https://youtubetranscript.com/?v=ssW6gVKUQhk
you you you hello I’m here with two my good friends Guy Sandstock and Christopher Master Petro and we are going to discuss probably get into a flowing dialogos about cultivating the fellowship of spiritual practice but I’m gonna let each one of them introduce themselves and how they’d like to sort of open up so guy you first please yeah so my name is Guy Sandstock how I came into the work in the touchpoint with John was through a my first podcast conversation in which we had a profound conversation out of which a couple of conversations later including Christopher and Jordan Hall and other people the word dialogo on my text message and that started to actually take some real form and you could say that the course that we are doing which includes a deeply includes a practice that I am co-founder of called circling which is a relational practice and what is what most people know me as is the is the co-founder of that practice of bringing philosophy cognitive science spiritual practice philosophical practice into an ecology of practices and a real real experience that involves a deep level of phylic love and fellowship and we are we are going to be putting on I believe I think it’s our fifth or sixth I’m circling into dialogos course which is going to be October 21st and 22nd that’s a Saturday and Sunday so October 21st and 22nd and we’re adjusting the times earlier for European folks so we’re we’re gonna I’m gonna well especially me because I’m on the West Coast I’m gonna be getting really early so it’ll be 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Pacific Standard Time and everything is on zoom that’s me that’s you all right and I am Christopher Master Pietro as John said I’m a writer I’m also now as of quite recently the the new executive director of the Vervecki Foundation I’ve been working with John alongside him for many many years and you know what I was thinking recently John I was thinking back to just sort of the way we developed our way of writing together and and when I think back I didn’t really think of this until recently but it’s sort of obvious now in retrospect that a lot of that process contained within it the seeds of what we would later call dialogos because we would you know we would have these periods where we would be intensely focused on you know tuning the the language as we wrote but we would have other moments when we would we would meet a kind of impasse like conceptually we would need an impasse or we would we would we would stall on a problem like something wasn’t we weren’t articulating something quite right and that meant that the way that we had understood the concept wasn’t quite right so essentially we would have a little aporia in the midst of writing and then that would sort of throw us back into a brainstorming process and when I think about it now those brainstorming processes really were spontaneous moments of dialogos they were informal we didn’t think of them that way I don’t think we ever used that word at the time but when I think now you know if something occurred to me as well which is you know so much of that process so much of that spontaneous process which was also often very dynamic and stimulating and kind of intrinsically rewarding for its own sake it would culminate in an insight or it would culminate in a conclusion a conclusion of okay what what what then do we actually have to write down so all of that whole process ultimately was oriented to the goal of you know finishing this sentence or finishing this paragraph or getting le mot juste for the right passage and that often felt like a victory when it came but you know I remember afterwards I would look at whatever we had whatever had concretely come about as a consequence of the dialogos and it never seemed as satisfying I mean it was however appropriate it might have been it never seemed as satisfying itself as the process was yeah of coming to it yeah and it reminds me of you know those moments when you you have an insight and it leads to being able to articulate something in a way that you’ve never articulated it before or finding the word that you were searching for finding the right phrase to describe something and it always feels like this great victory but I think that the victory the thing that’s actually most rewarding about it is not having produced whatever you’ve produced it was the very process that you took to produce it that is actually the thing that’s most gratifying and meaningful and it’s funny looking at whatever was produced in retrospect it and over time it it it gradually empties out of the the particular kind of effusiveness that it moment of its creation and so reflecting back on that process it was the process rather than whatever came out of it yeah it’s truly the meaningful thing and so that you know I think now about how much that process contained in within it the the very nature of what then we would develop out and you would develop out as dialogos proper and as the dialectic so it’s it’s always nice when you can look back and reflect on what has come before and realize that there was a pattern that was being worked out that was working itself out even before it had been properly named so this is all to say that the foundation now is taking the the seeds of this work you know this workshop that we’ve done now for about I think it’s the sixth guy if I’m remembering you know one of the things that it’s allowing us to do is it’s it’s quite it’s quite you know the workshop is is a really really a condensation of a whole bunch of different practices a whole bunch of different courses that each expand into their own worlds you know so there’s of course the the some rudiments of circling that then expand into the art of circling that you run guy out of the circling Institute which is really a whole world unto itself and a whole program unto itself and and of course there’s the dialectic and to deal logos itself which is now the which is now the focus of an intensive long-form course that’s being run out of the verveky foundation that I’m leading with Taylor Barrett and Robert Gray and obviously there’s meditation and neoplatonic contemplation that you have also dropped down into an independent course John that people can find online and so there are all these different things that are all packed tightly together into one weekend-long program and the novelty and that the uniqueness of that workshop is that precisely that you can find all of those things together and there is no one other place that I know of that you can find exactly that combination in that particular order and arrangement and that comprises a kind of pattern a particular kind of structure and