Pete Holmes on Discovering Spiritual Truths

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Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have quotes like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think ring true, and yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not

just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction, how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us. Our guests on this episode is Pete Holmes. He's an American comedian, actor, writer, producer, and podcaster, and in this episode, Pete and Eric discussed his book Comedy Sex God. Hi. Pete, welcome to the show. Hi, thanks

for having me. I'm excited to have you on. We're going to discuss your book, Comedy Sex God, as well as some of the things I've heard you say on your podcast. But before we do that, let's start like we always do, with the parable. There is a grandfather who's talking with his granddaughter and he says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always

at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the granddaughter stops and she thinks about it for a second, and she looks up at her grandfather and she says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that

you do. What's funny. I knew that you were gonna ask me that, but I hadn't thought about it until just now. But I was just driving in my car. I was thinking about how I would never get a bumper sticker, because there's no way that I feel all of the time. If that makes sense, it's it's the same reason I wouldn't want to get a tattoo. There's so many pizza as. I'm sure there's so many erics. There's just so many of us in there um to

sort of add on to the parable. A lot of the art that I enjoy, and certainly the art that I try to make, is trying to honor the idea that there are so many of us in there. And I think it's preposterous when people speak with such authority on who they are or even how they feel, without acknowledging that it's just who they are in the moment

or how they feel in the moment. But I was literally just thinking that, Like I was once tempted to get the bumper sticker, don't believe everything you think, right, And I was like, that's fine, but I don't always feel that way, and I don't want to be the car that represents that idiom, you know what I mean, What if I cut somebody off or something like, then they're embittered towards that perspective, because I was driving poorly that day, because as much as I'd like to be

a person who drives courteously, sometimes I'm not, Like I like to delete those files from my memory so I can feel good about myself. But the truth is that sometimes I make bad choices on the road, and I don't want a beautiful thought like that staple to my bad behavior. So I was just kind of thinking about that. And I was also just talking to somebody just this morning about the way that the brain works. And there's the oldest part of our brain, which is the lizard brain,

which is what's responsible for eating, killing, and mating. And then there's the newest part of our brain, which is

unique to humans. A smarter person would know what these parts are called, or somebody with a better memory maybe, But that's the part that's responsible for like communal thinking and spirituality and uh not just like should I eat it, have sex with it, or kill it, but it goes is it good for the community to take this or to save it, or to nerve trip, or to grow it, or to harvest it, all these things, So this parable is is very wise and it's it's certainly worthy of

having a podcast as you do, because they're clearly are literally different impulses coming from the same brain. So that's what that means to me is even when it comes to something like alcohol or um pornography or binge eating, just eating a whole bag of Doritos or something, it's very helpful for me to consider that those things are coming from my brain stem that's very scared sort of um fearful horde mentality part of me that was installed to keep us alive. It's it's one of the reasons

why we evolved and stuff. But it just sort of wants to light up the pleasure centers as much as it can. But um, it's not a thoughtful part. It's not a wise part. It's not the best part of humanity. It's just sort of like the base part of humanity, and that is the bad wool for whatever. Although I'm sure I can't be the first person that takes issue with bad and good in that parable. No, you're not. You know, sometimes we need simple language like that, so

another part of me is okay with it. So that is the bad part, and the good part definitely needs conscious attention. That's why I think it's so interesting that something like compassion meditation works. Just taking a moment to consider the people that you love or the people that you forgive, or the people that have loved or forgiven you, and how that can broaden your scope and the way that you behave in the world and the world that you live in, literally the way that you perceive the world.

That's how I take that. I mean, we can, especially these days, have pretty much any food delivered, We can have any sexual fantasy acted out in front of us on a computer. We can drink and weed is legal so many places. We can we can stimulate our pleasure centers, but that is not the point of life. In fact, it's it's really a passion of mine to try and point out that that's a fool's errand is to try

and just be on a beech eating ice cream. Is an example I've used before because I was on a beach eating ice cream, and you think, like, that's it, right, I mean, you've done it. You're in Hawaii, you're eating an ice cream Sunday. But that is not what life is. This is me paraphrasing Rhamda's basically is you finished the

ice cream, and now you want water. And then you have the water, and then you have to go to the bathroom, and then you go to the bathroom, and then your board and you watch TV and then you're tired, and then you sleep and you wake up and you're groggy, and you have coffee and your perky but now you need food. It's this endless, hedonic, mind numbing treadmill that is not what life is. Life is the fundamental, unchanging,

unborn energy that's observing those changes in you. But so many of us have lost sight of the joy and the bliss and the equanimity of being that we get really obsessed with just lighting up our pleasure centers and doing stuff which is stupid. You just do it and then you die one day and you go, well that was fun, I guess right. And the problem is the more we light up those pleasure centers in a lot of cases, the less we're able to appreciate even those

smaller things. I was having to talk with his zen teacher earlier today and we were talking about how being able to find some pleasure, enjoyment, value, and oneness in every day is really important. But that comes by looking at really ordinary things. But pleasure centers don't focus on ordinary things typically. That's exactly right. They turned the volume

down on ordinary things. I recently, well not that recently, it's been a couple of years, but UM stopped looking at pornography, and I noticed that the scintillating and I don't just mean sexually, just the vibrancy of everyday life got turned up, UM extremely high. And that is the bat like stopping pornography because it's bad is not appealing. Stopping any sort of disruption because it's bad doesn't work. It's willpower. It's what Richard Gord calls willpower Christianity. It's stupid.

