Ep 154: Dr Ravi Iyer ~ The Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde of Experience and Narrative

Transcript

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Truth and Transcendence brought to you by being Space with Catherine Llewellyn.

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Truth and Transcendence, episode 154, with special guest Dr Ravi Iyer.

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Now, if you haven't come across Ravi, he's the founding physician and president of the Iyer Clinic in Fairfax and Loudoun County, virginia, and the founder and CEO of Active Power, a nutrition and wellness company.

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He's a physician, scientist, inventor, author, short film actor and entrepreneur, with research publications in the mechanisms of gene controls and several patents on human and veterinary medicines and devices.

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He's a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard.

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He held a nine-year directorship of a hospice caring for dying patients, a four-year chairmanship of a 225-bed hospital and he was the founder of a serial top doctor medical practice.

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His essays, articles and writings focus on the intersection and interactions of social events with people as metrics of health in a society Fascinating, and his passion is educating and advocating for a balanced understanding and stewardship of our life and world in a manner that allows for all around growth and health for all creatures and populations.

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So I think it's obvious why I've invited Ravi on, because all of that is just fascinating and I particularly like Ravi's take on how our consciousness plays a significant role in our health management, which is something I had sort of noticed, but it's really nice to meet someone who's really looked into that, and not just our health management, but our approach to life in general.

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So I find that really fascinating.

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So, ravi, thank you so much for coming on the show.

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Oh, thank you, Tatra, it's a pleasure.

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I really look forward to our discussion today.

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Me too, and, as we said before, you know, given the wealth of things that you've looked into and considered very, very deeply, we're only going to scratch the surface today, but I will, if everyone waits all the way through to the end, we will tell you how you can find out more and connect in with Dr Ravi.

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So our theme today is a really interesting one.

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It's experience and narrative, the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde of consciousness.

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So I don't know how many of the listeners can remember who Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde actually are.

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Some of us grew up watching movies about these two characters, allegedly fictional characters.

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But, ravi, would you like to kick off by just telling us what the Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde of consciousness actually means?

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Dr Jekyll is this morally sound, do-good character who is a physician, and his alter ego is Mr Hyde which, when unleashed, becomes this raging monster.

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Raging monster exercising domination will all his animalistic urges of all kinds without any restraint.

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And I use this analogy to describe the conundrum of human existence.

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And most of us are trapped in an oscillatory cycle between these two personas, and we all have Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde in us.

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Actually, it is far more prevalent and far more overt than most of us think it is, and it is not as gory as the book depicts them.

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It is far more subtle.

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And that is where I use this analogy to describe these two aspects of human existence.

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And the reason I bring this up is because people tend to think that these kind of discussions are more philosophical or spiritual or quasi-yoga kind of yogi, kind of eastern mumbo-jumbo nonsense.

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But it is actually paramount to success.

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Paramount to success.

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You cannot be successful if you don't comprehend how these two aspects of your own character influence the way the world shows up for you.

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Yeah, and if you look at everyone who's successful, they have consciously or unconsciously found a way of negotiating these two aspects of their persona, experience and narrative.

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And let me explain that a little bit further.

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All of us have the ability to be aware and perceive the world as it interacts with our five senses, and this aspect, this ability of awareness, constitutes what we call sentient life.

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So, whether it is an amoeba or a bacteria, or it is the highest human being, there is an intrinsic ability to perceive the interaction of the environment with the creature.

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Yes, from an amoeba to a human being, but regardless, at its fundamental level, even an amoeba can perceive its environment through the senses it has or whatever instruments it uses to sense its environment.

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Yes.

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In the case of an amoeba, it is just a chemoreceptor.

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It is able to detect the gradient of salt in the water or gradient of sugar in the water and avoid one and move to the other respectively.

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But that is the limit of its organ of perception.

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But it still perceives that gradient and it takes an action based on that.

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Complex creatures have more sophisticated instruments of perception and are able to perceive different levels of complexities of environmental stimuli.

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So this ability to perceive is one aspect of sentient life and what you do with the perception is the second aspect.

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And what you do with the perception is the second aspect and that is the narrative you create out of that perception.

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And how you create that narrative determines whether you succeed or fail in life, whether you are a victim of your circumstances or you transcend your circumstances, whether you proceed through life with joy and freedom or you proceed through life as if you're beset upon by choiceless options.

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So your narrative is your Mr Hyde.

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He determines how you live.

