What Remains When the Ego Falls Silent - With Marcus McKeown

Marcus McKeown of Yellow Rock Sanctuary joins Jason for a profound conversation on ego, awareness, stillness, spiritual seeking, and why the peace we are looking for may already be here. 

What happens when you have tried everything — the healing, the courses, the manifestation, the self-improvement — and something inside still feels unsettled?

In this episode, Jason is joined by Marcus McKeown from Yellow Rock Sanctuary for a deep, thought-provoking conversation about the end of seeking.

Together, they explore the ego’s endless need for certainty and control, why we become so identified with our thoughts and stories, and what might remain when we stop trying to become something else.

Marcus shares his own journey through success, disappointment, collapse, questioning, and ultimately a quieter recognition of presence. This is not a conversation about chasing enlightenment, fixing yourself, or adding another spiritual practice to your list.

It is an invitation to pause.

To notice what is aware of the thought.

To sit with the words, “I don’t know.”

And to consider that the peace, connection and meaning you are searching for may not be somewhere ahead of you at all.

Jason and Marcus also talk about mediumship, manifestation, trying versus allowing, the magic of being alive, and why the next person to speak after asking life’s biggest question might just lose.

Learn more about Marcus and Yellow Rock Sanctuary:
https://www.yellowrocksanctuary.life/events-yrs

Connect with Jason
Website and private readings: www.jasonpaulmedium.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@jasonpaulsoulsync

Subscribe to Jason’s monthly spiritual newsletter at the bottom of any page on his website for spiritual reflections, podcast updates, meditations, events and more.

Guest ideas, want to share your story? Get in touch with me at hello@jasonpaulmedium.com

If this episode resonated with you, please leave Soul Sync a rating or review. It genuinely helps the podcast reach more people who may need these conversations.

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Transcript

— Soul Sync Intro

Charlie Kelly Medium 0:11

Hello to you, my lovely listener. It's me, Psychic Medium Jason Paul, and you're in the place uh where your ego can most certainly take a back seat. Um I've been in the land of change, like I said uh in the last episode, kind of re-um just taking a period to relax. It's actually dawned on me just how um tired I've been um since leaving my business. Um, because to do 13 years in the industry I've done, I think I uh I've definitely got a few stripes on my shoulders. Um so I've really been turning a lot of my attention to my mediumship, and I'm being blown away uh by just how much I'm learning, and I'm able to just um, you know, sign up to things and do things that I would never even think I could do um when I was uh working for my business, like um joining a circle that starts at 10am Australia time and doing that at 1am UK time. But why not? So um I must admit, the ego does keep chipping in soul sink. It keeps chipping in, uh, wanting to uh create fear, and I will not allow that, not allow that not on my bloody watch. So, anyway, let me introduce you to today's guest, who is called Marcus McCown. Now, he is the owner of a beautiful place called the Yellow Rock Sanctuary, which is in Martin Island. We talk all about uh Marcus' journey on how he even came to find himself running a retreat. And I have to say, speaking to him, I want to go to the retreat myself because it sounds absolutely marvellous. Marcus and I discussed so many things in this conversation from where I am at the crossboat in my life, and how many people arrive at his doorstep, so to speak, to his retreat. They might be successful on the outside, they might have the money, they might have the looks, they might have everything, every box ticked that they feel um, you know, qualifies them to look like a successful person in whatever space suit that looks like. But they arrive because there's there's a feeling of disalignment. And it really reminds me of my own journey. Uh, you know, I uh come from Humboldt Beginnings, I grew this multi-million pound company, and one day I just thought, what the bloody hell is the point of all this? Um, you know, I'm goddamn miserable, my soul was yearning out, I was struggling on a path of battling addiction. I'd never even stopped to consider once I might want to uh do some healing along the way. God know, because uh next month uh the clock sets to zero, and here we go again. So, you know, I think there's so much to be said for spaces like Marcus has created. And what we talked about, he he put some really powerful concepts across only in such a way that someone has who's had a really um, you know, uh total short of half even, would be able to put them in. So I've sat here, as always, dribbling notes. Uh one of the big questions I want to stick with from this episode is what is awareness? We discussed about awareness, we discussed about the God force, we discussed about all that is available to us is within us. So, you know, we got a lot of value for money in. So, this is my conversation with the lovely Marcus McCown.

— The End of Seeking: Inside Yellow Rock Sanctuary

Charlie Kelly Medium 3:40

Marcus, Marcus, Marcus, welcome to the SoulSync.

SPEAKER_01 3:44

Well, it's nice to be here with you.

Charlie Kelly Medium 3:46

Oh, it's lovely to have you on, my dear. Thank you for coming on. I know we're gonna have a lovely chat because we're having a rut old Natter before I even push the record button. So, tell us about you and first of all, the Yellow Rock Sanctuary in Ireland, because I've got the website open right now. It looks bloody lovely if I do say so myself.

