Peace is your birthright

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

We cannot help but notice that our deepest commonalities, our most important mutualities, are mutualities based on ideas, and not based on our biology, if we're genetically related to each other or not, or our biography, how long we've known someone, or if they're from the same so-called cultural background, or the same nationality, so on and so forth. No, because we notice, I can't help but notice, that what does it matter when if someone is our father, our mother, our sister, or brother, or our longest friend, if we do not have those fundamental ideas and beliefs in common, we do not feel that kinship, even though we literally genetically might be family. And vice versa. Have we never met or read works by a perfect stranger who felt like kin, whom we've never met, whom we will never meet perhaps, but we had ideas in common, and that's what made us feel that kinship with this person. So truly, when I say we can't help but notice, this is what we can't help but notice that biology and biography is not only secondary, it is almost entirely irrelevant to the deepest, truest, highest form of kinship, which is a kinship based on ideas, beliefs. And so this is why we call these meetings kinship. And everyone who is here necessarily is kin. No one is paid to be here, no one uh is here because everyone else is their family, that they're genetically related, not as far as we know, anyway. And um, even though everyone here friends, uh certainly we do not live in the same place, we do not go to school together, we didn't do any of that. So why are we here? Why are we here? Just because of a few ideas. Yes, so uh I think this is quite a treat. Um, we discovered when was it yesterday or the day before, that that uh one of our very own was um as far as I understand, you used to practice uh dentistry and you in fact would hypnotize people instead of instead of what instead of uh partially numbing uh a place with with um certain uh injections or anything like that.

SPEAKER_04 3:02

You would um so I I never got as far I never got as far as as doing that sort of thing. So my my main uh interest was to help with anxiety and dental phobia. So yeah, I did. I was um you know, by the time I was like building my skills up, I ended up giving up dentistry anyway and changing career. But that was definitely uh, you know, the things I was exploring, the replacement of uh anesthesia with hypnosis. But like I say, I was mostly uh having an interest in dealing with dental phobia, which is obviously uh very common.

SPEAKER_01 3:31

So that's amazing. Um hypnosis is one of those things, right? Where you you can't decide is it magic, is it science, is it um somehow both? Is it and and what can we actually do with it, right? And and first of all, how interesting that a mind can respond to that, a mind that otherwise very much has a phobia. And even I remember you shared uh a video in the general chat of someone going through a teeth pulling with nothing other than hypnosis, as far as I understand, right? No drugs involved. So if you could tell us a little bit more about how hypnosis um can be used somehow, and and people are not needing anesthesia, all they need is is being hypnotized for for a certain procedure. Uh, I think that's so interesting.

SPEAKER_04 4:29

Yeah, so I think magic is the right word in terms of uh appearances, you know, it it it's it begs belief what what you're witnessing. And like I said, I've I've actually been there firsthand and watched you know a dental procedure being done without anesthetics. And you know, if if you ever want to, you know, you know, if you if you ever doubt can hypnosis work, like that is the the sure you know test that you know definitely gave me conviction. Um and yeah, in terms of what hypnosis is, I think um you know, I think it's important to say first of all, it's been 10 years since I've I've done it in a you know in a practical like offering to do it for someone else. I probably still do it to myself to some degree, but it it's you know it's not something I've researched heavily in the in the kind of recent times. So I don't know where the field has moved since you know I've done my training and what's our understanding of it. But I think in terms of trying to demystify it, you know, and I think the other thing that's also interested around this topic is people think about resistance. You know, they people often will go, I'm not susceptible to hypnosis, so I won't let that happen to me. And I think that is the key thing with hypnosis, and I think all therapy is that the target is resistance. That's the thing you're actually trying to manipulate and to you know navigate around. And I think the way that hypnosis works is we're dealing with that, you know, we've we've formulated resistance in quite a you know a you know constructive manner, and the way we're trying to deal with resistance is through storytelling or you know, trying to open up alternative narratives, you know, and much like reading a book does exactly the same thing if you think of a story, right? You know, it you know, they often have a hidden meaning behind it. And you know, what I think is also fascinating about hypnosis, you know, we you can also draw comparisons with the placebo effect. You know, we can take a tablet, we've got all these representations of what a tablet should be, and it's a sugar pill, and you can be told it's a sugar pill, and you will still be susceptible to having the placebo effect. And I think what it shows is that humans are susceptible to rituals. We're really sensitive to rituals and habits, and these things can be used against us, but in the case of hypnotherapy, it can also be used to our advantage.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