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Dr Jekyll only gives you the raw material to live, but what you build out of that is in the hands of Mr Hyde.

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And if your Mr Hyde is an uncontrolled monster, your life is miserable.

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Right.

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And if you are a leader of a company, you are the worst boss ever.

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You're micromanaging, you're manipulative, you are abusive, you are all of that.

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You have no enlightenment.

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You deal with people on a transactional basis.

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It is all us versus them.

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That is your, mr Hyde.

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Yeah, yeah.

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So when I coach, so as a physician, people say you know what business is a doctor to do?

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Teaching these things?

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These are not the realm of a doctor.

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Actually, it is the realm of a doctor.

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Is life actually it is the realm of a doctor is life.

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I spend my life teaching people, enabling people, empowering people to live life to their best ability.

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People come to me not because they have a disease.

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They come to me because something has come into their life that is preventing them from living life the way they want it.

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And I do only three things either I remove the obstacle, or, if I'm not able to remove it, I mitigate it, or if I'm not able to do both, then I teach them to live with it.

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So that's the only three things I do.

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So when I started doing that in the pandemic, I suddenly realized I was better than most people around me in doing it yeah, and is that because you?

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is that because you've spent time understanding your own, dr Jekyll and Hyde?

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yes, yes, but I.

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But I did that because I struggled with, with a peculiar neuronal architecture that I was born with.

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I had ADHD and I had the storm of narratives always buzzing through me.

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And because I had the drive to succeed in life, I realized that all my intellectual power, drive to succeed in life, I realized that all my intellectual power, my brilliance in analytical ability, and all of that would never manifest unless I got control over my Jemnister Hyde, unless I got control over the narratives that were threatening to drown my consciousness with uncontrolled impulses.

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So I started inquiring into the nature of how I build these narratives for myself and then, when I succeeded, I suddenly realized that I had something in my hand that I could use to impact the lives of people around me.

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Yes, wonderful.

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How old were you when you started to explore that I?

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was 14 or 15 when I started to explore this.

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I was fortunate.

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I had some insightful breakthroughs, but I don't want to get into that, because I really want to go into the meat of this.

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This is so important for people Because the problem is human beings.

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Right from time immemorial, right from Jesus Christ, from Buddha, they have been tackling only this one thing they have been tackling this constant dissonance, this schizophrenic existence between experience and narrative, and to capture for themselves the secret of a happy, joyous expression of themselves.

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That's all.

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But the language that was being used to describe the process has become trapped into various modalities Gregorian monastery, or I have to go sit in a corner in a cave and mumble Abstruse sounds and or or or 12 beats through my fingers or something like that, and actually it is none of that.

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It is all of that and none of that.

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You see, every one of those a Gregorian chant, chanting a Hail Mary, chanting a Sanskrit mantra all has only one purpose.

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And that is, to anchor yourself onto a single narrative, yeah, thereby avoiding the spinning of a million different narratives.

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So the first thing that people realized is for you to have this opening between, when you have an experience, catherine.

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The building of a narrative, the building of a story, the building of a name, form, label occurs so close to the experience that there is actually no perceptible change between experience and the story.

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Yeah, in fact, I'm just going to say something there.

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In fact, there can even be the illusion that the story yeah, in fact, I'm just going to say something there.

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In fact, there can even be the illusion that the narrative came first.

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Yes, and that is the illusion.

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Yeah, it is an illusion.

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It is the ledger domain.

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It is the magician's trick, the trick which which it is like as if the experience there was no experience.

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It is as if the experience evolved and unfolded as narrative.

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It never feels as if there is experience.

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And now I am going to create a story about it, it never feels like that.

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It feels as if boom.

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That man yelled at me and the narrative he is mad at me, he is angry, he is going to attack me, he is going to kill me or he is going to do something is immediate.

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There is no separation.

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That person made an insulting remark and immediately your entire existence is destroyed or impacted.

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Or even saying they made an insulting remark is a piece of narrative, isn't it?

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I mean, I've had situations where I've said to somebody that was really insulting of you and they've said I didn't mean to be insulting.

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You're driving down the highway and the upraised finger of the other guy in the car is enough to completely transform your life.

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Yes.

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And think about it.

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You are this tiny blip on one little thread of asphalt on this huge globe that is spinning amidst millions of galaxies in an infinite universe.

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Are not even you are?

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You are an atom on the left ball of a mosquito, you know?

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And and you, that little atom is flipped off by one, by the finger.

