly a world of the biosphere and there's a world of the noosphere, the human world, the animal world. They're clearly distinct from each other, and they're also interincluded and overlapping in in many ways that we didn't imagine, you know, even a thousand years ago. We're We're actually understanding, you know, profoundly, you know, deeply the different depths and dimensions of the animal world, but for now I'm going to just stay it for a minute in the human world. So, in the human world if we actually understand how the human appears we understand that there's a process of I won't go into it, but you know autocatalytic self-replicating peptides, right? Which is a key part of actually abiogenesis, the beginning of the emergence of life. But, if you actually understand how the early chemistry and biochemistry works, you understand that to produce through embryogenesis, right? A unique human being you need you can't do that mechanically. In other words, you can't It's not a cookie cutter. What actually has to happen is about 30 different utterly unique steps right? That can't be automated. So, meaning meaning it's what White Head means when he talks about personhood, meaning you actually need a personal movement of the force from a biochemical perspective to actually generate irreducibly unique life. Now if we really get what we just said, you'd have to faint in it. We'd have to faint in ecstasy. Right? Because the And this is where the fundamentalists got it right. Right? They got this right. It's And And the fact that they got it right shouldn't have everyone else ignore it because they're talking about it. No, we should claim it and enter >> say that, you mean that there's a dimension of creation in it. >> There's an utterly personal face, a second-person face. And when they say Christ loves you they're right. Yeah, for sure. They're absolutely right. And And it doesn't Of course Of course, Christ got hijacked. And of course, the Crusades were hijacked in the name Christ. And of course, Christ goes by many names. Christ appears in many disguises. So, it's not actually a a kind of church Christ, but the the fundamental realization that there is an the the language we use in Cosmotic Humanism for the Christ as we call it the infinite intimate. Mhm. We call God's name the God is the infinite intimate. So, infinity appears intimately and cares infinitely about you personally. That's the second face of God. That is true. That is simple truth. And it's so beautiful. It's so beautiful. And not just And and to not know that, to not give our children the gift which is their birthright of this gnosis because we're so busy being postmodern reductive materialists as acts of dogmatic blind stupidity. Right? Because we're actually not doing the biochemistry. We just say biochemistry. How biochemistry? Right? Right? I mean, how many people know what an autocatalytic self-replicating peptide is, right? And it's actually this >> who doesn't? I Who doesn't? Wait, who right? But it's this magnificent chain, right? Of of of molecular right? Magnificence which appears, right? And operates, right? In an utterly unique fashion to actually manifest an irreducibly unique human being. So, if I exist, if I exist right here as an irreducibly unique human being who is also profoundly common. So, Aubrey and Mark are you and our friend Derek here, right? We're 98 99% we're the same. That's why we understand each other. That's why we feel each other. That's why we can talk to each other. But we couldn't actually have a conversation if we weren't also irreducibly unique. Mhm. And our irreducibly uniqueness by definition cannot be a an assembly line production of the infinite. Because it's irreducibly unique. It requires something utterly different. Right? In each case. So actually, if I would say God desires your existence. God intended your existence. God chose you. God recognizes you. God not loves you. God love adores you. And finally, God actually needs you. Needs that uniqueness. Those six dimensions, that would be I would say that is a scientific truth. Okay, here's a question. That's the second person of God. Here's a question. Take it away. So God as the force, as the source, as the one does that God utilize intercessors, which are all included in the one to facilitate the intimate communication? I mean, I understand on the kind of DNA force level that could be God communicating in the just sacred geometry of how everything works in the pattern of of the of the great father and mother in union and etc. But the question is is so in these encounters with God, as I would say it's not really clear to me whether that's God as the totality one source force or whether that's an intercessor like a bremlin the mage said was your holy guardian angel. What I call in my book you verse anti you, your capital P potential disowned personal intercessor. And then there's Yeshua or the Christed one who I actually think personally Yeshua can communicate. I've felt communications from that being. I've also felt communications from Buddha and star beings and I mean I've done a lot of psychedelics. So you get a lot of [ __ ] communications. Now, a lot of them come from intercessors. Very rarely has there been ever an encounter with what felt like God, but then even then I question whether that was also an intercessor or whether it is actually the one, but it's still the one, but it's just utilizing an intermediary, like almost like a translator. So we one of the one of the really critical realizations of the lineages and particularly of the Solomon lineage, but but it appears also in the the original Christ path before it got hijacked by the church and then kind of post church is the direct approachability of source without intermediaries. That we can actually go directly to source. Well, I mean and I'm not including the Pope as an intermediary. >> Yeah, no, no, I understand. No, I understand. I understand. And I want to talk about the intercessors. I want to talk about the angels and the demons and the intercessors and the entities and and again it's a it's a it's an alive cosmos with with many but but we have the capacity both to be heard directly and to hear directly. But let's let's start with the being heard side, okay? So because I think we can actually get a very direct first person experience of this conversation and then we can kind of go spread out into intercessors. But let's get I want to go on kind of the the like it's direct. It's direct. So So let's let let's let's put a what the Tibetan Buddhists called a a pointing out instruction, you know, on the table. So So let's say, can you hear me talking? Of course. Yes, okay. So Aubrey hears me talking. Now, let me check in with Derek here. Derek, is Aubrey intelligent? Yes. Intelligent, okay. Aubrey's very intelligent, okay. Sometimes. So no, he's intelligent. More than not. I I like to think I tip over on the tipping point. Tip on the tipping point, right. Tipping over, so So what in you hears Mark talking? My ears. >> My ears, but but of course it's not actually your physical ears just although the the mechanisms are there. So there's like whatever that field of intelligence is that's Aubrey in us that operates through the ears hears me talking. Fair? Okay. Now, I'm going to check in with Derek, right? So I mean Aubrey's real intelligent, right? He's a real intelligent guy, okay. But just just between us here, okay. Is he like the most intelligent person in North America? Is there anyone who's got like an equal level? Maybe, right? He's He's not going to answer, okay. Right? Okay, so we're here, so right? So So So Aubrey's really intelligent, but but there might be other intelligences someplace, right? There might be, right? And and there might even be, I mean, you know, greater intelligences, you know, people that are wiser than us. So there's this there's wider field of intelligence. >> chess ELO rating is like I got okay 1,000. You know what I mean? Like Damn. Damn. >> Like there's some smarter people out there for sure. I play against them all the time, they beat me. It's cool. There's this whole field There's this whole field >> I don't