It's the most amazing fact, and and you're so right in drawing the relation between the placebo effect as well, which is also a hundred percent uh scientific and very very, very much so proven, in fact, very much so relied upon in science effect that is very real. Um it it placebo is constantly, or rather, new drugs, the effectivity of new drugs is constantly compared to, right? To the placebo effect. And if it shows that it actually shows um lower effectivity than what the placebo effect is, which is like 30, 40 percent, it's not a good drug. Like it's constantly compared to the placebo effect. And I just find it amazing that the human mind, it's not that you think it's working, it's it's it's by your believing it, it actually is like when when they give a sugar pill to some very real physical um issue in the body, it in in every way possible, by any metric, it shows real physical improvement to the degree that the person actually uh believes it. And it's I I find that amazing. So, but how is it possible, especially with hypnosis, how is it possible for a human being to in fact be made to believe that this tooth pulling, you know, somehow there's not going to be any pain, and in fact, this person believes that, and then therefore there is no pain or or or much less pain or whatever it is. How does that work?

SPEAKER_04 8:30

Well, the the honest answer is I I don't I don't know, but I I can definitely uh like you know have an opinion. And I think you know, this is much more where my you know I'm in uh neuroscience now, and and you know, I've learned a lot of about around pain. You know, my world into neuroscience actually came through dealing with headaches and migraine and pain in general. So the the you know, our nature, our relationship with pain is is complicated because you know most of our other senses we have a uh you know a what we call like a primary sensory area. So we have we have a primary visual cortex, we have a primary auditory cortex. But pain doesn't have that. You know, pain seems to be able to express itself throughout the entirety of the brain, you know, in terms of you know us having a representation of pain. And I think it's why, in a sense, suffering is also so prevalent, right? There's so many forms of suffering, because our brain seems to be sensitive to it in all the manifestations.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

What's also interesting about happening when the neuroscience is.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Oh, your your um your microphone sounds distant again. I'm not sure if there's uh I'm not sure if you're in a Bluetooth type thing or it just sort of uh scrambled and went back to the distance sounding one. That's it. Oh, there you go. Yeah. Okay, we're back.

SPEAKER_04 9:49

Yeah, sorry. Um sorry, yeah. Where did you where did I cut off?

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Uh we're just talking about how pain doesn't have uh a cortex on its own and it's sort of yeah, relative, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 10:00

Yeah, so it yeah, so it seems to be like a ubiquitous p phenomena in the brain, you know. So you can even think of like with the with vision, if we stare at too bright a light, that can be painful, or a sound can be too loud. You know, it seems that every single part of the brain has its own representation of falling into a painful category. Um, and then in terms of how can it be that we can kind of suppress it or disagknowledge it, is again, I think just a ubiquitous phenomena of the brain that it has this suppressive capacity. You know, it's so much of the brain is geared towards where we're turning our attention towards. And, you know, and it is something that's subjective to our own personal control, but also you know, it has its own automaticity to it. So, you know, you know, painful stimuli tend to have this inherent saliency, it draws our attention towards it. So I think it's why we find it so hard to understand how you your the brain can dampen down the sensation because our common experience is that it it is probably the one of the quickest ways to draw our attention to something, but it's no different to anything else in our life where you know we can focus our attention on one thing and it's a limited capacity. So, you know, what what is brought into awareness is there's only a few things at any one moment that can be. And so I suspect that hypnosis is playing around with that ability to disconnect, to suppress. And you know, it in a lot of regards, it shares a lot of um, you know, from the neuroimaging perspective, it shares a lot of commonality with lots of altered states of consciousness. So if you look at psychedelics, if you look at you know falling to sleep, if you look at hypnosis, it seems to be that it's our frontal part of our brain, the our brain that's the kind of the critical part of our mind that's kind of been you know quiet and so I suspect that yeah, that's the the the clincher.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

So is it fair to say that uh hypnosis cannot affect anything that one could not do otherwise, also, it's just a different method of achieving the same thing that is possible otherwise as well.