It's like an ego trip, and it's beating yourself up, but stopping something like pornography because it brings the juice back to your life that is compelling. And the more we get addicted to whatever it might be that um lights up those centers, the more we're dulled to what I think Christ was referring to as the kingdom of heaven being here, the fullness of life, the eternal moment being here, and now that gets turned down, the more you just sort of rubbed the fun parts. I'm not

even being crude. I just mean in your brain to rubbing those parts, just like here's the sugar one, here's the booze one, here's the weed one, here's the movie one.

Just constantly doing that, and that's what so many of us are doing because that's what's being offered to us, when really, as maybe this en person was saying, finding the immediacy and the joy in traffic or in a delayed flight or in a bad meal, a date that isn't clicking, if you can still get in touch with the light inside of you, with your base consciousness, that's where the only joy worth pursuing rests. That's not to say that I don't try and achieve things and make

things and have relationships. But all of the things that I make achieve in the relationships that I have, hopefully or in the service of me becoming more in tune with what it is that I really am and what it is we really are. Yeah, let's pivot for a second, although not very far, because you come from a sort of I don't know if you'd use the word born again Christian, but certainly evangelical Christian background, and you've really

grown a long way out of that. In your new book, you say something that I really like, and you are talking about sin, and you spent a lot of your life being obsessed, as you were saying earlier, with things being bad. Don't do that because it's bad. Don't do that because God will be mad, God will pull his love away. But ultimately that's transformed to you to a point where you look at it as sin isn't a bad thing, it's about being unconscious, that's right. Yeah, And

that's Kartole says that sin is unconsciousness. I can't remember if I say it in the book, but the way that I look at it now is that it's just static on the radio it's something that's disrupting your connection and your connection to consciousness, which is God, which is life itself. So sins, whether they be stealing from your neighbor, or being jealous or petty or lying, these are things that have been reduced to like euro upsetting a god

who's gonna torch you for those things later. I actually think it can happen a lot more immediately that you're you're sort of you're only hurting yourself basically, and when you start to, as Romdust says it, when you start to clean up your game, you notice that you can lean into that connection that's available to you here and now, as opposed to waiting until you die, which was what I was taught. So sin used to make my skin crawl, And now when I think about sin, I just think

of it as static on the radio. You just want the signal to be coming in clean, because that's where the juice and the life and the vitality and the excitement and the joy and the equanimity and the peace are. It's not so much um for it's not at all for an afterlife reward or even to be perceived as a good person. It's just it's something that pays out immediately, right, Yeah, no,

I love that idea. Static on the radio is a is a really good way to think of It makes me think of a song by a guy named Jim White, who's really an amazing musician. He's written another hilarious song I think you would appreciate called God was drunk when he made Me, but he deeply spiritual artist beautiful, but static on the radio. Yeah, I've always heard of it as you know, sin missing the mark. I think that's a literal finishing. Yeah, I missing the more. I like that.

So let me ask you a question. You you referenced a minute ago. You use these words, but I want to kind of bring them up. And it's the tension between being and doing. You're somebody who does a lot, right, You've got a podcast, you've got HBO specials, you go on tour, you create and produce a lot, and yet being is also really important for you. And I'm curious how in your own life you look at how to sort of balance those two things, or how to integrate

those two things. Maybe it's a different way to look at it, but I'm interested in that tension for you. Yeah, it's a great question. It's a lifelong question. I suppose Ron Does wrote a book about meditation. I forget what it's called. It has the word meditation in the title, but they are all these quotes in it. It's more of a handbook than it is necessarily like an original work.

There's a lot of quotes in there, and one of them that I like, and I'm badly paraphrasing it is there like when there's a task to do, doing the task is one tenth of the task, and maintaining your center is nine tenths of the task. And I was like, I think that's right on. So that's why I was trying to be careful when I was like, I'm not against doing things. I'm an achiever. I come alive when I achieve. I've tried to clean up psychologically why it

feels so good for me to achieve. It used to be a little bit more egocentric and a little bit more selfish, but I still enjoy it. I still like making things. I believe that the creative energy behind everything that we call God is creative and therefore creating a sort of mirroring creation and mirroring the Creator. I think it can be really beautiful. But that being said, you know, I'm sorry to keep quoting around us so much. She's on my mind today. You know knowledge, but you are wise.

So I think that's such a key thing is you can know a lot of facts, you can know a lot of theology. It's sort of like comedy. You can understand why some thing is funny and how to write a joke or how to write a script, but like, you have to be funny. That's that's actually the advice that round Us gave me about comedy was like, just be funny. Don't do funny, be funny. And I actually think that's why people enjoy the live shows when they when they do, is because I'm trying to be something

with them. We're trying to create something together. It's also similar to love making. I suppose, like people can know what the mechanics of sex are, but like the nuance of being present in that act is what makes it truly can make it truly wonderful and divine. So I think we're very obsessed with doing and achieving and letting people see what we're doing. You know, you can't go to the beach without instagramming it, so people can validate that you were at the beach and that you look

so happy. But I mean, everybody knows that actually being happy at the beach, or they should know, is so much more important than if a thousand people like a photo of you looking like you were happy at the beat. I'm not sure most people do know that a lot of time anymore. No, I don't think they do. And I know maybe we sound like old men, but we were just on the beach a couple of days ago, and my wife and I we're doing our best without judgment.