know if they can make love to my wife like I can, but you know. >> Okay. Okay. So there's many kinds of intelligence, many right field of intelligence. Now, the reason you can play, right? And the reason we can make love, the reason we can play, the reason we can talk is so there's this field of intelligence. Now, is it fair to say that you can have a direct realization that your intelligence is not separate from the whole field of intelligence? You're not just desiccated out there by yourself, right? Your intelligence part of a larger field of intelligence. Right. Of course. So it's actually gorgeous. So if you, Aubrey, can hear me talking, the particular intelligence which is Aubrey, could it be that the larger field of intelligence can't hear me talking? Of course not. That's prayer. Mhm. It's like right there. That's a direct No, no thinking. That's a direct pointing out instruction, right? If I can hear Aubrey talking, and I hear Aubrey talking, that's cuz I have physical ears, because my intelligence hears Aubrey. A, B, I have a direct experience. My intelligence is not separate from the larger field of intelligence. So, if I can hear Aubrey talking, then obviously the larger field of intelligence can hear Aubrey talking. Yeah. That's what it means when we say God hears prayer. Yeah. We just got a direct We just cut through 2,000 years of theology and sophistry and long text. We just got a direct first-person experience that we actually know that I hear Aubrey. My intelligence hears Aubrey. Oh, the larger field of intelligence hears Aubrey. Prayer is heard. That I mean, that's huge. You know, in a in a ayahuasca journey, I've had in 20 almost coming up on 27 years of or more, actually, coming up on coming up on 29 years of intentional psychedelic ceremonies. I had only I've only had one encounter with what felt like God in the in the totality. It's always been intercessors. Right. And the communication was very funny. I feel God. Totality of God speaking to me. And and I guess and then maybe we can maybe we can dissect this subtly as well. But there's God in my in my vision space. And I'm shocked. I'm like blown away. And I'm stuttering and stumbling in my own psychic communication. I say, "Ah, ha ha Uh how do you have the time?" And I feel God just smile. Like What do you mean? How do you have the time? How do I have the time? I'm God. I am time. You know, I was like, oh yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I was like, okay. Okay. I got to ask I got I got to ask good question here. I was like, well well what would you have to tell me? God says Have more faith, Aubrey. Have more faith. Worry less. Have more faith. I said, of course you'd say that. Like God, you're right. Like totally. I worry way too much. Like have more faith. And then I I was like, I ran out of questions. And then God says Let me tell you the greatest love story ever told. And God showed me this force and presence making love to matter. And earth and and existence. It was like spirit and matter. And so I guess in that there was still somewhat of a split because God said there was still a love story. And I'm interested to see to hear cuz I don't think I've ever told you this. Maybe I have but maybe I have it where there was a split where God said, let me show you the greatest love story ever told. And it was God's voice showing me how much God loved the mother, which is matter. Mater, mother. Right. And it was like, let me show you the greatest love story ever told. And I just smiled and I laughed and I cried. Yeah. And and that No, that's And that is the second person. Right? And this is the right? When you love your wife or make love to your wife, when you make love to the beloved right? When we talk and and we love each other talking. I talk to my friend second person. That second person is but a pale reflection of the infinite intimate loving and making love. Right, that is to say second person is a structure of reality. It's the ultimate conversation. You know, in for about three, four centuries, the word for sexual intercourse was conversation. Literally. It was literally that was the word and conversation meant intercourse and intercourse meant conversation. They got reversed. Meaning it's the ultimate the ultimate conversation. Right? Is right? The mad love. Right? That is exchanged. Right? All conversations, right? Are ultimately right? Reaching for love at their depth. And to get to understand so I want I want to maybe go let let's take what you said and take it we're going to we'll take it another step. So we did a pointing out instruction. So let's now let's do a visualization if we can. You know, it's just to kind of take your image and and kind of make it available. So let's imagine all of God in the third person. So third person meaning all of the laws of chemistry, all the laws of physics, all laws of mathematics over this whole galaxy and then, you know, two galaxies and three and a thousand and a million and 10 million and a billion and a hundred billion galaxies. So like the entire vast third person all of the light years, right? You know, kind of through all of the, you know, you know, through all of all of space and time. Right? The whole curvature. Right? So all of God in the third person, imagine all of God in the third person, all of God third person, third person, third person vast or beyond vast dazzling beyond imagination, bends the mind, we disappear and kind of, right? In Aramaic the magnificence we just we we virtually disappear. Then take all of that God in the third person and place it in a chair in a chair. God in the second person looking at you and madly loving you. That's God in the second person. It's like It's like I And and last step, so now what is this God sitting in the chair loving you feeling? So now what is the And that's what the mystics ask. They they say the erotic mystics, the the interior scientists, what is God feeling? So all the entire third person is in this chair looking at you directly, personally. Right? And loving you personally, directly, intimately. So what's God feeling? So imagine you know, the most tender moment you ever felt. Right? You look at your wife's belly and you see a a baby growing. Right? You might look at your you know, a nephew or a niece. Right? You see you you catch your mother's, you know, eye and you who who's kind of held you through all these years. Right? Just just the most infinite tenderness. Now take that tenderness, your most tender moments. Double them. Triple. 4 * 10 * 20 * 100 * 1,000 10,000, right? A million, 10 million You know, let's go to a billion, right? This this kind of unimaginable tenderness. Then we're going to mix drinks. Now take your most raw, pure, beautiful love desire. Raw, pulsing desire. Double it. Triple it. 10, 20, 1,000, 10,000 100,000, right? A million a billion. Now mix the tenderness the infinite tenderness with the infinite raw desire, mix them together, and then exponentialize it beyond numbers. That's what God's feeling about you. Looking at you in that moment. That's the truth of reality. You've just painted such a beautiful picture of the infinite intimate. And that image of God being right there for you and everybody else. You're not special. God there for all of us. We're all special. Yes. Which then is anybody special? Yes, we're all special. That's actually more accurate. Yeah, exactly, right? It's beautiful. Yeah. So, at that point how do you initiate that conversation in a way that it's heard without it being like throwing a quarter in Zoltar expecting a printout of some fortune that's going to make you a fortune, right? Like what is the way to engage in a prayer that's interesting to God? You know, this is something I actually talked about with with Jake actually for his fights. It's like >> Right. You show God and he had the same vision. It's like show God why it's important that you win. Not just not just ask him for you to win. You know, like show God and again using the pronoun him or her, it's all, you know, we're beyond gender in in a lot of this, I think. But ask God and show God what it means if you win earnestly. Right. Right. You