journey that you can take in the span of a weekend it’s quite an intensive but that each of those practices ultimately lead into their own worlds that feed back into that workshop so that workshop is sort of at the center and there’s all kinds of things that are now spilling out of it and developing in their own spheres but they all ultimately lead back to that workshop as being the origin in many ways of all of these different programs so there’s this interesting kind of world building going on where you know these these things are each developing out into their own and finding their fuller nature in other places that are feeding back into the workshop and with that comes a world of people as well and we’ve talked a lot about just one of the things I think has that has been most rewarding in doing this has just really been the people that I have met and that you guys have met I think too right because it’s an astonishingly impressive crop of people and drawn from a lot of different backgrounds and disciplines different temperaments too but all I would say equally open and open-minded and engaging and intelligent and just willing to tumble and wrestle and willing to play they just people really come to play and the quality of that of those groups of people is really it’s really striking so I know I’ve you know I’ve made some friendships out of those groups of people and I think you guys have too and I think ultimately one of the things that occurs to me as we do all of this is that people are always more real than ideas yeah and if ideas can be hosted by relationships you know if the exploration of ideas becomes a feature of relating to a person that combination is remarkably powerful and I think it is precisely that combination that we tried to cultivate but ultimately the reality of the process in my experience is found in persons not in ideas and that’s one thing I know I’ve learned from doing all of this I’m reminded that one of the consistent results we get feedback we get from people is they’ll say things like they discovered a form of intimacy they didn’t know existed but they’ve always been longing for which of course pricks up my platonic ears quite a bit but there’s this profound sense of connectedness which you were also I think alluding to when you were talking about our writing together there’s the connectedness to another person it’s interesting because people talk about that intimacy and that connectedness and it’s kind of like well it’s I don’t think it kind of like I think it is an instance of a shared flow state and I think what people are discovering is is the Greek term phylia which is this fellowship this fellowship together in which they get access to something that they create together yet nevertheless surpasses all of them it’s not just a sum of people together they give birth together of something that draws them more into relationship with each other and into relationship together to something beyond themselves and so people often talk about another intimacy of course they get the fellowship with each other and then they get a sense of fellowship with this emerging flow of sense making and interconnectedness and people find that profoundly rewarding Socrates said that was the best way to live as a human being and many people would I think agree with that who participated in this and and that that that gives people something else and it has these two dimensions in it and you and I Chris we talked about it the vertical and the horizontal the horizontal where people really connect to other people and and connect to other people in this way that’s really not afforded well in our culture it’s not it can become but it’s not in the it’s not in the workshop friendship you don’t know these people right you don’t know them you don’t know their autobiographies you don’t know their their their their aspirational visions you don’t know their personal troubles right and that’s not what’s going to be come to that’s not going to come to light very much in the workshop because it’s not a therapy session right and of course this is not about romantic relationships at all it’s not about eros at least of the way we understand eros our culture so people get this oh there’s a way in which we should be together because we access this collective spirit and that’s the point I want to make you they the interpersonal horizontal it intermeshes with this vertical sense of spirituality of connecting to a more encompassing way of being that’s not that’s that’s a you know that’s shared by a group of people and gives them a way of grasping the world that an individual can’t do and that there and it’s a spiritual thing for and so they start and many of them who come from secular backgrounds start to talk about these experiences in their workshop in using very spiritual even religious terms and we’re not pushing any religion here I want to be very very clear about that but I want to be clear about that many people are hungering for spirituality and that doesn’t mean they want a set of religious doctrines or they want to affirm a particular metaphysical questionable metaphysical picture or anything like that they want this sense of connectedness to what’s mysteriously generative between them and beyond them and and so they’re getting that too in this practice yes in a very profound way guy you wanted to say something I could tell you’re nodding yeah I mean I just I just I just witnessed this right where I saw this what you’re talking about John which is what I’m what I’m basically hearing you say is that the fellowship right in the kinds of people that are drawn to the work right have this really I would say it strikes me as is a unique coming together of on one level there’s the deep interest in like the structure of being right the metaphysical reality that the the wider cultural concerns right that involve like the scientific and philosophical rigor that that takes right but also and not at all separate from that a deep concern for their own personal deep intimate development right in that greater context and oftentimes you see this you see these two not come together often usually it’s like people are you know really philosophical and academic and in their head or something like that or you have people that are really in their feelings and right involved in going to therapy and immersed in their life but there’s a sweet spot right of these two coming together that really starts to sing and there is a I saw a really good example of this with somebody where it was a somebody who who who I think he he came in through dialectic and the deal logos that then came on to the artist circling which is the the year-long practitioner training that I run through