I mean to look watch this young woman who, for maybe no exaggeration, thirty minutes kept getting up and then going back to a blanket, getting up, going back to a blanket thirty minutes um because she was taking a photo with the timer of herself, and we just watched

her with a mix of you know, fascination. There was some judgment there, if I'm being honest, and also humor, just like, look at what we've become is you know, she was trying maybe I'll turn my butt out, maybe I'll kneel, maybe I'll mess my hair up, and then watching her go back and then clearly not like the photo, and then do it again, like should make a displeasure face, And I was like, it doesn't even matter. Like you know, in the eighties, that would have been the most embarrassing

thing you could have done. That would have drawn a crowd if someone was doing that. But now so much of reality is just doing life. It's non resistance, basically, is is trying to see the value and the juice and the life in everything. That's why I was saying traffic or a delayed flight, most people are waiting. They're postponing their happiness, they're postponing their equanimity until things are going their way. But you know this the spiritual practices

trying to have that non resistance. The way that I phrase it in the book is is no matter what's happening, you say yes, thank you to it. I think, yes thank you is it's for me personally. One of my favorite mantras. It's obviously it's an English it's not esoteric, it's not strange. But when when you are suffering, your brain, your lizard brain, has absolutely no idea what to do.

When you don't participate with the misery, and you just say yes, thank you, this too, this too will be the sacrifice that I make to hopefully being on a higher state. Even this discomfort, even this pain, even this frustration, even this depression, whatever it might be, you sort of sacrifice it through. You don't hold on to it. I literally picture myself as as like a cosmic tube and I'm feeling this angst and I pass it through and

I go this too. I'll put this on the on the serving tray for the universe as well, and I go there, I am a human being really feeling torment right now, and I say thank you to this as well, not just ice cream on the beach because it's melting and and your lactose intolerant, you know, it's not it's not working. Just just being here and saying yes to this right now, no matter what you're doing, is the

kingdom of heaven, as far as I can tell. Yeah, I think that is in some ways the deepest teaching is to say, you know, I love that, yes, thanks. How to allow everything to be exactly the way it is? And the moments in my life that have blown my head off are when I somehow managed to truly wander into that neighborhood where I just kept saying yes, yes, yes, for the life of me. I still, you know, I can only find my way back there occasionally, but it

is by somehow just truly letting go. And it's also this is Sharon Salizburg says, it's the return. We all lose it. That's important to point out. We all lose it. And sometimes you even have to fake it. You know. Sometimes I'll be touring around and I'll be doing press or something, and sometimes you have to get up really early for some morning show or something, and so it's like four thirty and you went to bed at twelve the night before and you're so exhausted. This sounds a

little Tony Robbins. I don't mean it to be like kind of sounding like just just get psyched, you know. I don't mean that. I just mean even in that time when I'm not feeling it, it can be even more powerful. And that's my point. As you're saying yes, thank you, even to your not believing in the power of yes, thank you, You're like, I am a person not even believing that this will help me, And I'm

grateful for even that. Ja Krishna Murty, who was a great um Indian saint, he never really gave teachings until the end of his life. And I heard this from Macartole, but he said, do you want to know my secret? And all of these followers were like, yeah, we want to know your secret. We've been following you for forty years waiting for you to give us a teaching And he said, my secret is I don't mind what happens. And I was like, that's kind of the whole thing.

That's what I think Jesus is saying when he says, look at the birds of the air, they're not worried about what they're gonna eat or what they're gonna do. I know, human beings obviously have to do some planning, but there's a way to plan and be present while you're planning. Just plan while you're planning, and stop planning when you're not planning. Easier said than done. But I mean there's something to non resistance. But your ego, for whatever reason, loves to exist. And when I say your ego,

I mean the story of you. I mean your likes, your dislikes, where you're from, your sports teams, your favorite foods, all of these thoughts that build this mosaic that you think is you, and that mosaic wants you for some reason, wants you to think that that is you, so it sort of possesses you, um, and it's always trying to trick you. One of the techniques that it does is it tries to keep you upset, because when you're upset, you exist. Like that's what I see when people are

fighting about some asinine garbage, you know. I was just at a baggage claim and and the bags were coming around, and then they started coming out on the other side, and this guy was like, now I got to go to the other side. I was like, it's a carousel. They go around, like you can just stand where you are, But what's going on there? That's the ego going like, get mad. Now they're coming out on the other side. Because when you mad, when you're mad, you're Gary. And

when you're Gary, you exist. And that's what the ego wants. It wants to be real, and it wants to convince you that you're real, and it wants to convince you that you do need that next thing, or you need the new iPhone, or you need the new maybe that new movie or that new book that's gonna get you where you need to be. Uh, it was Moogie. I think that said, given the choice between the journey and the destination, the ego will always choose the journey. And

that's why we're constantly postponing. Maybe not full enlightenment, but just a taste. How about just a taste. Can we just have a taste. Can we just have a moment? Literally, just a moment. Let's not even time it. Can you just see what it feels like. Try to stop thinking and stop believing your thoughts, and stop believing the story just for a moment and be nothing and be free

and be spacious. But we'll always go Maybe if I read that book, then I'll be free, even though and I do this too, even though I know the book is just gonna say what I already know, and I was gonna say what the last one said. And at a certain point, I think this is drunk parimpach is like at a certain point you have to stop reading the menu and just eat the meal. It's like my friend Michael Younger said, it's not the feather that makes Dumbo fly. You know, at a certain point he loses

the feather and you can still fly. At a certain point, we need to put these things down and go I am it. I am it. What's looking at your eyes is ultimate reality, is ultimate truth, is the indwelling of God, is the spirit of God. You are it. Being can only recognize being. God is being, and you are being noticing being. That's a little I'm not saying you're God. I'm saying you have the indwelling of God. And when you rest there all of those things that I just mentioned.