know, no, totally. And and and Jake has that beautiful sincerity you know, in that you know, like and it's got to get down to that very basic sense of how does any real intimacy created? So, God's the infinite in it. Is loving me with this infinite personal depth that we just kind of described and evoked. We know that God's We did the pointing out instruction. So, how how do I start the conversation? So, you have to start the conversation honestly, and I think that's what you were saying to Jake very beautifully, which is what do you really need and why? Mhm. Now, we have this this kind of there's two poles. You know, one pole is kind of this old religious pole in which you know, prayer becomes a kind of cosmic vending machine. And prayer is clearly not a cosmic vending machine. But, it's not just oh, get me what I need. And at the same time, we also have this other kind of new age pole that actually kind of mocks, you know, any prayer that asks for needs, right? That's not real prayer. That's why why would you bother God with your needs? So, we have to start with this realization that prayer affirms the dignity of personal need. Mhm. And that's that's unimaginably important. There's a there's a text that I think you and I talked about in when we were studying together. We we saw this text by the Bahir, you know, b a h i r, the the book of clarity, you know, 11th century, where the author it's a it's a set of Aramaic Hebrew fragments where the author says something like the reason the world was made manifest by the divine was in order to create needs. And it's very kind of you almost like what does that mean? No, no, we kind of think oh, we have needs, we got to get our needs fulfilled, and then we can live our lives. And this text is no, it's all about how you experience your needs. We are created in order to need and to be needed. And how I address needing and being needed is everything. So, So, I want to with your permission, my friend, I just you know, I know we we had one story from the lineage today, but let's just let's just maybe add one more. So, there's this this master of the Baal Shem Tov that we we both know who's the master of you know, one of our teachers, Mordechai Leiner. And so, his master the Baal Shem Tov, the master of the good name, you know, has this this wagon driven by Alexi. And Alexi, of course, you know, lets the horses go where they want to go and looks at the Baal Shem Tov when they find their way. And you know, in June, they talk about Kfitzat Haderech, right? You know, or however they pronounce it, which is basically, you know, Frank Herbert kind of slightly stoned in 1964 writing Dune reading a Hasidic text that says Kfitzat Haderech, right? The ability of the masters to jump through time. Mhm. Right? And to go and so so the Baal Shem Tov is repeated to have Are you referring to Kvisat Hadarak? Kvi Kvi said Kvisat Hadarak. >> Kvisat Hadarak such as the which is the giant sandworm. Which which is No, that's the >> no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Kvi Kvisat Hadarak is the ability to travel through time. So, that's the Messiah. That's the ability right? That's the ability to travel through time. That is Kvisat Haderech. Right? That is so you pronounce it so I'll pronounce it right. Kvisat Hadarak or something like that. >> right? So, this is basically Frank Herbert stoned in 1964 reading a literally reading a Hasidic text which says the master who participates in the quality of Messiah can travel through time. Kvisat Haderech. So, he writes it down, right? Literally. Right? That's literally how it happened. He writes it down in this kind of, you know, right? As you pronounced it, but it is actually that it's literally it's the jumping of time. And that's really what you know, what the the hero is doing. He's actually seeing going back to that original vision of the prophet, he's seeing possible futures. >> That's right. And they're acting ferociously to create. That's right. That's right. And so we're going to come back cuz this is this right this is actually Dune is very important here. It's got a lot of the themes and he was actually Herbert was listening to two lineages. He was listening to a Buddhist lineage and a Hebrew mystical lineage and he was he was kind of you know through the drugs of the early 60s kind of merging them beautifully in his mind and you know spawning this world. But but back to our Ba'al Shem Tov who's in the wagon with Alexi. So he he engages in this you know his wagon kind of goes through you know time and finds itself in a different place in time in the in the outskirts of some small hamlet. And where where he was still known his name was still known. He was the master of the good name and he has 10 of his disciples with him and they they knock on the door and you know the disciples announce the great master of the good name is here. And so the man is like very poor man with the with his wife they don't have much but he's so excited and the Ba'al Shem Tov comes in and it's somewhere you know a little bit after breakfast time and he says make me breakfast. The disciples look at him like he's crazy right? It's like this is obviously a poor house right to make all of us breakfast you're going to so but the man is excited and they whatever he has he brings and makes this beautiful meal and the Ba'al Shem Tov at the end he gobbles everything up and he usually was ascetic didn't you know barely eat anything. He's all I'm I'm going to walk for two hours I'll be back for lunch. Right and the man's like right. So he he comes and the Hasidim like three of them just leave cuz they're just embarrassed right? They're like our master's obviously got insane. So like seven come back with him and he makes them whatever he has like lunch and he gobbles it all up and he says I'll be back in a few hours for the last meal before I go and his wife goes white right because they've got nothing left. They've got you know they've got to slaughter the last chicken and and he says what can we do this is the great Ba'al Shem Tov and she's like furious and he comes back in a few hours and they whatever they have left right he's He eats it all up and he leaves. You know, now four more of his disciples have left just aghast, you know, at the master's behavior. And it's now a year later. And the Baal Shem Tov is back in Mezhibozh in his study hall and there's only like three of the disciples one in that original trip were still with him and he says, "Ah, this is the day we went on that trip a year ago." And the disciples like they go white. They wanted to forget that that day ever happened. He says, "Let's go back there." And no. He calls like a new group of disciples together and they get into the wagon and Alexius, of course, you know, you know, the horse is nowhere to go and they they do fits at a derch. They go through and they they come to the same place. And lo and behold, instead of this little broken-down shack, there's this resplendent, like I mean, almost a palace, but not, you know, but just this, you know, with horses and a a gate and, you know, servants and and and the Baal Shem Tov and the the disciples are like and they walk in. And you know, that the servant is like, "Can I speak to the master of the house?" And it's it's that man and and his wife and they're dressed, you know, beautifully and the Baal Shem Tov says, "Could you tell my disciples what happened?" And he says, "Well, he says, "You left and I had nothing. I just had I had nothing, right? And I have four children and if I I would be I would have to sell my children. I mean, it just it was just a horror and I'd never ask God for anything. I didn't want to bother God with what I needed, but but I I went into the forest and I just lay down in the forest and I screamed to God. I said, "God, I've done everything I can do, but I need your help. I need your help and God, this is what I need. One, I need this and I need this and I need this and I need this." And I just poured it all out to God. And the next day things started to move and this opened and that opened and I bought this and I sold that and within 6 months my entire the entire wheel