29 - Mind Honey

Hello Citizens of Earth!

My guest for this episode is Casen from the Mind Honey podcast. We talk about the mind, consciousness, being, non-duality, trauma, Jesus, God, psychedelics and much more!

Mind Honey Podcast
https://open.spotify.com/show/2qvkSQBKcaJ2fNP99z4skM?si=aced02ce864c40a1

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Music: Take It Easy - Bad Snacks
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Transcript

[00:00:00] Hey. Hello. What's up? Welcome to Life and Conversation. Today's guest is a wonderful person that I met last year and we had an awesome conversation and I've been looking forward to this conversation. Continuing that. Please welcome, Cason. Hey, I wanna start off, just to get out of the way the, I wanted to know what your take was on the hunter gatherer thing, one of the earliest podcast episodes.

Yeah, I remember listening to that. 

For me, it. Somewhat of an eye-opener cuz it just started with, I was just curious like what was the health of the Hunter gather people compared to agriculture people? Just out of curiosity. They're a lifespan and as I was learning more that, you know, country to popular belief, they actually live good, healthy lives.

And it's also observed in the modern day, the last modern day Hunter Gather tribe, the Mazda tribe in Africa, where they live up to 60, 70 years old and relatively disease. , they have no farming whatsoever. They just live off the land and have the, the [00:01:00] healthiest gut microbiome too in the whole world. So then that just kind of led me in a rabbit hole of like, well, exploring this and all the consequences that came out of switching to agriculture.

Yeah. You know, that's kind of a curious thing. My perspective is, is that I kind of reject this idea that there was a progression from. Some primitive human to some advanced human. I really don't think that's how things work. I think there's been just different approaches to life, you know, and certain people have developed a, an approach to balancing their life energies, right?

Like that's all we're trying to do. It is curious that we exist today in a time that's you. Not living in a Hunter gather style. It's, it's, it seems to be a lifestyle that's more of the mind. Right? You know, hunter Gather style is, you kind of accept nature as your guy for balancing your life, right? You, you accept the limitations imposed on you [00:02:00] by the seasons, by the weather, by everything, by the plants and animals around you.

Whereas, you know, modern civilization, you kind of don't accept the limitations. You want to live in a world filled with the mans of your mind instead. Right. So you, you create all these patterns live by those patterns, which are all artificial. Mm-hmm. . And so, I don't know, I, I feel like. , perhaps. There's been all kinds of civilizations of humans taking many different approaches to living, and we've all shared planet for who knows how long , you know?

Yeah, I, I agree with that. . The whole notion too, that we're better than, you know, so-called primitive man. Yet we don't know a lot about how they lived and how they built their societies. I mean, we don't even know how they built the pyramids, and yet we like to call them primitive. It's definitely a different way of living.

It's more mind centered. You know, the so-called age of enlightenment when Hunter gather, a lot of it was survival based, so you didn't [00:03:00] have time to just sit around and scratch your chin and ponder, you know, you had to find the next meal and support your community, your tribe, or your group of people. It has this trade-offs, of course.

I mean we were more physical back then, so we were more healthier. We were more attuned with the land, with nature. We had a balance with nature, whereas, but we didn't know a whole lot about ourselves, the universe or things. I mean, scientific discovery, all the things of that we know about space and the mind, but it comes outta trade off because then we, I feel like we've.

A part of ourselves along the way that we've kind of been disconnected with nature, and even though we have all these technological advancements, at the end of the day, we still are animals. We're part of nature and we lost something along the way that comes with that. And we, we abuse a lot of the, the power and knowledge that we have obtained rather than being in balance.

We strip the land of the resources and not [00:04:00] really. Of the impact on the ecosystem. Yeah. You know, that, that comes with the territory of living in the mind as opposed to living, you know, in the body. Right. And, and the earth being the elective body of all of us. Right. I, I want, cuz you know, the, the original peoples from Australia, they have a really in depth cosmology and they even talk about coming from the stars and all of this.

I, I question whether or not, you know, , you know, ancient lineages of, of humans, didn't know all these things, right? You can know all of this and just to just pick berries and hunt for animals like you , you know what I mean? Like you don't need anything more. You can just be satisfied with your place in, in the world and, and not have to push to shift or, or dominate or anything else.

You know, there's people that have gone to the HA tribe and. There's this one video where they ask 'em philosophical questions and what do you think happens of life after death? Or what do you [00:05:00] think is the moon or, or this, or, you know, things like that. And they don't really, they say basically they don't really think about that.

You know, they just think about living the day and just eating and whatnot. They don't really like ponder, you know, philosophy and all that stuff, which I thought, you know, one today can be like, oh, they're so simple minded. But at the same time there, there's beauty in just being in the moment. . Not stressing too much of knowing things rather than just experiencing and being, yeah, that's it cuz.

Cuz if you're fully in the moment, there's no mind anymore, right? It's the mind like thought is a reflection of the past. Really. It's a memory. So anytime you have a thought, it's already. something that's passed. So if you're here now and you're fully embodied, then there's no thinking, there's just being, as you said, there's this flow of experience.

