Rick Archer's interviews with people like Della and many others on a journey of spiritual enlightenment are so very interesting! I highly recommend them to the WORLD...and maybe if we each can truly open our hearts, one day there will be world peace and unconditional love.
wow, Beauty abounds...! This dialogue has left me happy and in harmony, with a smile of appreciation for "my" path and the path of all "bodies and souls". Thank you BOTH!!!! Always getting a thrill of the underlying mutual truth that every spiritual teacher shares! Uniquely expressed! So much peace was radiated, so much "all is well-ness"!!! (will hop through the Swiss Alps now, it freshly snowed, will leave my own traces:-)...
Appreciate the interviewee's courage and following what she knows to be her truth, at the expense of almost everything that came before. There's no craft or pretension to what she's saying. I can only strive to be as present and gracious.
thank you rick and della and your team(s)....I AM really enjoying the recent run of interviews ...and the one that follows this one...........and about della's timing re awakening....as i listened...methinks it is that she had an inner hunger that took her to the practioner who then activated the idea of the hypnosis....and her hunger was to be able to radiate inner peace to her (extended) family...i have not gone back and re listened...so my details may be a little out......in essence....her inner is impulsing an hunger in her....she recognises it....and it expresses as desire to be able to radiate peace in (some aspect of) her particular living circumstance...hey presto....the call is answered........the alpha and the omega.......the beginning and the end....the chicken and the egg.....blessings....elanra
Spiritually, speaking - I felt that no one was really in trouble and no one really needed saving. Giving someone hungry, food, thirsty, water and everyone love, attention and respect was something else. Then too, there was a recognition that the God was inside them, they were inside God and ultimately, they didn’t need “my” help. When I shared something there was a recognition what I was sharing was not really “mine”. The only thing that I could claim some ownership on was - my attention. I felt that the Bodhisattva vow was a delusional idea. There was no one needing to be saved - spiritually speaking. Everything and everyone was already inside God.
I can relate to what Suzanne Segal underwent having had the same thing almost fifty years ago when I was all of 19. Indeed, it was very unsettling and terrifying at times and hardly could be called an "Awakening" in the positive sense in which that notion is conveyed. And yet the same happened years later when I was at a ten day meditation retreat with Sogyal Rinpoche in Santa Cruz(when his book came out) but while it was also unsettling to have the sense of self dissolved it was a very "high" experience. This is very well explained, and even illustrated in a book from years back called "Center of the Cyclone" by the late neurophysiologist/scientist John Lilly.
*Announcement included !* *A 0.7 on a -3.0 to +3.0 scale.* Disclaimers at the end of the comment. _(funny, someone had thumbed this up before I had posted anything except "Rating comment in progress")_ A good basic interview which fits the by Rick stated purpose of the channel. She is an honest woman, and the reporting on her insight is a bit thin. *Announcement:* Being bored with Waldorfing batgap, I also think that this rating for almost 2 years has by and large served its purpose. And I will be busier with other matters in the months to come. *I herewith declare that I do not observe a particular epidemic of spiritual awakening. By saying so I make no claim that there is **_no_** such epidemic. But the observation over the last few years on batgap seems to suggest that if there ever was an idea of such an epidemic it must have rested on an initial influx of connection to comparatively serious cases which became visible through this medium of the internet. But if that epidemic was any more than such a medium induced illusion then Rick would be able to fill his show with Paul Heddermans, Adyashantis and Francis Bennetts at every show. However that is increasingly not the case, and it looks as if the show needs fillers of an ever lower standard of qualifications and indeed of outright frauds and IMO plutocracy serving liars. So I have to tentatively conclude that Rick's claim of a spiritual epidemic is first and foremost a symptom of his primary vasana: wishful thinking. And the standards are lowered in order to keep this illusion afloat and the show running at 1 per week instead as it should be: perhaps 1 per year or semester.* Following popular demand, here are some of the interviews I recommend with no claim of completeness: Francis Bennett Paul Hedderman Harri Aalto Rupert Spira Loch Kelly Dorothy Hunt (the only woman thus far it seems) Kenneth Folk Michael Baxter Norio Kushi Adyashanti ...and some others. *I also want to particularly recommend the interview with Russel Williams on conscious TV*. _About the rating: anything below and including 0 means by and large a waste of time, and anything below 0 is not only worthless but damaging to the world. For comparison, on that scale, Francis Bennett would be a +2 or more and Harri Aalto would be roughly a tentative +2 to +2.5. Not coming up with original, independent cosmological insights bans any interviewee from > 2.0 ratings as a matter of principle._ *General Disclaimer:* _the rating pertains to an interview, not to the interviewee_. If the rating is high it means merely and exclusively that I consider the interview to be of high value relative to the stated purpose of the channel, and that it is therefore no waste of time to listen to the interview. It would _not_ imply that whatever the interviewee speaks is the truth (as if I was the arbiter over that) or that you should follow him/her or accept whatever that person offers. _That is particularly in need of emphasis if that would be an expensive enterprise_ !