of fortune had turned. And the Balshemtov looks at his disciples and he says, "When you go to God to pray, you ask for everything. You ask for everything. Right? And prayer and the sentence I said in English is a rough translation of the Yiddish. Prayer affirms the dignity of personal need. Right? Personal need is real. Right? And and and and it's dignified. And when our needs are clarified So my need is not my sixth red car, but my need is is is is what I uniquely need. And it's not just what's objectively needed. It's my clarified desire. It's my clarified need. When I turn to God with my clarified desire and clarified need, God turns to us and says, "If you ask, you must surely need. Your need is my allurements." That's so cool and and beautiful and you know, somebody who that you're aware of is of his work and I've had him on my podcast twice and you know, had some private conversations with him, Dean Raiden. He studies the field of magic and parapsychology very closely. And what he says is there's a basically something like a one in septillion chance that all of the clinical studies that they've done on parapsychology are happened by chance. That it's real. But the effect size is usually very small. >> Right. Why? Because somebody's in a [ __ ] laboratory. And they're just trying to do something. They're trying to push an electron one way or another onto a, you know, recording device. So they're trying to do something, but they don't really care. They don't really need to. But even still, their will and intention makes a small but measurable effect that reaches statistical significance. And then when I was asking him about outsized magical effects, Like things that shouldn't happen but are really big. And we talked about like hysteric strength. These stories of people who could not lift a car in a laboratory but when their child is pinned underneath it, they [ __ ] lift that car. That's not possible in a laboratory but it's possible in real life because it's not there's no way that you could set that scenario up in a laboratory. Who's going to You know, say what? I'm going to pin your child under a car and you're going to have to [ __ ] lift it up. This is a that would be a crazy world where we allowed that that passed the board. But in that moment, what he was saying was the absolute desperate need of an individual goes and it goes underneath the laws of physics and it goes underneath these laws and touches touches God's needs and when you needed that bad, then God is with you. >> Yeah, no, that that is insanely important and and and you and I you'd mention this Dean to me once before in a different context but it was it was it was beautiful then and it's beautiful now and I think it's it's so to the point now because what Dean is saying and I actually don't know Dean but I but I have I have read his work and his work's good. He's done a really a really good job you know, on one particular vector and what he's pointing towards and there's actually a series of studies that for whatever reason last two to three weeks I've been involved in which understand that and go slow. Evolution or reality is love in action in response to need. It's a good sense. That's what reality is. Evolution is love in action, right? Evolution is the evolution of love, right? Love Eros Allurement creates new holes but it's always in response all the way down the evolutionary chain to a need. So, and this is what this book the Bahir, points towards, and this is what the studies that Dean is adducing are pointing to, that underneath the orders of physics, underneath the orders of those important structures of the world, there's something underneath, which is love, or which is relationality. So, for example, even a physicist like Carlo Rovelli, who's a student of Wheeler's, who writes a book in 2018 called The Matter of Time, man, if you look at the first last four or five chapters of the book, what he essentially says is is that time is not a basic foundational structure of reality, which is why it's not an it's not a constant in any of the equations. Time is actually that which is constructed from, emerges from relationality. So, relationship, relationality, the relational cosmos is underneath time. Now, for Rovelli, just to have intellectual honesty, which is important, Rovelli is a, you know, a reductive materialist. So, he's not describing value, he's just describing what's there. He's saying, "Oh, relationality, if I can talk kind of as, right, is underneath time." We understand, from the perspective of the interior sciences, that relationality is is love. Right, love is underneath time. Open the Zohar in eight different passages, the Book of Radiance, it says that actually the field of Havivuta, of Eros value, is underneath the field of time. But, by time, it doesn't mean time. There's a time-space curvature in one vision, but time is representative of the laws of physics. So, essentially what parapsychology is, what Dean studies so beautifully, parapsychology is the realization that the laws of physics are are very important and very crucial, but they're not the whole story. So, when Henri Bergson, right, critiques Albert Einstein, who's done this very good work in, you know, a particular view of relativity mathematically and in terms of physics, Bergson critiques him. Bergson is actually a great mathematician and also wins the Nobel Prize, but but he actually understands this kind of deep deeper vision of time and Bergson got very involved the 1880s in the parapsychological movement in France. Alfred North Whitehead, the great mathematician, then comes to the defense of Bergson. He's a much better mathematician than Einstein. And he says, "Mr. Einstein, I like you. You're a good man, but you are slipping in your own metaphysics into your mathematics. And actually from the mathematics perspective, right, there's a dimension which is timeless and there's also a dimension of time that's real and we can move back and forth in time and time unfolds and there's plot lines and he he challenges Einstein. But but the basic notion that's in Whitehead and in Bergson and that Rodin is pointing to is that actually underneath the laws of physics, there is another order of reality that doesn't nullify laws of physics. Laws of physics are clearly there, right? Obviously, they need to be taken very seriously and they tell us something important about reality, but it's also very clear the entire empirical world of parapsychology, which is probably the best researched field we have now other than the Hadron Collider, right? I mean, the amount of careful research that the Society for Psychical Research right Society has done in England and in America is unimaginable and the rigorousness of the research is unimaginable. And David Ray Griffin, the key Whiteheadian scholar, who I I corresponded with before he died, you know, kind of wrote a book on this on you know, on parapsychology and he kind of went through the details and it's very clear parapsychology is real and validated and it's very clear that it it undermines time. Uh-huh. That's clearly there are communications that happen in cosmos that don't happen only to the laws of physics, right? There is there is telepathy, there's retrocausation, movement backwards and forwards in time. We're now realizing that these notions of the infinite, right, communicating and diffusing information and talking personally, right, with individuals and invite, right, they're part of the larger story of cosmos. It's a much wilder cosmos than we think, but it's not a fundamentalist aggressive cosmos, it's this new wider bigger picture in which the laws of physics are real and the laws of metaphysics are real. Right? And and we need to actually know that there's the law and the law is real and part of the laws is there's this personal relationship with the infinite inanimate. I I want to just say something tenderly about this if I can. You know, I I have a dear friend and I don't know if Michael, if you're listening, um we haven't talked in a while, but he's a very beautiful man, Michael, Michael Beckwith. He's a great guy. And I we were in in deep touch about