SPEAKER_04 12:09

Yeah, that's what I meant by the ritual. I think you know we've packaged the experience up as you're now engaged in hypnotherapy, but there's nothing you know, we've put a label to it, we've put a plaque on the wall, and we've called it a certain thing, but no, this is you know a common day experience, you know, like a common example that's often given, like in terms of the similarity between being in a state of hypnosis, is when you're driving and you know you've been you're kind of like not necessarily daydreaming, but there's this kind of time contraction where you know you the the whole the automaticity of everything took over, but you weren't really giving it your full attention. And so, you know, there are these experiences happening all the time that we're in this altered state of a consciousness, or we'd or our attention is kind of diverted, and there's a kind of an automaticity uh to it, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

That's so amazing. Yeah, well, so that this demystifies it uh a little bit, but at the same time, it makes it actually sound even more amazing because okay, hypnotism, you can say magic, and magic is amazing, but um the and this is what I always find. This is the most amazing thing about science, in my opinion, is that it is it's a source of wonder. Many people look at science and say, Oh, it takes the wonder away. No, it doesn't. In my opinion, it's quite the opposite. Like I always give this example when when Darwin came up or rather presented to the world his theory of evolution, and everyone came up to him and said, uh, you, sir, just killed God. And in my opinion, it it's it's quite the opposite. And and he was very dejected by people telling him that. And I always wondered, reading his um biography, I always wondered why he didn't see that, being such a person, a person who was so fascinated by science himself, obviously, uh, that he didn't say, uh, no, sir, I I in fact uncovered the methodology of God. Right? Because if God as the creator, and then there being creation, uh, it just shows how the creation is happening, at least a very small part of it, of course. And it's the same with cosmology, uh, people who tell us how things happen in space. That makes everything more amazing. It just shows the methodology of the creator, however you want to think of it, if you just want to think of it as a physical universe, but however things come about, that is the creator, that is cre that the that is the creation process. And so this does it to me, for me as well, with the with the hypnosis, it's just so amazing to see what the what the brain is, of course, capable of, but also that us as humans, you know, a brain looking at a brain, or a brain looking at itself essentially, can figure out that these things can be done and that there's a method for not necessarily emulating, but bringing about that which the brain normally does on a daily basis anyway, to such pinpoint and great effect. Uh it's just amazing to me, you know.

SPEAKER_04 15:16

Yeah, I think you know, the the one where the magic is, where you know what the thing that's still alive in this, it's just the the nature of language and words, right? That's the thing that's being used here, the therapy, it's just mere language. And yet, you know, the thing is releasing about your you know, the the study of language, you know, the you know, the the kind of the finest hypnotherapists of our time are you know, they're probably more linguists than they are doctors, you know, that they really are studying the patient's language, and you know, the you know the most famous of them all is probably is Milton Erickson. He's he's the one that most kind of popularized this idea that you need to study the patient's language and use that against them. It's kind of like uh if you know like martial arts, a keto, where you like you know, rather than like trying to deal with someone's resistance head on, you actually study their language and then you tell you know the treatments or the therapy or the solution in their own terms, and that's what you know releases the yeah, the that's where the healing can occur.

SPEAKER_01 16:16

Interesting. So uh so hypnotism can be very indirect as well. Can the person not even know that they're being hypnotized if if sort of the goal is to not make them aware of taking something head-on, but to suggest it to them?