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Yeah, it's a precious gift in life. Yellow Rock Sanctuary is a space where people come when they are kind of sick of seeking and they just want to find some peace and rest. And we hold a space that allows people to embrace silence, to enjoy the grounds, the woodlands, organic food. We do meditation, we do some teachings around non-duality, what it means to live in the present moment. And as opposed to teaching anything, we help people sit in a space where they let things fall away and see what it what it is that remains when everything else has drifted.

Charlie Kelly Medium 4:42

What does someone who's sick of seeking look like to you? What what what does that mean?

SPEAKER_01 4:48

They're frustrated, they're burned out, they're tired, sometimes angry. Often you'll find people who are well, it depends. You can have an extreme. The person might come here who has everything in their life, all of the boxes ticked, nice home, nice family, nice car, the bank account is okay, but something inside is just not fulfilled. And they can't

— Why Having It All Can Still Feel Empty

SPEAKER_01 5:10

enjoy the life that they have. And that creates a certain level of sabotage, discontent, or misalignment with the self or the sense of what life is or the purpose of life. Or you might get someone who come along and they have sought so much, they have looked so often and so far, that they're just broken, they're broken down, they're tired, they're exhausted, they are scared, they're living in fear of their own death because they haven't a sense of being someone who lived yet. And and I guess everything in between. And still there's a discontentment, there's an emptiness, there's a a lack.

Charlie Kelly Medium 5:56

But even those people you're just describing, the people who are doing the Reiki, the yoga, whatever, you know, I I would like to assume that the these people understand, you know, what life is all about. They're awakened people, so to speak. They understand perhaps they are a soul. So what what's making the you know them the them feel this way, that they need to come to the sanctuary? I'll I'll say quite frankly, the sanctuary looks like the sort of place where I'd quite like to go on a holiday, but that's not the purpose of it, is it, Marcus?

SPEAKER_01 6:26

That's not well, actually, actually, it is. The sanctuary is here. People, there's a couple of things that happen here. Locals can come in a couple of times a week and join meditation, but essentially once a month we do assigned a treat. Every couple of months we put on a different kind of program, maybe a teaching program. But most of what happens here is that people book in for three or four days or a week or two weeks, and they come and they enjoy the silence, they get meditation every morning. There's yoga, reflexology, uh, singing bowls, breath work sessions, whatever you need to accompany you as you find rest and peace and escape the busyness and the noise of the mind. This is all about coming back into the present moment fully, emotionally, psychologically, physically, and then letting even that go and allowing the silence and you recognize the oneness that there is between you.

Charlie Kelly Medium 7:12

And it's you know what? I think that to step away from the madness of the world, because even at the crossroads, I was telling you about just before we started recording with my business, and it's been everything I've known now for 14 years is recruitment, your phone going off every two minutes with candidates, clients, you know, you sort of constantly looking at the money speedometer every month, it resets to zero. You're in the land of the ego non-stop, and you know, I've kind of stepped in, I'm detangling myself from that world, Marcus. And I'm suddenly finding myself feeling like I'm flowing, I'm I'm enjoying it. But I do keep noticing the ego and the world and all this, you know, dinging, binging, phones, whatever. It's you know, the ego even wants to keep coming in with unhelpful stuff at times during this transition. And it's very easy to see why sometimes you need to step into that environment just to even just to be step on the you know, the raw earth beneath your feet. For sure, for sure. Yeah, yeah. Do you even wear shoes uh uh uh Marcus, or are you just barefoot all the time?

SPEAKER_01 8:22

On occasion, in the sanctuary, no on occasions, in the sanctuary, no shoes. No, for sure not no shoes. It's a simple thing, but like we have a woodland here, it's very common. You go out and people are walking around barefoot, and sometimes you just see them, they'll stop and they'll sense the the earth and the energy of the life they're standing in. And even that makes a difference. It's a detox from the world and the noise of the world. Like you mentioned that you would expect the people who do some of the the seeking that they know that there is soul and they know how life works. Surprisingly, most don't. If you live in a world where the people around you are aware of that, it's kind of a normality. But most are not aware of what it is that they're dealing with in these things. They've got a training, they've got an understanding, they've gone to a school or a class or a course. So they know something, but they're still trying to become something else. They're still thinking when I get those clients, I'll be happy. When I achieve that thing, I'll be happy. When I get to that place, I'll be happy. When that occurs, then I can rest. It's the old, you know, when I retire, I'll enjoy life conundrum.

Charlie Kelly Medium 9:24

Yes, and and do you know what? That's so sad as well, because you go through your life and you think, okay, when I retire, but you know, you want to enjoy your whole life. And I it's so easy to understand how we fall into those traps because something of it jumps out at me that you put on your form is you help people see what is true and what is not? How do you help them do that? Because it's so often, you know, we can even uh have these beliefs and and ideas about ourselves that certain things are are true, and I've had to really look at my life and say, is that reality, is that belief even founded in fact? How do you help people work this out what's true and what's not?