the circling Institute and he he had a circle in the beginning right where he discussed this really intense relationship that involves him having a lot of courage with his family is really intense situation right that that involves a lot of emotion and is really personal to him and there was the way there was the way that he talked about talked talked about it and experienced that situation right in the first circle and then there was his the last circle on the last weekend which I just experienced a couple months ago where he talked about that same situation right however there was a fundamental shift in his orientation that was so enlightening that his situation with his sister and his family it was deeply personal and it involves a lot of personal courage but you could tell that there was an orientation that that his personal situation was that through which he had an even deeper gaze on the structure of being it’s true it’s like it’s through the intimacy of confronting the concrete personal life with his family and in everything that he had to go through and exercising the courage of having those conversations and all that that meant for him personally but you could tell that he had a gaze that was seeing that but seeing that as an instance right through which he could see his situatedness in being itself and he was learning about existence through it the way existence was and the structure of being and it was such a profound difference in orientation and transfer in a transformation in a in a place in the very way he situated himself in the world and it was like watching art well I just want to mention in connection with that I was in Bergerac France working with many of the leaders of these emerging relational dialogical practices and also many of the practitioners and many of the facilitators and guides very powerful experience but it came away with exactly the sense of the importance of what you just put your finger on guy about that and I’ve been working with Chris and we’re gonna loop you in soon soon guy on a practice that we’re gonna we’re gonna workshop it and you know get some people to act as hopefully well-respected guinea pigs within it and and why I’m saying this is I think what you just put your finger on is really important and this is gonna go into I hope well there’s lots to be discussed and reflected on but we are also working on an advanced course an advanced workshop for dialectic and ideologos and we’ve got some ideas and guy and Chris and I have been talking about that this is one of them there’s a practice that is complementary to our current dialectic and ideologos practice that is directly about getting to people to this can you find something that involves the whole of the self without it being self-involved draws you deeply all of you but is also tremendously shareable with others it’s not egocentrically specific to you and then therefore is a proper existential question it involves all of you your whole of your existence but it calls to everybody in their existence and a practice directly directly designed to afford exactly that and make it an explicit thing and so I just want to let people know that coming to the workshop as Chris said there’s already a whole bunch in guys Institute of the Verveki Foundation the awakening to meaning there’s a whole world opened up but for those of you who well I’ve done the workshop like and you’re thinking you want something more advanced that’s also in the cards and this is a good the workshop is a good way of getting the rust off the wheels and getting that ready so we’ll be able to you’ll be able to participate well in the advanced course which we’re we’re also putting together I think the capacity for human beings to ask these kinds of questions that involve us as opposed to me or you but involve us in a profound way is part of what people come upon when they’re doing the first workshop this introductory circling into dia logos workshop but I just wanted to let people know that we are at work we’re we’re building an advanced course and it will help one of the things that will do is foreground this it will also help do some shadow work because projections are to dialogical practices what distractions are to mindfulness practices we’re going to be addressing that so I want people to know that this workshop is part of an ongoing living creative endeavor in which we are trying more and more to help people realize these kinds of connections ask these kinds of existential questions confront each other and confront reality in a in a aspirationally nourishing fashion yes and in a playful fashion yes in a playful fashion you know there’s a these are you know they can be they can be they can be very very meaningful but there’s also they’re not too self-serious and that there’s a real sense of playfulness to all of this that’s really essential to it and and there’s a playfulness to this this much more practical and you know way of doing philosophy we think of philosophy something you do in a scholarly way where you’re it’s just a process of it’s a process of pouring over volumes of historical thought that is not what this is it’s complimentary to that if you’re interested in that but ultimately does not require it and you know you said it guy when you used the term art it’s I think hado said that you know philosophy was simply philosophy in the sense of phileas Sophia the love of wisdom is simply the art of living the art of living well and living with a certain orientation and and I think that’s that’s the project that we’re trying to gather in this and we’re trying to gather it in this very playful and and and and artful way which is how do we find as you say that sweet spot that intersection where they’re relating to people and they’re relating to the dilemmas and predicaments and central confounding factors of life where do those projects meet where do those projects share an identity where do they become the same right where was the point where the the things that I face that vex me and the things that you face that vex me become allow us to share in the same project and meet one another in that project in such a way that we both contribute to its opening that we can reframe it together that we can use one another help one another to reorient in such a way that my life is impacted in your life is impacted but ultimately our orientation is beyond just the scope of each of our lives we’re tapping into a greater sense of mystery but it’s pouring back in on us too that’s why I think what you’re trying to capture John and that it’s there’s a personal import to all of this there’s no doubt but we’re reaching beyond what is simply personal and in reaching beyond what is simply