+Soteriologe I hope you're not really planning to leave, but I admit my first thought was, before you go, please list the Batgap interviews you especially recommend. I hadn't heard the David Godman interview until just now, and I really appreciate your mentioning it.
+EarInn Hi Ear, just making sure: I didn't mean the batgap interview with David Godman, but the videos on Godman's channel itself. As for recommendations, I inserted some in the rating comment above.
Before I listen to this, if at all, I want to repeat my recommendation of *all the videos on David Godman's channel* (which I finished yesterday) to get a sense of what the real deal is like. One will get a better sense of what the supposed "spiritual epidemic" boils down to in reality.
+Joseph De Vito If anyone then I would be the one guilty of promoting another channel, but I don't think David's channel is competition to anyone. Just to make sure: I am not saying _"David's the real thing"_, I meant more the things he is relating in his vids about the Ramana scene.
+Soteriologe I don't have a problem with linking to David's channel. For David's 2nd interview, we're both going to review what we covered in the 1st, and make sure that we cover fresh ground. There are some lesser-known saints he wants to discuss.
I don't see so much suffering around. Right now, I am at a park with many kids, parents and grandparents. They seem quite ok. People at my child's school seem quite ok. I goto work and there too people seem quite ok. I was in India just few months ago. There too people seemed ok. I know people who are said to suffer from mental illness. They too seemed ok. I have met people who are said to suffer from cancer. They too appeared ok. I have met people who likely make only $5 a day (in India), they too seemed ok. I think we start being not ok and we start seeing the world and others as not ok when start judging everything, start applying our own standards and we start deciding how everything should be. I think a lot of problems we invent ourselves by deciding how everything should be for us and for everyone else.
I think many people in spirituality start seeing too much suffering because they start over analyzing everything - themselves, others and the the entire world.
People do indeed seem quite OK. I have seen them in many situations - at school, work, playground, restaurants, bars, parks, parties, hospitals. People don't keep analyzing themselves or their situation all the time and when they don't, most of the times, they are OK. It is not that they never suffer, feel sad or get depressed. I don't consider all suffering bad. I see some suffering as part of the learning process. Some of us learn faster than others. Those who learn faster, surrender sooner. Some others need to suffer much more and much longer before they truly surrender (to God). Some I think might struggle all their life because they aren't willing to surrender as long as they are alive. People I have seen suffer, suffer when they are in defiance of God. They suffer when they want to be in control, when they want to be the decider, the judge. People whom I have seen suffer, suffer when they don't want to obey, respect, love and thank God but just want what they want. (To clarify, God to me, is the one who created the air that I breathe and the lungs that I breathe with and the brain that I use to think. To not realize this and to not thank God for this is the first act of defiance in my opinion. Once we realize, by whose grace, whose air I am breathing right in this moment and feel truly thankful for it, the suffering and everything else starts falling in place.)