You could try and speak about certain state of [00:06:00] awareness or consciousness. I, I don't know how hell it is cuz it's unique to everybody just becomes poetry at a certain point. But what feels true to me is. The fact that sort of life takes care of itself, right? Your heart beats itself, your breath breathes itself, your blood circulates itself.

Life takes care of itself without you or me needing to do anything about it, right? So I think that that could apply to everything we do if we allowed it right? But there's just these interesting energetic patterns that create our mental personality. and they interfere with everything. They create a lot of chaos for all of us.

Too much thinking can be a bad thing. I, I find that's a problem for me. It's like, I like to think, but sometimes to the point where it's too much thinking where either I don't act or I don't implement, or I just go to the next thing that's like a mental exercise in the next learning [00:07:00] rather than just living and being in the moment.

And it's okay to, to learn stuff, to expand one's mind. It's almost in a way, like as a culture, we, we worshiped the mind in some way. I mean, I felt like, you know, for a long time it was like the mind is everything, you know, mind over matter, but that's just one part of our being that encompasses all these other things that come together to make up who we are or at least who we think we are.

Yeah, I, I would say that being is primary, right? First you have to be before you can think, right? Like, you before awareness. Silly is like the root of all things. Without awareness then nothing else proceeds, at least from our perspective. So the thing that's interesting is you can directly cogn information.

If you sit in total silence and stillness answers and knowing sort of just come right, that you just cogn from. , [00:08:00] it's simply you, you experience the knowing the truth. And you can then take that knowing, which is essentially infinite. It's so abstract that you can't describe it. So then you start like child with a crayon, making a crude system of symbols and conducts to try to elaborate a.

Using language or, or art to explain what you directly cogn within yourself. Right. And it's so, so limited compared to what you know in it. Right. You know that you are, you feel I am. But could you say anything more about it than that? No, but there's a lot more to that experience than, than just saying I am.

It's funny that you mentioned the, you know that when you sit in silence and you're still, that you, things come to you. And that also is kind of where like that our subconscious comes [00:09:00] from. Like, you know how you have like a. You think of something or when you're gonna do something and then it just pops into your mind, but then you overcomplicate it by analyzing it and second guessing it, and then, then you change something directly.

Like, no, I shouldn't do that. Like I guess what we would call the gut instinct, you know? Or your heart. And that's one thing too that I've been working towards getting more attuned to, and meditation helps. And then just sitting still and. Breathe and just being in silence. And sometimes things just come to you.

I'm like you said, out of nowhere. But I feel like a lot of us, and especially modern society, we don't really experience that because it's drowned out, but it's too much noise. We're we're stimulated left and right. There's too much noise everywhere. Like people just want to have music or something always in the background.

You drive, you listen to music, you go home, you turn on the tv. So there's, we never really. time to just be quiet. Unless, you know, people go hiking and you know, that's why they get, you know, that peace because they're out in [00:10:00] nature and it's still, you just hear the ambience of nature. Yeah. But these days even folks bring speakers hanging off their backpacks out on trail

Well, on trail. Yeah. I've seen that. It's one thing if you have like, listened to headphones or whatnot, but yeah, I've seen people like on their backpack a little speaker. Yeah, it's, it's right. There's. You know, a, a way to think about. . I like the word impression because our entire being receives impressions.

You know, you hear sound in your ears and you see with your eyes. Sure. But you also just feel general energetic shifts with your whole being at times. Right? Like, you know, when someone storms into a room and they're some, they're having some kind of disturbance within themselves, you can. , you feel this person's having a hard time, something's going on.

Like there's, there's ripple effects in the whole space, and we're receiving those impressions [00:11:00] constantly. And some of those impressions, we have to digest them just like we digest Lud, right? You shove keg and burritos and everything else into your mouth. You have to digest it so you know. Ancient systems like i R eight are talking about what to eat, when to eat, and all these things so that you can properly assimilate the nutrients.

Well, the same's true of all impressions, food is one aspect, but then what sounds are you hearing? What are you seeing? What vibrations are you feeling and experiencing? You have to process them. And there's many tools for processing, but meditation is, is a good one. Meditation and yoga of course. And then I don't.

Physical exercise, dancing, laughing. All of these ways are, are ways of processing impressions, but I think we've kind of lost the art and science of knowing what impressions are healthy and at what amounts, and then what do I need to do to process them and be free of them? Move. [00:12:00] Yeah, that's a good way of putting it.

I never thought of it that way. Like impressions, cuz that's one thing that I've been more and more aware of how we're sensitive to everything around is the energy, the vibrations, the vibes, the tone. You know, I, that's one thing I wonder why things are kind of dark for a lot of people during covid, especially in the last two years of mental illness.