a decade ago and and he's very in the what I would call the Ernest Holmes, you know, Neville Goddard, you know, tradition of, you know, which produced one it produced things like The Secret was one expression of that. >> the pray as if it has already been done, manifestation. >> right? He's very very, you know, and and I think these guys are doing great work. So blessings to Michael. He's a beautiful guy and I don't know Joe. I know Michael and Joe I think are good friends, but I know Michael well, he's doing beautiful work and my friend Bill Little's, you know, beautiful work and it's all and they call it prayer. They call it a permative prayer, but that's not quite prayer. I just want to make that distinction. What I mean, so okay, this is this is exactly where I was going. So I'm super glad I'm super glad you're here. So I believe there is a quote from Jesus, Yeshua, who says pray as if it has already been done. Right? Like isn't that isn't that actually like a a scripture or is that >> So I would I would say like this. I would say like this. There there are there are two notions of prayer. There is what they today call affirmative prayer. Right? Which is something about accessing the law of reality by stepping out of your recursive patterns. Stepping out of the the kind of negative thought patterns, stepping out of your conditioning, right? And actually stepping into, you know, what what they refer to as the field of pure potentiality. And from that field of pure pure potentiality, you set your intention, your thought has enormous impact, and and all obstacles are melted away, and the word is good, and it is fulfilled, and it is done. >> Well, and it's also I mean, I think where Dispense gets it also is, you know, we have I don't know, hundreds hundreds of thousands of hundreds of thousands of clinical studies with the placebo effect. People take a pill, they think that actually the healing has already happened because they took the pill. The pill is a placebo, it's a sugar pill, and they get healed. Or there's a sham knee surgery. Somebody they do an incision in the skin, they stitch it back up, and they pretend they stitched your knee back together your ACL or whatever, and they're like, you're going to be better in 3 weeks, and then people are better in 3 weeks. amazing knee surgery, doc. And they're like, we didn't do [ __ ] Right. >> You know, because they believe So there's no question. There's no question, and it's a major idea also in the Hasidic tradition, that your intention right? Goes also underneath the laws of reality and can reconfigure dimensions of reality. >> Well, I feel like it's not even intention, it's belief. It's trust, it's belief, it's it's it's a it's a an It's an affirmative knowing, right, that configures reality and there is some reality and truth to that that's enormously important and that's, you know, that's Neville Goddard and that's Ernest Holmes, but but it it it goes back to this moment in Jesus. There are Talmudic texts like that. There are Hasidic texts like that. You know, there are You know, there's the placebo studies and it's very, very important. But it doesn't exhaust prayer. >> And No, and and honestly, I I actually have a difficult time with it, right, to be honest, because it's like I'm I I can feel myself pretending. Right. It's It's It's both It's both pretending and it turns the world a little bit too close to a cosmic vending machine. Meaning, if you can It's a kind of magic and it's not that magic doesn't work, but let me just say I'm trying to say this very, very clearly. I'm trying to say this very clearly. It's like I've very again cuz I think Michael's work and Ernest Holmes and and, you know, this form of affirmative prayer and what they call treatment >> of my audience is going to know Dispensa. Right. Right. So, Joe's doing this all the time. Joe's, you know, and I don't know Joe. I know again, I know Michael. Um Joe and I have never met and and I know I'm sure his work is great. He's doing great work. I I think he's doing great. So, let's take that as a given, okay? But it's only one side of the story because in that story there's not the personal relationship with the infinite intimate. And what it does is it actually turns reality into a a currency of laws where if you align with the laws, then it is already done. And reality is more mysterious than that. >> Uh-huh. Reality is more mysterious than that in the same way I'm very, very, very averse, right, to dogmatic theological claims. I'm very, very averse to dogmatic new age claims, right? Even when they have some very deep grounding. They're saying something that's important, that's real. But actually, reality also is is enormously mysterious. Reality is a relationship. And it's a relationship that's filled with mystery. And there is you know, an entire world, for example, of what Bernie Siegel back in the day, 20 years ago, 25 years ago, 30 years ago when psychoneuroimmunology began, when we began to understand the relationship in a much deeper way that our grandmothers already understood, but they began to document between the, you know, the neocortex, the frontal lobes, and the and the hypothalamus, and and kind of how psychoneuroimmunology, how we actually could create or deconstruct illness in some way, and how you could, for example, you started to imagine the cancer cells. And an entire new forms of treatment emerged. And Bernie Siegel wrote a book called Love, Medicine, and Miracles about exceptional cancer patients. That's really important and really beautiful. And many people still die of cancer. Uh-huh. And that's not because they weren't doing their exercises well. And and that's the danger. The danger is, well, had you done your exercises, right? Had you had you had you actually mastered your thoughts, right? Had you not fallen back into those recursive patterns, you would have created your reality. That is simply not a sufficient explanation of cosmos. It actually has a hubris to it, an arrogance to it. It actually doesn't bow before the mystery. So, again, let me I'm going to be very, very clear. I think the work that Michael Beckwith's doing, that Dispensa's doing, are great. It's fantastic. That is a part of reality. We should do all of that. And and I do something called, you know, in in the center we're actually doing a a a a mystery school on home war more meditations, which are about how how and so it is, right? That's actually creating and manifesting reality in that sense. And then we bow. Uh-huh. That's what second person means. I mean, there's a place that there's mystery. Right? In other words, it you know, I I I went to I won't say the name of the seminar because they're good people and I don't want to disparage them. But I went to to this to two of the major seminars that are run around the world and I spoke to, you know, one that you know, the head of one of them, also a well-known name, and to to a very high-up person in in the second one. And I said, you know, in different ways to both of them, "Okay, so the logic of your system is that you've attracted this into your life." So I said, "Okay, now we're in Rwanda. 100 bad days. Hutus and Tutsis, right? 