When we remember, thank That which created the air we breathe in, the lungs we breathe with, when we love That as we breathe in, the truth sets in and our mental problems start melting away. That which created the air, water, the stars, galaxies and the earth, that which created the very brain using which we think is wise, benevolent and generous and it can be in control; when we notice and acknowledge it and when we let it fully be in control our of our own will, our resistance falls and with that our mental problems start falling. When we acknowledge that which created it all, when we are fully willing to let that which created it all to be in control, to be in-charge, to be the judge and decider, our struggle starts ending and with that the suffering starts going away. Our problems starts and we decide to be in control, to be in charge, to be the ultimate judge, while ignoring the very source of our own existence. Our problem starts when we think we are wiser, smarter, better than our own creator ignoring the creator of the very brain using which we think, ignoring the creator of the very air we breathe. I noticed that suffering can't be removed as long one is ignoring, going against, fighting, struggling against the very source of one's own existence. The God is that source. We can't remove suffering as long as one is struggling against God because... ...that very struggle is suffering.
To be ignorant of God and her grace while sitting on the God created Ground, inhabiting space and breathing air is to be like a baby who closes its eyes and forgets all about mother while still seating in the mothers lap and drinking milk from her breasts.
By myself, I can do nothing... ~~~ somewhere in bible Forget about removing someone's suffering. Once we truly surrender to the God and open our eyes and heart to the grace that already surrounds us, our suffering starts waning on its own. Without surrender to God, I can not remove my own suffering and not of someone else's. Resistance to God is the suffering. To me, the leason from Jesus life is not that the Jesus alone is the way; to me, the lesson from his life is that... The surrender to The God alone is the way. When I truly surrender to God, I allow everything and everyone to be it is except to do what love asks me to do in the moment.
The 'security apparatus' with which we surround ourselves, while we are alive and kicking, is a function of the self and, I assert, is absolutely real, because it is/corresponds to the body and its need to continue existing......However, if and only if, a person has undergone an experience (by definition unsought for), which has convinced them, at least to their own satisfaction, that (to put it in the best way I can) there is an element in consciousness which doesn't die when the body dies: naturally that will relieve much of the angst of 'existence'....However, to resort to scam-artists like 'Adyashanti', in something called a 'satsang' (lawks!) in an attempt to reproduce such an experience is, to put it mildly, inappropriate, since the tools in the psycho-spiritual toolbox don't work. And you don't need to be Albert Einstein to see why....So: is Rick's idea that more of the same is 'going to result in a better World' (whatever that might mean) psycho-spiritual babble, or is it just hippie rubbish?...I put it to him that the latter would at least be less destructive!........And It's always very worrying when Medical Doctors get involved in all this kind of stuff. You'd think they'd be made of sterner stuff, wouldn't you?.... We are all, whether we like it or not, products of our conditioning. Although such conditioning may, (or may not) be completely at variance with our 'proper role', it's unlikely to be completely insignificant... The question as to whether NDEs can reliably be reproduced under Hypnosis (which the young lady hasn't even investigated!!!) would anyway appear to be a primarily medical question. ..But, if they (NDEs) can not, the role of an E.R. Doctor powerfully suggests itself as a starting-point in an investigation of these matters!....As Eben Alexander urgently needs to learn: the Dalai Lama ( halfway sensible though the current one is) is not going to be of much help...Or relevance..
Utter crap. Why would anyone want to interview this woman? What qualifies her to be a spiritual teacher? NOTHING! One hypnosis session? Hearing voices. Apart from copying Adyashanti, what has she to say? Nothing that I can see. It all amounts to nothing. Not even a meditation system. She seems to me to be confused and imbalanced. She talks about love, but ignored her own husband. Who would want to pay this woman, and for what? Yes, she is pleasant. but what good is that if you yearn to be free? She speaks junk.
+Moonsod she went from being more educated than you, making more money than you, having a better family than you, basically being better than you in every respect, to being a spiritually awakened person so much so that the entire direction of her life had to change. Teacher or no, she is explaining how spiritual awakening can happen to anyone, anywhere, and effect them in ways they could never imagine. You should pay attention to the bigger picture.
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Thank you Della and Rick. Beautiful interview.
Rick Archer's interviews with people like Della and many others
on a journey of spiritual enlightenment are so very interesting! I highly recommend them to the WORLD...and maybe if we each can truly open our hearts, one day there will be world peace and unconditional love.
Lovely interview. It felt very real and not "what am I supposed to sound like".
wow, Beauty abounds...!
