Religion - Ahmad - Unfolding the Soul (dUG7_3uRMEg)

https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=dUG7_3uRMEg

Welcome to another episode of Unfolding a Soul. Today, my guest is Ahmed. Ahmed. Ahmed. It’s still hard to pronounce my name. Yes, it’s hard to pronounce correctly. And he’s joined the Discord recently, interested in meditation. He mentioned that he has a background in both Islam and Christianity, and that is connecting to the subject that he chose to talk about, which is religion. So what does religion mean? So for me, I find John’s definition, John Ravichy’s definition of religion is that which binds you together towards a greater purpose as actually a very fitting definition for me. So to be more precise and to actually say the definition in terms of something personal that I grew up with, I’ve always found it difficult to sort of pull myself together in new and challenging situations and organize myself to the demands that are being placed before me. And religion has always been a source of wisdom, a source of advice and a source of techniques whereby I can bind myself together and function as a whole towards something greater than me without all the friction that comes with human experience in the first place. And so how does that manifest for you? So the way this manifests for me, there’s many ways. First of all, there’s the practices themselves. For example, meditation, when I’m meditating on a regular basis, I’m reminding myself to because there’s many parts of you that are always going in different directions. You have thoughts taking you to your past, you have anxiety taking you to the future, you have desires trying to sort of get themselves fulfilled. And when I’m meditating, I’m accepting that all of this is there, but I don’t have to respond to it. And I just go back to a center, to a fixed center of attention. And then this bleeds into my life and I can apply it in different places. But of course, meditation alone is not enough because this is where the narrative aspect comes in, which is very important to me as well. This is where I’m still connected to Islam in many ways. By using the narrative that the first priority in your life is the knowledge of God, and we can get into that later of what that means to me, by going through the narrative that the first priority is the knowledge of God and to live for God and to sort of put everything you are, put everything you have, all of your desires, all of your dreams, all of your wishes sort of aligning them with a bigger purpose that is God. It puts everything in perspective because then I am not considering, for example, my career to be the top priority, the most important thing in the world. Because when you do that, when I do that, at least I tend to start overthinking, over valuing and fixating. And then what I’m doing becomes just a mess of forcing myself and of struggling in my anxieties and my issues to fulfill something without an understanding of what I’m doing. So everything becomes a game of appearances. But when I reorient myself to a bigger purpose, I tell myself that I am doing this because eventually I would like to know God. Therefore, I want to do this without thinking of the benefits, without thinking of what money I’m getting out of it. I’m doing it for its own sake. I’m doing it as a service to a greater good. And that sort of starts removing all of the biases that come when you’re working just for the sake of money. Because when you’re working just for money or for whatever status that comes out of it, then you don’t really get the point of what you’re doing. You don’t have a good understanding of what you’re doing. Whereas when you shift this orientation and start saying, I’m not doing this for me, I’m doing this for some greater good, then you start to develop a proper understanding, a proper relationship with what you’re doing. And it becomes you function better this way. You function better when you’re doing it from a place of proper understanding, from a place of proper intention, let’s say. So this is two ways in which religion manifests for me. The last way, which is a bit of a selfish way, is that it is a source of comfort in the end. It’s a source of comfort to connect yourself with something bigger than you, to have a conversation, to pray to God. When you pray, when you’re praying to God, you’re sort of restricting your attention to the present moment and you’re exalting your personhood machinery and you’re playing with it so that you sort of reinforce a sense of self by completely directing yourself to the eternal vow, as Barnschen Buber would say. So I got embeddedness effectively, centeredness and comfort. There’s a couple things that I can think of that I find missing from that list. So one is the standard, the standard by which to judge. I also feel like there’s a communal aspect, that which, instead of you keeping yourself centered, it pushes you from the sides to conform towards that. So do you also have the experience of those two aspects? Yes, actually, the one with the standard is actually a really good one. Basically because I’m reading some books on Plato and one of Plato’s recommendations is that you measure yourself with an external standard. So for me, one way in which religion grounds me, or one way in which I see the religion is when I take up a sage or a sacred second self, like for example, Muhammad. Muhammad is an example for me because I was born and raised in Muslim, or Jesus because I am familiar with Jesus, and I use this person’s character as a measure for my character. So this character, this person is what I’m aspiring for. And when I’m aspiring to be this person, to live as though I am this person, this is another way in which religion is binding me together. Well, I think more of this will be revealed over the conversation. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, so let’s start with your earliest experience with religion. So the earliest experience with religion was basically through my mom. My mother, I used to notice that she prays. I wouldn’t say she’s a very traditional or a very strict Muslim, but she has always been someone who prays regularly because you know, in Islam, you pray five times a day. And I always found that interesting. And whenever I was scared, whenever I was feeling fear, because I used to have these fears out of nowhere when I was a child, my mother would very kindly just tell me, okay, let’s pray together. If you’re afraid, we’ll just pray together. And she taught me how to pray. That was one of my first brushes with religion. The part that really kept me in religion, where I started actually committing to religion, it was a very selfish reason in the beginning. It was actually just comfort. So when I was very, very young, I was maybe 10 years old or something like that, I had a cat and I loved that cat very, very, very much. It’s a very, very childish reason. And at some point, my brother got sick and allergic to the cat and we had to get rid of that cat. And I thought, okay, I’m powerless here. Maybe if I start praying, something would happen. And I actually did start praying and I went to this event. There’s this event in Ramadan in Islam called the Night of Destiny, which is supposedly the night when the Quran came down to Muhammad. And it said that prayers are answered during that night. And it happened that I was praying during that night and my prayers were answered during that night. Or let’s just say that things got better after that. And since then, it was, yeah, I got more committed. And I just started noticing that, okay, there’s this promise of this afterlife. And that’s how it began. That’s not how it became eventually, but how it began was, okay, there’s a source of comfort and protection. If you’re in trouble, you can pray. And if things, shit hits the fan, you don’t have to care too much because there’s an afterlife where everything will be okay. That was my first brush with religion, basically. What kind of comfort did that provide? How does it look like? The comfort I got from the afterlife. Yeah. Yeah. So the comfort I got from the afterlife was that it was a time in my life where I felt like most of what I was doing, I was doing for other people. I had no idea why I was going through school. I was putting so much effort. The only idea I had in mind was that it made my parents happy. I never cared about some future. I only cared that, okay, my parents are happy with what I’m doing. Now I can do my things. I can do whatever I like to do. But then demands became more and more. So I felt like I didn’t have enough space or even I didn’t have the confidence or the strength of character to pursue the things that I wanted to pursue. The real world was just a bunch of duties for me. Whereas the private life where nobody’s involved, where only I’m involved, that’s the only place where I get to do what I want. Religion was the promise that after that, you get to follow your dreams. Only in the afterlife you will get the things you’re looking for. It’s okay that you’re not getting them now. You can get them in the afterlife. That’s why it was a source of comfort for me. And how did that allow you to function? Was that something that you reminded yourself of? Yes, it became a source of motivation. So yeah, just get tired now, grind, do your thing, do the best you can. And it was just grinding back then. Like there was no connection with… I mean, I was functioning well back then just because of this motivation of, okay, someday everything’s going to be okay. Someday everything’s going to be fine. And that’s all you needed to do. That was the source of motivation back then. Okay, so how did that evolve? Yeah, that’s… It’s a big story and I’m going to start from the beginning. And if it gets too detailed, just tell me to fast forward and I will fast forward. So at some point, I noticed how much investment I’m putting in this. I was praying a lot. All of my life was being defined by this religion, all of my choices. I was making a lot of sacrifices, like standing up in the classroom and stating what I thought was against religion, even though it was a Christian classroom, for example. But when I noticed this harsh investment and how much I’m committed to this, like this thought came into my