SPEAKER_04 16:31

So, yeah, so there are there are like two very broad camps in hypnotherapy. There is the direct suggestion, which I think is often what people are most familiar with, you know, you're no longer a smoker or you know, that sort of thing. But the originator, like I said, Milton Erickson, you know, he very much uh you know conceived this as you should be doing things indirectly, and that's where this idea that all hypnosis is self-hypnosis, is that his suggestions are given in a kind of metaphorical, riddle-like fashion, and it's for the for the patient to try and solve that riddle. And in that process of finding the solution, that's the the aha moment, that's the insight, that's when the change uh will occur. And um, I've got no idea of the comparison of how effective one is versus the other, but my inclination was always more towards the metaphorical, and you know, you know, the same, I think the same way why why poetry can be so healing is is in connecting with the metaphors of those words, that's when things become apparent to ourselves.

SPEAKER_01 17:31

Wow. I I've never heard a link, someone linking hypnosis to poetry before in in a sort of in a beautiful way. I'm not saying I'm not saying oh poetry is just hypnosis. No, no, it's it's a beautiful thing you're saying. Um that's a very interesting thing to think about. Um amazing. So um you you do have hands-on experience, you said though, with um helping people with hypnosis about their dentist phobia, though, right?

SPEAKER_04 18:05

Exactly, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:07

So so how does that how do you how do you do that? How do you rid someone, at least for the moment or temporarily, you can maybe talk a little bit about that too, of you know, they're coming there, they've been they've been anxious, they've been stressed out maybe for days and weeks, knowing about this appointment, knowing what is going to happen. And and you get there and you and you just by the fact that you are not in their brain, that you're an external person, you do something, and all of a sudden they're not uh afraid, at least to a healthy degree. How how do how does that work? How did you do that?

SPEAKER_04 18:46

Yeah, so it's a slow process. So it's not that they're coming in, uh, at least in my hands, you know, but with like I said, I probably only did it for around about uh maybe it's over six months or so before I changed career. So for me, it was a much more slow process of you know, like how often you deal with fears and phobias, is it's an exposure therapy, but uh in a much more controlled fashion. So it's getting patients to come in and you're not planning to do treatment that day, but getting them familiar with the environment, getting them you know used to the sounds, and you know, doing this in a much more measured and calm fashion, and you know, really being guided by them. You know, you you know, there's always like this incremental step up of getting them closer to the point of treatment. Um, and yeah, it's just being guided, you know, letting them say, it's kind of you know, um I'm trying to remind myself now the things we did, but you you're trying to give them the locus of control, right? Yeah, so it's it's really, you know, the I think often the the traumas and dental phobias for patients is because of childhood experiences where you know they were forced and subjected to the treatment, and the dentist would carry on through the pain and the screams. That's you know often the strongest representation, and and you're really trying to rid them of that story, like you know, you know, I'm coming across as someone who's like, I'm not gonna do anything that you don't want me to do, and you're good at like you know, guide me through the process rather than I'm guiding you.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

That was such an amazing yeah. Uh thank you for bringing that up because obviously we all heard of hypnosis before, but it it's always it's literally sometimes does take place on stage, and so you never know is this one of those, you know, magic uh illusion sort of performances, or is it is it real? And and you often do hear very convincing accounts, but there's nothing more convincing than than watching someone being at the dentist being having a tooth pulled, and it's just they're they're okay, they don't need anesthesia. It's the most it proves experience proves these things, right? And so that was that was amazing to see, and it's and it's a little bit it challenges you as a person who is uh who who thinks of them as scientific or or secular and all these things and doesn't believe in in in magic and all that, to be confronted with that and say, you know, reality is not necessarily the way we understand it at all, oftentimes, and to be shown in practice and reality that something you do not at all understand that seems like magic, in fact, just simply working. Um it's an amazing thing. So thank you for bringing that up. This is again, I love the so-called fusion of science and and philosophy. They're they're never apart. Now we study them and treat them apart, but it's really not an apart thing at all. Everything is one, right? The so-called scientific mind and the so-called spiritual mind is it's the same, it's it's two halves of a whole, let's say. And um, this is one of those points where things Meet where science goes into wow, what does that mean for human nature? What does that mean for you know the capacity to believe and to understand and to direct your life according to what you think is truth and all these things? Uh it's it's just very interesting. And and to me, uh there's nothing um fearful about this. It's just it's it's wonder-inducing more than anything. And so we appreciate you you bringing that here.