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Through the idea of a direct uh examination of the current moment, a direct experience, what is really happening, like as the

— What Is Aware? Untangling Thought, Ego and Identity

SPEAKER_01 10:16

thoughts come and go, they can't be real if they're coming and going. That which is real never leaves, it remains. So what comes and goes is not real, but what comes and goes is often what captures somebody and holds them in in what they think is the present moment, but they're actually being held in the present thought or the current thought, which is very often future or past based. So when we say we help people here, we simply ask the kind of questions, I suppose, in a crater kind of way, we ask the kind of questions that allow people to reflect on what is the true experience of being here now, emotionally, psychologically, physically, what is that thought asking of me? Is it pulling me away from here? What does it mean to sit and to rest in silence reading? So it's to become aware of what is the true direct experience that you're having, and you'll discover that practically everything is a perceived reality, but it's not the only reality. So the question we ask is what remains? When all of the thoughts, the perceptions disappear, the sensations disappear, the ideas disappear, the notions disappear, what is always there? What remains? And what remains is your true nature without being disturbed by the mind or what you call the ego. And people sometimes resist the whole idea of even talking about ego, but ego does is not against you. Ego simply does what ego does. It's the part of the thinking mind, the part of the self of the experience of life that wants certainty and it wants control. It's programmed to have certainty and control, but it doesn't know anything unless it is in control of itself thinking control. So who is the question we have here is what is aware of the ego? What is the one that is aware of the moment? The moment is the experience, but what is aware of it? You are aware, you are awareness. Everything else is to perceive reality.

Charlie Kelly Medium 12:08

Well, yeah, it is so interesting you even saying that because you are awareness, but we identify that we are our thoughts, don't we? Because if I think how many unhelpful thoughts I have a day, it's you know staggering at times. But we our thoughts are just neural pathways of the past, you know. We are just you know, a series of thought patterns, aren't we?

SPEAKER_01 12:37

And neurons. Here's a question for you, Jason. As you as you ask me this, are you thinking that, or are those thoughts just appearing and you're showing them?

Charlie Kelly Medium 12:47

Well, they're just appearing, they're just moving the past.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

You're not even yeah, there you go. You're not even thinking yet. We get caught up in the idea that I'm thinking these thoughts. No, you're not. There's problem number one. You think you're thinking, you're not. You're you're realizing something that shows up, and what shows up tends to be what is within the the bandwidth of your mind, your life experience, your programming. Like you'll never have a thought show up that you have not been exposed to somewhere in some way. So no, you don't because it's a safety.

Charlie Kelly Medium 13:19

You've you started getting coming into your mind, okay. You in a rocket, well my god, that's gonna freak you the hell out. What is this thought? You know, why am I getting it? We are just it's all just previous stuff, but that's where we struggle to move forward in our life because we are just stuck in living in the present from the past, aren't we?

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Well, if we re if we really go to the heart and soul of what we help people understand here in the Lorakh century, there's not even a we. This is all perceived reality. This is this experience that we're having is the ideas that have been allowed to manifest themselves in some form through mind, which is object. We are all life, one life, not versions of life. We are all life showing up in different forms, one life expressing itself in every way. Life life doesn't even know your name. You are life, getting to know the self. Life doesn't care that you're Jason, life is just enjoying the fact that it's knowing itself in the form of Jason, in the way of Jason, and through the personality of Jason, and life is laughing as Jason takes it all very seriously, because life knows that Jason isn't even it's just itself, knowing itself.

Charlie Kelly Medium 14:30

We start life from a very difficult perspective, don't we? Of being the very first thing we're given, as soon as we're born, is a name. Understandable, we need a name, but we are given an identity, so we we start, you know, and I don't know what happens up there in the spirit world. My belief is a soul decides it wants to come down because it has a number of learnings it wants to undertake, so it enters into a soul contract. And I think my soul was probably putting its hand up for everybody experience, knowing my soul. But the point is we then come down here and we forget as soon as we're put into a body, we identify with that body, we identify with that name, we identify with those beliefs that we have about ourselves, and you know, it there's so much to even detangle there. So the lens you're looking through reality at is got so many biases and uh you know beliefs about oneself. You know, how you're perceiving this conversation right now is probably very different from how I am, you know.

SPEAKER_01 15:30

We're having two different conversations.

Charlie Kelly Medium 15:32

We are having two different conversations, we're living in two different realities, but we are one being, we are one in the same.