Cuz it's a, it's almost as if a collective consciousness is all this dark energy that's infecting. us without even really knowing it. It affects our morale, our whatever you want to call soul or spirit. And it just spreads and people just kind of like give into it because a lot of here in the West, you, we don't really have, have like practices like meditation and yoga on a mass scale and a healthy way.

You know, people usually turn to substance, alcohol, drugs, or whatever other advice they have. And I, I feel like that contributes to how things are right now. Where things feel [00:13:00] hopeless. Absolutely, absolutely. And, and also just digging into Netflix and then just watching some tense horror show or some ridiculous, you know, violent thing.

You're just getting more of those impressions than you would by watching the news. You know what I mean? Or, or heaven forbid, living in a neighborhood where it happens, you know? You know, or having a family member or some having it close to home. This, this past winter, really the, every winter since Covid has been really dark, as you said, like darkest experiences in my consciousness in a long time, for sure.

And they do feel unbidden. You know, like I'm living my life as I always have, and I don't know why I feel so low, you know? And I think. . I think you're right. It is a collective shift that's happening and it's painful. We basically have to we have to repay the collective debt of, you know, the way we've [00:14:00] been living up until now.

We have to experience what pain comes from that. Yeah, we definitely are reaping what we have sold in the last several decades. , even in the last a hundred years, things are interconnected. That leads to this, that leads to that and such a massive scale that it's just mind boggling just to think about all the ways things have impacted this, like the butterfly effect, but in, in one way, it could be depressing when you think about how things are dark, but another way it could be inspiring because if.

if we could be influenced by negative things, just by the, the, the collective consciousness, we could also impact it for good by spreading, you know, positivity, good vibes, whatever you wanna call it. Good energy out there. And it may not, and one person may not change the shift, but if enough people do it, and even if it's just.

Sew in a seed into somebody uplifting and saying a a word, you know, like that's uplifting or [00:15:00] positive, where they're going through some tough time and then they get cheered up or it helps them and then they in turn may do some small act and it's just through small acts. You know, we like to romanticize changing the world as you know, big events.

But really I'm starting to realize that it's just all these little acts, all these little things, you know, just working together. Joy is the greatest rebellion. It's the greatest form of activism because especially if you are somebody who has experienced incredible pain, incredible trauma, incredible injustice, and you still find joy in face of all of that.

I mean, that's huge. It's super, super. And for those beings who can do that, they're the ones who are putting that energy out. They're the ones who are healing for the rest of us. Right. And something that's been so inspiring me is, yeah, it's been dark, but I've noticed people finding more and more and more beautiful ways of dealing with it.

People I [00:16:00] know who used to abuse substances have shifted their lives in positive ways. Some people I know have died. , I know people have taken their lives, so I've seen it both ways, right? You get squeezed into that dark place and there's an alchemical moment where something happens. Either you don't make it or you transcend all of it, and some beautiful powerful blossoming happens.

And I've seen it happen in a lot of people in my, in my world at least. I love the, the quote that goes like the, the greater the struggle, the greater the. and people that are able to laugh at the hardships and just shake it off and continue on and still have joy. It's, it reminds me of myself and it makes me think, maybe that's one of the reasons why I never realizing it till now.

Why I always loved the, the character of the Joker that, you know, like even though he did, he does terrible act on what [00:17:00] we would call evil, but just his, it just that itself, the fact that he experienced. Depending on the origin, he lost his family and, and then he just goes insane. And he just laughs and he finds, he pokes the holes in society and the absurdities of what's going on.

And, and I resonated with that when I was little because I, I had tremendous trauma. Like I haven't really shared on this, on the show before, but I, I suffered sexual abuse when I was a. and that fucked me up for the longest time. And, but somehow, like I carried on, like I, I, I had my inner demons over the years, but just that, that the concept of the joker, like, just laughing, you know?

It's like you can't keep me down. Like you, it's hard to explain, but I get what you're saying. You know, those, those people that still have joy can smile. Yeah. And. , it could be both ways, like it [00:18:00] positive somebody who, when shit hits the fan. But if somebody also, like who, let's say like for example, like the classic character in a movie who's like the, the villain, right?

The bad guy and the fact that he's grinning and smiling, that's even more terrifying. , you know, rather than just the frown and like the angry face. The fact that this maniac is smiling is even terrifying. Yeah. It's it kind of symbolizes that chaotic. Aspect, that chaotic archetype where because it's chaos, it's not understandable and because it's not understandable, it's becomes threatening.

Right? It becomes, it's unknowable, it's unpredictable, and so you can't relate to it. So there's no relational aspect to, to chaos because you can't orient yourself in relation to what that is because it's impossible to understand. So it's very threatening. Right. And that's why I think meditation or even psychedelic journeys are really important cuz you step into these spaces of [00:19:00] complete mystery, complete unknowing how you to your own body and your own mind completely taken from you and you experience something impossible to, to describe.

But the more you dip into that, more you. hold the capacity to allow for that to, to be and, and you no longer close down and try to force a relative perspective to to, to exist and force that other into some predictable package. That makes sense. Yeah. Us humans, we, we love to have our patterns and predict things and we kind of fear things that are unpredictable and label that as chaos.