SPEAKER_04 22:34

Yeah, and and like I say, it it really is a common experience for you. Like I say, the fact that you spend time with the books and learn from them and are are integrating the the words of a page into your beliefs and and updating, it's exactly the same. It's just been had, you know, I think a lot a lot because of you know our common uh experience of hypnosis is stage hypnosis, right? That's how most people view hypnosis. And you know, people in in the hypnothop circles usually go at great lengths at the start to tell you what that that that what stage hypnosis is doing isn't hypnosis. You know, they they think that there's a lot more social pressure at play, there's having to play to the crowd rather than it being uh hypnosis, which you know again speaks to our social suggestibility alongside just you know um our susceptibility to language.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Yeah, and see that that that shows it too. Uh the the most amazing thing about this uh really extreme seeming thing is how daily and normal and natural it really is. That's again what excites me the most, right? Even though that sort of brings it down to earth, so to speak. No, that's to me where the amazement is. So I I very much appreciate you pointing that out too, because I was not of that uh understanding at all. I thought it was a very special, very amazing, if real thing. And so uh I think that's the greatest takeaway for me here. So I really very, very appreciate that. Thank you so much. Uh, you are sort of I'm I'm finding things out about you that are just like amazing all the time. We already knew you were you were a scientist essentially, and and now you're in cancer research, right?

SPEAKER_04 24:15

That's right, yes. Yeah, just made the move a few months ago.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

Yeah, right. And and and before you used to be this hypnotizing dentist for for a little bit. I mean, uh it doesn't get kind of cooler than that. That's that's amazing. So we we really appreciate uh having you around here.

SPEAKER_04 24:30

Yeah, but yeah, but the reality is it's probably more a tale of the following ambition. Right. It sounds nice now in recollection, but really, you know, there was a tortured, you know, you know, seeking of ambition along the whole way.

SPEAKER_01 24:43

Oh, absolutely, and I understand that. But but now looking back, you can you can really derive the value of these experiences. You see what I mean? Exactly. Ambitious ambition during its ambition is just hell. And and that's why ambition is is so perilous, right? But uh nevertheless, those experiences happen and what you learned, you learned, and what you saw, you saw. And now you can, as soon as we drop the, and it's the same with all the so-called vices, right? As soon as we drop the greed, the fear, the all all this, the jealousy, the everything, the judgment, uh, the ambition, the whatever, then we can still derive value of everything that happened. This is why I always say nothing's a waste of time. There is no such thing as, I mean, of course there is such a thing as waste of time, but um, not in unawareness. Right? Everything we do in unawareness is still something that now, if we are aware, we can derive value from because it has value. Um, the only waste of time is a whole life spent in unawareness. That's perhaps the only waste of time that we could say. But anything other than that can always be made use of by awareness. And that is so amazing. And that is why I say it's never too early, it's never too late to become aware, to shed your so-called layers, which are identities, to shed all of that which which we've been hanging on to, which we are in fact simply not. And um it's just it's just interesting. Now, now you can just derive the value of that and and the the interestingness and and tell people about it, and also yourself, I'm sure, gain some insights from that still. But so that's interesting. So that's great. It's it's good for us selfishly that you were so ambitious. Okay. So we thank you for that. Is there anything else you want to share or talk about or anything?

SPEAKER_04 26:42

Um, yeah, I was actually going to like just very briefly talk about the question of the week as well. Oh, yeah, kind of related to it as well. So um the question of the week was um the effort it takes to remain disturbed.