800,000 people are slaughtered. Is it because they attracted it into their lives? I don't think so, right? And I I sat with um you know, the woman who does, you know, the work. It's called The Work, you know, and it's an entire, you know, body of work. And you know, she's extremely well-known and I sat with her and she's a a wonderful person and, you know, and everyone knows knows what The Work is. I don't The name's not important right now. And and she has this basic same notion, you've attracted it into your life. Right? Which is this kind of pre-tragic It's a kind of pre-tragic >> fundamentalist new age dogma, yeah. Right? And so I said to her I said to her I said, "Well, and this is this is actually on my website. My dialogue with this person's on my website and bless her, right? And, you know, so I said, "Well, my mother was buried alive at age four. Happens to be tragically true, right? You know, by the Nazis, right? Horrible story. So I said, "Was she attracting that into her life? Was that And she Well, her her you know, what she writes in all of her well-known books she says her thoughts were creating that." And so she said to me, this is on tape, right? She says, "Well, she could have thought about as playing in a sandbox. So, I said to her [ __ ] And I said to her, I said I said, you know, I said her name and I said, you know, we could stop the recording now. This is not going well. She said, "No, no, no." And she And so we we went through it. Her husband, also a well-known figure, called me after and said, "Please don't talk to my wife anymore because you just completely confused her in this conversation. She's doing what she's doing." And I respected that. You know, she's doing important work in the work. It's called the work is doing has done many important and wonderful things and she sings something that's actually very important. I don't know. I I get a little sus when anybody puts the name the in front of something that like the work, the secret. It It's right. >> kind of go You can kind of go [ __ ] thyself if you want to if you want to if you want to claim that. Cuz honestly, like there's lots of secrets and there's lots of works. >> There's lots of secrets and lots of works and in this particular person's work it is actually I think really important and I think Joe's work is important and I think all of these things have enormous value and they're giving enormous gifts. And and what prayer is saying is I have a mysterious relationship with the infinite intimate. And there's a place in which in the relationship I love so much that I hold the relationship even in the mystery of it. Even in the uncertainty of it. Even when I can't I can't figure it out. And you know, we started with suffering. Right? Even you know, I hold the relationship sometimes when there's unbearable suffering because I've known the goodness of our intimacy. Mhm. And even though I can't explain this and and even though I've done all my prayers and my prayers somehow haven't been answered. Right? Somehow I don't evil comes in the wound. Right? And if there's any metaphysical system right, that claims to have it all worked out and if you do this, this and this, you will avoid suffering. Right? It that is that's where we want to get. We should do all the systems. And we live in a world that's filled with mystery. And I can only hold the mystery if I'm in relationship. And I think that's what Christ the Christ the Christ path was saying. Yeah. I think one of the key takeaways from this for me is just that the the real understanding that the the strongest prayer comes from the most desperate need. >> The most desperate need. >> And that story you told, you know, with with the Baal Shem Tov is such a beautiful story that because I think that, you know, you guys have been very kind with with your reflections of my intelligence, you and Derek, Derek off screen. And yes, you know, I'm I'm not dumb, but it's not actually the thing that makes that has allowed me to be where I am. It's actually something it's something else. It's, you know, and and the see the who eventually became the CEO of Onnit, he just calls it the Aubrey magic. And when does the Aubrey magic appear? Well, it doesn't appear when things are going well. It just doesn't. It's it may be caused by a moment of crisis that led us through a path where things are going well. And then when things are going well, then typically the magic starts to dissipate. And the most magical experiences of my life where I summon something that is both a prayer and a prayer in action have come from a deep need. And it reminds me of, you know, Dostoevsky, who probably wasn't a very religious fella. And I don't think he thought of it as prayer, but the story is, written by Robert Greene in his book 48 Laws of Power, Dostoevsky wrote a wrote a best-selling book, became wealthy and famous and a socialite, and then realized he couldn't write anymore. So then he goes to the gambling house, gambles away all his money, becomes broke. He needs to write another [ __ ] book. And he writes another best seller. And then he's like, [ __ ] I'm rich again. So he has to go and do it again. And and for him, the need was what created the magic of the of the art. And I see this same similar pattern and I want to change that pattern of actually having the tire on my child or the the you know, the thing So what I have to do is I have to expand my experience of need. Yeah. So that's it's so beautiful, right? So I I know the I don't know the Dostoevsky story and I'm not familiar although I know that that Green has written, but I it's not a literature I'm familiar with, but I but I love the story. But but but that your core point is is the essence of it, right? Which is neither theology of the Ernest Holmes beautiful religious science new age form nor theology of the classical form can actually create a world in which we just follow the laws, there'll be no need. Right? Actually, need and and the desperation of need and the ability to actually live in that need and act from that need and to turn to the infinite intimate from that need, to turn to the universe and to scream help me from the depth of that relationship right? Is is essential to being a human being. Right? In other words, we don't live in a world in which there are a set of laws that can dismiss suffering. Right? And and so prayer and that's true about prayer as well. You know, the Larry Dossey has written beautifully about the efficacy of prayer. And they've done, you know, entire sets of tests. He wrote an entire book about, you know, the the effect and power of prayer and I believe that prayer has, you know, enormous power and it's one of those things that Dean Radin's also, you know, written about in that world. Having said that, there is no set of laws that says that every prayer will be answered. There is a law that every prayer will be heard. Mhm. Those are not the same, right? In other words, I'm never alone. That's what prayer means, right? I'm always held in the arms of the infinite intimate. And wherever I fall, I fall into her hands. And if I'm walking to my death, right, in this lifetime, I I'm still going to be held in her hands. And so, we resist we we pray, you know, uh who is it um Coldplay? What are they called? Right, help me help me. Is that the name of the band? Yeah, there is a band called Coldplay. I don't know what >> and now we pray. They just did a song. And now we pray, right? Chris Martin, am I I got that right? Someone someone there who's in Coldplay? Who's in Coldplay? I think so. So, they have a new song Not my genre. They have a new They have a new song called and now we pray. Just a beautiful song. And it's just like they kind of got like, "Oh, we pray." Right? We pray because that's who we are. Right? We pray because that's To pray is to breathe. I mean, it's that elemental. We don't just pray, we pray for personal need, we pray to affirm the dignity of personal need, we pray to clarify our needs, we pray to have the prayer answered. That's all true. Everything we said is like deeply true, but it's it's even more basic, right? So, the Zohar writes and this is a a rough translation, the soul is constantly praying. We're constantly praying. We're in and and and the language of David Solomon's father is Anits Fila, I am prayer. Mhm. It's not I'm praying, I am prayer. Right? And as I'm I'm in constant contact with the infinite intimate. I'm always turning to God. We're in a constant conversation. We're walking together. Mhm. In that sense, that is the only thing that ameliorates loneliness and that, you know, that story that comes from the lineages that made it into popular culture is actually true. Sometimes something goes kind of banal and popular because it's actually touching a deep truth about, you know, the man walking on the beach and there's two sets of footprints and everyone knows the story and then there's a crisis and he looks behind him and there's only one set of footprints says God like, "Where'd you go?" And God says, "I'm carrying you." Mhm. The only one set of footprints. I mean, it's in that that that