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Do you get it?

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Do you get, do you?

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get On behalf of humankind.

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I'm embarrassed.

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Yes, and we and it is on the edifice of such things that we construct our life.

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Day before yesterday I was at the wedding of my daughter, and yesterday I listened to people talk about who was snide to whom in that wedding.

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And.

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I'm thinking and I am thinking, sitting there, thinking out of such things, things we construct the content of our life.

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Yes.

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All right so, but it is easy for us to talk and laugh about the ludicrousness of the content right now, but mastery occurs when you are able to capture it in that moment when it actually occurs, yes, in that moment when you feel upset that somebody did not present in the way you wanted that story to present, absolutely Because there is no freedom otherwise, yeah, you don't have, there is no possibility.

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So my job as a physician, my job as a coach, my job as a leader, and I conduct a workshop that takes people through this, but my job is to show people that you actually have both your left hand of experience and your right hand of narrative together and you can separate, and you can separate and you can stand in that space.

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And when you stand in that space, you suddenly have possibility, you have options.

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Otherwise, you don't have options.

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They are already predicated, they are already predicted.

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There is no difference between you and a rock falling to the ground.

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You are a helpless victim of circumstances and my job, or my business, is showing people that you don't have to be that rock With no more options than a stone.

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You don't have to live a life of a stone.

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I love the way you just described all of that.

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I completely know what you're talking about.

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I know you do.

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I appreciate the way that you're completely unapologetic with letting us know that if we're not aware of that relationship between the experience and the narrative, that we are just like a rock falling to the ground.

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I mean you know I'm unapologetic because I am not insulting you, because I am saying the choice is yours.

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You made the decision to be the rock.

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You can make.

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You can also am saying the choice is yours.

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You made the decision to be the rock.

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You can also make the decision to become the bird and fly off into the sky, so you don't have to be the rock.

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You are the rock because you are like a bird that has closed its wings and pretended to be a rock, and now you're a victim.

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You're going to fall to the ground.

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A bird who has closed its wings and pretended to be a rock, and now you're a victim.

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You're going to fall to the ground.

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A bird, too, has closed its wings and is pretending to be a rock.

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I like that image.

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Because it doesn't have the vision to see that it can fly.

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Yes, it's forgotten.

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People are like that.

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People are like that.

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They don't know that they can fly.

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Yeah, they don't know.

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They feel that the content of their life is determined by who says what to them.

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Yeah, so they are not creators of life, they are only consumers of life.

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And they are helpless.

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They are just sitting there, panic-stricken that life is going to come to them in a form that they have to consume it because they can't decide not to consume it.

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Yeah, so, so they are panic stricken.

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They are sitting there saying, oh my god, when is the next, when is the next barb going to come to me?

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When is the next challenge going to come to me?

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When is the next you going to come to me?

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When is the next you know who is going to take away this precious thing that I have?

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You know they, they clutch at things in their life.

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I, I see, I see, I see executives behaving like that.

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I see million dollar they, you know, come people who run billion dollardollar companies.

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They are like that.

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Can you believe how pathetic it is?

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Yeah, well, I mean, if everybody's doing it, then it's the norm, isn't it?

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Yeah, you know, my physician partner attended the wedding of my daughter the day before yesterday and he said I'm amazed at how beautifully you conducted it and you really did not have.

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You know, I thought you spent a lot of money but you told me that you didn't spend that much money and I'm amazed that you got so much accomplished with, with, with that, uh, that well-crafted a budget.

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And I said do you realize the impact if I could do that with that budget?

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And somebody else is doing it with 10 times that budget, who is the idiot?

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Yeah, yeah, I said, why would?

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Why would you produce the same amount of impact that I produced with this budget, with X, by spending 10X?

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And you produce the same impact, the same level of happiness, the same level of satisfaction, the same level of validation, the same level of contentment, and you have spent 10 times the money.

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How stupid are you.

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Why would you do that?

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Why would you do that?

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I'm not talking about being miserly.

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I want to tell you all right, you have the ability to spend 10 times.

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I want to see 10 times the impact.

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Don't come to me and say I'm spending 10 times more, be amazed.

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I won't be amazed.

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I want to see the impact.

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Yeah yeah, and I want to see that you produce 10 times more impact with that 10 times more wealth that you squandered away on the streets on your display of the celebration of your wedding.

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If you want to do that, then I want to see the impact.