Even some things that we consider chaos, like for example, nature, it can be appeared chaos, but there really there's, there's still underlying orders as far as like the weather. I was reading in this book that like for example, the weather, how it could appear, chaos, it's just randomly no, but there's underlying [00:20:00] patterns and things that contribute to it and while not always predictable and we can't predict the weather far in advance, but there are things that are not really chaos.

It's just a different order of. And as humans we, we tend to fear what we don't understand. Yeah. It seems to be built into a sense making. , right? There's this, it, it almost feels like I like, I like the ramdas. You have to become somebody before you can become nobody. So it feels like there's a pattern of building up a structure, make sense?

Orienting to the world, orienting to the universe you know, creating family and orienting to that and Kennedy, and then, then you work dissolving all of. and so you can embody both the unknowable and the known feels just like a, a normal life cycle. Freeman's, that's an interesting way I'm looking at it, but yeah, it's construct and [00:21:00] deconstruct, which one thing I love about psychedelic journeys is about the deconstruction, the dissolution of things that you thought you knew or who you were.

And it's just being in consciousness and then learning from that because I, I think it was the time when you and I sat in a psychedelic circle where, Man, it was what, what do you call those things in like science class that expands, I forgot. It's like the thing that the teacher uses. It's like a plastic toy thing that expands, I forgot what it's called.

But anyway, if I felt like every layer of my being was like expanded and all of these labels and identities that I, who I thought I was, or I attribute to myself just kind of dissolved and I was just left with consciousness. and, and, and it was kind of like, it was fascinating, but at the same time, like creepy, cuz I was like, who am I?

What am I, you know, without all these labels, it's just like, we're just being, we're just consciousness and [00:22:00] it's all these things that make up who we are, but those are just kind of temporary and it's not really, really who we are and what we are. Yeah, it's, it's a temporary form that allows us to reflect ourselves back to ourselves.

It's, yeah, it's impossible to talk about. It really is. It's fun to try. That's why we're here. But , oh, I wish I was an animator or some sort, or an artist that I could just try to capture some of those things, which is hard because it's like you said, it's very difficult. Yeah. I think you capture it by, by your living, right?

Like it's the art of living, you know? Gandhi said, let my life be my message. And I think that's, Really, really deep because by seeing, by witnessing someone's life, you know, the depth of their being by the way they carry themselves, their, their grace, their dignity, their deep joy, their ability to [00:23:00] feel everything, and also to stay open and have gratitude for whatever comes, just go with the flow.

But at the same time, cuz like I came across this, this quote years ago that says like only to swim upstream like fish swim upstream, only dead fish go with the flow . So I I think there's truth in both aspects. Like one you just kinda have to tune yourself to the situation and not try to force something and just kind of like adapt to the situation and.

the dark side going with the flow is just kind of going along with emotions, you know, that that could lead to two bad things. For example, Nazi Germany, for example, you know where it is. The, the whole Nazi belief started picking up and the rest of the people were just going with the flow. It's what everybody else is doing.

Yeah, it's, it's interesting. , you know, when you start to analyze these [00:24:00] boundaries is when you find the paradox, right? Because going with the flow in a certain sense is, as you said, in a sense, example is a perfect example of, you know, dead fish go with the flow, right? But going with the flow also mean accepting.

I'm a. I'm not a eagle, right? I'm not a a bear, I'm a fish. And so I'm gonna just roll with that act that I'm a fish. And in a sense, that's also going with the flow in a different way. Yeah, I think a lot of things, there's two, is it like a two edge sword? There is the negative aspect in the positive aspect.

It's not like one or the other. It's kind of both. But at the same time, In a paradox kind of way. . Yeah. It's both. And neither, it's a way to put it, it's, it's it's, it's that, that's the essence of, of tantra, which is, is a lot of people, they hear the word tantra and they think of sexual practices, but sex is just, [00:25:00] is exploration of the boundary of two physical beings.

Right. You're, you're, my boundary is meeting your boundary. We're exploring that. It's really the exploration of any boundary being a non, being existence, non-existence one the other, both, and, you know, all of these aspects because whatever you drill to, you realize it's, it's yes, no and beyond. Yes and no

What is that? You said Tantra? I'll have to look that up. Yeah. Tantra. T a n t r a. Mm-hmm. . Yeah. It's it has its origin in the East in India and Tibet. You know, it's just specific practices of knowing it. It's basically non, non dual practices. Are you familiar with non. A little bit. Yeah, I've been, I've dipped my toes here and there.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, anyone who dips their toes into like D M T will [00:26:00] get an experience. Well, I might have experienced it during the psychedelic trip, but in terms of, Like cognitively and trying to rationalize it, it, I'm still like getting into it and been trying to find like a really good book and the time cuz I don't have chances to read as much cuz there's so much going on.