SPEAKER_01 26:57

Right. Let me just read it because it's kind of a longer one. So it is it takes effort to become and remain disturbed. What is the opposite of effort and disturbance? One more time. It it takes effort to become and remain disturbed. What is the opposite of effort and disturbance?

SPEAKER_04 27:26

Um yeah, so uh I was a little stumbled at the first part that it takes uh effort to be disturbed. Um I think perhaps disturbances can happen, but obviously I absolutely agree that the the staying in the state of disturbance uh requires effort. And um again, I think this is where that notion of resistance comes in, right? It it's it's the not letting go of something that keeps us in this state of disturbance. And I was thinking about this morning, I was I was in the park and I was just looking at some squirrels, and I was thinking, like, do animals have resistance? Uh is that what's you distinct between humans and animals? Like they that they're they're just going along with whatever. And in that exact moment with beautiful timing, I then watched a 15-minute tug of walk between a dog and its owner. And so I was like, animals definitely can't offer resistance. You know, it was quite clear that this dog knew exactly that it wanted to stay there playing, you know, playing you know, um with the ball. But what was so funny was like that there was a you know like a 20-minute distance uh between them, and the dog was staying put, and it looked completely unfazed. It knew what it wanted, so it was definitely resisting. Uh and it knew that the human was the one that was gonna give in, right? And you know, and it was the human there that was was you know his mind, I I imagine obviously I'm inferring, like I've got somewhere else to be, and this dog was like, I don't want to be anywhere else uh but here. It was just very funny to watch that sort of you know resistance play out, and you know, inevitably it's the loaner, the the owner that had to go over to the dog and you know take take the dog out of the situation. And I was just thinking, like, what is the the ultimate state of resistance that that we have, you know, the human condition. And I think it's like an animal probably doesn't have a concept of being anything other than it is, whereas I think we do, and I think that's probably our biggest disturbance is that we have a conception that we could be something else, we could be something different, and and we'll do it to the point of exhaustion. You know, the amount of energy requires, we'll do it to exhaustion, and even then we still won't let go. We'll do it to the point of burnout. And yeah, that's my own personal experience with this. I did it to the point, you know, I had to like take three months out of, you know, essentially from working because of the extent of burnout I put upon myself. So it's yeah, it's crazy how much we will resist and to the point you know, the and the energy we have to put in to maintain it, even when our whole body is rejecting what's what's taking place.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

Yeah, and that is really I don't want to say the realization of all realizations. There's so many that might deserve that title as we keep coming up with them, but it certainly is the realization that will show us I am operating against my nature. Whenever I am becoming, striving, um, and that goes very much along with ambition, like you said, uh, I am living my opposite condition, right? Because what is the opposite? We said, what is the opposite of effort and disturbance? And when we are ambitious, when we are greedy, when we are trying to become, when we are fighting against all those things and all those people that are so-called preventing us or trying to prevent us from uh becoming, getting that what we need, what we must do, what we are born to, whatever it is, we're actually doing the exact opposite. And so um what do you think though, the actual the the actual answer to the question is what is the opposite of of effort and disturbance? Acceptance through and through, you know, all the way down.

SPEAKER_04 31:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 31:19

And uh acceptance also brings what?

SPEAKER_04 31:25

Well, it's it's seeking peace, right? And um seeing the belonging you have in the present moment. You know, there is nothing else other than yourself in the moment, and it's finding your place within that you know, comfortably.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