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If you didn't produce the impact, then don't come to me telling me All you did was you showed me how much money you can burn.

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Yeah, so how is it then that you know?

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So what's the connection then between this business of being able to create the impact with a much smaller budget?

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Connection.

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So see, you have to understand something that people, when you meet people, do you connect with them, do you make them feel that they were important.

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You know, it is not how much you spend on them, it is how much you make them feel, and that doesn't cost anything to do.

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It requires effort, it requires you to be present, it requires you to connect.

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You know there were 225 guests at the wedding.

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Every guest their place cards, their place cards.

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My daughter did this.

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She hand wrote a personalized message for every guest and put their name on the place card and and it was an envelope and their name on where they had to sit.

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They had to pick up that envelope and that told them the seat and it.

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If they opened it, they saw this personalized it was.

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It was.

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It was individual handwritten message, 225 of them.

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That is the impact yes, beautiful, that's beautiful, I love that that is impact now, but, but, but it didn't cost anything, yeah it, it made a difference.

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See you, the same thing goes on with companies.

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Yeah, you know, when you, when you have employees, when you have employees, what impact can you make?

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Can you validate them?

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How would you validate them?

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Do you just validate them with a check?

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That is the cheapest, that is the most empty gesture, that is like trying to buy them.

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Yeah, can you validate them, definitely.

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Can you validate them at, at, at the level at which they live, at who they are as persons.

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See, that is experience.

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Yes, that is crafting narrative, not just empty.

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So this is what and you can't do that if you don't know how to separate experience from narrative.

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Yeah.

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And to do that, let me give you an example.

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I just want to say that example you just gave of the wedding and then just going into that thing of creating the individual message is something which has somebody feel touched and connected with experientially, whereas something like a gilt-embossed car that you could have spent a fortune having produced won't give them that same experience.

00:26:47.507 --> 00:26:51.672
They might have a thought which says, oh, this is very cleverly done and beautifully done.

00:26:52.153 --> 00:26:53.795
It'll go into the trash.

00:26:53.795 --> 00:26:55.217
It'll go into the trash.

00:26:55.217 --> 00:26:57.140
Yeah, they won't even keep it.

00:26:57.140 --> 00:27:00.890
Yeah, and this card?

00:27:00.890 --> 00:27:05.898
Everyone, actually everyone they are now.

00:27:05.898 --> 00:27:14.010
You know, I have had calls from guests who said you know, I didn't realize that there was a message in that I left mine behind.

00:27:14.010 --> 00:27:23.244
And we are telling them yes, we found it, we kept it aside, we didn't throw it, lovely.

00:27:23.244 --> 00:27:23.726
You know.

00:27:23.726 --> 00:27:33.394
We are getting calls now, two days out, people panicking, saying that they have left something valuable behind in the wedding hall.

00:27:33.394 --> 00:27:40.037
Yes, they're calling us as if that, oh my God, I left something so precious behind.

00:27:40.518 --> 00:27:40.739
Yeah.

00:27:44.068 --> 00:27:52.675
And so this is what impact is about, and I'll give you an example of what experiences versus narrative.

00:27:52.675 --> 00:27:55.313
Right now, catherine, you're sitting in a chair.

00:27:55.834 --> 00:27:56.075
I am.

00:27:57.566 --> 00:28:06.898
I want you right now to focus entirely on the experience of contact of your behind with the seat of your chair.

00:28:07.920 --> 00:28:08.201
Okay.

00:28:09.286 --> 00:28:12.496
And I'm going to count in my mind 10.

00:28:12.496 --> 00:28:24.683
I'm going to count in my mind 10 and for those count of 10, I want you to be aware of only the contact of your bottom with the seat of your chair.

00:28:24.683 --> 00:28:35.376
All right, were you aware of the seat of your chair?

00:28:35.999 --> 00:28:36.220
Yes.

00:28:37.510 --> 00:28:41.000
Were you aware of yourself when you were aware of the seat of your chair?

00:28:41.000 --> 00:28:49.942
Where was Catherine when you were aware of the seat of your chair?

00:28:52.451 --> 00:28:55.439
I would say I don't know.

00:28:55.439 --> 00:28:57.855
I don't know, Catherine was not there.

00:28:58.257 --> 00:29:12.398
Yeah, so, catherine, you cease to exist in experience, always Remember that the idea Catherine is a narrative.

00:29:13.019 --> 00:29:13.621
I see what you mean.