This dialogue has left me happy and in harmony, with a smile of appreciation for "my" path and the path of all "bodies and souls".
Thank you BOTH!!!!
Always getting a thrill of the underlying mutual truth that every spiritual teacher shares! Uniquely expressed!
So much peace was radiated, so much "all is well-ness"!!!
(will hop through the Swiss Alps now, it freshly snowed, will leave my own traces:-)...
Beautiful Della, and Thankyou Rick.
+kranti ananta oooh
Appreciate the interviewee's courage and following what she knows to be her truth, at the expense of almost everything that came before. There's no craft or pretension to what she's saying. I can only strive to be as present and gracious.
thank you rick and della and your team(s)....I AM really enjoying the recent run of interviews ...and the one that follows this one...........and about della's timing re awakening....as i listened...methinks it is that she had an inner hunger that took her to the practioner who then activated the idea of the hypnosis....and her hunger was to be able to radiate inner peace to her (extended) family...i have not gone back and re listened...so my details may be a little out......in essence....her inner is impulsing an hunger in her....she recognises it....and it expresses as desire to be able to radiate peace in (some aspect of) her particular living circumstance...hey presto....the call is answered........the alpha and the omega.......the beginning and the end....the chicken and the egg.....blessings....elanra
Beautiful.
Spiritually, speaking - I felt that no one was really in trouble and no one really needed saving. Giving someone hungry, food, thirsty, water and everyone love, attention and respect was something else. Then too, there was a recognition that the God was inside them, they were inside God and ultimately, they didn’t need “my” help. When I shared something there was a recognition what I was sharing was not really “mine”. The only thing that I could claim some ownership on was - my attention.
I felt that the Bodhisattva vow was a delusional idea. There was no one needing to be saved - spiritually speaking. Everything and everyone was already inside God.
I can relate to what Suzanne Segal underwent having had the same thing almost fifty years ago when I was all of 19. Indeed, it was very unsettling and terrifying at times and hardly could be called an "Awakening" in the positive sense in which that notion is conveyed. And yet the same happened years later when I was at a ten day meditation retreat with Sogyal Rinpoche in Santa Cruz(when his book came out) but while it was also unsettling to have the sense of self dissolved it was a very "high" experience. This is very well explained, and even illustrated in a book from years back called "Center of the Cyclone" by the late neurophysiologist/scientist John Lilly.
*Announcement included !*
*A 0.7 on a -3.0 to +3.0 scale.* Disclaimers at the end of the comment.
_(funny, someone had thumbed this up before I had posted anything except "Rating comment in progress")_
A good basic interview which fits the by Rick stated purpose of the channel. She is an honest woman, and the reporting on her insight is a bit thin.
*Announcement:* Being bored with Waldorfing batgap, I also think that this rating for almost 2 years has by and large served its purpose. And I will be busier with other matters in the months to come. *I herewith declare that I do not observe a particular epidemic of spiritual awakening. By saying so I make no claim that there is **_no_** such epidemic. But the observation over the last few years on batgap seems to suggest that if there ever was an idea of such an epidemic it must have rested on an initial influx of connection to comparatively serious cases which became visible through this medium of the internet. But if that epidemic was any more than such a medium induced illusion then Rick would be able to fill his show with Paul Heddermans, Adyashantis and Francis Bennetts at every show. However that is increasingly not the case, and it looks as if the show needs fillers of an ever lower standard of qualifications and indeed of outright frauds and IMO plutocracy serving liars. So I have to tentatively conclude that Rick's claim of a spiritual epidemic is first and foremost a symptom of his primary vasana: wishful thinking. And the standards are lowered in order to keep this illusion afloat and the show running at 1 per week instead as it should be: perhaps 1 per year or semester.*
Following popular demand, here are some of the interviews I recommend with no claim of completeness:
Francis Bennett
Paul Hedderman
Harri Aalto
Rupert Spira
Loch Kelly
Dorothy Hunt (the only woman thus far it seems)
Kenneth Folk
Michael Baxter
Norio Kushi
Adyashanti
...and some others. *I also want to particularly recommend the interview with Russel Williams on conscious TV*.