New iPhone, new movie, new book, They're all fine. You can do it. You just don't get lost in it as much. It's not static on the radio. It's just a dance you're doing. It's just play. It's just passing show. I think it was Caper that that said I walk through the marketplace, but I'm not a purchaser. You can do it. That's what means. When he's in the world, not of the world, you can still do it. I love movies, I love books. I have the new iPhone, but like I'm not as lost as I used to

be in thinking. Boy, when people see that I have the new iPhone, they'll know that I'm a fancy show biz guy. They'll probably think that I'm I'm doing well, and then I'm going to use the new iPhone to take a picture of me at the beach, and then they'll really know that I'm a special guy that goes to the beach. I don't know that stuff becomes less important, right. I'd rather read a spiritual book than sit down and

do a spiritual practice because it's hard. The brain just sort of takes over, and I know how to do that. I can read and I get a taste of what that pieces like versus when I'm just sort of running wild, but actually stopping and spending some of the time in trying to be is hard. It's these minds and these egos. They have a momentum at this point. So yes, thank you as a great phrase for sort of bringing yourself back.

Do you have any others for when you're kind of lost in ego and in self to help bring you back to a deeper place. Yeah. I mean, first of all, I wanted to say that because I'm like you, and I love reading. I even love writing about this stuff. I've sort of come to identify that as part of the practice. Meaning I'm not a great for whatever that means. I'm not a great meditator. I do like meditating, it

just so happens I meditated this morning. Sure, great. See that's sometimes that's the full benefit is getting to tell someone you did it. Hey, I meditated this point. So that's my point is it's like sometimes it's what Ramda tell me about karma yoga meaning using your life karma just meaning the happenings of your life as your yoga,

not stretching, but as your practice. So my friend again Michael Gunger, who wrote an incredible book called This Which Really Changed My Life, which talks about a lot of this stuff, he was like, I don't really meditate, but I'm practicing all the time. And I was like, I I relate more to that is that, like, what is this moment have to tell me about the fundamental nature

of the universe? And Ramdass also says, you know, the next teaching is always exactly right where you are, so whereas I can hear maybe I'm wrong, but I can hear you doing something that I do too, which is like, boy, instead of just reading this stuff, maybe I should just go on a contemplative walk or or meditate or whatever. But that's sort of the yes, thank you of it. It's like, well, this is what's happening, and I'm going to do this consciously you and for better or worse

the mind. I think it's called yana yoga. Using the mind to beat the mind. That's that's sort of my jam. I like it. I I don't uh enjoy as much disavowing the mind directly. I like sort of using the mind to diffuse itself. So the more that I study, the more that I talk about it too, and the more that I write about it, that sort of has become a bigger part of my practice than just stillness. My life can Your life can have plenty of stillness. Just being on a plane and hearing the symphony of

the present moment can be a very profound practice. It's just not as direct or as noticeable as sitting on a cushion with your eyes closed, which obviously is wonderful as well. But I just wanted to offer that just in case it made you feel better, because it makes me feel better. It is an interesting thing that I am challenged with is that I mean, zen, which is where I primarily study, is very much about Hey, like,

intellectual ideas just won't get you there. That said, what I've always really appreciated about the Hindu faith is how they do talk about there are different ways to this ultimate reality. And you know, for some people it's it's like you said, it's love. Some people its service, some people it's the mind. I really like that idea of there being different ways to the same place depending on your temperament, right, yeah, you know, depending how you're wired,

and for better worse. I enjoy reading about it. I really enjoy listening to talks about it, and that I'll bring me there, I'm happy to say over years, it really does sort of infuse into your life and and become a program that's just running in the background, um all the time. And then when I do meditate, it

is deeper. But that's just because my life is more still and that stillness came from a lot of study and that changed the way that I look at the world and made it a more contemplative mindset, which which is just saying yesterday everything, by the way. I mean, that's that's a pretty quick, maybe not full explanation of what contemplation is. But Richard Ror says, if you can allow anything, it will convert you. If you look at a rock and completely allow the rock, it will convert you.

Because why should anything exist? But you're saying a deep, profound yes to a rock. He also says something really beautiful where he's like people all run around claiming that they love Jesus, but it's like, try loving a tree first before you before you jump right to the King of kings. Can you love as I just said, a delayed flight? Can you love that we're so fast to just be like I've done it? I love Christ really how like I get that you maybe you do in

your way. But there's there's a ways to deepen our love and there's ways to give it more fullness. And the ways that I've found that are trying to love everything, love literally everything. I couldn't agree more. I've been doing this this other approach. There's a Zen saying that I won't get it right. But you know that something like zen in motion is a million times more valuable than zen. You know, sitting on a cushion, right, It's that idea of like how do you bring it into the world.