head, okay, how do I know that this is true? I was maybe I was I think I was 16 back then. How do I know all of this is true? When I was young, I was satisfied with this very… I don’t want to say cheap, but this was very, very quick, quick defense of Islam, which was called the scientific miracles of the Quran, which is the reading of the Quran, where you read the verses as though they were scientific statements and you find out that yeah, they are consistent with some scientific theories. That was satisfying back then. But eventually it wasn’t because that it could have been rewritten. It’s just an interpretation. I remember this very, very, very painful moment where I was taking a walk at night and I saw the moon and it was beautiful and everything. But I thought, yeah, this could have been a coincidence. This could have just been and I’m the one defining this as orderly and defined. It doesn’t mean that there is a creator. So it was just struck me that my beliefs are not founded at all back then. And I was too afraid to admit that to myself because there’s… I had this false belief that as soon as you get out of Islam, there’s no way back. So God does not accept you back if you have some doubts. I had, it was a false belief. It was just a belief I had in my head. Things got worse as because I made the decision never to have a girlfriend until I married. And things got worse when I started finding other people interesting. Because that meant that I needed to make a decision. Am I a Muslim? Am I not a Muslim? Should I pursue this? Should I not pursue this? Unfortunately, because I never had the space to talk about it, I wasn’t, I didn’t have the people around me who cared about it this much. There were only people who were committed. There were no people who were doubting. So I just chose to wait for life experience to unveil what the truth is. And I just kept going with this whole and endless cycle of thinking, and I just kept going with this hole in my heart, not sure if I’m doing the right thing or if I’m doing the wrong thing. It went on this way until I was in university. In university, I met a lot of Muslim people who were very intellectual, very smart. I also met a lot of assholes in university. So- Can you say where this university was? Yes. This was the American University of Beirut. It was in Beirut. It was an American university, also Christian university. So you went in. There’s a verse by Jesus that they may have life and have it more abundantly. But there were Muslim clubs there and I was in a Muslim club. And there were very nice people, very interesting people who were willing to engage in dialogue and really help you deal with your doubts. There were also people who were very strict. And I was the type of person, I still am the type of person who’s easily, because I like to doubt myself, because I think doubting yourself is a good way to know truth, you know? So, so yeah, exactly. That’s the insight I’m slowly coming to. That I was the type of person who was really delegating truth to other people. I had absolutely no trust in internal reference of what truth is. And that’s when I met this one person who was very toxic and he just shattered everything I felt about religion. Religion was no longer a source of comfort because the people around me were many of the people, not all of them, many of the people around me were just a source of criticism. Why aren’t you committing as much as we are? Why are you doing these things? Why are you talking to women? Why are you playing music? You’re not supposed to play music. So there is absolutely no more space left. Remember, I said religion was that space where I thought someday it’ll be okay. That space was gone. Religion was just a duty. It’s just something you should do. And it’s like a do it or else in that case. And is this to detail so far or should I keep going? No, I’m a little bit interested. Is this because you’re still taking the instruction from the social aspect? Yeah, right. And then the social environment changed for you. So now. Well, the social environment was Christian back then, purely Christian, but not purely Christian, but predominantly Christian in my school. I even had a friend who used to come downstairs with his Bible to talk to me about the Bible. We used to have these discussions and they made my doubts even worse back then. But when I was in the Muslim community, there was a community who was reinforcing the self-criticism because there was a stage at which I could project my own self-criticism and they were these Muslim people. Like, sure, they were critical. Sure, they were mean, but I kind of partly take the responsibility of projecting my own insecurities onto them. And yes, like you said, there was the sense of community where the constraints were being put, but they were too much constraints. So much that I had no space to actually dialogue with them. They were purely dictatorial constraints. And I surrendered to that. Not the kind of surrender where you’re dancing with it, but the kind of surrender where I just agreed to all the criticism. That’s the kind of surrender. Yeah. Yeah. Does that answer your… No, no, that answers you. So then comes a turning point. Naturally, my mental health started to go down the drain. It gets worse and worse and worse until I met my ex. She was Muslim back then. She wore the veil, but we clicked like no other person. I clicked with her like no other person in my life. And we talked about our doubts. It was a few years before we actually seriously got together. And when we seriously got together and got married and we went to a different home, other than our parents’ home, that’s when we started becoming more and more honest with our beliefs that we don’t believe this. We’re just doing it because we’re scared. We’re just doing it because of tradition. And that was where I made the mistake of cutting it completely. I became an agnostic in that space. I stopped praying. I stopped doing everything religious. Fast forward four years. Can I ask you what was the basis upon which you bonded with her? With my ex-wife. Yes. The basis. That’s a good question. Yeah. I guess she was not judgmental. She was very understanding. She was very kind. She was very understanding. She, I could, I could start a conversation on anything and it would just blow up and we’d be talking about it and laughing and joking about it. She understood me. She was willing to listen. She was very emotionally intelligent. And I guess I was the same for her in a certain sense. We were, we were going through the very, very similar things back then. But it’s also kind of like no way this is in the desert of constraints. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. Actually, it’s good that you saw this. It was in the desert of constraints. Absolutely. That’s why we got married so fast because we were in a desert of constraint and marriage was getting out of the desert of constraints. Yeah. That’s a good way of seeing it actually. And as soon as we got out of the, the desert of constraints, you can, you can say that that’s when everything that was bottled up sort of was set free. Sort of was set free at that phase. So that was a big period of, of agnosticism. I wouldn’t say it was a period of self exploration because I was too invested in the relationship. I was too invested in my own life. It was no longer invested in other people. Became a completely different person. I noticed the kind of who I really am at that point. I noticed who I really am. I noticed what I noticed that the person I was, I was just because I was scared. Just because I was afraid of being rejected. And there was a period of just not caring, just fixating on the relationship until, until we noticed that it was just too much that we were too, we sort of fused into one person eventually, we were not separate people anymore. The relationship became too dull. And we noticed that we’re not right each other for each other anymore because we both had different orientations and that’s what we decided to split up. Now this is where religion came back because I noticed that without her, I had no other sense of meaning. I always have this quote that everything became either dull or a painful reminder of a broken dream because in the past, I want to connect that back. As you said, you found out who you truly were. But now you’re actually saying that that wasn’t you? No, no, no. What happened? So, so I found out who I truly am because I, in the environment of the relationship, I wasn’t judged. I can be myself more with her because she allowed me to be myself. And I recognized that I was lying to myself the whole time. Because remember I said in the beginning, I never knew I was going to school. I was going only to make my parents happy. I didn’t have any personal plans of my own. Even university was like that. And I noticed that when I was with her, she was studying psychology, she was a really good psychotherapist. So she was also helping me out, figure out why I’m always so fixated. Why I’m always so anxious. It was obvious for me that whatever I was doing, I was only doing because of other people, not because I was convinced. Not because I was convinced it was something I was supposed to do. And the moment of splitting up was because she became so meaningful in my life. And now that meaning went away. That’s again, another mask off that I recognized that I was sort of defining everything, defining my life in terms of that person now. So she, she, she did release me from my past prison, but also the breakup was another release from another person, let’s say. That makes sense. Yeah, it makes total sense. Good. Perfect. So that’s the phase where I noticed that without religion, I am stuck with, I’m a bag in the wind basically, because the motivations was, were either other people, validation, getting validation from other people, success, becoming more successful. And I was sort of monstrously and viciously trying to become a better person. Trying to become more and more successful, trying to become more and more popular. Trying to, that was the meaning that was driving me. And I wasn’t becoming successful. Nothing was working. I was hoping that it would be a phase where I can date, I can explore, but I was thrown, I, I fell into a desert where I had no idea how to behave or function. And I couldn’t get the things I wanted to get immediately. There was no immediate source of gratification. It was very terrifying and very painful. Okay. So I do want to connect it back to the self because Yeah, please. So, cause, cause if you know yourself, right, that, that is a ground for action, right? If you know yourself, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. If you knew yourself, then you, if I had known myself, it would have been, Okay. So you get to know aspects of yourself. So like, I feel like you’re, you’re, you’re peeling this onion and you’re like, Oh, like I, I got this, this, well, this has to be solid. And then you peel a little bit more. This has to be solid. That’s how it was. Yes. That’s how it was back then. That’s how it was. It was just peeling layers above each other and hoping to reach a thing, which was at the bottom. And eventually you found out that that’s not how it works. So is this, this, is this what you wanted to do? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So this, I basically got introduced to religion again, through the power of now by Eckhart Tolle, which was difficult to read because on the one hand, the promises it made are very comforting. But on the other hand, it was very hard to follow because how am I supposed to, because I was trying to fit two systems in one place on the one hand, how am I supposed to live my life if I’m supposed to let go and how am I supposed to let go of my supposed to live my life? Took a while to get that. And I made a lot of mistakes in this phase. So I was religious again and religion became for me, just the quest for the quest for deliberation, the quest for Nirvana, let’s say the religion became letting go of validation, finding yourself, being mindful about yourself. That’s what religion became for me back then. And I learned a lot about myself. This is the phase where I noticed that whatever I am, I don’t know myself. I started to notice that the reason why I was so exhausted when I was talking to other people was because there was an intention under my nose to seek validation. Everything I said was about seeking validation. Everything I said did was a transaction. And that’s when I started to just stay silent when I was really, it was very uncomfortable, but I started to try and learn to sit in silence because that’s when the self starts to manifest a little, that’s when things become clear in a way of who you are, what you want or what’s going on in the background. And that kept evolving. I got into Carl Jung, got too much into Carl Jung. Because again, there was this fallacy that I was looking for a source of comfort. I was not looking for self honesty. It was only when… A comfort in what way? Is this the same comfort? It was a different comfort. It was a different comfort. It was the comfort that I got from Carl Jung was that he was a scientist who believed, who saw function in religion, who saw value in religion. That’s why it was a source of comfort. It was still about wish fulfillment. So that’s a grounding. You’re looking for a grounding through your beliefs. Exactly. It was not exactly a grounding. No, no, I would say it was just about certainty. It was more about certainty, about the future. I wanted a source of certainty that everything will be okay in the future. I wanted to be sure that if I work, that if I put effort, that if I function, that there will be a result, that there will be a reward. That was the fallacy that I was going through back then. That was the lens through which I was seeing everything. That was religion. Religion was the promise of tomorrow. It wasn’t yet what it is right now. What I’ve defined it to be. And things really hit, shit really hit the fan when I noticed that none of my prayers, that not not on my prayers, that prayers aren’t always coming true. God is not always saying yes. That I cannot accept the fact that I am, no, no, no, that, that I cannot deny the fact that I’m heavily responsible for most of the things that go on in my life. This is when I got into Mark Manson. Mark Manson has some really nice speeches about, they’re not speeches, they’re podcasts, but I take them as speeches about how you should take responsibility. You should be critical with yourself. And that’s at some point I was, I fell in love with another person and it didn’t work out and that’s when I crashed. That’s when I noticed that living for these things will always result in deep and serious pain. If you ever want to live happy, you need to know how to live in the here and now. And from then on, there was always this question. It was a lot, it was a long time when I was constantly asking myself the question. Every time I had a dream, every time I wanted to see the future or a sense of certainty, why do you want to be there? And then not here and now, why do you want to be there? And then not here and now. And if the answer is not something that’s necessary or need or a need, then I try my best to just accept the here and now as much as I can. Since then, it’s been, religion has been more about doing the right thing in the sense that coupling myself in the world, with the world in a way that’s consistent with myself and consistent with my duties to other with love, that’s same. But there was still a lot of bullshit. I wanted to get rid of the bullshit because I knew that the intention for seeking comfort and certainty, it’s not going to go away that easily. It’s going to be there. And that’s when I searched and searched and searched and I was never satisfied. Always doubting. Okay. Prayer, prayer is just your escapism. This is just spiritual bypassing. And I was at a point where I said, man, all of this is just bullshit. This there’s no such thing as spirituality. It’s just the system of making myself feel better until I met John on the internet, of course, when I watched John Verbeke, that’s when I was able to finally find a really good balance between my responsibilities and the genuine, authentic, and honest function of religion in my life, which is self honesty, self knowledge, and courage, like the courage to do what you need to do. So one thing that sticks out to me is there’s no Jordan Peterson on that list. Like, did you skip him or? No, he was there for a while, but he wasn’t in the foreground, let’s say. He was helpful in some things, but I never really dug deep. People suggested him to me. People suggested Jordan Peterson to me. Back then I was still very much in the woke mentality. There he sees so rigid. He’s so, he’s too tough. He’s too mean. But eventually after Mark Manson, Jordan Peterson was there, but he wasn’t so much of, I think instead of Jordan Peterson, I don’t know if you’ve heard of Dr. K. No, no, no. Instead of, instead of Jordan Peterson, I had Dr. K. Dr. K is, he’s basically a psychiatrist who studied the scientific psychiatry, but he was also studying to be a monk in India. So he gives you both the religious and the scientific perspective. And he’s, he does these online interviews, which are like psychotherapies online. And it was super insightful and super interesting to listen to him because now I could really, let’s just say that the biggest insight I had when I was listening to Dr. K is that you need to come to terms with reality. You need to make your central passion knowing what reality is and conforming with that, that is your central passion. And Dr. K was a huge help in that transition. Let’s say he was like a pre-Verbecky. Okay. And, uh, well, let’s go through Verbecky then. Like what did Verbecky add? What did Verbecky add? In the beginning, what Verbecky added was evidence, basically, certainty. Verbecky added evidence to religion. He wasn’t, he was a scientist, so he had that authority to him. He was a genuine scientist. You could tell he was a genuine scientist. You could tell he was rational. You could tell he was skeptical. He wouldn’t believe just anything. He really read about what he’s talking about. He really knows what he’s talking about. You know, he’s not trying to bullshit you like the law of attraction people. You know, he’s not, he’s not at least entirely trying to make any benefit out of this. Like with Dr. K, I was always ambivalent with Eckhart Tolle. I was very ambivalent with him. I could, I felt I could trust him, but the most important thing he brought to the table was scientific, rational and philosophical and historical grounding for, for religion. That’s what he brought to the table. And he made sense. And he spoke in the language in which I could talk to myself and really improve on myself by speaking that language. Okay. Can you go into that a bit? Yeah, sure. So develop the language part. You mean, so I guess you could say my whole life has been a struggle to understand myself, to overcome myself. And when I started listening to Verbeke, for example, stuff like salience landscape, when he uses the term salience landscape to describe what I’m foregrounding and I, when I’m backgrounding, like that’s something I remember doing as a kid. Just experimenting with how I can focus on things in different ways. Like if you look at tiles on the floor, you can interpret them as squares or crosses. And I used to love to experiment with that. And that was like salience landscaping, you know, how we change what’s salient and what’s not salient. He gave me a language to talk about myself to myself. He gave me a language to discover as he would say, my owner’s manual. So what do you say? What are you, what are you seeing yourself? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What am I seeing yourself? That’s so for now, I know, I know that I’m not supposed to look at myself as a thing. I know that I’m very aware of that, but I’m just, as it comes right now, what myself is, is basically what I’m confronting on an emotional with the patterns, the patterns that I’m confronting on an emotional level, and I’m just, I’m just emotional and the mental level, cognitive level. So, so yourself is a thing that’s stuck in time? Sorry? Yourself is a thing that’s stuck in time? Well, that’s part of it. Right. Now we get into the trouble. Okay. Yes. No, no, I, like I, I was, I was wondering, right? Cause when you use that word, like I, I get really frustrated. Like I, I recently had the realization that yes, we’re not talking about a thing when we’re talking about the self, but we talk about an essence, right? Which doesn’t have a definite quality, right? Yeah. The essence is, is, is something that is in relation to, well, the manifestation effectively, right? And, and while the, the way that I look at the self is in some things like that, which, which navigates, right? Which makes the connection between heaven and earth, right? Between the earth and the manifestation. Sure. I mean, that is, that is how I also see the self. It’s just that when I’m saying, knowing myself, let me rephrase, let me rephrase. He gave me a language to understand the barriers between me and the self. I think that’s a better way of phrasing it. To, to confront whatever emotional and, and, and cognitive patterns I’m confronting on a regular basis. Okay. Uh, and what does that allow you to do? Like where does that bring you to? Yeah. So that allows me to function better on the one hand to, to let go, teaches me to let go, it makes it easier for me to let go because I’m someone who finds it very difficult to let go. It makes it easier for me to withdraw projections and understand them as projections and integrate them in myself and really find out that I’m the one telling these things to myself and it’s not somebody else. It makes it easier to be present because I’m no longer running away from anything or trying to run away from anything. I’m just trying to accept things. It makes, it makes the chaos better. It makes the chaos more intelligible or more accessible. Let’s say the chaos of mind. So you experienced your mind as chaos. Yes. It’s much less chaos, but it’s still chaos. Okay. Is, what do you mean by accessible? Like I would use the word relatable. Is that a good substitute or? Both accessible and relatable. But that’s a good point. Actually, that’s a good point. I don’t know why I used accessible and not relatable because when I’m using accessible, it has this having mode tinge to it. Because you still want to have control. Exactly. You still, that’s a really good point actually. Thanks. Yeah. You still, you still, you’re still trying to know yourself, to control yourself and not to really know yourself. Right. Cause I think, I think when I hear you talk about the journey, right. Like sitting in that scientific frame, right? Like scientific frame, right? You were talking about an understanding, right? And like, it’s all still in that control frame, right? Where you’re like, yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s right. That’s true. It is still in that control frame. That’s absolutely true. Yeah. So, so like, do you, do you have a sense of a path out of that? A sense of a what? Sorry. A path out of that? A path out of that? Out of this pattern. Yeah. Well, this is coming as a bit of a surprise right now, because I, I wasn’t really foregrounding that aspect of my relationship with, with myself, whatever that is. Well, just the answer that’s coming off the top of my head, because I didn’t really reflect on this very deeply right now, but, but just that it’s coming on top of my head because of something I read in the Bible this morning and because of something I experienced this weekend. So you need to impoverish yourself. Somehow you need to like a poor, a camel has better chances of going into a needle, needle’s eye than a rich man going into heaven. And I think the, I am going to need to somehow devote myself unconditionally to set to a religion because currently it’s like pieces from everywhere, but I’m going to have to devote myself completely, even at the costs of the gains that I’m especially at the cost set, because this access accessing this accessing there is a having and whatever it is I’m trying to have, I’m going to need to actively throw it away if I’m going to expect to get out of this having mode, I don’t see any other way out of it, to be honest, not actively throws away, but more like enact, letting it go by committing to something that will put it at risk, let’s say. Yeah. You used the word surrender earlier, right? That seems appropriate. Yeah. But the problem, the problem, the reason why I didn’t use the word surrender, because I have a huge tendency when I say surrender to go the other extreme, to actually give up instead of surrender. Like, yeah, but it’s also why are you surrendering? Right. Yeah. Yeah, that’s true. So, so the way, the way that I look at it, right. Like I, cause I had also a lot of problem with the word surrender, right? Like, like I was like submit, right? Like, okay, like there’s this, this higher thing, right. And then I come and join under the higher thing, right. But in order to correctly do that, right. I need to surrender to the higher thing in order to fit in, right. Because if I don’t surrender and like, when I realized that I was like, damn it. But it is interesting because. Well, yeah, right. Like you’re, you’re not going to be fully under the thing, right. You’re going to be separate from it as well. And, and be a part of it. Right. So you need to realize what, what is this sameness and what is the separateness? Yeah. Right. And if you’re doing that, I think the fullness of, of the giving over, right. Like that gets resolved. And I think in order to realize what the separateness is and what the sameness is, you need to have an understanding of who you are, right. And what you are in some sense. Yeah, that’s, that’s a, that’s a very, very liberating remark, actually, what you said there. Like it gives some hope to, to the end, not to the end, but it gives some hope for, for the struggle. Can you give a more concrete example of what you meant when you said distinguishing which parts are the same and distinguishing which parts are. The obvious example is, is an army, right. And actually Christianity is conceived of as the army of Christ, right. But if you join the army, right, you, you effectively give up your life for the army, right. Like you’re already sacrificed. And then if you die in the name of duty, right, like that, that, that’s part of your job’s description. Right. But, but you’re not supposed to follow all the rules, right. But like, especially in the Western armies, right. Like they’re like, well, but if there is a command, right, that’s unantical, right. Which effectively is, well, if, if your obligation to God, right. Or the moral system or whatever, right. Is higher than your obligation to the arm. Right. So if, if you can’t just can’t stomach what you need to do, you need to refer to the thing outside. Right. Right. Right. Right. Right. But, but, but then there’s also the other thing, right. It’s like, well, if they give you an order, right. Like at a certain point, they don’t specify how to execute the order. Right. Because you need to implement it. And, and the, the authority of high doesn’t have the eyes to see what needs to happen down low. Right. And it shouldn’t because that’s your job. Right. Like this is why, this is what is meant with naming the animals, I think. Right. Like it’s like, okay, like there’s this subsection, right. Like in creation where you now need to, to fulfill that role, right. Like that, that’s your responsibility. It’s not the responsibility of God or like the responsibility of God through you or whatever. Right. In a sense, that’s you. Right. Um, so yeah, like I, I think that that is a good example. Right. And then as well, right, like at a certain point, you’re, you’re in this hot situation in a war zone or whatever. Right. And you either don’t have access to orders, right. Or you don’t have time to access orders. And you need to decide for yourself. Right. And now you need to envision yourself as how you participate in, in the bigger whole. Yeah. In the army. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think I got the point. I got the point that, that you were pretty much, I think my difficulty there is, is figuring out where the line is. Well, I don’t think there is a line. No, no, no, it’s not that. There is, there is no line. That’s the thing. It keeps shifting. There’s always a difference depending on the situation. It’s not like there’s this fixed standard, but that’s the point. Getting a sense of that. I, I am just starting to get there, like getting a sense of where my responsibilities lies and where the others responsibilities lie or the sort of tuning in as to where your agency lies or where your responsibilities lie. That’s something I still find very difficult because I have extremes. It’s either I’m overtaking responsibility or that I’m going to the other side like, oh, no, this is too much. I don’t want to do anything anymore. And sort of standing in between sort of by stables, like, you know. Yeah. Yeah. The path is straight and narrow. Yeah. Yeah. The path is straight and narrow. Exactly. It’s very, you know, you have to deviate all the time, right? Yeah. Yeah. Important part is that you realize that you’re deviating and that you go back to it as fast as possible. Like with meditation. Right. Yeah. Well, that’s the microcosm of it. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. It’s the microcosm of it. The whole thing. Yeah. And, and yeah, right. Like, I think, I think if you, if you look at the distinction between faith and belief and Paul Van Dyck, they actually have a pretty good video around that and how they’re actually the same word in. Greek and they’re also the same words in Dutch because I struggled a lot with, with having having these words, but I like the distinction between belief, right? Which effectively the structure, right? Like it’s, it’s a propositional understanding, right? Well, it could be more like a picture or something, right? Like a vision, right? But that’s the belief, right? And then you act in faith, right? Faith is in some sense, your connectedness to the belief, right? Like, like how much are you focusing on the path and how much are you like if you deviate, right? Like your belief gets weakened, right? Until you’re no longer tattered, right? And then you become untattered. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Captured by this disorder. Right. Right. Right. I’m going to try to rephrase what you said, but maybe using very different terms. So sort of the deviation from the belief is like monkey minds. Deviation from it doesn’t even have to be a commitment to a belief, but a commitment to any proposition or any intention, let’s say, because even intentions need to be done this way. Well, an intention is a belief, right? Like I should. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. I don’t know if it’s a belief. I think it’s a framing of the world. That’s what, or at least it results in a framing. Yeah. Well, it is a conceptualization of a participation. Yes, exactly. That’s a really good definition. Conceptualize. Yeah, exactly. So an intention, even the setting of an intention and like monkey mind is whatever is taking you away from that. And faith is bringing your way back regardless what monkey mind is telling you. Because monkey mind is going to give you some convincing reasons to go away and you’re just going to have to say no. That’s faith. Right. And I’ve been realizing, right, like how seeing the satanic aspect, right, like in the deviation, like what does this deviation want me to do? Right. And I’m like, every time I start thinking about something and I’m like, why am I thinking about this? Right. Like you had a different framing, right? Like, ooh, I’m out of the here and now. Do I want to be out of the here and now? Right. But the way that I’m phrasing it is what good am I serving? Right. Like what action is going to manifest as a consequence of me participating in this talk? And then I can just say, well, like this is not leading anywhere. Like you could just dismiss it. So you ask yourself, what is the fruit of this participation? And if the fruit of this participation is a good, and then you say yes, but if it’s no good, then you say no. And that’s how you go back to faith in your case. Right. And I also had an amazing realization about, well, what is the fruit? Right. Because now we’re at the standard, right? Yeah. Like, how do we judge? Yeah. Like, how do we judge? And like, this is the thing I struggle with, like a lot. Yes. Like, how do I make a decision? Well, the fruit is life. Right? Like the fruit is the thing that lives, right? Like, so it’s not a system or whatever, right? Because the system allows something to manifest, right? But going back to the essence, right? Like there’s an essence, right? And it doesn’t matter what type of body the essence has, right? Like as long as that essence is generative and takes things with it, right? Like the spirit is allowed to proceed, then my participation in that spirit is good. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. So the goodness of something is measured by that greater thing and what allows it to proceed. Whatever the spirit is. Yeah. Right. And eventually that has to come together in God. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Exactly. And if at one point, like that is turned away from God, right? Like you should change your participation. You should change your participation. And that’s the going back to the center, the narrow path. Right. The problem I’m always having here and it’s starting to follow itself with time, of course, but is that what do we mean when we say God? But I don’t mean it the same way Jordan Peterson means it. I mean it. So it sounds to me that when you’re talking about it, your standards, the standards you’re talking about are always, there are these propositions that give you structure. So God, it’s not like God is a proposition, but there is a set of propositions that tell you that this goes in the direction of God and this doesn’t go in the direction of God. So when you say orient everything towards God, you’re talking about that external reference or like a manual, not you manual, like a real manual that’s telling you how to orient yourself towards God. Well, no, it’s the embodiment of that. Yeah, the embodiment of that. I become the vessel, right? So I conform to the building of the ark. Right. Literally, right. There’s an instruction now to build the ark. Right. And then you built yourself into that thing, but that’s not the instruction. Right. Like the ark has nothing to do with the instruction of building the ark. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. The instruction is just a set of propositions that guide you there. They provide this sort of straight path. But what I’m trying to put my finger on is that the only way to know what leads to God and what doesn’t is through an external reference or a manual or a rule book. Is this what you’re saying? Or is there some other method of knowing what is leading to a greater good and what is not leading to a greater good? Well, first of all, I don’t want to make a conclusive argument about this. Right. But what I do think is the best way to do it is have the rule book. Yeah. Yeah. Because if you don’t have rules, you don’t know when you go astray. If you have rules, you have a sense of when you go astray. Right. Like you don’t know, but you have a better sense. And then you have this interface between you have your belief, right? Like, oh, God is a bearded man in the sky. Right. You try it out and it’s like, oh, like that doesn’t work. Right. And then you go back. It’s like, maybe, maybe the rules allow me to have a bigger insight. Right. Like there’s this revelation that happens as a consequence of you trying a belief out. And then you try and act it out. And then you go back and get another revelation. Right. And, and this revelation is not in the book. Right. Like it’s a consequence, it’s a transjective of the current you and the book. Right. Because you didn’t have it early. Right. And, and well, like, if, if I want validation of all the people around me in my life, right. And I read the book, then maybe I only see certain things in the book and I cannot have a revelation, right. And in order to have revelation that I need, I need to step out of that perspective and open up into a perspective that can hold that revolution. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s the giving up. The giving up. That’s, that’s a dying. That’s the dying. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. This answers my question pretty much. Yeah. Well, since I evangelized you, I’m going to ask you the question. Well, how are you going to judge what belief to adhere to? That’s the thing. That’s the biggest central question of my life at the moment. That’s, that’s the reason that that’s what I pray for every day. Okay. Need a minute just to answer that question. It’s a very, very important question. No, you can just push and shove with me a little bit. That’s fine. Yeah. I want to, I don’t want to surrender in the bad sense. Let’s say, no, you shouldn’t. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Then it’s not true faith, right? Exactly. It’s not true faith. It’s just confirmation. The thing is, I agree with what you said. It’s just that what you said abstract, it’s not related to a certain religion. I do think, however, however, I think there should always be a serious play in whatever beliefs you adopt that before I answer my questions about how my choosing the right beliefs, I do think you need principles and you need standards and you need to fixed standards, but I think these come together any person better than in a rule book. The sense that when Christ says I am the truth, so you take up the person of Christ, everything Christ said, you don’t adhere to the words, you adhere to the architects, to whatever is behind the words. And that’s the arena that allows for serious play. I would say that’s a flexible way of using the lens of a person to see through the person into God. Yeah. I like, so first of all, I got to say I’m not a fan of serious play as a concept. Okay. Like either you play or you don’t. Okay. But what you’re talking about is having it function as an icon, right? Like, symbolic. So that’s what John says talks about the symbolic self of your sage, the sage with whom you have a conversation so that it becomes a dialectic, more of a dialectic than just a strict adherence to a certain statement because the statement comes alive through the person. Right. Well, so first of all, I got to say like I’m on shaky ground here. Okay. No, no worries. But, but yeah. When, when I, when I was talking about going into the world, right. And going back, right. Like that, that I don’t, I don’t know what it, do I want to call it a dialectic? I guess I can call it a dialectic, right. So yeah, there’s that, right. And, and you’re right. Like principles in an, in and of themselves aren’t enough to be able to in and of themselves aren’t enough because you need to have, well, virtues, I guess, right. To compliment them. And the virtues can only be seen in a, in a story, right. Like when, when they manifest in relation over time, right. That, that is, that is how they are going to be. Right. And you, there’s, there’s this sense, right. Where participation is best captured in, in a story. Right. And so, and I think the miraculous thing about Jesus is that all these stories come together, right. And they all form to a point, right. And then if you want to make an argument from integrity, right. Where all the connectedness between the things creates the stability that justifies it, in fact, that, that is a good argument. At least from my perspective, right. And then, yeah, it’s like finding ways to move with your being, right. Like we, we have the lens of the world conformed through these paths, right. And shed the dead wood, right. Like burn it off as you do so, right. Like I think, I think that’s where, where you need to end up. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. The coming together of the principles as a integrated whole, as opposed to having them just as solid statements in a book. Right. And now you can go back to, well, what is an essence, right. Like an essence is something like that, right. Where, where, where there’s an actual breeding of, of the things because, because they’re not static, right. They can’t be captured. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Exactly. It’s not a thing. It’s more like a thing making space. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it’s, it’s a constraining of potential. Right. It’s a constraining of potential. Yeah. It’s both the potential and the constraining I’d say, but yeah. I hope I’m not deviating from the topic by the way. No, no. This is a very interesting conversation. What’s related is really interesting conversation because the way, because I may be, this is stuff that I’m thinking about on my own. So I may be very wrong, but the way I’m seeing it, I’m relating it a lot to what Plato calls form right now, because what we’re talking about here is not a thing, but rather the essence is that configuration space, not in a sense of a set of configuration, but that space that both constrains and allows things to happen. Yeah. And that’s you. That’s the self basically. You’re not that product of, of you’re not, you’re not just that body, but you’re rather, you are that spirit. That you’re an image of that. You’re in, yeah, you’re in that’s a good one. That’s a good one actually. Yeah. Yeah. That’s the, that’s, that’s the difficult part. That’s the difficult part that you are not, you’re not that, are you that spirits or are you an image of that spirit? And what are we talking? We’re saying you’re, you are an image of the spirit and you’re trying to participate in that. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That’s, that’s the humbling aspect of it. That’s true. That’s not you. It’s, you’re just participate. You’re just borrowing existence from it in a certain sense and it is shaping you and making you, and you are just kind of participating in it. Yeah. Right. And so now I want to add in the other aspects of religion, right? Because there’s that, right? And then there’s that what is required to be that. What is required to be that spirit or that, that image? You mean? Well, well, so, so there’s being that image, right? But then there’s also that which is required to mold you into that spirit. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Right. That, that is religion. And I think in religion, you, you, you get words like honor, worship, right? Like, like all of these aspects are, uh, relations, right? Like the relational qualities that you have to attend to in, in order to have right relationship with that spirit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It’s that which binds you together in a way that’s harmonious with that spirits. Right. And it’s not in a self-deluded way, but rather in a realistic way that is really, it really a conversion of that spirit into an image, let’s say. And the kind of bag. I actually use that word image. Like I think Plato also uses. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Plato uses images. Yeah. Likenesses or stuff like that. Yeah. And he says that’s the least form. Yes. He puts it right at the bottom between being and non-being. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Very, very, very flattering. Let’s say. Yeah. Yeah. So, so I, from Plato’s perspective, we’re maybe not using the right word, but, but, but I would, I would say it’s, well, I guess that’s also an image, but it’s, it’s like this, this hologram, right? But yeah, like, okay. So let’s go back to you, right? So, well, I guess I want to first add, add the communal aspect, right? Cause I think you’re, you’re at least opening up or maybe you were already there to, to this idea that, that is also really important, right? In, and maybe you can add that to the, to the, to the, to the, to the, to the, you can look at that as, as a second skin of, of, of shaping and conforming, right? Where, where the communal aspect also has this, oh yeah, this functionality there to prune you. Um, so how do you, how do you think of that? Or like, like I would that look like? Yeah. Yeah. So right now with the communal aspect, this is actually something that I’m trying to integrate into my life more and more, just as, as a matter of where I am in that, but I, I fully agree with that, that in the end, without other people, you’re kind of nothing, you cannot be any kind of nothing, saying you’re completely nothing, but the point is you cannot function very well without other perspectives, you will be deluded into a parasitic process that will eventually destroy you if you isolate yourself, you’re isolating, if you isolate yourself from others, from the collective, then you’re practically an apple outside of the tree. You’re just going to rot. You need a long time. It’s important. And that’s where, that’s where I’m always ambivalent about sense of communities of religion that I’m always worried that I will allow this to completely consume me and completely dominate everything instead of allowing this dialectic between me and others. It will just wipe me out completely. If you know, if I’m making any sense like that. Well, it sounds like you have commitment issues. I think I do have commitment issues. Yes. I do believe. And then we’re talking about the biggest commitment you can ever make. Exactly. It’s great, right? But, but right. Like one of the things that I keep telling to people is like, when, when you start doing a thing, that doesn’t mean that you have to keep doing it, right? Like there’s always a point of correction that is, is there in the future, right? Like every point in the future, right? This is what dying is, right? Like you die to Jesus every, every moment, right? Yeah. Then you, you can do that correction, right? Like that is the correction. So when, when I hear you speak, well, like I don’t know, right? I have this fear about being absorbed. It’s like, yes, but the constant dying is the thing that makes it you won’t. Right. As, as long as you keep living in faith, right? Like, and if you, if you stop believing, right? Like if you stop living in faith, then yes, right? Like your, your suspicion is going to come true. As, as long as you stay in the faith, that is not going to matter. The thing is what you’re saying makes sense. That’s what I will say. I will tell you, it does make sense. And I community is important and commitment is very important. Dying is very important. Completely giving yourself away is very important. The only, the only problem is that I’ve done it before and it wasn’t a good idea. That’s, that’s where it is. Is it the same either did that or is it a different? No, it’s a completely different. I know. Well, then it doesn’t count. Yeah, it’s a completely, but the, the eye that’s doing it right now is going in without, without the intention of being completely subsumed. That’s the thing. The eye that’s going in there, like the plan, if you want to talk about the future, my future with religion, the plan is basically to go into the future, my future with religion. The plan is basically now is that I want to explore some communities. I’ve had dreams about that. I had a dream. I think things could be relevant to be very relevant. I had a dream that I was in a mass and a Christian mass and I was attending a church on Sunday. And then a person came and he looked like Jesus. And I told him, you have an aura of Jesus. Jesus is present in you. And he said, yes. Then he transformed into a Muslim. And I told him that I want to join your, your, I want to join your group, your Muslim group. And then he turns into this, this person I knew from Lebanon, who I always thought was a polite asshole. And this actually, this guy’s a recurrent, he’s a recurrent image in my dream. I think he’s an image of my shadow. I don’t know. I am not an expert in unions, psychotherapy, but then he said that he’s very proud that I made this decision. And, yeah, I feel like my daemon that say is pulling me towards committing to a Muslim, Muslim community in a sense, even though I don’t trust Muslim communities, especially not outside of Arab countries. My other parts, the part of me that’s sort of, if I want to be really honest with myself, what I’m really interested in doing is committing to a Buddhist group for a while and then coming back to a Muslim group. You think Buddhist groups in Western countries are going to be better? No, hell no. But there’s a lot of people in Western countries that… The thing is, there’s a lot of problems. You can always see the problems when they’re, when you’re in the groups. But I would say they’re still better than, and the thing is I haven’t explored. That’s the point. That’s the point where I want to do a phase of exploration where I jump into these groups and sit there for a while and see what it’s like. If I see the, if I feel the arrogance and the dissonance and the parasitic thinking, then… Is that what your judgment is going to be about? Well, no, I think the right judgment would be what’s the fruit of what’s going on. Okay, so why do you care about all this dissonance and all that stuff? Because that’s the thing, that the dissonance comes from the fruit. So the… What do you mean by dissonance? So what I mean by dissonance is, for example, someone who’s completely giving into a radicalized version of the religion without consideration of, for example, what other people think without a certain, without listening, without listening to what you’re going through in a certain sense, without really, for example… You mean dogmatism, in fact? Dogmatism, dogmatism, yes. This is what I’m really afraid of. And groups have a tendency to go in that direction. When I’m talking with you, we’re having a discussion, we’re having a dialectic where nobody’s trying to force, I hope nobody’s trying to enforce beliefs on somebody else, but I don’t get that impression. I don’t get that impression. But anyway, the thing is with certain religious communities that I’ve been through, you get the sense that they’re not willing to listen to what you’re going through. They’re not… There’s like, no, black and white. That’s it. Stop. You know, that’s not what I get in Buddhist communities. In Buddhist communities, there’s this… Let’s use it again. There’s this chance for serious play. When I’m talking about Muslim communities, not all of them, when I’m talking about Muslim communities, or Christian communities, the chance for serious play is a bit constrained, let’s say. Well, yeah, I would definitely say, right, that it’s dependent upon the vessel, right, whether you can have that playful relationship, right? And then I’m just going to bet, right, that when you have a group, especially if you tighten it, there’s specialization happening within that group, right, so they will be able to manifest play on a level, right, but not on a different level that