That is uh an an undeniable, isn't it? It's an undeniable and um clear, simple realization. It's undeniable. And we, even though it's a beautiful thing, we often we don't want to when we're in the grips of ambition, we're in the grips of trying to become, and we say, no way am I already complete, no way do I already have what I have, which is my nature, my human nature, which is of acceptance, which is uniquely capable and able and uh relishes in acceptance, no way can I accept this. I don't want to. Although it would be the effortless thing to do, although it would just be realizing that, wow, I have literally everything that I am ambitious for, not directly, but indirectly. Because uh everyone who's striving for reputation, everyone who's striving for career, for money, for love, is really just striving for peace. So indirectly, you already have everything that you're trying to get directly. In all the wrong places. Exactly. And so isn't this so amazing? And we're so resistant to it. We're so resistant to it. We're resistant to our own nature. Now, what's a better recipe for disaster than that? I always say that the recipe for disaster is to hold yourself accountable, responsible for things that you're not in control of. But I I'm almost thinking, is this maybe the ultimate recipe for disaster? I'm not sure, but uh it's certainly our reality that we live in, um, and it's it's the common source of all troubles, all troubles, all misery, all suffering, um in the true sense, right? Of course, there's so-called physical suffering, there's there's physical pain, but the the deep inside, the highest suffering, the worst suffering in that sense, is uh non-physical. And that comes from living against your nature, not according to your nature. Amazing. And um when we talk about love, when we talk about love uh uh among others, at least as a verb, as an action, as a disposition, being to wish well, uh, one can only wish this to anyone, this realization, and to, of course, not only the realization, but then to go on to live according to your nature, finally, um, instead of against very much against your nature. This is this should perhaps be included in our wishing well to people. It is part of the highest wish. And um I wish that to everyone here, and of course to to all humans, that we it sounds so simple. That's such a subtle thing, that we live according to our nature. Hardly any of us do. Hardly any of us do. We literally call them prophets and saints and gurus and whatever else, uh, those who do, whether they really do or they're just perceived to have these things, we call them the the almost gods, right? People call Jesus God, for example, just because he had peace. And it's the most amazing thing. And I want us to realize that this uh period of the fortnight of this period of the question, and always, of course. And so I appreciate you very much for uh not only your very uh scientific, amazing discussion on hypnosis, but also even more so, your answer to the uh question of the fortnight, which is amazing, and I hope everyone's listening. Thank you so much. Thank you. And I will uh put you back to the audience. Thank you so much. That was uh once again uh an amazing discussion and in multiple ways. I and I and I love doing this. Maybe we should do more of this, where we just bring in people who have either firsthand experience or just uh really in-depth knowledge on certain things about science and about our human experience, and they can tell us a little bit about it and and give us that wonder that the scientific knowledge of human nature brings, right? Not something irrelevant, not something necessarily theoretical, something that might happen. Are we all living in a in a simulation kind of thing? Although that's interesting, it's only a thrilling imagination. It's if it is real, it's real, but it's very much debated if that's if things like that are real. So just the simple things to say. As amazing as hypnosis seems to be, it is merely the method of uh doing that which the brain does every day, all the time, anyway. What an amazing thing. And um with that said, I will invite our next speaker.

SPEAKER_03 37:06

Hi, how are you?

SPEAKER_00 37:08

Doing well, how are you?

SPEAKER_03 37:10

I hope I'm okay. I hope you are all doing great and having an amazing start of your weekend.

SPEAKER_00 37:18

Why do you wish other people doing great and you're just doing okay?

SPEAKER_03 37:24

That's a good question. I don't know, I don't I always answer I'm doing okay because there are moments in a day we can have many for myself, I can have many ups and downs in just a day.

SPEAKER_01 37:41

But but the one who experiences those ups and downs, isn't that one steady?

SPEAKER_03 37:50

The one meek?

SPEAKER_01 37:52

Right. The true you though, not the person, the little identity that is, oh today I'm doing better, oh no, today I'm doing worse. The one who observes this happening to this little identity, to this little person. What about that one? Is that one pretty steady or is that one going up and down all the time uncontrollably, also?

SPEAKER_03 38:16

Uh I will say going going up and down depending on the external sequence sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

Really?

SPEAKER_02 38:26

Yeah, sometimes I get uh yes, not always I wish I'm um I'm uh trying to develop that sense of not being affected by external senses.

SPEAKER_03 38:40

But currently I'm struggling struggling with this. So yeah, that makes makes it difficult to be well.