00:29:13.621 --> 00:29:21.400
Yes, so when I'm in the experience, my the, the notion of me as a, as a person present.

00:29:21.900 --> 00:29:29.700
Yeah, who you are is always when you step away from experience, when you get disconnected from experience.

00:29:29.819 --> 00:29:39.329
That is when you know who you are yes, and that's one of the reasons, for example, that people love music or dance or correct making.

00:29:39.450 --> 00:30:10.695
They also, and that's the reason why they fall, fall asleep, like to fall asleep also, because in all these the experience, they cease to exist and when you see, that's why they jump off cliffs also, bungee dumping, all of those things when you are, whenever you are in experience, yeah, when the so-called idea where people talk about, oh, be in the moment, be in the moment, and they keep talking about being in the moment, but they're never in the moment.

00:30:10.695 --> 00:30:16.913
They're talking about being in the moment because as long as you're talking about being in the moment, you are not in the moment.

00:30:17.214 --> 00:30:22.875
That's right oh, except you can then say well, I was really, I'm really in the moment now.

00:30:23.657 --> 00:30:24.941
No, because you can't.

00:30:24.941 --> 00:30:31.846
You can't describe being in the moment, when you're in the being in the moment, so when you're being in the moment.

00:30:31.846 --> 00:30:32.829
So here's the other thing.

00:30:32.829 --> 00:30:37.921
Experience and silence go hand in hand.

00:30:37.921 --> 00:30:50.878
So I'll tell you what In any crowd, in any gathering, look around and see who is talking and who is silent.

00:30:50.878 --> 00:30:54.900
Everyone who is silent is inexperienced.

00:30:54.900 --> 00:30:58.900
Everyone who is talking is not inexperienced.

00:30:58.900 --> 00:31:05.102
Everyone who is silent is being Dr Jekyll.

00:31:05.102 --> 00:31:09.721
Everyone who is talking is being Mr Hyde.

00:31:11.171 --> 00:31:15.382
But don't you think that sometimes, if someone's being silent, they are?

00:31:16.152 --> 00:31:18.414
They're knocking their heads the narrative in their head.

00:31:18.414 --> 00:31:19.332
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:31:19.332 --> 00:31:22.172
Of course, that's why I agree.

00:31:22.172 --> 00:31:27.603
But you can't be very trivial about this rule.

00:31:27.603 --> 00:31:49.540
But, generally speaking, to be in the experience, the experience by necessity, you have to be silent, and when I mean silent, I mean truly silent, not silent verbally and internally chattering inside your head yeah you got to be silent silent all Now.

00:31:50.762 --> 00:31:51.984
That is the beauty of it.

00:31:51.984 --> 00:31:58.502
It takes no effort to go through life in experience.

00:31:58.502 --> 00:32:03.760
It takes zero effort to be happy.

00:32:03.760 --> 00:32:08.016
All you have to do is stop the chatter.

00:32:08.517 --> 00:32:09.640
Yes, oh, is that all?

00:32:09.640 --> 00:32:21.531
Yes, do you stop the chatter?

00:32:21.551 --> 00:32:22.313
yes, oh, is that all?

00:32:22.313 --> 00:32:22.614
Yes, it is.

00:32:22.614 --> 00:32:23.615
Well, that's it, then we've solved everything?

00:32:23.615 --> 00:32:24.356
Yes, it is.

00:32:24.356 --> 00:32:24.857
It actually is like that.

00:32:24.857 --> 00:32:28.144
And people, people find it difficult to handle that.

00:32:28.144 --> 00:32:41.863
Yeah, absolutely, people find it so difficult, my wife especially I wonder what she would say about you though oh yeah, she's always upset with me.

00:32:41.884 --> 00:32:42.403
She does that.

00:32:42.403 --> 00:32:44.218
You know you're never present.

00:32:44.218 --> 00:32:46.650
I say I am, I'm sitting in front of you, I'm listening.

00:32:46.650 --> 00:32:48.294
No, you're not paying attention.

00:32:48.294 --> 00:32:55.278
I said you want you want me to make sounds that I am listening to you, or you want me to make appropriate sounds.

00:32:55.278 --> 00:33:04.499
In between I nod my head and say yeah, yeah, you want me to do these things right, so that you know that I am listening to you.

00:33:04.499 --> 00:33:07.655
Just me looking at you is not enough.

00:33:07.655 --> 00:33:08.919
It's mad.

00:33:08.919 --> 00:33:11.855
She gets so irritated.