And there's this idea in Zen. It's called samo. It's called work practice. So if you go on a Zen retreat or you live in a monastery, you're going to meditate part of the time, but then part of your day is you're going to do basic manual labor. And the goal is you do it with your whole heart, your whole presence, everything, and that SAMO is seen as a bridge. It's a way to go from all right, I when I sit down and close my eyes, I can keep these ideas in mind, and when I'm going

a hundred miles an hour, I lose them. But this samo, this work practice, these simpler things tick not On would talk about washing the dishes. When you're washing the dishes, wash dishes, those are a bridge. They're a way to sort of a bridge the sitting down and then we get so busy we forget kind of thing. And I've really been exploring different parts of my life as al move is a way to to try and bring that consciousness more into all the parts of my life, because

I do think that's ultimately where life gets transformed. Meditating for thirty minutes a day is a great practice and it's important, but there's still twenty three and a half other hours, and so how do we bring it into more and more of the day so it actually has a chance to transform is at a deeper level. Yeah, I think that's right on. And that's what I would

call karma yoga. That's the idea. And you know a cartole is on that tip two where it's like when you do things not as a means to an end uh, and this will change your life today if you'd like it to. I hate brushing my teeth. I just I don't like that. I'm in a meat suit that requires me to. As my friend Chris there says, polish the bones people can see. He has this great joke about that. But I was like, so, I don't like brushing my teeth.

I'm a grown man. I don't feel like I should have to do it if I don't want to do it. But if I can get into that space, which sometimes I can, where you're really being present and watching just this bulbous you know, dab of toothpaste coming out of this tube with your pressure onto these bristles, and you smell the spearmint, and you feel the warm water and and you feel them just on the tooth that you're brushing. Not thinking well, I have to do this part, then

I have to do that part. Then I'll rend, then I can go to bed. Then I'll be happy if you can. Just as ticking on would say, just brush your teeth. When you're brushing your teeth, and this is the key to love, by the way, too, I'm happy to share this, even though it might sound like a brag. Eric, as I called you, I was running late to this, So I was running late and I came in and I caught myself just kissing Val and sort of rushing to the back, and then I was like, fuck that ship.

I stopped. And we do this all the time. That's and that's why I'm sharing it. I think people would get value out of it. Just kind of we just stared at each other. We just gazed at each other, just lovingly gazed at each other for what seven seconds? You know what I mean. When you're really looking at somebody, those seconds count. It doesn't have to be very long, and you're just taking a moment. Two look when you're looking at Val, look at Val, you know what I mean.

And you're giving someone witness and you're giving them respect. Literally, that's what Richard Roy Tommy respect. Your re looking you're looking again. So the first time I was looking at her, I was expecting her. Then I respected her you know what I'm saying, and you just have that moment of love because I knew she was going to leave after this, when I'm done with this, she's gonna be out running

errands or whatever. And that was my moment. And I do that with my daughter, and I do that with the friends of mine that are comfortable with that sort of thing. You're just taking a moment to be mindful and in that moment, that's my meditation, which is another practice I encourage if you, not just you, Eric, but the people that are listening. If you have somebody that you feel comfortable with just adding a time or for chimes, something gentle uh, for like three or four minutes and

just gazing at their eyes. There's no way your ego can survive that. The first thirty seconds it'll be so uncomfortable to your ego it'll take off and then you're just being looking at being, your just consciousness looking at itself. And it's trippy. Even if you've never done a psychedelic if you stare at somebody and just kind of breathe mindfully while you do it, you're not thinking about how you love them, You're not thinking about how special they are.

You don't have to think anything. You can just compassionately gaze at someone. You'll have a mild and sometimes not so mild, hallucinogenic experience in my in my experience, um because the brain, the part of your brain that constructs reality, doesn't really know what to do right, and their face is going to change. Um. I write about that in my book Ramdas. His face turned into my father's face, turned into him as a kid. But when I do with val obviously the juice with ram Das is a

little bit special. I would say the intensity is is, you know, a lot higher. But with Valor or my friends, it gets trippy. Man. So I sometimes catch myself always telling people to try, you know, if they're open to it, or if they want to, if they feel the desire to try psychedelics. But then I'm like, you don't have to at all. You can just stare at someone for four minutes. Unfortunately, in our society people are more likely to take a pill or something because staring at someone

is so weird. But it's there, it's there for the taking. There was a crazy scientific study about that where they put people together who didn't know each other and had them stare at each other like that, and some crazy proportion of them fell in love with each other. It brought this intimacy that was just so so strong. Yeah, I've seen it where they have Darren Brown, he did

that thing on Netflix. It was a he had a guy who was very very anti immigrant um staring with a illegal Mexican American immigrant and they just, uh, they didn't tell them anything. They just had them look at each other for five minutes or so and at the end they're both crying and hugging each other. It's a profound thing. But that's my point. And you know, Jack Cornfield had us do that. I was just at the Ruhm Dust retreat. He had us to do that, and

everybody's blown away. And he said something that was very profound. He was like, you know, you don't have to go to India because that's what I'm saying. The ego would rather say, when I go to India, you know, when I go to the ashram, when I go to the monastery, then I'll be spiritual. And the heart keeps saying. The part of you that's saying then I'll be spiritual is spirit you know, the part of you that's noticing you saying, then I'll be spiritual. Is spirit It couldn't be any closer.

It's what you are. I like to say. I believe it's a paraphrase of Richard Rora. I'm not sure so much of what I say as a paraphrase of Richard ror But he said God doesn't love you. You are God's love. It's a very different perspective. It goes back to what we were saying of like I've earned it. You know, God was my father figure, just like my real dad who who is a great dad. I'm not saying he did this more than normal. If I do well, he likes me. If I do bad, he might be

frustrated or whatever. Uh, it's it's so much more liberal. I actually think God's love is so liberal it would offend any ego. It's it's too much for anybody's ego to even consider. When you consider the loving Yes, that's what love is. It's a yes. It's this undulating yes animates everything, the good, the bad, and the ugly. It's not it's not as pleasing as would like it to be. We wanted to be, you know, Captain and Mary reco beating the bad guy but the truth is, the whole

thing is one thing. It's lawful, it's unfolding, it's figuring itself out, it's playing. There's no flaw in the system. I don't want to get out of my pay grade here, but I'm saying suffering itself is in the plan. It's in the plan. As I was preparing for this interview, I was also learning about something I don't know if you're familiar with something called process theology by Alfred North Whitehead. It's basically what you're saying. First, it says there aren't

things in the universe. There's just verbs, there's being, there's becoming, you know, and and it sort of says that like God is sort of a novelty junkie. Like that's what God is doing, always trying to sort of hold the balance between chaos and stability to produce the most novelty.