might be flipped for… No, no, no, no. That’s the problem. That I know what you’re trying to say. I know what you’re trying to say, that they still have that serious play, but they have their limits when it comes to the documentism and the stuff like that. That’s not what I’m afraid of. I think I’m simply afraid of the past repeating itself. Like if I want to be completely honest with you, I think I’m simply afraid of the past repeating itself. Like I haven’t, as I am right now, I have not jumped into a Muslim community as it is, or a Christian community properly. I haven’t committed myself to that yet. So I don’t know what it will feel like. And I need to do that first in order to really, really know whether this is just in my head, the projection, or is it going to… Is it going to home me again to this inner ego that we’re talking about? Yeah, I’m just going to predict that both will happen. Right? Like there’s these patterns in you and they’re going to manifest again. Right? But you’ll be different, right? Like they will affect you differently. And I think that’s the problem. Right? Like they will affect you differently and you probably will be able to cope with them or find a way to cope with them. Right? And then I have this saying, right? Don’t identify against. Right? So what I’m hearing you say right now is I’m taking an identity against a potential problem. And it’s like, you can’t make a decision on that basis. Yeah, absolutely. That’s true. That’s true. Yeah. You’re right about that. Yeah. So, and also, right? Like when you’re at a place, right? Like it’s not only the place affecting you, right? You affect the place as well. Right? So that’s what I have difficulty believing, to be honest. But that’s more of a self-esteem issue than a religious issue. This is this is this plays in the problem that I think it’s actually fundamentally a religious issue. Right? Because if, if you have the word in you, right? Logos and you speak the logos, right? Like that gives you a certain authority, which is universal, right? Because it’s true. Right. Like now there’s going to be people that reject you and will kill you for it. Yeah, but they don’t matter. But that, that authority is true. Right. And people are going to recognize it and you will have the ability to affect the world around you towards the positive. Right. Like now how you do that and what, right? Like that’s all way harder than just that. Way harder than just that. Right. But essentially, right. Like that, that is the case. And when we’re talking about self-esteem or whatever, which is also a thing that I don’t think exists, whatever. I think that when you feel grounded in truth, right? Like your justification is there. Like you will just act things out, right? And people are going to conform to you, right? And you will be naturally charismatic, right? Yeah. And you will, you will, because this is where I want to go, right? Like I want to be able to manifest that spirit, right? For myself, but also for other people so that they can participate in, in this other thing, like, like sometimes I can get there, right? Like, but I, I can, I can see the potential for that spirit in other situations, right? But like, why don’t I manifest that? Well, I can say, well, I’m not self-confident or whatever. Right. But, but what it essentially is, is I’m not grounded in it, right? To, to live out a belief or a vision of what that situation should be. Right. Like I can’t put myself in the visionary stance that I want to manifest. Yeah, that’s a good point you make there, that as soon as you, you’re standing for something bigger than you, then you’re already standing on very solid grounds and you don’t need to worry about having any influence because it’s inevitable at that point, as soon as you’ve made the sacrifice. And I think this is the difference between the I now and the I before. The I before was in half-hearted and with self-confident motives. The I right now is maybe a little bit more willing to try to, to completely go all the way with these things. And that’s, yeah. And it’s, it’s like making a small crack in the egg, right? Yeah, exactly. It is a big ass crack, but yeah. But you don’t know how big the egg is. You don’t know how big the egg is. I’ve been cracking that egg for years now, slowly, but yeah, cracking the egg for years now. This is actually very helpful, Manuel, by the way, what you, what you said, the thing you said about this, this humbling idea of not identifying yourself with that spirit that is making you and this humbling idea of dying through commitment to a community, I think it gives me a lot to think about actually. Right. What is the proper way to do that? So let’s, let’s just say that all of this amazingly difficult stuff somehow gets integrated in you and you’ve run five years into the future. Hopefully, I hope so. So where are you at? Where are we at right now? Right. Like five years in the future, right? Like, like, what are you doing? Like, like how does your life look like? Five years into the future, I’ve found my center in the sense that I know, I know what I’m committed to. And the only challenge is not, is not about knowing the right decision, but committing to the right decision. Because right now the challenge is both knowing and committing, but five years into the future, I’m already committed to the right decision. I just need to keep doing the right thing. So you need to live it out. You need to. So how would it look like? Would that mean that you’re like a pillar of the community? What’s the other alternative? Well, like, I don’t know, like you, you could be traveling around, for example, right? Or you know, evangelizing, right? Like you could like, there’s many ways that I see myself as a pillar of the community. Yeah. And how would you act out that role? Like, like what would you like to do in that role? I would like to represent as well as possible what I think is good and true and beautiful. So in a way to translate that for other people? Yes, to translate that for other people, whether in music, in arts, or in my character, to just translate, to put it in religious terms, to just translate that for other people, whether in music, in art, or in my character, to just to translate the character of God through my own character, through art, through writing, to really, to really not just talk about doctrines, but really going into every, into a person’s level, to their understanding, to their, whatever, whoever they are as they are. And symbolically trying to draw them out. If that makes any sense, like just- Like I’m doing? Sorry? Like I’m doing? Well, yeah, that’s one way. That’s one way to do it. You do it with asking questions. You do it by having interviews with other people, trying to bring them to God and by making them aware of their faults, which is a very, very important part, I would like to do it with myths and stories and by just, yeah, kind of like you’re doing, but with an additional aspect of myths and stories. And because I like to write and I like to write music as well. So I was, I’m hoping to, to be able to sort of bring these two together and put them under the umbrella, tame them, tame them under the umbrella of, of, of God. Let’s say. So, yeah, let’s focus on the myths and stories then. Like, yeah, like how does that look like? What that looks like is let’s say my friend is going through something difficult and I’m trying to have a conversation with them about what’s going on. I would like to have something ready that is, that can hit the spot in that conversation, whether it’s an idea or a concept or a symbolic story that helps bring the person out of their situation or out of their stuck frame of reference. That’s what it would look like. It’s not exactly psychotherapy. It’s more like symbolic therapy. Symbolic therapy. Logo therapy. Logo therapy. Logo therapy. Yeah. So, do you have a practice in that already? Yeah. Yeah. Well, the problem is that my, my, my list of practices is getting too big and that one had to be knocked out temporarily, temporarily, but I, what I do is that every other day, I just take a minute to write, to write whatever ideas come to mind in a consistent and a concise way in a way that’s, in a way that anyone can understand, it’s very challenging. And I’ve been told that people like the way I do that, that how I bring things down to a level that a large audience can understand, and I like to keep challenging, challenging myself to do that. So if there’s a complex idea and I finally understand that idea and I want to help people not just know it propositionally, but actually see it the way I’m seeing it as it is, I like to write articles or stories that help people get there. Okay. So, cause I, I, I’m, I’m starting to write articles as well. Mm hmm. Um, I’m actually also intending to design practices because I think practices are the thing that, that are going to get the people. Um, and then the question is, well, how, how specific can you make the practice or should you even write? Right. Right. Uh, there, there is a sense in my experience that when you get a right relationship to the structure, you can just create the story somewhat in the moment. Right. Um, I, I do think that there might be skills for, uh, for cultivating that. And maybe you have, you have a sense of that for yourself. Like, yeah. Yeah. What, what are the skills of translating the abstraction into? Right. Right. First of all, you need to, you need to practice the art of just communicating your ideas to yourself. Just start simple, starting, starting at the very basic level, just journaling on a daily basis already does that. Not just writing random stuff. It comes in stages. The first stage is just you write whatever comes to mind. You become mindful of what you’re feeling, what you want to say, and you let it flow, just writing it spontaneously. Because you can’t impose structure immediately. You have to let things flow, get in the mood where you’re not judging yourself. That’s what Jordan Peterson suggests. Actually, they just tried randomly without, not randomly, just let the ideas flow out of the first stage. Second stage. That’s what the, that’s when the structure of the idea starts becoming apparent. Because once you’re through the writing, once you’re in the mood, you’re