SPEAKER_01 15:38

Here's something that I really get a laugh and a kick and an enjoyment of sharing with people that right now in this moment, you're only experiencing yourself, you're not even experiencing that. You're experiencing yourself in the way that you perceive me. But it and it's the conversation you're having with yourself about what you're hearing from here that you're experiencing. You're not experiencing my work, you're experiencing your own conversation about my work. You it is not possible to experience anything outside of my world, everything is an experience from within like even if I come over and I touch your shoulder, you won't experience me touching the shoulder, you'll experience yourself having the experience of being touched by, but you won't experience me touching you just the touch itself.

Charlie Kelly Medium 16:21

Yes, and that's even that is a very interesting concept and way of looking at it, because you are, even when you're talking, and it was making me think, as you were saying that about my ADHD brain, you know, I I know that because I've got a very active imagination, and even when someone's talking, you know, I have to concentrate quite hard to pay attention, but it is an internal experience. But then, you know, when we start talking then about awareness and awareness not being, you know, within your body, you know, yes, okay, you have an awareness of if someone touches you, physical touch and vibration, but awareness is so much more than the five physical senses, sure.

SPEAKER_01 17:00

And I know and and and the experience that we're having, we could see is is that which is arising from awareness itself, it's a localized expression of awareness. But awareness doesn't know that awareness is the essence of all. Awareness is life itself, and it's getting to know itself through its own expression, its own activity, which is what we are an expression or an activity of. Life itself. We're at the splash from the river. So if you imagine that everything is one, which which we believe, I guess, that everything is just one expressing itself in many ways, the old school language for that would be that that the omnipresent, omnipotent, omniscient force called God, that God is oneness. In that case, even God doesn't know that God is God. Because for God to be to know that God is God, oneness would have to split itself into two-ness to

— Stillness, Oneness and the Experience Beyond Trying

SPEAKER_01 17:55

discuss itself, to know about it. So to understand your true nature, one must fall so silent that there is no disturbance. The catch is that when you're so silent that there's no disturbance, you don't even know that you're there anymore. So you don't have an experience. This is where a lot of people get confused and they get lost looking for awakening because they think awakening or enlightenment is an experience. In fact, it's an experienceless experience, it's the utter allowing of silence so profound that nothing is known to you anymore except knowing itself, which is so silent you can't even discuss it.

Charlie Kelly Medium 18:30

Well, that's uh I don't think I've you as you're saying that the could the Jason Cogs are turning because I understand what you're saying there, because when you go into such a deep level, you lose a complete sense of the ego, and and that disappears, and what you experience, yes, is the oneness of everything. But you know, I I question to myself have I ever got to that stage on a meditative.

SPEAKER_01 19:02

It's not a it's not a stage you get to, it's who you are. The question is, have you allowed yourself to fully rest with self, or do you stay in the mind discussing the thing you're trying to get to, which can't be got to when it's been discussed because it is there without the discussion?

Charlie Kelly Medium 19:17

There is so I it's very funny. So in my sitting now, I the biggest challenge in all of this is the mind, isn't it? It's the chatter of the mind and it's getting it to be quiet. So I've gone through different stages of my journey. When I would first sit and meditate, it was always something that I found challenging at the beginning, just the sitting still bit. But you know, what's tended to happen over time, as soon as I've stopped lighting my odd amount of candles and sitting in my special chair and thinking I need to sit upright in the lotus position and throw my third eye over my head and all of that, is the challenge is the mind. I can get to such a stillness, but it takes taken me a lot of real dedication and work to just get to a place of allowing and being. Because for so long, I believed because all of our journeys is different. I believe from the very get-go, my meditation was I want to connect with the spirit world. And you know, that was why I was sitting. So I've always sat with that intention. Then it took me a while to understand the difference between meditation and sitting sort of in one's power and raising the vibration enough to connect with the spirit world. Then one of the biggest um barriers I've realized is trying, and trying is thinking, and thinking I need to push up my energy to connect with the spirit. Now I'm attuning to the spirit. Now I'm thinking right now about having to build the energy out. All this time I'm thinking. I'm not allowing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 20:52

Of course, and and when you're trying, you trying by by default, it tries, it never achieves. So you're always stuck in the trying. And when the mind is focused on that energy system or that thought process, the mind remains in the loop with the promise that you get there. Of course, knowing that you never will, you're not meant to. Like even when you say that you know, you try to get the connection, the the challenge a lot of people have learning what you do or learning how to connect, let's put it in a more simple three-dimensional experience, they're learning how to connect with a partner or with a child or with a job. It they try to connect and they are therefore losing the knowing of the present moment, which is you are the connection. Like you don't you don't try to connect as a medium, but you are the connection that there is. And when you allow it the is-ness to be, then it is more clear. When you try to figure out or when you look, you told me earlier, when you look at the person you're reading for, there's a maybe a little give in their face that will direct you away from the essence of the experience you're having at the moment, which kind of Pollutes in away the purity of the body.