Yeah. I feel you. I feel you. If, if I had to. pick the shortest, most impactful book for me. It's called I Am by Jean Klein. Or I Am that by . Those two were very transformative for me. I've heard of the second one. What was the first one you mentioned? I am, I am by, what was the author? John Klein. J e a n k l e I.

So what, what is that basically, for someone who doesn't know, say, like non-duality, like what is that? Non-duality is the experiential [00:27:00] knowing being that this reality is not to, so that's why it's called non-duality. It's, it's Two. So it doesn't, so this reality is not one, because if you said one, you're limiting it.

But it's also not inf it is infinite in a way, but it's hard to explain. Not two thumbs it up if you can, if you can understand what that's signed to get at. It's not one, it's not due, it's not two, it's just mm-hmm. it exists and it doesn't exist. Both it transcends. . Right. And so it's more than just an idea.

It's a, it's an experiential knowing. And for some folks it happens very spontaneously where they just have this realization. . But for other, it comes through a lot of practices. Some teachers just say like, [00:28:00] Hey, you, you know, you're not who you think you are. Wake up. But that hasn't worked for me. You know what, what's what's working for me is the actual have practices where I'm steadying my mind, my body enough to start to perceive more.

Then what a, a chaotic and closed mind has the energy to perceive. Hmm. Now does that apply to, to not just us, but everything in terms of things that we would call duality, like light darkness, night day, that it's like both, but not neither. Does that apply to all reality basically, yes. . Okay. That, that makes sense cuz there's one thing I've always believed is that the whole concept of how society deems a class of people, good people and a class of people, bad people, and the fact that it's like we all have that capacity, we all have both that light and and dark in us.

It's just more what, what more do we, what do you call like foster, develop, and cultivate, [00:29:00] but we all have the potential. immense. Good. And we all have the potential for immense evil. Yeah. It's, it's, again, it's relative, right? So what's good for you is potentially bad for me and vice versa. I think you can't ever label anything good or bad.

But one thing that does seem to work for me is I've been exploring, you know, some of the bigger messages of Jesus Christ from the Aramaic. Language. And in the aromatic language, there's no good evil. There's just ripe and unripe. So a way you can, you can see like, yeah, when the fruit is ripe, that's, that's good, quote unquote.

But. It's not good, bad, it's just, yeah, you want ripe fruit. You don't want unripe fruit. And so this one could be for a person's action in the moment that action might be un ripe. It, it doesn't land well, it doesn't function. It's not for the, [00:30:00] it's not for the best benefit in the moment, and therefore it is un ripe, right?

So I, I kind of like that language instead of good or evil because it paints a better understanding. . Yeah, I like that. I never thought of it that way. On ripe or ripe. It's unfortunate. Yeah. like Jesus' words were translated into Greek and these other languages which didn't have these aromatic concepts.

And so you basically take all of the message out of the context of being a nomadic, people speaking a specific language that was born out of that land and translated into entirely. , you definitely lose things when you translate or it just doesn't translate well, especially phrases or words like I know in Spanish there's a lot of phrases that just sound ridiculous if you can put it in English so they translate what the meaning, but you don't actually get the words that were used.

Speaking of Jesus lately, I've [00:31:00] been finding myself. Kind of drawn to his words, like I'm not a Christian. I haven't been a Christian for more than 10 years now, but I've kind of been thinking about his words and you just take a lot of the things, as he said, without like the religious dogma that I believe was probably added after the fact around it.

And it, there's a lot of good things in there that get overlooked even by people that practice Christianity, Catholicism, you know, like love thy neighbor. How many times have we seen a person of Christianity being hateful or, you know, doing all these terrible things at church to cultures, but yet they ignore just the simplest truths.

Love thy neighbor as I self. Yeah. . Yeah. And what's really fascinating is I wish I had the book next to me. I could be a little more accurate, but a lot of you know, like the Lord's Prayer and these kind of more popular things, the be twos they, they refer to the breath and how there's, there's a shared breath with the cosmos, right?

And [00:32:00] so in Aramaic, the words for. could be transited more like, oh you know, cosmic father, mother birther of all breath of the universe, or something like this, right? It's, it's something way more direct and and intimate than this, this word God. And you know, it's translated like blessed are those who can connect with their breath.

people who can connect with their breath, like all good things will come to them or whatever. Yeah. You know, ripeness will, they will be ripe. You know, like that's the translation. It's something so simple like that. But then over the years it becomes these pontifications about going to hell if you don't do this or that, you know, it makes no.

Yeah, it doesn't, it never made sense for me. Why a God who's touted as such a, an example of love and a loving God would even have that in [00:33:00] existence for anybody, for anything. You know, like why, like, but in the whole argument that. Well, people send themselves cuz they reject the message of Jesus Christ.

Like, well, God still writes the ways of the universe and the laws and what happens when you die. And he wrote it so that when you die, you go to hell. You know, whether or not that's what he intended, that's where he allows it to go. But God, the term God is such a, a loaded term for me. Like it's, it's so, it's almost like just part of pop culture.