already familiar with what you’re trying to say. You’re familiar with that spirit, let’s say, which is producing these ideas. You see the whole at that stage. That’s when you need to start structuring, like what comes first, what comes next, what comes third, and that’s where the second stage comes in, where you’re just making a table of contents or what are the main points you want to say. And then you want to think about how one point leads to the other, how in a smooth way it leads to the other, like how it implies the other existential in a certain sense. I can’t think of a particular example now because this is kind of get very difficult, but finally you want to make sure that’s the most difficult stage. You want to make sure that you’re somehow embodying what you’re trying to say in the examples you give. Like, let’s say you’re talking about how love gets you out of yourself. Like in the examples, you want to sneak in examples where love is bringing someone out of themselves. It’s sort of, you know, Cinti and Duetiva from Spinoza? No. Anyway, anyway, the point is you want to exemplify your writing. That’s like the highest, the top stage I’ve seen exemplifying what you’re writing about in the piece, in the examples, in the anecdotes that you’re giving. Okay. Cause all of this sounds really, I guess, distant in the sense that it’s a process that doesn’t have immediate time constraint. In my mind, I was more thinking about, well, you’re talking to me right now, right? You were talking about giving advice and like, how do you do all of that? Right? Like how do you compile that into something that can actually express something in the moment? I just let it happen. I mean, I mean, I just, I just ask myself, how, how am I doing that? How am I reaching that insight? And I try to hold the other person’s hand and just do what I’m doing, do, do what my brain is doing when, when most of the time it works out. I mean, you know what I mean? It’s, it’s like really going to the basics. Like how, how am I getting from here to there? And instead of starting there and start starting above, I start from below with the other person. Okay. And while that, yeah, that sounds pretty good. So you’re, you’re right. So you’re talking about this trajectory, right? And in some sense, you’re cultivating the skill of forming trajectories. Yes. There’s a smoothness in, right. Or a quality of going through the trajectory. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. And I think meditation is very important to doing that because you want to keep tuning into how you’re feeling and how the other person is feeling doing that. Yeah. Well, I thought that is, that is an additional complicating factor. Yes, exactly. You got to keep track of more than yourself. Yeah. So, so you’re a pillar of the community, right? You’re, you’re the source of, I guess, gathering of problems, shaping them into a narrative that allows relation to that problem. And in some sense, I see that as like the heart or something, right? Like what the function of the heart is, where it’s like scattering it up and then dispersing it out so things can manifest in all the, all the aspects of the body. That’s one way of saying it. I don’t know why I didn’t relate to it very much. I did relate to it, but I think I have a simple, find a simpler way of saying it. More like I talk to the person, figure out who they are, where they are. And through that lead them to where I want them to be. Not where I want them to be, but where I think is the standards, where my standard says they should be or where the standard says they should be. The standard. Yeah. There we go. Yeah. My image. Good luck without using any of these. Yeah. So yeah, like, like what, what are, what are the, so you said you got to pick a commitment, right? And then you got to, you got to live it out. Like are there other aspects that you still feel like you need to accomplish in order to, to get to that place? Yeah. This is a big aspect. I have a tendency to burn out very quickly, get tired very quickly. And I’m still figuring that out. Why that is the case. I used to accuse myself that I’m just a very selfish person who just needs to continuously break himself in order to get there, but I’m starting to notice that underlying that exhaustion is either a lack of awareness of, of my capacities. I just push myself hard under the assumption that going to the 100% is the way to go. Or, or I’m just feeling like this is too much conformity and I need to step back a little bit. I think what I need to work on within these five years, like hopefully I have a better ability to tune in to how much I should give in a particular moment. So it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a, so you see what, are you looking at what you should give as confirmation? Yes. Yes. Confirmation is one aspect of what I should give to others is confirmation in me, because that’s confirmation to your duty. Right. So what, what, what’s coming up for me is when, when you’re relating to people, right? Like there’s, um, well, we were talking about the spirit, right? And the spirit can give energy, right? Like, I think we can kind of call it like a flow state, right? Where if, if, if we’re having right expression between Dan, the effort is it’s less bright because there’s less monkeys. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Result much barriers there. Yeah. Right. So, so there’s an aspect there, right? And then there’s also an aspect where I guess you’re, you’re weighing yourself against the responsibilities that you can take. Yeah. And when, when, when you’re so that that’s effectively having awareness of your agency in the moment, right? Like what can I do and what can’t? Absolutely. That’s a very good way of saying it. Having good, good sense of my agency, where it lies and where it stops. Mm-hmm. So it would it be fair to say that if you don’t have a sense of your agency, you’re, you’re trying to force things. Yes. It would be more than fair to say that I just jack up to a hundred percent. If I don’t have a good sense of my agency, just scare myself on the function. Right. So, so you’re conforming something else into a shape it cannot take. Yes. And then we just want to take this. Yeah. Well, it cannot take right. Like that’s the projection is like, Oh, reality can do this. It’s like, Nope. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. That’s just the recent insight that I’m coming to right now. Yeah. Exactly. And the problem is that I tend to accuse myself of being too selfish, but maybe it’s there, maybe that’s there. I mean, of course there’s some selfishness involved, but there’s also an aspect of that sometimes these things shouldn’t be there. And there is another way of gathering them into place and that’s your responsibility and not to forcing them where they just want to spread it out. Right. There there’s a, there’s a cultivation of something, right? Like, or, or there’s a, well, like a working, right? Like, like you use tools to manifest something, right? And if you use tools, you break this, right? Like, you break the log in order to make a chair. All right. Yeah. And, and the log won’t be there anymore. Right. And like the log also can only manifest a certain set of chairs. It cannot manifest the whole set of chairs. And, and, and when we cultivate things, right? Like there’s a different way in which we can manifest things, right? Which is less within our control, right? Like maybe the plants won’t grow into a chair shape because like, one, one part of it dies off, right? And then like it’s a half ass chair, right? But then it’s like, well, but it’s, it has potential for something else. Right. And, and, and that’s the dying into the new thing again, right? It’s like, well, can, can, can you let go of your expectation? Cause effectively that’s what, what it is, right? You’re living on that expectation and, and manifest the good that, that is there. Right. Like, and focus back on that. Yeah, absolutely. That, that letting go is the sweet spot of surrender where you’re participating, but you’re surrendering the outcome to, to God. Or to the fates, like the Greeks would say. To the what? Fates. To fate. Yeah. Yeah. To fate. Exactly. Yeah. Right. Like I’ve been watching some Chinese stuff where fate was really, I’m like, well, you have your fate, right? And well, that’s also calling. And well, that’s where my struggle is. Yeah. Okay. Okay. What’s the fate and what’s the calling? Okay. Well, yeah, but that’s, well, I’m going to need to write that down because I think that’s what the thing that leads into the vision, right? Or not that forms the vision, right? Like if you, if you have your calling, right? Like that, that is the thing that holds up the vision that holds up. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Exactly. And pretty much my calling is in that direction that we talked about just now. I think that’s why I’m also really interested in studying Jung as well. But I don’t know if there’s enough space for Jung right now and everything I’m doing. Yeah. I’d be careful with studying. Yeah. I think you need to be really careful on studying. I, I, I, I’m just going to assume that all of these things are taken care of in the religious tradition. Yeah. I can always step out again. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So I think, do you want to add something more? No, I think I’m good. I’m good. I really appreciate it. It’s been helpful. So I always ask, what, what is your takeaway? Like what, what lesson did you learn from the conversation? I need to have the balls to commit to something. That’s the takeaway that I took away. I’m not just the balls to commit to something, but to stop, to sort of really be careful about what is myself, what I mean when I say myself and to get out of a having mode when it comes to knowing myself and stop trying to force my agenda on myself and start trying to figure out that standard and just commit to it. Well, I’m going to ask you a question. Well, and I’m going to ask everybody to leave a comment with what they got out of the conversation. So Amit can get his own feedback and I butcher his name again. And I would like to see you all back on the next episode of Informing Your Soul. Thank you everyone for listening.