Charlie Kelly Medium 22:02

It does pollute it because uh straight away, and I didn't realise I did something like this, but I having an ADHD brain, you do something that's called like masking, and there there was this programme on BBC Two where it talked about autism and how autistic people find it so draining to be kind of in social settings for too long because they like they they find it overwhelming because of the way that they kind of perceive the world. So what it said is they you know will mirror what they feel they have to be. And with my ADHD brain, I learned this as we all do as we're children, we learn different experiences, but I was always told I wasn't paying attention, so I've learned over time that you know I'm sort of hyper-focused on every am I, you know, making sure that I'm paying attention to this person, am I looking interested? Because sometimes my brain's just doing other things. So, you know, that's kind of allowed me to be really good at reading people in terms of facial expressions, but you know, being being a very caring person about my mediumship, it made me every time I would see someone all sort of raise an eyebrow or something, I thought, oh no, I can't, I'm getting that wrong now, you know, and it would take me totally off course. But you know, I'm a trier. That's the thing, Mum, because I'm a trier. Um everything that I've achieved in life, I've now associated, but trying gets you somewhere. And it does get you into a lot of places, but not half as much as allowing. But what you can't do is use allowing as an excuse. You know, if you want to manifest something, you need systems, you need discipline, you need, you know, you're not going to manifest your dream life if you're sitting on the sofa all day long. You know, that's just common sense.

SPEAKER_01 23:43

But yeah, well, that's what that's what manifestation requires. But what what if what if there's a simpler path? What if you and and what if it's simply the recognition that you don't need to manifest? There's a a different word that might change the whole perspective, which is you render into existence,

— Manifestation, Surrender and Letting Life Unfold

SPEAKER_01 23:57

you render into your knowing. Manifestation is a lot of hard bloody work, no?

Charlie Kelly Medium 24:02

It's a lot of manifestation is again you uh a manifestation is one of these things that annoys me the more and more and more I go into this, because I have a very long and extensive relationship with manifestation, spanning back many years to when I was very young, reading the book The Secret, and really then feeling that manifestation and the law of attraction is the answer to everything, but never fully believing in that because I find it so difficult. I think, okay, the way I need to get the life I want is to be really grateful for it right now and imagine I've got it. And it just something about that just felt sticky. It felt like I'm trying to do something here. But you know, now my belief is to get that thing that I want. I think one of the most powerful things you could do is visualization because you are putting that intention out of there, that vibration out there. And you know, the subconscious mind doesn't know the difference between you know imagination and reality. So, you know, then you will get insight into that. But I think manifestation is one of these things that is glamorized and it's it's attached to money now. It's now all you know about how to get material things. So it's lost the truest essence of what it's all about, I feel.

SPEAKER_01 25:13

Yeah, which is to get the essence in the present moment of what it is to have the experience of that thing, not the thing itself, but what it is to experience the self as if that thing is already in your life. So the true manifestation is to breathe into the essence of the beingness of who you believe you would be if that thing were a part of your life. It's it's to allow the energy that is there to show up as opposed to be hidden behind all of the trying and the doing. This is simply about letting go. What we teach here and what we help people understand is that what do you need to let go of? So we use nice words like what's the thought you need to suffer, what's the heart you need to allow up, what's the thing you need to let fall away. It's not about doing. Like we we teach here, there's nowhere to go and nothing to do and nothing to achieve. And and if you listen, if you can imagine you're listening to this, but you're at home a listener, brokenhearted, feeling poor, feeling hopeless, tired, the body is aching, and you're just exhausted and tired. And then somebody comes along and says, Well, when you do this, and you think, but I can't do that. I don't have the sleep and energy, leave me alone. When you think this way, well, I can't think that way, my thoughts are tied up in this worry. It's almost like, well, then I'm sorry, there's nothing good. What we say here is, well, that's great. Let all of that disappear, let it all fade away. What remains? Like if I ask you right now, Jason, everything disappears, everything fades in your life, what's left?

SPEAKER_00 26:45

Love even that. What's left? Just life itself, I guess. Even that. Let that go. What remains? Consciousness. Amen. There you are.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

Welcome home. And then and then sit with that, and then you just sit with that, and you allow the examination of that by the observation, allow it to be, and then the movement of life happens from the knowing as opposed to the knowing of or the thinking about, and that's why it's a very thin line between the allowing and the idea of what you think allowing is.

Charlie Kelly Medium 27:27

You're very good at explaining things, and there's a certain wisdom, you know, when someone's you know really understands something because the uh it's the art of being able to explain it, and it really comes through the amount of people that you've um helped over time because you you have such you know uh sincerity, and I can tell this comes from life experience. You you because you grew up in a working class family. How do you know how did you get to where you are now? Because it's you know, it doesn't from what from what I understand of the beginning, it wasn't like this, Marcus, this world for you.