00:33:12.069 --> 00:33:13.215
The joy of relationships.

00:33:13.215 --> 00:33:20.163
Also, you know, being in a relationship with someone who is a philosopher or teacher.

00:33:20.163 --> 00:33:22.979
It can be a challenge for any human being.

00:33:23.769 --> 00:33:28.875
No, she understands me, but she gets really ticked off when I call her.

00:33:28.875 --> 00:33:31.582
I call her game out, I call her.

00:33:31.582 --> 00:33:34.369
This is another thing.

00:33:34.369 --> 00:33:58.183
We have these, these rackets, we have these games and we do these games because they are the games of Mr Hyde, and the games of Mr Hyde is so that he can control the room and not let Mr Jekyll have the room.

00:33:58.183 --> 00:34:01.638
Yes, not let Dr Jekyll have the room.

00:34:01.638 --> 00:34:03.035
So this is it.

00:34:03.035 --> 00:34:15.179
Now, every time you let Dr Jekyll rule, you produce impact in life, you produce success.

00:34:15.179 --> 00:34:20.501
You become the Michael Jordan on the basketball court.

00:34:20.501 --> 00:34:24.161
You become the Wayne Gretzky on the ice hockey court.

00:34:24.161 --> 00:34:28.097
You become the athlete, you become the performer.

00:34:28.097 --> 00:34:32.637
You become the excellent, what we call excellent.

00:34:32.637 --> 00:34:33.242
You become the performer.

00:34:33.242 --> 00:34:34.309
You become the excellent, what we call excellent.

00:34:34.309 --> 00:34:54.070
You become that, every time you operate as Mr Hyde, you become the spectator at the ringside Watching Jorn Borg play tennis, watching the performer.

00:34:54.070 --> 00:35:06.840
You are no longer playing the game, you are watching the game, and the joy of life is always in playing the game, not watching it.

00:35:07.300 --> 00:35:09.545
Yeah, yeah, I agree.

00:35:09.545 --> 00:35:17.344
So are you actually helping people to understand what we're talking about today?

00:35:17.344 --> 00:35:20.800
How are you doing that with people?

00:35:23.311 --> 00:35:33.577
The way to do it first is to get them to break out of the grip of the narrative in their life, and that is not comfortable.

00:35:33.577 --> 00:35:39.418
Yeah, because the reason why you have narratives is because it's all about survival.

00:35:39.418 --> 00:36:00.380
The reason for narratives is comes out of a very atomistic response that is present in all creatures Life is fundamentally unpredictable.

00:36:00.380 --> 00:36:15.083
And because life is fundamentally unpredictable, it can present itself either as pleasurable or uncomfortable to you.

00:36:16.286 --> 00:36:16.485
Yeah.

00:36:18.291 --> 00:36:35.791
And the imperative of survival is always to maximize the advantage of pleasure and to minimize the disadvantage of discomfort, because what that which is discomforting is potentially threatening to existence.

00:36:35.791 --> 00:36:41.380
Yes, all right, it can hurt you, it can damage you, it can kill you.

00:36:41.380 --> 00:36:57.541
So, right from our animalistic existence, we have always operated to maximize our opportunities for comfort and minimize our opportunities for discomfort.

00:36:57.541 --> 00:37:20.094
And to do that when we know instinctively that life is unpredictable, we do that by trying to make life into a transaction, into a, into a, an exchange.

00:37:20.094 --> 00:37:29.981
We try to position ourselves to our advantage so that we can, you can either run away from something that threatens you or or capture that which is favorable to you.

00:37:30.481 --> 00:37:30.722
Yeah.

00:37:37.282 --> 00:38:24.576
Now this requires to predict and we are always looking to predict, and the way we do prediction is we file away the memory of a previous experience and use it to compare whatever is coming right now and pattern match and say whatever worked in the past is what I'm going to use to solve the problem of today yeah that is like driving down the highway looking in the rearview mirror absolutely yeah but people don't realize, because the rear view mirror is plastered so far ahead in front of the your vision, in onto the windshield that it looks like the windshield yes, yes, so we don't perceive accurately.

00:38:24.596 --> 00:38:31.324
You don't see that your work you are, you don't see that you are living life as a real view mirror.

00:38:31.704 --> 00:38:31.965
Yes.

00:38:38.750 --> 00:38:41.079
You don't see that you are living life based on the strategies of the past.