_About the rating: anything below and including 0 means by and large a waste of time, and anything below 0 is not only worthless but damaging to the world. For comparison, on that scale, Francis Bennett would be a +2 or more and Harri Aalto would be roughly a tentative +2 to +2.5. Not coming up with original, independent cosmological insights bans any interviewee from > 2.0 ratings as a matter of principle._
*General Disclaimer:* _the rating pertains to an interview, not to the interviewee_. If the rating is high it means merely and exclusively that I consider the interview to be of high value relative to the stated purpose of the channel, and that it is therefore no waste of time to listen to the interview. It would _not_ imply that whatever the interviewee speaks is the truth (as if I was the arbiter over that) or that you should follow him/her or accept whatever that person offers. _That is particularly in need of emphasis if that would be an expensive enterprise_ !
+Soteriologe I hope you're not really planning to leave, but I admit my first thought was, before you go, please list the Batgap interviews you especially recommend. I hadn't heard the David Godman interview until just now, and I really appreciate your mentioning it.
+EarInn Hi Ear, just making sure: I didn't mean the batgap interview with David Godman, but the videos on Godman's channel itself. As for recommendations, I inserted some in the rating comment above.
a great woman
Simply spontaneous withdrawal of attention, defocused and could be scary -, you going into another dimension.
Before I listen to this, if at all, I want to repeat my recommendation of *all the videos on David Godman's channel* (which I finished yesterday) to get a sense of what the real deal is like. One will get a better sense of what the supposed "spiritual epidemic" boils down to in reality.
+Joseph De Vito Search for UCBcqQGNwcSEwlv6gJXP-U9A
+Joseph De Vito I'll probably be interviewing David again in June.
+Joseph De Vito If anyone then I would be the one guilty of promoting another channel, but I don't think David's channel is competition to anyone.
Just to make sure: I am not saying _"David's the real thing"_, I meant more the things he is relating in his vids about the Ramana scene.
+Mary Gwen Dungan Nope.
+Soteriologe I don't have a problem with linking to David's channel. For David's 2nd interview, we're both going to review what we covered in the 1st, and make sure that we cover fresh ground. There are some lesser-known saints he wants to discuss.
I don't see so much suffering around.
Right now, I am at a park with many kids, parents and grandparents. They seem quite ok.
People at my child's school seem quite ok.
I goto work and there too people seem quite ok.
I was in India just few months ago. There too people seemed ok.
I know people who are said to suffer from mental illness. They too seemed ok.
I have met people who are said to suffer from cancer. They too appeared ok.
I have met people who likely make only $5 a day (in India), they too seemed ok.
I think we start being not ok and we start seeing the world and others as not ok when start judging everything, start applying our own standards and we start deciding how everything should be.
I think a lot of problems we invent ourselves by deciding how everything should be for us and for everyone else.
I think many people in spirituality start seeing too much suffering because they start over analyzing everything - themselves, others and the the entire world.
People do indeed seem quite OK. I have seen them in many situations - at school, work, playground, restaurants, bars, parks, parties, hospitals.
People don't keep analyzing themselves or their situation all the time and when they don't, most of the times, they are OK.
It is not that they never suffer, feel sad or get depressed.
I don't consider all suffering bad. I see some suffering as part of the learning process. Some of us learn faster than others. Those who learn faster, surrender sooner.
Some others need to suffer much more and much longer before they truly surrender (to God). Some I think might struggle all their life because they aren't willing to surrender as long as they are alive.
People I have seen suffer, suffer when they are in defiance of God. They suffer when they want to be in control, when they want to be the decider, the judge. People whom I have seen suffer, suffer when they don't want to obey, respect, love and thank God but just want what they want.
(To clarify, God to me, is the one who created the air that I breathe and the lungs that I breathe with and the brain that I use to think. To not realize this and to not thank God for this is the first act of defiance in my opinion. Once we realize, by whose grace, whose air I am breathing right in this moment and feel truly thankful for it, the suffering and everything else starts falling in place.)
When we remember, thank That which created the air we breathe in, the lungs we breathe with, when we love That as we breathe in, the truth sets in and our mental problems start melting away.