— Marcus’s Story: Collapse, Ego Death and the End of the Search

SPEAKER_01 28:00

No, for sure not. For sure not. How did I get to where I am? Well, well, first of all, without being facetious, I've just I realized in my life that that I was always where I am. I just was experiencing it differently according to my bias. I had expectations that were given to me. I had pictures that were presented, and I was I was guided to understand that a happy life meant A, B, C, and D. So I headed off in that direction, never getting fulfilled, but achieving many things. And I suppose I am, if you look at the the old traditional faiths and the ways of teaching, and the great masters, the ascendant masters, and how did they teach? I essentially I I went through death and rebirth. The death of my ego, sometimes the death of my money, the death of relationship, the death of faith. Like I got to a point in my life where I I sat in a pile of nothingness with everything that once made sense having dissolved. Nothing made sense anymore. How did that not happen? Many, many things like in this moment, I was hurting with something that had happened 20 years before. I was hurting with something that happened the day before. And and the some things were disappointments, expectations that weren't reached, or or the emptiness of a life when you reach what it is you expect, and when you reach what it is you're trying to reach, and then all of a sudden the the the the momentary relief passes, and you're back in the but I'm not content. There's still something missing. And and I'm an eternal optimist, which also didn't help because I didn't know when to quit and when to let the death happen. So I keep fighting. I was a I was an emotional psychological warrior, and I also thought that that was a good thing. Like I was brought up in a Catholic environment, so you know, heading for the cross and dying up there was an important part of life, but for all the wrong reasons. Like we I I grew up in a faith that focused so much on the cross and very little on the resurrection, on the new life that came to so I discovered in my life that well, that's not going to work either. And I worked for many years in my church and loved it. The happiest moments of my life, I would say. And then I realized no, even that doesn't work. I need to find out what this is. So I left it all behind. And and then I guess it's eight or ten years ago, I just fell into this moment of realizing I have to stop. I have achieved so much, I've garnished so much, I've met so many people, I had ticked all the boxes of my life to and was just completely unfulfilled. And feeling inside that, if this is it, what's the point? What do I do now? There's nothing to excite me anymore. So I sat and I I suppose I went through a very difficult period of two years of health issues. And then I sat in the chair and I kind of stared at the wall and I swore at the heavens. And then I said to my God at the time, my understanding of life, God, the universe, call it what you want. I swore and I said, I'm not ethnic moving from here till I understand what this is. I'm just not moving, I'm done, I'm finished. And the only reason I moved from that chair was to go to the bathroom to to see a client to get the basic amount of money I needed to pay my way to go back to the chair. And I sat there contemplating and contemplating and wondering and getting angry and crying and you know, drinking coffee, and that didn't work, so I'd smoke a joint and that didn't work. I'd smoke a cigarette, that didn't work, I'd scream at the wall, that didn't work. And I just stayed there until finally the noise stopped. And I had that moment, just that moment that never was absent. That moment that was always there, but the noise, the trying got in the way, the expectations got in the way, the wanting to please people got in the way, even people that had died. I was still trying to please them because the story in my head told me I had something to achieve, something to do that would mean if I got it, I was a good man or a good boy or a good person or a successful person. And I just came to the realization, very gentle, very sweet, very soft, no excitement. I was in a moment I I recognized, wow, I've just been meditating. This is beautiful. I feel I'm experiencing peace. It's just me and God right now. And then I heard the voice say, Well, if you really want to know me, let me go to and I presume that to be the voiceless voice of God that was letting me know that even the idea of God prevents you from knowing oneness. Even the idea of oneness gets in the way of knowing oneness because it's a noise that disturbs the stillness. That oneness is only known through, known in, known as. And that was it.

Charlie Kelly Medium 32:40

It sounded like you had to get to a real climax point of just almost it felt to me like nothing is uh fulfilling my soul here. And and and I resonate with that because even I I as you were talking, it reminded me of when I was uh two years into my business, had more money than I could probably spend. I was so miserable, I was suffering from addiction, I was unhappy in every way because it felt like none of this matters, and none of what you know society says, you know, and and the way we view things on as sort of on a whole as the population. None of this matters. And then I couldn't understand what the purpose of it all was, what the purpose of life is. And it feels to me that it that was my soul crying out, you know, like please God, give me something nourishing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 33:31

Yeah, that's the death, that's the ego death, that's the moment that that that allows the question that gets your attention to arise. Like we automatically, with none of this makes sense, there's a there's a quiet background question been asked, which is therefore what does make sense? But we're not used to hearing that. So we stay with the question, this or stay with the statement, this makes no sense, this makes no sense. And we are we are getting caressed by the silence of the question, therefore, what does matter? But we're not able to hear it because we're so used to being in the noise and the statement of fact. You see, what do you do when you realize that nothing makes sense and nothing matters? What do you do with the question, therefore, what does make sense or what does matter? You don't know what to do with that, and we're not familiar with sitting and not knowing.

