Why it's ok to be lost | Shamil Chandaria — Transcript

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1. 0:00Everything comes out of nothing and is
2. 0:02made of nothing. It never ceases to be
3. 0:04nothing. That is the great miracle.
4. 0:07That's the great miracle that sets up
5. 0:09the entire fantasmagoria we call
6. 0:12existence. It is nothing convincingly
7. 0:16pretending to be something while never
8. 0:18ceasing to be nothing. Um that
9. 0:21realization I had during a dinner with
10. 0:25two friends in a noisy restaurant. Um,
11. 0:28and I was only in my first glass of
12. 0:32wine. So, it was not an abbriation. It
13. 0:34just hit me like a 2x4 in my face. It
14. 0:38just just came to me. It wasn't through
15. 0:41meditation. Um, I was not taking
16. 0:45psychedelics. It just just hit me out of
17. 0:48left field for no reason. I cannot tell
18. 0:51you any plausible causal chain that led
19. 0:56to that. I was definitely not in an
20. 0:58enlightened state of mind. It just like
21. 1:02exploded in front of my eyes and and and
22. 1:05then I could not help but see it. You
23. 1:07know, you can't wish it away. Once you
24. 1:09see it, you can't unsee it and stayed
25. 1:13with me forever. Ever since then, it's
26. 1:14been now some 10 years, maybe more.
27. 1:18That's that's really beautiful that and
28. 1:20and there are many
29. 1:22and the way that
30. 1:25some people talk about that is emptiness
31. 1:28which is that you saw that everything
32. 1:30was empty but
33. 1:33in a in a in a deep sense this miracle
34. 1:39that nothingness
35. 1:42is pregnant with infinite potentiality
36. 1:46And
37. 1:48the real miracle is like how
38. 1:53nothingness weaves itself into such a
39. 1:55story that makes it
40. 2:00>> seem substantial
41. 2:01>> seem substantial. That is actually
42. 2:04amazing.
43. 2:05>> Yeah.
44. 2:06>> Uh that is a real miracle that that that
45. 2:08took about 13.6 billion years or
46. 2:11whatever you know like
47. 2:14>> it's actually fantastic and Um
48. 2:19and that can give a sense of
49. 2:23deep reverence, gratitude or
50. 2:28just aesthetic
51. 2:32uh uh uh uh you know appreciation of
52. 2:35like wow the whole thing is this miracle
53. 2:39of and and and how it's happening. The
54. 2:42fact that you know when you go deep into
55. 2:45meditation
56. 2:48movement and stillness,
57. 2:51movement being the sort of archetype of
58. 2:53of of manifestation of of of creation of
59. 2:56from something from nothing, stillness
60. 2:58being being nothing.
61. 3:02You see that
62. 3:05that somehow
63. 3:08they are made of the same. They're
64. 3:10nothing but
65. 3:12>> there's nothing there.
66. 3:15Nothing ever happened.
67. 3:18I'm probably too lumpen. My reaction to
68. 3:21it was to have a laugh.
69. 3:23Uh my reaction to it was to look around
70. 3:26and then
71. 3:28check the inside. So none of this is
72. 3:31happening. None of this exists. And a
73. 3:33very clear answer, of course not. And
74. 3:36then I was like, come on, really? get
75. 3:39out of here. And I start and and I
76. 3:41started laughing. And I was with two
77. 3:43friends who are a little further ahead
78. 3:45in life than I am. And then they looked
79. 3:48at me with a smile and said, "You were
80. 3:50sort of catatonic and out of it for half
81. 3:53an hour because I was I was just having
82. 3:56a laugh. It's to me it wasn't deep. It
83. 4:00was like a joke, like a cosmic joke. Uh
84. 4:05um very a very funny one. Uh
85. 4:09yeah, I don't know. I don't know. Maybe
86. 4:10it's I'm [laughter] something's wrong
87. 4:13with
88. 4:13>> No, no. The cosmic joke is absolutely.