God, God says, and I like to look at it more. . I don't know what to make of it, but I don't see it as a God, like how you said, to give her a breath or a creator or higher entities. Cuz I believe there's higher entities in other realms that are higher. And us mere mortals, we perceive them as gods because of, for whatever reason it's.

It's kind of in our, almost in our d n A, for us to believe in God's [00:34:00] and every culture there's been God's religion even I was looking into a little bit, and the hunter gatherer, they, they believed in spirituality too, but it wasn't like organized religion after the shift to agriculture. And has been argued, or it can be argued that religion was created the way we know it now as a con, a control structure for a growing population in a single location.

Yeah. I think you take, you take these great beings and nesters who have this deep connection and deep knowing. The fundamental reality that we find ourselves in, and they try to transmit that through language and it can't be done. And so after enough of these copying of language, now you're having people meet a teaching or an understanding purely through words and concepts without the living.

Sort [00:35:00] that truth. And like that's why I think indigenous cultures, they have these practices of passing on the living source of that understanding through dance, through music, through singing, especially voices. Very powerful. And it's transmitted orally and physically from generation to generation.

It's not written. And completely misunderstood through a conceptual framework. You know, coming from a Greek culture, looking at a, at an Aramaic culture, like those things are just a recipe for disaster. Yeah. That's one thing too that I started questioning when I left the church was that if a God that's, you know, all knowing, like would, would know that his word written down in a book would eventually be.

Lost of what he originally wanted to say over the ages. Like he would just have to knowing and he would choose another method that was more efficient. Like if I was God, I would just write it in into people's hearts [00:36:00] and minds. Like if they meditated and you, you know, you heard the word, you heard the message so that anybody has access to the source as opposed to secondhand, thirdhand, and God knows how many times it's been translated.

especially when, when people decide to change things like, well, we don't like that. You know, or where they cherry pick certain texts that's, you know, considered sacred and not like the, all these other books that were not included in the Bible because they don't, they don't fit with the narrative structure that they wanted to create.

You know, and again, I think if you look at the Aramaic Sings of Jesus, he's exactly saying that connect to breath. You know, he's basically saying meditate. within what is going on for you. And you know, tr mistranslations of what he said, like, you know the, the way is through me or something like that.

Basically saying like, unless you bow down to Jesus, like you don't go to heaven. Like, that's not ex, that's not what he meant. What he meant is like, I'm a living example. Of how you can connect to [00:37:00] your own heart, you know what I mean? And and through me means basically like by watching my example, trying to, IM implement it within yourself.

It's a good path, you know, like you will fund that it, it'll burke if you, if you try and do it like that, but not , you know, it's not a dictum, you know, like. My way is the only way. Yeah. Cuz that's how Christianity views. Where that verse is, is let see if I can remember. I am the way, the truth in the life.

No one comes to the father but through me. And so that has been used like we're the only ones that are right. And all these other religions and denominations are wrong. Yeah. And . The part that's fascinating to me is I've been listening to this guy, Tom Knowles recently. He's, he, he was trained in transcendental meditation by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi back in the sixties.

And he talks a lot about [00:38:00] how, and he's also a neurobiologist, so he talks about how there is no such thing as out there. Everything is in here, right? So. A God that you can conceive of is within you. Right? And so some people say higher self, right? It's, it's essentially some, some, some power of, of intelligent energy, right?

Because again, I'd not, as far as I'm aware of, I'm conscious of creating this body. I'm not conscious of. Beating my heart or, or breathing my breath. These things happened of themselves, right? And I have had many experiences within of deep, beautiful, beautiful, elegant grace that I can't describe, but it's something so powerful and so beyond that I call it God because [00:39:00] I, I mean,

I have no other word for what that is. Like. It is transcendental. It is beyond the beyond. Mm-hmm. . And one thing about God, gods is the whole concept. Like if, if they're like these higher entities, like they, okay, so we have male, female because we're in this physical form, and I've always thought it was kind of odd that the creator of the universe went by Father, he.

Like, I would think that if there was a creator, God, that it would be just something we don't know how to, it wouldn't be boy, girl, man, female. It wouldn't be her, it wouldn't be him. It would just be God. It would just be source light, whatever, you know, you wanna call it universe. So I, I just think that's kind of odd that it's, for me, it's a kind of a clue that a lot of these religions are almost either manmade or very, very far, like far from the actual.[00:40:00]

because they put these human, human terms on something that's not human. Yeah. I, I wonder where that comes from. You know, it I've, I've seen it in all languages, and again, I don't know if it's, if it's been translated that way, but you're right, God is usually translated as him or he , and I'm not sure why.

You know, my experience of that energy is beyond masculine or feminine. Well, I've heard people say mother, father, God meaning it's, it's, it's just, creator is another word. Like, you know, as human beings, we create human beings through a mother and through a father sort of transcends that. So it's mother, father, it's creator, it's Source of all parenting is another way.