But when you said earlier this idea of creation, when we're creating, it can feel like we are in touch with the energy of the universe, because that feels very fundamental to the energy of the universe for me, like the universe just seems to want to be and create and make and grow. Yeah, well, that's in Michael Guger's book He's Like, which is called This Again. He sort of likens the universe to a child being thrown up in the sky by its father, going again again again.

And what's weird is you see this quality and human beings, even the horrible bits, were sort of fascinated with all of it. We're sort of endlessly intrigued with figuring out the limits of ourselves. And obviously there's morning and we and compassion and love and kindness and service is the point of life, that's the one you feed, right, but every bit of it. Look look at our fascination with

you know, murder documentaries, all these things. Like my point is is like, as a thought experiment, I've been thinking what my heaven would be, and you know, one of the heavens would be just kind of god mode in this universe, meaning I can swipe to any time, any place, past, present, future, and I can experience what it feels like to be anything. Meaning I could feel what it feels like to be a field of wheat or the ocean. I mean, imagine how much time you would spend just being the ocean.

I think that would be pretty incredible, or the cosmos or sad or what it would feel like to be Trump, or what it would feel like to be a neglected housewife. I wanted all. When I'm in that place, I want it all. Given enough time, if it's eternal, there's not a situation that I wouldn't want to slip into and just go WHOA, That's what that was. That's what that was. That's what that was. And again I don't want I

don't want to sound like a nihilist or somebody. That's just like, we need to work to bring peace, we need to work to bring compassion. And I can have a part of me, not Pete necessarily, but my base still consciousness can understand given eternal time and eternal possibilities, infinite possibilities, there isn't a game that I wouldn't play. Think about that. That's in Michael Gunger's book. If you

were infinite, what game wouldn't you play? And that's actually pretty trippy because it actually includes even the things that I've dismissed as ridiculous. Because I said that to Michael, I was like, well, that means that there is a heaven where we are all just in robes with wings. You know even if that's so silly, I'm like, if I have an infinite time and infinite everything and infinite possibilities, then that will be one too. We'll play that game too.

Which one wouldn't we play? Would play them all, would play them all? I love that idea. I agree with you too. If I could have like one superpower, I think that's the one. I would have to be able to inhabit anything and see what it's like. And I think it points to a really useful tool. And we talk about like how do I say yes to this moment or how do I inhabit I think curiosity is like one of the most potent tools we have, Like what's this like? If we can become curious about what

a state is like? Now, again, there only are states that we usually can experience, but curiosity for me is a great way to move from my small, contracted, emotionally suffering self to a broader perspective. What's this actually like? That's right, Well, if God is creative, then God is certainly curious, which is interesting because you know, growing up, I used to like to play those games like if God's all knowing, right, I guess if you had to put it in those terms, I think God is outside

of time. The concept of God, which we can't possibly house on our brains, is obviously outside of time. So there's not necessarily a deficit in this energy um. But if we were to make it linear, I would be like, God is finding out. God is figuring. God his relationship, God his adventure. God is pain, God his pleasure. God is loneliness, God is ecstasy. And that is the best superpower, that is the one that we seem to have chosen. We've we've decided, as Alan Watts would say, to play

hide and seek with ourselves. I'm going to pretend to be this comedian in in Hollywood, and you'll pretend to be a podcast host. And you right now, Eric, you know what it's like to be you, and I know what it's like to be me. So we can we do it one at a time right now. But the whole thing is dipping in and out of everything. So it knows what a field of wheat feels like, it knows what a mother whale feels like, it knows what a star feels like, it knows what a black hole

feels like. That is what I think is going on here. Yeah. Yeah, and that makes me think of another phrase that you've used that I wanted to ask about, which is when in doubt, zoom out, because I think this is such a really powerful little phrase to use spiritually and you know, even on a more wrote emotional basis. Yeah, you asked earlier what the little mantras I have are, and that's certainly one of them. Let me think of something I

was frustrated at recently. It was probably something travel related, like, um, we're at the airport. They didn't print a boarding past for our baby, so we didn't have one, so they were stopping us at the gate, right, And and that that can be frustrating because you're already back all these bags and a baby and stuff, right, and now they're stopping you. And it's easy to get caught in that

moment and be frustrated. But when you zoom out, So when in doubt zoom out, you're zooming out and looking at the planet and you're like, there's two smaller than ants on this rock and they're mad about getting on a tube to go to another part. Like nothing makes sense, nothing, nothing is valid when you look at the whole, Like your little story that's the Indian idea. That's it's the passing show. It's it's My daughter's name is Lelo, which means the play of the universe. It's all play. And

it actually goes back to what I was saying. The task is one tenth and maintaining your center is nine tenths. So in that element of karma yoga, getting my daughter, which we did, it was no problem. On the plane is one tenthse me not getting lost in the illusion is nine tempts. It's so much more important for me to go like we are on a planet and some of us forget, like the concept of infinity is not

just in holy books. It's it's around us. It's where we're swimming, it's where we're floating, it's what's happening around us. It's expanding infinity, which is a paradox, and that is a paradox confirmed by science. We are in a paradox expanding infinity. And that when you consider it makes your delayed flight or your traffic, or even your heartbreak or whatever it might be. I'm not saying it doesn't matter.