89. 4:15So these are the these are these are
90. 4:17what are called insights, okay? Or
91. 4:19epiphanies or insights. And the cosmic
92. 4:21joke
93. 4:24is is is very deep
94. 4:27is very deep in a sense that
95. 4:33so I tune into the beauty often or the
96. 4:36reverence and in you know this aesthetic
97. 4:38but there is this you know another way
98. 4:40to tune into it which is
99. 4:43which is
100. 4:46all the drama and the [laughter]
101. 4:49>> you No, the the this is a game and I
102. 4:52need to and the whole thing. What? What
103. 4:55the hell?
104. 4:56>> Nothing's happening.
105. 4:57>> The whole thing is just a complete and
106. 5:00utter like what? You know,
107. 5:04>> you you do find space for humor there.
108. 5:06Uh
109. 5:07>> yeah, absolutely. No, and I and I too
110. 5:11wrong.
111. 5:11>> No, no, no. I' I've had that cosmic
112. 5:13joke. It's like totally like just
113. 5:15laughing. But you know that's because
114. 5:19we're coming from relieving the tensions
115. 5:23that were there and you're unwinding
116. 5:25them. But when the tensions get unwound
117. 5:28and you get used to it, then the beauty
118. 5:30and the love and the kind of awe and
119. 5:33reverence and and and majesty and like
120. 5:36also wanting to play the game. Now you
121. 5:38know it's a joke. I want to play this
122. 5:40game of Monopoly. It really really
123. 5:42matters. And now you know what? I'm
124. 5:45going to come and play beautifully with
125. 5:48my family and d you know as in and and
126. 5:52actually put on the clothes the garbs of
127. 5:56a actor and play it and be this
128. 6:02you know amazing
129. 6:04uh uh uh
130. 6:07gift that's going on you know and so the
131. 6:11the there are there are these
132. 6:13interesting different lenses is because
133. 6:15there's elephant in the blind. There's
134. 6:17no
135. 6:20these are ways of holding these these
136. 6:24these deep things the ways of looking
137. 6:25and different traditions have different
138. 6:27ways. You know the Buddha some of the
139. 6:29Buddhists can like oh you just be a body
140. 6:31suffer and we we we we help to alleviate
141. 6:35the suffering of others or we could
142. 6:38become you know just Sufi or in
143. 6:41reverence like look at this great
144. 6:42beautiful thing and I want to connect or
145. 6:45you can be Christian love or you can be
146. 6:47very zen ordinary chopping wood and
147. 6:51carrying water is just extraordinary you
148. 6:54know there are these different ways of
149. 6:56holding
150. 6:57>> that's The thing I don't have, that's
151. 6:58why I said I'm I'm not an authority at
152. 7:00all in in in awakening and
153. 7:02enlightenment. I get sucked right in
154. 7:05again. Um, it's my natural state to get
155. 7:08sucked right back into the game and
156. 7:11completely lose the awareness that
157. 7:13nothing's happening. I can evoke that
158. 7:15awareness again at will. Like I I did it
159. 7:18during this conversation. I went back to
160. 7:20that mind space. Oh yeah, none of this
161. 7:22is actually happening. None of this
162. 7:24actually exists. This a cosmic joke. I
163. 7:27can tiptoe there again. I can dip my big
164. 7:29toe in that lake at will, but not for
165. 7:33long.
166. 7:34>> Yeah,
167. 7:34>> I get sucked right back in. And and I
168. 7:38got to a point where
169. 7:41and it's a good point. This is not a
170. 7:43complaint. I I I'm in complete peace
171. 7:46with the fact that I'm that's what I can
172. 7:49do. I can dip my toe occasionally and
173. 7:52not more. And I'm not even trying
174. 7:55anymore. I'm perfectly in peace with
175. 7:57being right back into the game into the
176. 7:59demonic play and taking it very
177. 8:01seriously and suffering and and all this
178. 8:04show. Uh I I found peace in not
179. 8:10trying to change
180. 8:12what I am and what capabilities I have
181. 8:15or don't have. I have accepted my faith.