I've heard it said before, Christians argue like, well, if there is no God and who, what created the universe, you say the Big bang, then what was before the Big Bang? You know? It's like, well, it's the same thing too. What was before the, what was before God? It's like, well, God has always existed, so then why can't the [00:41:00] universe have always existed?

You know? It's just like, what if we're just in cycles, like of. The Big Bang. And it's theorized that eventually about, I don't know, 14 billion years, we're gonna experience what scientists believe is a big crunch where everything's just gonna come back to a dense, you know, point. And then what if it's just been that, like a pulse, just big bang, big crunch in just eon through eternity.

Infinite, yeah. Yeah. And Indian terminology, say the absolute un. Another word for it is Mont, right? They just have these, these words basically mean once you experience that, that's it. That's it. Because creation sort of exists in time, right? And so if you go beyond time, you go beyond existence and non-existence.

I mean, that's that. I, I feel like I experienced that just a tiny little bit when I do psychedelics. Where I step outside of time and then, you know, as you, as you felt like, it [00:42:00] just feels infinite. It just feels forever. Like you just, it's been what, a few hours, but it just feels like an eternity, endless.

And then when you come back and you're like, wow, man, I just felt like I was in a loop and I was just, there was no time. I had no sense of time whatsoever and or who I was. So I feel like that's just kind of like a glimpse of a higher truth. Like when we step outside of. because physicists too argue time is just an illusion that all things are happening all at once, past, present, and future.

It's just the way our human minds and the way we experience reality is the illusion that it's linear, that there's time, but it's just doesn't exist. It's just a construct. Yeah, I've really, I've tried to wrap my mind around it, but I. I think the mind exists in time as well, so the mind can actually penetrate time.

You know there's, there's a mode of perceiving that's not through the mind [00:43:00] that can experience this, as you said. , you know, only way I could describe it with myself is like through my heart. I flipped inside out , you know, like, just like a, like black hole, like a singularity. I flipped inside and had this experience of knowing, being, seeing existing but not through this body and There in that experience.

Again, I forgot everything from the life. I didn't know who I was. Didn't know what I was, didn't know where I was. In fact, I didn't care. I didn't need to know any of that. And then, As you know, psychedelics kind of move in these waves where you have these peaks and then you kind of come down for a bit and go back up.

At least I know that mushrooms, mushrooms and OAS do. Yeah. But when, when it would get down, you know, from a peak would sort of come back into my body. and have these experiences of like, [00:44:00] whoa, look at this thing that I've got. You know? Like I, I still, I would look at myself in the mirror sometimes. I still wouldn't recognize my face.

I wouldn't, I didn't know who I was or how I got there, but I, I sort of had this different personality. I can, I mean, I remember it clearly. Even right now looking myself in the mirror and not knowing who I am, but being stoked about my body is like seeing myself and being like, Cool. You know, , like I got hands, , like, whoa, these appendages for me, like the first time I, I did ayahuasca and then I ate a strawberry.

It was the most delicious strawberry. I've ever had in my life and probably was the most delicious moment ever. And it felt like if I was learning how to eat again and eating for the first time in this meat suit where it's just like, you know, I was very self-aware of like the, the gulps and the crunch and it was, I felt like I was absorbing the [00:45:00] nutrients.

It, yeah, it was like a first time experience as a being born, experiencing eating for the first time. It was so surreal. Oh yeah, yeah. The time set. I ask it together. I felt exactly the same except for I immediately vomited after that. , I had the delicious experience of strawberry and then had the horrific experience of, of vomiting after that.

which, which I wanna say I, I wanna apologize for leaving the circle cuz I think was in that circle that I left. I, I just couldn't. like I had to be by my myself and I know it's recommended to be with the group, but I felt like I had to listen to what was right for me and my heart. And, but at the same time, like after I kind of felt bad that I, I left, you know, the circle and left you guys, cuz I think mostly everybody was their first time and I know my, my, my presence and energy like helped out the group.

So I just wanna apologize for leaving. But it, it was part of my journey that I had to go [00:46:00] to. Oh yeah, no, no apology needed. I, that was a very far out, very intense experience for me. Definitely. Yep. I, I do remember one thing that, that stuck with me when we were talking about afterwards is the infinite and how at a certain point during the journey, like it just felt like infinite.

Like one room and then in another room, and then another room, and then it just kept going and. and it makes me wonder like if just that's how reality is, it's just, it just goes on infinite. This is just one of an infinite amount of realities and our human minds cannot even process that. Can't even fathom wrap our minds around it.

We'll just go nuts. Yeah, I love those, those looping videos of the fractal. That's exactly how it feels to me. It just, you keep going down and then a whole new cosmos, a whole new horizon opens, and then you zoom in and then another one, and you keep zooming and zooming and zooming and, and you [00:47:00] could just fall infinitely done into these fractals.