00:38:41.079 --> 00:38:55.530
And then you wonder why the same theme keeps up, why you always tend to date the same guy or date the same girl, yeah, why do you always tend to have fights with all the father figures in your life?

00:38:55.530 --> 00:39:03.382
Why do you always tend to have, uh, upsets with the mother figures in your life?

00:39:03.382 --> 00:39:09.597
And it goes on and on, and on and on and you never, ever live.

00:39:09.597 --> 00:39:15.085
You only live this groundhog day existence of repetition of the past.

00:39:15.085 --> 00:39:26.465
And then you know what happens you get exhausted, you get tired, you get up each day with no joy because you know it is going to be the past.

00:39:26.465 --> 00:39:41.838
Yeah, deep inside you, inside your heart and soul, there is absolutely no joy, because you sit there and you say this is the prison.

00:39:41.838 --> 00:40:05.838
It is the same door, the same courtyard, the same guard, the same abusive next door prisoner, all going through our motions pretending that we are going to get surprised by something new, when all we are doing is recycling the past.

00:40:08.835 --> 00:40:10.641
So where is the hope, Ravi?

00:40:10.641 --> 00:40:12.295
How do we get out of that?

00:40:13.010 --> 00:40:22.822
The hope is to come to honest grips with the abysmal prison that you have created yourself.

00:40:22.822 --> 00:40:34.717
Until you are able to confront and actually come to grips that your life sucks, you can't have any hope of breaking out of it.

00:40:34.717 --> 00:40:58.782
No, because once you realize that, yes, I am a con, once you realize that my life is a prison, once you realize that damn it all of this is actually, as long as you keep going into the trash can, thinking that you're going to find treasure there, you're going to only spend your life digging through trash.

00:40:58.782 --> 00:41:10.103
Yes, for you to actually decide that, yes, there is no thing but trash here, you have to see your life as trash.

00:41:10.103 --> 00:41:13.646
Only then can you let go of it.

00:41:13.646 --> 00:41:17.769
You can't let go of trash as long as you think it's valuable.

00:41:20.215 --> 00:41:27.072
Yes, so you can't sidestep the recognition of what you're creating by kind of cheating, exactly.

00:41:28.193 --> 00:41:33.423
So when I work with people, I work with people with a kind of ruthless compassion.

00:41:33.423 --> 00:41:39.858
I'm compassionate because I see how helpless they are.

00:41:39.858 --> 00:41:43.704
I'm ruthless because there is no.

00:41:43.704 --> 00:41:49.338
It is a kind of a surgeon's compassion to a gangrenous limb.

00:41:49.338 --> 00:41:58.416
A surgeon cannot feel all so sorry for the rotten limb and say, oh poor limb, I'm so sorry that I'm going to cut you off.

00:41:58.416 --> 00:42:01.018
I'm going to mercilessly cut it off.

00:42:01.018 --> 00:42:15.070
There's no other way, because I am not interested in the rotten limb, I'm interested in the portion that is connected to it that still has hope.

00:42:15.672 --> 00:42:17.655
Yes, yes, exactly.

00:42:17.655 --> 00:42:21.521
I noticed in the back of your hand there's a heart.

00:42:21.521 --> 00:42:23.385
I love that.

00:42:24.891 --> 00:42:27.114
That's the wedding henna.

00:42:29.139 --> 00:42:35.474
You have a heart on the back of your hand, Ravi henna.

00:42:35.534 --> 00:42:38.005
You have a heart on the back of your hand, ravi.

00:42:38.005 --> 00:42:39.030
That's your compassion, right?

00:42:39.030 --> 00:42:46.451
Yeah, it actually is.

00:42:46.451 --> 00:42:47.793
It's a nice allegory, but it is my name and my wife's name.

00:42:47.793 --> 00:42:48.394
We got it put like I told you.

00:42:48.394 --> 00:42:50.199
I'm just back here from a wedding of my daughter.

00:42:50.518 --> 00:42:52.623
Yeah, yeah, I love that.

00:42:52.623 --> 00:43:01.719
Now, everyone listening to this or watching this is now going to go off, and when they have a wedding, they're going to have people's hearts on the back of people's hands with their blood.

00:43:02.230 --> 00:43:07.802
They're going to write individual letters to everyone Exactly.

00:43:08.550 --> 00:43:10.378
The world will change forever.

00:43:12.190 --> 00:43:15.159
Sorry, I came in, at least for a microsecond.