personal the thing that we’re reaching for reaches back into us personally it reaches back into our lives personally that’s a very difficult thing to describe but you know it when you experience it when you’re in the throes of an interaction with someone and the bottom drops out from the beneath you together and you go oh something just happened we found something together and the thing that we found we might we might we might find it momentarily in a phrase that’s uttered but it’s all not not ultimately in that phrase it’s not in the language it’s something outside of the language the language is trying to invoke it get at it symbolize it but the thing that we find can’t be spoken or communicated clearly it has much more to do with a general orientation in that moment that we share that opens us to the possibility of something mysterious and I think that’s what we mean by the Socratic ignorance or the learned ignorance right we realized where we stand before everything that we can’t adequately express and that experience is a remarkably humbling experience but it’s a very meaningful one too and it gets to the heart of the philosophical project which is you know how we face and confront and encounter those fundamental mysteries that are unspeakable but that can be brought into greater distinction by speaking to one another in a certain way it’s a paradox it’s what’s what’s interesting is many people describe themselves as spiritual but not religious and I think what they are trying to articulate is that as human beings need to they aspire they aspire to be something more than they are and to be connected to what’s real which are true good and beautiful more than they are connected but they find that there is no good sense of guidance on that they don’t many people don’t know what to do and they will often collect some practices for themselves and those practices definitely have benefit but we’re often hungry for a North Star we’re often hungry for something that gives us a guiding way of knowing are we getting better are we actually fulfilling our aspiration and what’s interesting and I’ve actually participated in supervising some research that pretty clearly indicates the one thing that is predictive of you actually carrying through on your aspirations is if you internalize a role model you internalize a sage you internalize a moral exemplar a virtue exemplar now of course you can endeavor to do that but um Hicknott Han said the next buddha is the sangha meaning the best place we can actually look for getting a sense of that guiding orientation probably isn’t going to happen by waiting around for the next Socrates or Siddhartha or even Spinoza to show up and even if they are in the world our world is is disposed to keep them out of view for us in many ways but what can happen in the fellowship oriented towards as Chris is saying this and Guy is saying this shared sweet spot of Sophia uh that is you get that sense of orientation the spirit that emerges between everyone and between them and the orientation towards virtue and people often describe this as a sense of awe or wonder and a renewed sense of commitment and being called one of the things this practice can do for you then is to give you that north star for guiding you acting like a touchstone for you as you’re engaging in your individual practices of transformation we always intended it to be a meta practice in that way a practice that you cultivate to help guide and curate um your individual practice yeah end out of in through doing this i know that for me personally through doing this and being oriented in this in this deep notion of practice is i’ve i’ve noticed more and more there’s very few moments where where practice isn’t viable like there’s a there’s an orientation that you can have where it’s like we’re always perceiving we’re always breathing we’re always oriented in a world and the you know in in as John wants to say the machinery right of that orientation of that perception are like you start to get a sense through these practices of the structure of that and you can begin to play with them right and so one of the things i’m noticing is that just spontaneously almost every moment from a bike ride to looking at my kid to the way that i’m eating a meal is this opportunity to develop a sense of the sacred somehow right through a tuning to a particular sensation or a particular orientation or holding in a perspective or being in a way to participate so there’s one levels where you’re going to be in in dialectic and circling in the deal of those you’re going to be learning a series of an ecology practices that fit together and have a progression but there’s on a meta level you’re also going to be learning practice itself right in that sense that life in some very deep way at least can be such a practice at every moment that was beautiful guy that was really beautiful Thank you John. So we are offering this and we are offering this from our hearts and with the best of our practice it is still very much something we are learning about as we’re doing it as i tried to indicate this is part of an ongoing living creative endeavor and we are very much all of us in service to the life of it and having it unfold virtuously and with virtuosity we invite you to join us all of us will be there will be engaging in the practices and leading you through as Guy said step by step progression it’s a it’s a you know it’s this program that takes you through and it builds and as Chris is continually and very accurately reminding us all nothing is presupposed you don’t have to know any Greek philosophy you don’t have to know any academic philosophy it won’t hurt if you do either but you this is not expected required needed you don’t have to watch the awakening from the meaning crisis or after Socrates but after you do this practice you could go back and the resources are there we can learn more about the meaning crisis you can learn more about the Socratic framework but you don’t need to do that and to do these practices this is a portal this is a portal to so much so much more that we have on offer for all of you and not much of this is what is on offer is free and then some of it has a fee attached to it this is not a money funnel this is not what we’re trying to do I’m not gaining from this so we have to understand that this is something that we’re trying to do with you in a very deep way yeah and we invite your and welcome your participation I’m going to ask if Guy and Chris have anything more to say before we we wrap it up Yeah I just I appreciate the witness that you presenced Lots of witnessing Really great really great doing this with the two of you thank you so much thank you so much my friends