I'm saying, give yourself the gift of looking at it from a cosmic perspective, and not in a sad way, not unlike who cares I'm going to die. I'm just an ant on a rock in the freeway. Let it liberate you and go. Even though my story is small and doesn't deserve my full attention, what I am is what I'm looking at when I zoom out. You are home. You are born into this world. That's an Alan Watts quote. You don't come in to this world. You actually come out of this world, just like an apple comes off

a tree. You were born home. You're not a visitor here, so you are being and your story is not the point. The ice cream on the beach isn't the point. Your frustration isn't the point. Look at everything that's happening and know that you are a dignified, inherent part of it. And that's a peaceful thought. That is I love that perspective. Elsewhere in the book you quote this dismayed me. Laugh. Lots of parts of the book made me laugh. It is a it's a great book, listeners. I mean, it's

it's funny, it's deep, it's profound. But you're talking about Joseph Campbell and you're talking about this idea that God is a metaphor for a mystery that transcends all categories of human thought, which is one of my favorite quotes. But then you go on to quote something that the road manager for a C d C told you, which it makes me laugh that this is where you heard it. Um, God is the name of the blanket we throw over

the mystery to give it shape. And when I've read that or said this on stage, it gets a big laugh as I go, shouldn't I have learned this in Sunday School? Why am I learning this from the road manager for a C d C. The idea that God is without a concept. God is beyond language, as Joseph Campbell said, God is a mystery that's beyond the categories of even being a non being. It's it's beyond language. It's not something you can know, it's it's that by

which you know anything. That which does the knowing is the peace of God that's inside of you right now, that that does the hearing. This is the Upanishad. Is not that which the eye can see, but that whereby the I can see know this to be Brahma, the eternal right, No, that to be God. So it's the mechanism by which you can hear me, not what you can hear. The mechanism that is hearing, that is eternal, That is God. But as Richard Rory says, we can't fall in love with an energy. You can try, maybe

you can, but most of us need a symbol. So God created man, Man returns the favor, Man closes the circle and makes God. I'm not saying God doesn't exist. I'm saying the symbols that we have pointing to God aren't God. Their their road signs pointing to a destination.

And as Richard r says, we're also busy worshiping the road signs instead of going to where the signs are pointing um and experiencing where the signs are pointing, and becoming one and feeling and intuiting where the signs are pointing. You can't necessarily know it to write it down, but you can quiet down to a point where you where your boundary sort of disappears and you become one with it. Right. That's that's the only game in town. Nailing it down.

It's it's not gonna happen. That was a line at a joke I cut from the book. I was like, you can try and nail your God down, but it has a tendency to die and resurrect on you, like it's gonna go Like you can't do it. Your ego wants to know and know that it right. You can't know that. You know, but you can't experience that. That's the good news. You can experience it and you can be it. But when it comes to explaining it, it's always going to be um, it's gonna come up short.

But the idea that God is a blanket we put over a mystery to give it shape. Now we have something to talk about. Now you and I can meet and we can talk about God. And unfortunately people can abuse God. People can rape and kill and and control and suppress and shame and embarrass and humiliate and restrict people in the name of this thing. But what we're trying to do, it sounds like, is we're trying to say what we're talking about is a metaphor for a mystery,

and we all can agree on a mystery. We don't have to debate the existence of a mystery because we are steeping in a mystery. And if God is not a being, but God is being, itself. We don't have to debate the existence of God because here we are, we are being, so we we can we can skip the part where we go do you believe in this symbol? Or do you believe in this symbol? Do you believe in this blanket? Or do you believe in this blanket? As Zachartley says, no one can own the concept of being.

It's it's a freer way to discuss God. And you know, doing my podcast for four hundred some episodes, no one wants to talk about God for the most part, but everybody wants to talk about being. If you if you can change the vocabulary slightly and just be like, what are we doing here? How are you experiencing being? In that one? Because I'm in this one, and and and we're all a little bit confused, we're all a little bit lonely, we can all get a little bit scared.

We need to we need to come together and figure it out. And uh, we don't ever need to agree on a blanket, but it's nice to agree that there is something to put the blanket on. Yeah. Agree. I think those are ways of talking about these things that are so much more inclusive and just easy to it. You know, it's a bigger tent. I feel like I've been quoting Z things all episode, which I don't normally do. But there's a Zen saying like if you're trying to

control a cow, like give it a bigger pasture. You know, it's a similar idea, like, you know, this is a big tent that everybody can find their way into and and hopefully have a discussion. Another metaphor for God that I know you you love Richard Rore. We've had him on the show a couple of times. From his latest book, he said, anything that draws you out of yourself in a positive way for all practical purposes is operating as

God for you at that moment. And that has been so powerful for me as an idea, and this idea that expansion versus contraction feeling like for me as a very simple feeling metaphor for where am I. If everything feels like it's contracting and closing down, I'm usually moving away from God, if we want to use that word. And as I open and expand, I feel like I'm moving towards God. It's a I feel it very viscerally. Yeah,

that's right. Well, Richard is a big Thomas Briton fan, and they're both very good at pointing people away from what Merton called the false self or the small self and to your real self. I make this point in the book that everybody always says that the most important question you can ask is who am I? And I always took that to me and like, no, your preferences, um, no, your favorite films, No, your favorite car, no, your favorite clothes.