182. 8:18Let let me put it this way. and and and
183. 8:20that's a level of meta peace
184. 8:22>> meaning I I I don't indulge in meta
185. 8:24suffering anymore but I do I do suffer
186. 8:28>> honestly that you've put it very very
187. 8:31beautifully and by the way there are
188. 8:35examples of people who have done this
189. 8:38and you you know I almost have used this
190. 8:41word meta
191. 8:43meta piece or like okay with being lost
192. 8:47>> yeah I'm fine
193. 8:49[laughter] and and and and
194. 8:52actually that is
195. 8:55in the end I will say because I'm not
196. 8:59see I don't believe in perfection. Uh I
197. 9:02I think that all of us constantly get
198. 9:06lost and find and lost and find and and
199. 9:10in the end the real thing is exactly
200. 9:13what you talk about that recognizing
201. 9:15that even that cycle of of be lost and
202. 9:19found is part of the cycle is part of
203. 9:23like there is a meta awareness that that
204. 9:25is going on that oh I was lost again
205. 9:27look at that I got really caught up you
206. 9:29know and and and knowing that and then
207. 9:32other people say, "Yeah, okay." But like
208. 9:36check out kind of having every day a
209. 9:40period where we really allow the system
210. 9:46to to to to really um see the day
211. 9:50reification of everything
212. 9:53and and soak in that for 20 minutes or
213. 9:55half an hour, an hour. Um and then go
214. 10:00about your day. And what you do is you
215. 10:01bring a little bit of quality and then
216. 10:03you get more and more lost. And then and
217. 10:05then over time what happens is that you
218. 10:09start to notice that certain things
219. 10:14get you more lost like emotional
220. 10:16patterns. And then there are mindfulness
221. 10:20bells that go off. You start to program
222. 10:22that every time this reaction happens,
223. 10:25you look at the reaction
224. 10:27and that sort of you get sort of sort of
225. 10:30recognition. And then
226. 10:33what happens is that like you slowly
227. 10:36just through a kind of habituation
228. 10:38sense, you slowly those triggers that
229. 10:42tend to really wrap you into the story
230. 10:46get loosened and so we float more easily
231. 10:50through life. But you still play in
232. 10:51life. This is I you know these are paths
233. 10:54and these are anywhere you want to go
234. 10:56and like I think this met you know what
235. 10:58you what you have in meta
236. 11:01piece is is absolutely beautiful. I just
237. 11:06I tend to say, "Hey, check out this cool
238. 11:09way of
239. 11:11doing something called
240. 11:14auto extinction therapy,
241. 11:17which is the patterns that tend to be
242. 11:19really sticky.
243. 11:21You make them a little bit of an object
244. 11:23throughout your day and then over time
245. 11:25they get less sticky." And also go in
246. 11:29the ocean or the river once a day.
247. 11:33You can
248. 11:35>> there's a um a meditation teacher that I
249. 11:39admire from Tibet, Mingorache. Uh but
250. 11:42there's a clip that just went on YouTube
251. 11:44where he shares something that is
252. 11:45normally kept a bit more private. Um as
253. 11:49a traditional meditation instruction in
254. 11:52Tibet, uh I think for beginners and
255. 11:54advanced people, which is to meditate
256. 11:56like an old cow peas. Uh because an old
257. 12:00cow peas um very little many times a
258. 12:03day. There's not like a long continuous
259. 12:06stream. It's just a little comes out and
260. 12:08nothing happens for a while then a
261. 12:09little that comes out and so to meditate
262. 12:12just a tiny bit throughout the day kind
263. 12:14of. So that's something Bernardo if you
264. 12:15wanted you could do if you said you can
265. 12:18call it up at will for a split second
266. 12:19that's actually the perfect this was an
267. 12:21excerpt from one of the weekly Q&A with
268. 12:23Bernardo Castra and you can find the
269. 12:25whole video at with realityinmind.com
270. 12:28you also get access to live Q&As with
271. 12:31Bernardo every week uh which often
272. 12:33include special guests like Michael
273. 12:35Leaven, Rupert Spear, Kristoff Co, many
274. 12:39other amazing scientists, philosophers,
275. 12:41mystics, meditators, academics
276. 12:44And it's also a chance as a closed group
277. 12:46to hear Bernardo's more private
278. 12:49intuitions and for us to share personal
279. 12:52perspectives on the ramifications and
280. 12:55implications of considering idealist
281. 12:58philosophy in our personal lives. So
282. 13:00again, you can find us at
283. 13:01withrealityinmind.com
284. 13:04and get access to live weekly meetings
285. 13:07and a recorded archive of previous
286. 13:09meetings.