00:43:15.159 --> 00:43:19.922
And if it changes for a microsecond, it can change forever.

00:43:19.922 --> 00:43:24.400
See, that's all forever is.

00:43:24.400 --> 00:43:28.592
Forever is only an instant.

00:43:28.592 --> 00:43:30.614
The entire infinity of time is only an instant.

00:43:30.614 --> 00:43:36.380
The entire infinity of time is only an instant.

00:43:36.380 --> 00:43:45.431
And if the world changes for one person, for one instant, it has changed forever.

00:43:45.452 --> 00:43:46.773
So ruthless compassion.

00:43:46.773 --> 00:43:53.460
I understand that and you know also the way you talk about all of this.

00:43:53.460 --> 00:43:59.706
It is ruthless but it is also loving in the sense of your.

00:43:59.706 --> 00:44:08.530
I feel like you're calling people out to come out into themselves in the sense of arriving at their experience.

00:44:08.530 --> 00:44:08.989
Who?

00:44:09.050 --> 00:44:13.360
they are who they are, are not this victim?

00:44:13.360 --> 00:44:19.920
Yes, because, just think about it, it is like they are already creators.

00:44:19.920 --> 00:44:23.199
They have created the prison world themselves.

00:44:23.610 --> 00:44:24.594
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:44:24.730 --> 00:44:29.561
Imagine the constructs that built this world around us.

00:44:29.922 --> 00:44:30.682
Yeah, yeah.

00:44:31.690 --> 00:44:48.284
The construct of Gaza Strip, the construct of Israeli and Hamas, the construct of Ukraine and Russia, the construct of Trump and the rest of the world, the construct of Democrat and Republican.

00:44:48.284 --> 00:44:50.806
All these are created by us.

00:44:51.246 --> 00:44:53.688
Yeah, democrat and Republican.

00:44:53.768 --> 00:44:54.889
All these are created by us.

00:44:54.889 --> 00:45:23.469
If we could create these kind of constructs to hem ourselves in such that we have no possibility, no-transcript, if that's all we can, if we can construct that, if we can build that kind of doctor, mr Hyde kind of world, why can we not build the jacket?

00:45:23.469 --> 00:45:26.864
You can, you just don't see yourself.

00:45:26.864 --> 00:45:34.646
Because this narrative capacity is so far ahead and this is not just human beings it is there for animals.

00:45:34.666 --> 00:45:35.608
The narrative capacity is so far ahead.

00:45:35.608 --> 00:45:38.811
Yeah, and this is not just human beings, it is there for animals too.

00:45:38.811 --> 00:45:44.097
The tiger that cannot predict where the deer is going to appear is going to go hungry.

00:45:44.097 --> 00:45:47.581
The deer that cannot predict where the tiger is going to appear is going to get eaten.

00:45:47.581 --> 00:45:55.650
So this construct, creation, is the essence of survival.

00:45:55.650 --> 00:46:00.614
But if all you are is going to survive, I'm not saying that you don't need constructs.

00:46:00.614 --> 00:46:01.849
You do need constructs.

00:46:01.849 --> 00:46:11.849
You can't simply just go around prancing, tippy-toeing a fairy tale through life, but you need to own your construct, not be owned by them.

00:46:12.231 --> 00:46:12.492
Yes.

00:46:13.253 --> 00:46:22.057
Yeah, the problem is we are owned by our construct and therefore we bleed this robotic machine existence.

00:46:22.057 --> 00:46:22.746
Yeah.

00:46:23.728 --> 00:46:36.311
So if someone's listening to this and they think, wow, this sounds amazing, but I've absolutely no idea how I can even begin to explore this in my own life, what would you say to someone like that?

00:46:37.065 --> 00:46:38.251
You can do two things.

00:46:38.251 --> 00:46:41.815
You can painfully try to discover the path yourself.

00:46:41.815 --> 00:46:45.632
Life itself is the ultimate coach.

00:46:45.632 --> 00:46:48.097
I was fortunate.

00:46:48.097 --> 00:46:52.876
But when you do that, you will stumble.

00:46:52.876 --> 00:46:55.532
You will sometimes hit upon the right answers.

00:46:55.532 --> 00:46:58.672
Sometimes you won't, but eventually you'll reach the way.

00:46:58.672 --> 00:47:18.474

Ep 154: Dr Ravi Iyer ~ The Dr Jekyll & Mr Hyde of Experience and Narrative

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