Charlie Kelly Medium 34:22

Even that question forces you to look so inward, doesn't it? That and some and some people just can't even, you know, comprehend wanting to look, you know, because that's like a little so much shadow work for a lot of people. It's such an exposing question, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 34:37

Yeah, for sure. And and the beauty of this whole idea of surrendering into the I don't know, when you get there and you recognize your true nature, you realize there's no shadow work needed, there's no mediumship needed, there's no Reiki needed, there's no banging of the drones needed, there's no Peru needed, there's no shaman needed, there's no getting lost needed, nothing is needed. None of it is necessary to know your true nature. It's not essential. It might be necessary to the ego to help you know that oh, I'm not alone. Am I alone? Please help me so I know I'm not alone. But it's not essential to knowing your true nature. All of these things are the games that we're playing ourselves as life expresses itself. We're just having fun, but we take it so serious, we forget the fun picture.

Charlie Kelly Medium 35:24

Okay, someone listening to this right now, they want to discover as soon as they finish listening to this episode who I truly am. What should they do? Where should they start?

SPEAKER_01 35:35

Well, don't wait until the episode finishes. Begin to ask yourself what right now is aware of this experience? The one that is having the experience is not aware. The awareness, awareness itself is aware of the experience that has been known. What

— Where to Begin When You Want to Know Your True Nature

SPEAKER_01 35:51

is aware? And they and the the answer is I don't know. Good. Stay with the I don't know. Don't try to answer it. Let just the essence of the moment, the essence of the question, what is aware, resonate and stay with that until it makes sense. And every time the voice comes in and says, but you say, Shh, stillness now. What is aware? And every time the ego bites in, and you will fail, fail really, there's no such thing, but you will feel that you're failing because you get so pulled in. All that's doing is showing you that you have really and truly become embedded in a belief system that is requiring you to be at your best in the nothingness and doing nothing in order for that to dissolve. It's about effortlessness. Enlightenment is not an event. There's no experience, it's the most boring, pathetic, disappointing thing you could ever imagine. Because it's just life continuing as it is. The difference is you recognize the true nature. That's where the excitement might come from, but it's a still quiet excitement, it makes no noise. That's why the enlightened being falls silent, they don't jump up celebrate.

Charlie Kelly Medium 37:01

Yeah. And it's funny because you know, if someone had said to me 10 years ago, what is alighterman? I would have thought it's like a almost like a bolt of lightning coming down, you know, where suddenly you're transported to a land where I could zap you like I'm something out of a Matilda or move you, you know. I've become of another state, Marcus, you see.

SPEAKER_01 37:22

You and me, you and me, brother, me too. I I remember I at one stage I thought growing up as a Catholic, I thought it's something to do with the skies opening and a legion of armies coming down with trumpets and Jesus on a horse saying, Come on home, kid, you made it. All of that is just part of the game, the stories that are there to help us to focus in ways. But no, there is no movement. There is no movement, it is stillness. Your true nature is stillness itself, unknown by itself as knowing. You cannot know it. You are so still. There is no movement, there is no thought to let you know what you know. You are one with the knowing, in the same way the fish has no idea it's in water.

Charlie Kelly Medium 38:04

Do you know something? When I was uh to to sort of throw a totally sideball in, my first ever job when I was 15, 16 years old was a magician, actually. I used to busk in Covent Garden. Um I was sort of like a slightly comedy type magician, to be frank. You know, I used to do all sorts of crazy tricks, and I used to, when I was 14 years old, I used to do a lot of that as well. And I wanted to ask you, based on everything you know now, where you are right now in your life, do you believe in magic?

SPEAKER_01 38:35

I believe in what's known as what I call the magicless.

Charlie Kelly Medium 38:39

Yes. The

— The “Magicless Magic” of Being Alive

Charlie Kelly Medium 38:40

magicless magic. Yeah. What does that mean to you?

SPEAKER_01 38:43

The magic is magic is to know that everything in the world is magic, but there is a there is it has a way of being. It is the way of being. When you understand it, the idea of the traditional sense of magic disappears, but the glory of the grace and the wonder of it is magic in itself. Knowing that it just the breath of life itself, which is all things, is expressing itself in so many ways. It's the ultimate magic. Do I believe in magic? I believe it is magic that there are billions of cells right now interacting, talking, communicating, so you and I can have this moment, this experience.

Charlie Kelly Medium 39:19

Well, even the fact we're here, you know. How many ancestors have you had uh thousands of years back, you know, that's led to, you know, you getting here right now? We are magic, even the fact we're sitting here.

SPEAKER_01 39:32

Yeah, with the magic itself expressing itself. The the challenge or the difficulty with that word is that it can create an expectation of an event, and that's the ego wants that. The ego wants you to go chasing the magic, chasing the event, chasing the discovery of the mysterious and the unknown, because it keeps the ego busy, and that's beautiful. Why not? That's what life is for. Enjoy it, but just do it from the place of or allow the beingness to be the thing that allows you to go into that as opposed to the seeking. And that's once you seek, you're not going to find.