That which created the air, water, the stars, galaxies and the earth, that which created the very brain using which we think is wise, benevolent and generous and it can be in control; when we notice and acknowledge it and when we let it fully be in control our of our own will, our resistance falls and with that our mental problems start falling.
When we acknowledge that which created it all, when we are fully willing to let that which created it all to be in control, to be in-charge, to be the judge and decider, our struggle starts ending and with that the suffering starts going away. Our problems starts and we decide to be in control, to be in charge, to be the ultimate judge, while ignoring the very source of our own existence. Our problem starts when we think we are wiser, smarter, better than our own creator ignoring the creator of the very brain using which we think, ignoring the creator of the very air we breathe.
I noticed that suffering can't be removed as long one is ignoring, going against, fighting, struggling against the very source of one's own existence. The God is that source. We can't remove suffering as long as one is struggling against God because... ...that very struggle is suffering.
To be ignorant of God and her grace while sitting on the God created Ground, inhabiting space and breathing air is to be like a baby who closes its eyes and forgets all about mother while still seating in the mothers lap and drinking milk from her breasts.
By myself, I can do nothing...
~~~ somewhere in bible
Forget about removing someone's suffering.
Once we truly surrender to the God and open our eyes and heart to the grace that already surrounds us, our suffering starts waning on its own.
Without surrender to God, I can not remove my own suffering and not of someone else's.
Resistance to God is the suffering.
To me, the leason from Jesus life is not that the Jesus alone is the way; to me, the lesson from his life is that... The surrender to The God alone is the way.
When I truly surrender to God, I allow everything and everyone to be it is except to do what love asks me to do in the moment.
The 'security apparatus' with which we surround ourselves, while we are alive and kicking, is a function of the self and, I assert, is absolutely real, because it is/corresponds to the body and its need to continue existing......However, if and only if, a person has undergone an experience (by definition unsought for), which has convinced them, at least to their own satisfaction, that (to put it in the best way I can) there is an element in consciousness which doesn't die when the body dies: naturally that will relieve much of the angst of 'existence'....However, to resort to scam-artists like 'Adyashanti', in something called a 'satsang' (lawks!) in an attempt to reproduce such an experience is, to put it mildly, inappropriate, since the tools in the psycho-spiritual toolbox don't work. And you don't need to be Albert Einstein to see why....So: is Rick's idea that more of the same is 'going to result in a better World' (whatever that might mean) psycho-spiritual babble, or is it just hippie rubbish?...I put it to him that the latter would at least be less destructive!........And It's always very worrying when Medical Doctors get involved in all this kind of stuff. You'd think they'd be made of sterner stuff, wouldn't you?.... We are all, whether we like it or not, products of our conditioning. Although such conditioning may, (or may not) be completely at variance with our 'proper role', it's unlikely to be completely insignificant... The question as to whether NDEs can reliably be reproduced under Hypnosis (which the young lady hasn't even investigated!!!) would anyway appear to be a primarily medical question. ..But, if they (NDEs) can not, the role of an E.R. Doctor powerfully suggests itself as a starting-point in an investigation of these matters!....As Eben Alexander urgently needs to learn: the Dalai Lama ( halfway sensible though the current one is) is not going to be of much help...Or relevance..
Ramana, had a similar experience where he to couldn't function.
Utter crap. Why would anyone want to interview this woman? What qualifies her to be a spiritual teacher? NOTHING! One hypnosis session? Hearing voices. Apart from copying Adyashanti, what has she to say? Nothing that I can see. It all amounts to nothing. Not even a meditation system. She seems to me to be confused and imbalanced. She talks about love, but ignored her own husband. Who would want to pay this woman, and for what? Yes, she is pleasant. but what good is that if you yearn to be free? She speaks junk.
+Moonsod she went from being more educated than you, making more money than you, having a better family than you, basically being better than you in every respect, to being a spiritually awakened person so much so that the entire direction of her life had to change. Teacher or no, she is explaining how spiritual awakening can happen to anyone, anywhere, and effect them in ways they could never imagine. You should pay attention to the bigger picture.