So when you die, and this is the joke I make in the book, you can be satisfied, like everyone knew how I took my coffee, Like that's who you were? Like that is that is such a lie? That is that's such a disappointing interpretation of what is the most important question, which is who am I? But it's not who are your thoughts? That's why I was tempted with that bumper sticker, don't believe everything you think? Right, that's

a that is a good bumper sticker. But I'd rather just say it on podcasts than have it on my car. But like who is observing? You ask the question, and

that's the real you. And anything that draws as you away from the construct and from the story and if we want to use kind of stellations language or crazy language or bold language, you can say the lie, the lie that you feel it like a burden, like bags you have to carry who you're supposed to be, who you're expected to be, who you want to be, even evolutionarily, I want to be nice, so people give me resources and give me love and food, and I keep my job.

It's the story that we have to perpetuate, and we all perpetuate. And some stories are helpful, you know, being kind or whatever, but behind them there's always the unborn, never born, never dies, impartial witness, which is what I'm trying to draw people to in the book, not just because it's a fun thought experiment, or it's not because it's a fun belief. That's sort of the point of the book is, I don't really give a crap what you believe. Like my whole life, it was what do

you believe? What do you believe? Now I'm like, who is it that does the believing? Who is watching you believe this? When I was a kid, when I was a teenager, I was a Republican, I was this, I was that whatever, And now I'm more liberal. Okay, So who watched the change. You know what I'm saying, Like, that's the only game in town, right What didn't change? What didn't change? That question is such a powerful question. What stays the same? You know? What stays the same?

And that's the end dwelling of God. Yeah, that's why we say Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. I would change it to say Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever. I don't just me personally. We will never know if this is true or not. I like to think that Christ, Jesus was fully human and that he did change, that he did grow, that he did learn um that, you know, That's just how that story

has the most juiced for me. Was that he evolved, that he changed and grew and learned because that's what it is to be human. And then he made the swap to Christ. He became realized, he realized that the whole time he wasn't sweet baby Is of Nazareth learning carpentry or learning how to speak Aramaic. You know, he was the witness and the witnesses, the witnesses, the witness. My witness is your witness. Mine is just in this

one and yours isn't that one? And that one's in a bird and that one's in a stone, like different levels of consciousness. I've come to realize that people are either interested in talking about molecules or they're not. But when you realize that science is sort of backing the idea that everything is just made of these tiny little bits, you see that everything really is one thing, that it

is really just television static. And this pattern of television static thinks it's pete, but really the television static that's making me is the television static making the desk and the computer and the microphone, and it's making you, and it's making my dog, and it's making my baby. And it is one thing. And that's what christ consciousness is. And that's why he says, what you do for the least of these, you do for me. He's saying there's no one in the other vote, as Romness would say,

it's just us. It's just us right right here, I go with another Zen phrase, But I love the Zen phrase. It says not one, but not too. It's like, well, yeah, we are separate, Yes I am not you, and yet we're also not too. You know, we're not one, but

we're not too. I love that idea, and I guess it kind of comes back to uh, and this maybe is a place for us to kind of wrap up with something else that you quote Joseph Campbell saying, which I think is a is a nice analogy or a metaphor, which is when the lightbulb stops identifying with the bulb and starts identifying with the light. Yeah. I love that because we should. I'm a believer in my own path that we should honor our incarnation. That's what Romnas would say,

honor your incarnation. It's like we can get a little bit lost and pushing away my pet nous, right, and now I enjoy my pet nous. I'm just less attached to it, which is what freedom is. That's being so Richard.

Richard Ror is so good at showing us that mystical Christianity has been saying what a lot of people think is so new a g the whole time, that the whole idea of being fully human and fully God isn't just a pledge for Christ for us to just go like, wow, there was one guy who did it, and uh, and our job is to make sure other people believe that he did it. And the point that I'm trying to make in the book is go and do. Likewise, when I grew up, that would have sounded like blasphemy. Um.

I do have humility. Richard Or says, the most important things you can have in spirituality or humility and patience. And another mantra that I use every day is I am willing, meaning when I have a bad thought, like a small minded thought, if I'm judging, if I'm being nasty. Um, I just say I am willing because sometimes I just need I need intercession. I need something bigger than me

to help me with that. But my willingness and my patients and my melity, I think are the ingredients that hopefully can lead to change other than alongside my me trying my damnedest. But let's be honest, me trying my damnedest doesn't really work. I sometimes just need um, patients and humility. Um. But that being said, I don't think that's blasphemy at all. I think Jesus was saying, let's go,

let's let's do this. You know, he's he's trying to wake you up to the idea of not one not to You can play the story of Jesus, but you should know that you're the Christ and you can play the story of Eric and I can play the story Pete. It's all fine. We don't have to be renunciates. We can we can play the game. But, as Alan Watt says, when it's all done, we're going to take off our masks and we're going to go backstage and we're gonna

love the hero for being a good hero. We're gonna love the villain for being a good villain, and we're gonna say what a really, it was just a show, right right? Well, I think that is a great place for us to wrap up. Thank you so much for taking the time to come on. It's been a real pleasure talking with you. My pleasure. I love this talk. Thank you. Yes, if what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a donation to The One You Feed podcast. Head over to one you Feed dot

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