went from the lineages into culture and there was this realization it's actually true, right? There's we're never alone. Right? And and that is what Christ is saying. Mhm. Right? Christ who comes from the Isaiah Hebrew lineage, he's saying, "I am with you in your suffering." Mhm. >> You never suffer alone. Right? You We may live lives of quiet desperation, but there's no ultimate loneliness. We're actually never alone. We're always held. Mhm. And that second person, that's not the law, right? Of, you know, religious science. Although, that's important. That's important. We should We should do that. But but prayer means and prophecy means is that there's a conversation. And it's a deep conversation. And and God is always talking to me. Literally, personally, directly, intimately, whispering it and I've got to learn to decipher the witness the the whispers and to disambiguate the God voice and know what's the God voice and what's the plumber. But I want to be listening because God is talking to me directly. Nachman calls it Nachman of Breslov, Kafka's favorite, you know, master. He calls it remeze derech. Right? There's these The world is strewn with intimate divine hints and whispers that talk directly to me. That second person, that's prophecies coming at me all the time. And prophecies are invitations to my future. Mhm. Memories of my future, right? The call from the future. And and I'm praying all the time. Mhm. I'm always praying. And and that's that I live in the in the in the great conversation of prayer and prophecy. That's what it means to be the new human. It's not the regressive version. We're intoxicated with that conversation. That's the conversation that that we live in. I think for everybody also there's Yeah. There's a there is that that whisper, that leisha, that that kind of whisper that tells you different things. And sometimes that whisper gets loud. I mean, I I know a story from, you know, my stepfather. SWAT team squad leader in Compton couldn't be further from religious or spiritual at this point. And he's got a he's got his, you know, battle plan. They got to go. There's a hostage in this house and there's this whole situation and etc. And he's supposed to go down the alley. And they're they're going to come in from all sides, but he's going to come in from the side of the alley. He hears this voice. It says, "Do not go down that alley." And this puts his whole team in jeopardy because that was his to cover. That was his So, it's not what he wanted to hear. And he's not a scared type of individual. >> met Steve. He's not. >> He's not. So, he goes, "Okay." For whatever reason, he listened. And then he and with the adrenaline pumping etc., he walks around the alley on the other side of the fence, sees somebody with a shotgun pointed through a bush ready to ambush anybody who walked down the alley. And puts him under arrest. Right. And so, these whispers come and they sometimes come when we expect it and when we least expect it and when we don't know and but I feel like there's a way for us if we really kind of quiet down that we can hear that whisper and whether it's through the intercessor of our own holy guardian angel, our own daemon, this own, you know, personal figure that communicates through our unique self or whether it's from the divine itself, it almost doesn't matter at that point because I think the the more you go, the more they're already connected to the whole itself. So, whether it's coming through a a channel or not, it it's really it is God speaking to you in that point and I think it's it's so important to listen to the whispers and I I really know those times where I hear something and I listen and when I actually know that I would hear something and I I turn the face. You know, I I sit rock. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, whatever. And it's not often that I do that, but I will because I'll know that this thing I'm doing is for Noah, it's for comfort. It's not for actually my higher progress. Like this is a comfortable easy choice. The whispers that come typically have intense consequences and demand intense sacrifices. That's right. >> And like deep faith. And that is a good litmus test for the whispers. And also if it's if it's super in alignment with your desire like like your your carnal desire, not your deepest heart's desire, but it's like, oh, yeah, like go, you know, go hit that third bump of ketamine in a row, for sure. >> That might not be the God voice. >> That might not be it. That might not be it, right. >> like it like, yeah, pop open that incognito window and hit xvideos.com, bro. >> not be the God voice. >> That might not be it. That might not be it. If the God voice comes as a confirmation for your egoic grasping. Careful. If the God voice comes and demands depths of devotion. Right? If the God voice comes and and serves the larger field, right? And that actually opens up new windows of the good. New windows of the true, new windows of the beautiful. And points you in a direction which you might not have been brave enough to reach towards. Right? And it actually opens up and points to a a field of courage. Then then you have to listen. You know, I I was privileged to write a couple of volumes I'm called a radical Kabbalah, you know, in Oxford. Which are you know, I wrote too many pages as I often do like 1,500 pages and published just a few hundred of them, but it was about the Aramaic Hebrew Solomon lineage of the direct God voice. It's about this exactly. This is This is the question of radical Kabbalah. And the question is, well, there's a Torah. The Torah tells you how to live in the classical lineage tradition, there's law. So, is there a God voice that suspends the convention of law and that demands that you even break the law or bracket the law for a moment in order to respond to that God voice. And that's called or what I called it you know, I gave it this name, but it's in the lineage. That's called the Judah archetype. And Judah is the ancestor of Solomon. And Solomon is David's son and David is Leonard Cohen. Hallelujah. And Leonard Cohen's song Hallelujah is about in the first stanza David birthing Solomon. That's Cohen's point. Cohen's point was oh, even though it all went wrong I stand before the lord of song with nothing on my tongue, nothing on my lips but hallelujah. Or there's a blaze of light in every word, it doesn't matter which I heard the holy or the broken hallelujah. And hallelujah means drunken intoxication and the pristine clarity of the god voice. Hallelu, praise ya, I hear the voice of god. And Cohen got this intuitively and the hallelujah song is a prayer. It's a prayer. It's a prayer and a prophecy. It's a it's a hope and it's a vision. And there's more covers of that song sung around the world more than any other song because there's this intuitive recognition of of something right there. And so he's describing intuitively Cohen, not not consciously, he's describing the lineage. He's describing David and Solomon who are expressions of the Judah archetype and and the principle is very very simple. Right? You listen so clearly. Right? And you listen again and you listen again and you listen again. And you ask yourself a question. Just literally ask yourself, is this the real god voice? Quietly. And the answer will come. You'll know immediately if it's not. Mhm. You'll know immediately. Right? Is this the real god voice? And and then you ask, who does it serve? Who does this god voice serve? And then you ask you move into the future and you say how will this look in 10 years? How will this look in 20 years? Meaning, not just does it have integrity now, but if I can borrow a phrase from my friend who passed, Michael Dowd, Michael talked about evolutionary integrity. Does it have integrity over time? So for example, uh as you as you've made this this decision to create this this holy family, right? So so there's slings and arrows of people who feel that it's challenging, you know, kind of the classical structure. But, over the next 5 years and 10 years and 15 years and 20 years, right? This structure will will birth something in the world. And it will it