Charlie Kelly Medium 40:06

See, that's the thing with the Match Starter Magic Idea delusion. We would build up to that moment. We call that the crescendo in magic terms, Marcus. You see, we're striving for that moment where the effect takes fall. And mostly do things with fire and all sorts. I'm surprised that insurance, to be quite honest with you.

SPEAKER_01 40:21

It's it's no different to a 21-year-old in a bar who sees a girl he fancies and he goes over and he starts talking. He's building up to the crescendo and he's hoping he succeeds. It's the expectation, it's the desire, it's the want, it's the mystery, it's the unknown.

Charlie Kelly Medium 40:37

I believe we call that courting in old-fashioned terms.

SPEAKER_01 40:40

I believe so, yeah.

Charlie Kelly Medium 40:41

Yeah, so I think these days it's more like a fishing rod, you know, sort of reeling. I used to teach recruiters this in my day job. I used to say, when you get a candidate on the end of your fishing rod, right, you you know, you're doing well. But don't suddenly fling it back, reel the candidate in, you know, it's like anything. No one wants to be chased either, you know, it's not attractive, you know, don't chase anything, just allow, you know. I think there's something about that as well. Can we do that?

SPEAKER_01 41:08

If we if we're talking in the in the whole idea of understanding life and the meaning and the purpose, and and you come from a recruitment background and a sales training background, you know, there's a beautiful idea in sales, which is once you ask the closing question, shut up, the next one who talks loses. Oh, it's the I teach that. Yes. It's the it's this, but that's the same principle as trying to find the meaning to life. Once you ask the closing question, being what is this? Shut up. Next one who talks, loses. Be still and let the speaking arise, let the knowing arise,

— Let Life Chase You: Marcus’s Final Thought

SPEAKER_01 41:40

let the let let life chase you. Like life is doing its thing through you. That's all. Like we're not doing anything here. The grounds in Yellow Rock Sanctuary are so beautiful, they're breathtaking. And many people come and they say to Pat, Oh, you're doing amazing here. And Pat just laughs and said, But I'm not doing anything. Life is doing all the growing. I'm just positioning the plan. Life is doing everything out. But people want to believe that it's us to come in and they say, Thank you for this, you guys are great. We say, We're not doing, we're just being.

Charlie Kelly Medium 42:09

I bet people don't like you on TripAdvisor, do they? They look at your reviews and you put that and they think they're not even trying there and they're getting good reviews. What are they doing at the Yellow Rock Sanctuary? You'd uh they need to put you on uh four in a bed or whatever it is on channel four because you do very well. The only problem is that they're all stingy on that television show, though, with what they pay. I wouldn't want you there. It's cheaper than you, Marcus.

SPEAKER_01 42:32

Unfortunately, I can't even comment on that. I think it must be 25 years since I've seen a television. Oh yeah.

Charlie Kelly Medium 42:39

It doesn't, it doesn't look for what I can see on the aerial photos here. I see any antennas on the roof here with the lovely aerial short. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:46

I won't find a TV here.

Charlie Kelly Medium 42:48

Well, it's do you know what? It's been such a blast to have you on, and thank you. Do us the honour then on SoulSync today of leaving us with a final thought. Close your own episode, Marcus. That's very lazy, but it's a tradition I fall him into, you see.

SPEAKER_01 43:03

Well, as to leave you with a thought, seek within you the story that eliminates all the stories. A story so powerful that when it eliminates all the stories, it then eliminates itself and leaves you in peace.

Charlie Kelly Medium 43:20

Do you know what? Short, sweet, but I don't think you should need it any more there. Beautiful. That's a thought to leave us with, isn't it? Marcus, thank you, my dear, for coming onto the Souls think. It's been a blast. It's been a pleasure. Thank you so much. Honestly, wasn't that an absolutely fascinating conversation? Yeah, my pencil needed sharpening at the end of that, I tell you, because I was sitting in it scribbling. I want to go to the Yellow Rock Sanctuary. I think a sanctuary at the moment, SoulSync, is exactly what I need. Um, because even uh in recruitment, your phone is always going off. Now, uh, I have released on my website at jasonpaulmedium.com a number of appointments over the next three months um because my diary's opened up to do a lot more mediumship. So if you feel called uh to have a tarot reading, a psychic reading, a mediumship reading, a blend of all, um do check out uh the website now jasonpaulmedium.com. It's lovely, my darlings, to be here with you. And um Marcus left me in such a feeling of vibrancy there. I feel absolutely fantastic after talking to him, and I'm definitely going to be sitting down asking what is awareness because uh what a fascinating concept.