It feels like each little tindra, the fractal is an entire cosmos and you fall into that and then on and on and on, and. Mind boggling and how you were saying about the peaks and the lows and it's just like waves. And when I had stepped out of the group, I was experiencing as some outside and, and I'll sit it on the, the bench outside.

and yeah, like it was just like, it was like, hey, I was like in the low and then I was trying to process everything and then it comes back up again. I'm like, oh man, here we go again. And then it's just backing it again. Oh yeah. I had that experience on the grass too. I, I was feeling intense watching the sun set and I'm like, okay, that was intense.

and then it started to come back and I remember grabbing the grass, like to try to hang onto the grass so that my body and mine don't dissolve again because I just, like, there's something about my body doesn't [00:48:00] like dissolving because it is, it is dying in a sense like you've. , the body, the body feels like it's being sort of melted or dissolved.

And, and, and so I, at least for me personally, I have this experience of tensing. I can't, my body doesn't want to let go and, and vanish, so it was pretty difficult. Yeah. . I think for me, like some of that is the the ego that ties itself with the body and it doesn't like, you know, what's going on in the dissolution of, of the self, you know, it likes things where they are.

It doesn't like disillusion, but yeah, like, I I understand what you mean. Like the, you know, where you tense up sometimes or that's why it's recommended to just deep breathe deeply. Cuz my first time I. , like without knowing, sometimes you, you kind of find yourself holding your breath cuz you're just like tensing up and you just gotta let go and breathe.

You know? It's how the, the advice says, you know, [00:49:00] to accept whatever comes. Don't resist, just ride whatever comes accept whatever comes. Yeah. And I can do that pretty well on mushrooms. , L S D or any other thing. But ayahuasca has a sort of special bodily quality to it. It's so visceral in the body. It's very different from the others.

It mushrooms are also fairly intense in the body, but not as much as ayahuasca. Yeah. Not in the same way. I remember, I think it was after that, that I kind of wanted to push the boundaries a little bit of what I think my limits are for mushrooms. And I did, I did 10 grams and I survived it. I thought I was gonna die , but I willed myself like not today.

Like I knew I was fine. It's just the perception that you're gonna die. But it still felt like I was gonna die. But it was not even close to the intensity of, and the experience of awasa, cuz it's very, [00:50:00] They're psychedelics, but it's the different experiences also with different purposes and intent. I definitely wouldn't do 10 grams again, though sometimes less is more.

Yeah, that's where I've been like, you know, I had my one three and a half gram mushroom tea journey and. , I completely lost all sense of time, space, who I was, I felt, I felt my toes were infinitely on one end of the universe, and my head was infinitely on the other end of the universe, , and that was just in a half grams.

And I have had that much ever since. I don't think I've gone more than two grams ever since, because like that, between that and Ayahuasca experiences, I'm just like, you know, like that's, that's a microdose, you know, like I'm good. . Yeah, I'm kind of like that too. We're okay now. I took these lessons and now it's time to implement and, and live some of these truths that I learned.

Like I don't remember if I shared in the circle when we were, we sat that, I think when I did [00:51:00] five, five grams, that there was this, during one of the visions, this what I would like to call cosmic shaman appeared to me and he was like, had a blue a. And he told me like, why do you take so much medicine? And then he like reached out to me like, why do you take so much medicine?

You're like, you're healed. And since then, like I've just just taken a step back and then just kind of doing low mos microdose. Just little, a little bit just to kind of learn, but not, I feel like I don't need to go deep anytime soon. Yeah. I think That's a beautiful message, you know very profound experience to have that come through.

But in, in a similar way, I kind of got the same. It's just like, you're here for this life. Stop trying to get rid of this life or see what's beyond this life or penetrate the veil, so to speak. Just like you said, integrate those lessons. Move and, [00:52:00] and have your way in this world with this body and this.

You know that's what you're here for. Yep. Beautiful said. And I think we can end it on that, and it was a really good discussion. I really enjoyed you coming on. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah, it was great seeing you again. I hope to come on again soon. Oh, for sure. You're more than welcome to come on again. Oh yeah.

And I forgot to mention your show. Like you have your own show, right? Yeah, it's called Mind Honey. I haven't released an episode in probably six months. have a few in the can, but with a baby on the way. It's been a little bit hectic. So yeah, I can imagine. I'm hoping to get back to some new episodes soon, which I love that title.

Mind, honey, that that's, that's really cool. And then I also love the, the thumbnail that you have to cover for it, like the brain and then money being poured on it. . Yeah. Yeah, that's really cool. Check it out. Mine honey. And I love too that they're like roughly 30, 40 minutes, right? Yeah. I've got some that are 20 minutes, some that are 40.

Just depends on, on how [00:53:00] it was flowing that day. And then just one last thing, I just want, again, extend an invitation to any listener that wants to be a guest on the show. Just hit me up, email me, or contact through Instagram and you're more than welcome to be on the show. I'd love to hear. Good seeing you Casen.

Would love to do this again and take care. 

Take care. 

All right. Take care out there. Peace.