will open something. Yeah. Right? And and even if it all goes wrong, I'll stand before the Lord of song. >> it all goes wrong, >> with nothing on my lips but hallelujah. >> I'll stand before the Lord of song and say I did my best and I did it with purity and I did it with care and I did it with kindness. And and I actually, you know, you know, to talk about something which is nothing we we usually talk about, but you know, after that, you know, that podcast back then, you know, you know, when people talk to me about it, you know, I said to them, I've actually watched all and I've watched by and I've watched a lot of and actually they're living in a world of of of integrity, of kindness, of care, of of tenderness, right? Of goodness. And and that's a courageous thing to do. Right? And and and they're not actually claiming this is the lifestyle. They're saying this is our choice, our God voice. And what I said then and I say now and stand by, right? I would stake my life on it. The evolution of love is, right? To be able to actually live in the integrity of love and commitment, in all of its disguises. Right? And to do that in response to a God voice is holy. Now, is it true that a person could, right? Claim the God voice for the sake of some form of entitlement? Of course. Of course that's true. Is it true that the erotic sexual in all of its beauty can be reduced to the pornographic. Well, of course that's true. The fact that something can be reduced to the pornographic, right, doesn't mean that we don't have the beauty of the erotic. Right? The more beautiful, the more luminous the light, the more potential for for distortion. But I was then and I remain now, right? enormously proud of people who are willing to do the deep discernment, the hard work, and to disambiguate, and to live in response to the God voice, which creates devotion, which creates more good, which creates more beauty, which creates more truth. Right? That is that's the world we need to live in. And we're we so don't feel in modern culture, right, the resonance of the God voice cuz we've been told it doesn't exist. So we can only imagine that if someone hears the God voice, they must be crazy. Cuz it doesn't exist. So if it doesn't exist and someone claims to hear it, they're pathological. And sometimes they are crazy. And sometimes they are. I don't I can't tell you I'm That's why we have false prophets. >> I've had an abominable number of people tell me that they're Jesus. Uh an act I think >> Right? A really asymmetrical amount have come to me to claim, like, "Hey, I just want to let you know, I'm that Just letting you know. I'm that guy." I'm that guy. Oh, no. Oh, no. Right? >> What guy? Of course there's distortions. >> Right. Right? There's everything gets distorted. But we don't take the voice of God out of our lives because it can get distorted. We actually take responsibility to discern and listen and disambiguate the God voice. And if the God voice is real, it's calling us to more commitment. It's calling us to more integrity. It's calling us to more kindness. It's calling us to more truth. It's calling us to more gifting. It's calling us to more devotion. Yeah. That's how we know it's the God voice. Yeah. Yeah. And and even deeper sacrifice in a way. >> and there's no split between intimacy and sacrifice. Yeah. >> The intimate act is the sacrificial act. You know that. And so we have to stand in that. Our friend Paul Selig, who we got to spend a couple days with and it's beautiful to watch you guys go back and forth. I really recommend you guys check out the material we've put out between Mark and Paul. But you know, one of the things he says, he's a channel. And I think you know, as clear a channel as I've known. Someone who's doesn't claim, you know, the the personal contact, but of course there is everybody has a hermeneutic prism, so everything is channeled through Paul. But it's he's he's very clean with what he's receiving. And and so I trust him. You know, and also I'm not afraid like Abraham and like the you know, like the great people who've challenged the God voice to to challenge certain elements of that as well. >> Paul and I had a go with it. We had a big go. >> neither were you. You know, and ultimately there was a greater resolution that came from the challenging. But I I think his just if we want to get really clear on this, be very careful. And this is something he taught me. Be very careful of a voice that inspires more fear into your body. Not not not like awareness of a potential danger, but fear. The visceral sense of of fear, free-floating anxiety. Or something that strokes your ego. Yeah. Like those voices, whether they're causing you to be in fear or causing you to be you know, lean towards inflation. Those two things are you have to be the most highly suspect of. >> Yeah. Yeah, and and and and and and the God voice that basically says, I am going to the the God voice of the aristocrat that says, I am going to reify your privilege is probably not the God voice. Yeah. All right, so the God voice is comes to every man, woman, and child. Every place in the world and and the idea that God has stopped talking is absurd. It is really absurd actually. >> would mean that God has stopped caring. And actually anyone who's had an actual direct experience of the divine which is available right? Which is what we do when we practice, when we pray, when we dance all the way, right? When when we journey, when we study a sacred text, when we enter into the field of value, you actually feel the divine embrace and and the notion that that divine embrace has gone cold is simply a lie. It is simply a lie. Right? And it's got to be called out. Right? The devil's a liar. Right? And and it's got to be called out. No, no, God is mysterious. God is not subject always to the law. God's not a cosmic vending machine. Right? The mystery There's always mystery, but there's always relationship. There's always the infinite intimate. Right? The divine voice hears every prayer, right? And affirms the dignity of need and wants us to transform. And wants our good. The divine desires our good. And in the end that's a lot. Uh that's a lot. It's all of us. Yeah. It's all of us. It's all of us. And and the paradoxically, you know, the this is this is Cain and Abel. You know, I mean one brother gives the best sacrifice the the most is is plumpest best of his flock. And the other brother gives second rate sacrifices. >> Cain. Yeah. And there's a difference and I think Jordan Peterson elucidates this very well when he when he retells the story. Like life is about what are you willing to sacrifice to the highest and that could be your highest which is also inseparable from God's highest because God lives in you as you through you and beyond you. So your highest and God's highest when those two meet together and form a braid. And I really like that idea of the braid where your will and God's will are not they're not homogeneous. They're threads in a braid. So if you had a blue and a red thread, you know, you have a blue and a red braid and the but it's one braid. But it's the same braid. And and that's I think the the path of anyone who follows who really wants to follow this path of God. It's it's communication towards and and it's it's talking and it's listening. Yeah. We're we're in a constant conversation with God. And that's the ultimate liberation from loneliness and it's the ultimate calling. Right? To to be the new human and to create the new world. Which is the utter the the utter calling, the utter demand and the utter joy of our lives today. Mhm. Ciao. Ciao. Let's go. And in this world that we're in we need we need people to need we need need we need the people to need this better world that we know is possible. >> Yeah, we we need it desperately. Yeah. Thank you, brother. Thank you. Ciao. Ciao. We love you guys. Thanks for tuning into this video. Make sure you hit subscribe, follow me at Aubrey Marcus, check out the Aubrey Marcus podcast available everywhere and leave a comment. Let me know if this video resonated or what else you would like to hear from me in the future. Thank you so much.