SPEAKER_01 38:50

I want to appreciate this, first of all, even though you say you don't have it yet, I appreciate I want to appreciate I want us to appreciate that you are seeing that these things are external. You still believe that external things can somehow come inside and uh that physical things can change non-physical things, somehow you still believe that, and that's okay. But by your own words, you said that these are external things, and so I just want to appreciate that. That's good. Every step is its own reward. There was a time when you believed there is no such thing as external, internal, that you were everything that's happening to you, and that you could the the thoughts and emotions that come up uncontrollably, you're not in control of them, that those were you. You thought every thought was you, every illusion was you, and that you had a responsibility to respond to those things, to argue with those things, to prove yourself to those thoughts, and to say, no, no, no, I I really can do it. I'll show you, I'll show you. And you became ambitious and did all those things. Um now I feel that you see that you are not really your thoughts. The thoughts and the emotions are something that are happening to you. And uh you're saying those thoughts and emotions and those ups and downs can actually harm you or make you better, but at least something's happening. At least we're seeing, oh, those are external. They can reach me, but they're external. So I just want to appreciate that. That's a that's a that's a big thing.

SPEAKER_03 40:35

Yes, I think I'm slowly getting aware aware of kind of about myself and uh how I connect with myself at first and with outside. Okay, so um relating to the question.

SPEAKER_01 40:56

The question of the Fortnite Exactly. Okay, so I just want to repeat that again because it's uh easy to forget, or people who might have just joined, I just want to read it one more time. Uh it takes effort to become and remain disturbed. What is the opposite of effort and disturbance?

SPEAKER_03 41:21

Okay, so for me the word that comes to mind is lightness, lightness of being ideal, it would it would be my ideal state of and um and then what would that lightness of being imply? Just a state of lightness. Depending on whether the the disturbance comes from the outside world or from uh self-implied effort. For example, like I I I think I've I spoke about that some uh other kin kinship. So for me personally, this is this uh state of lightness was like um relinquishing a letting go of the ego, like we talked about, and um a moving away from relentless pursuit of self- self-perfection.

SPEAKER_02 42:20

And while the um the desire for question is an example of uh something good, I think, and encourages self-discipline I believe it uh it is always more beneficial to seek balance rather than um exerting unnecessary effort to achieve some desired outcome, whether that is work-related or money. I think achieving racist equilibrium can lead to more fulfilling life and more fulfilling and authentic life. And not try to not get disturbed by uh like we talked about before, um not get disturbed by the out by the outside world.

SPEAKER_03 43:21

Um for me it it uh helps when I experience like we talked about last week, an awe-inspiring moment can help me great lots while in attaining that uh and allowing me to uh set aside certain struggles and uh which can then lead to disturbance.

SPEAKER_02 43:47

So I think mainly for me it can um that concept of lightness may be um yeah, I think it is my my answer to.

SPEAKER_03 44:00

Because it is the only word that seems to mind. There might be others that other words similar to that, but that is um what I strive to achieve.

SPEAKER_02 44:11

It's like a a peace. To be that free, to have a freeness, not have constant thoughts and anxiety and uh get centered and not stri always strive more and more to get to to whatever place. Remain uh try and be more uh self-centered and uh always feeling that in myself. I hope I'm making sense.

SPEAKER_01 44:56

Uh you are making perfect sense. Okay. Perfect sense. Why? Because that lightness, which you just, as you were speaking, correctly identified as just being another word, or rather the the defining feature of peace. Peace is nothing other than lightness. And this is what I wanted to point out with the question of the Fortnite, though, with this question. When we are disturbed, what are we disturbed out of?

SPEAKER_03 45:40

It can be either self-important effort or self-interest effort.

SPEAKER_01 45:46

Well, like when we're let's say let's say you're woken up, someone wakes you up. What are you wake woken up from? What were you doing? What were you being? You're sleeping, right? So when someone comes up and wakes you up, they're awaking you out of what? Out of sleep. When someone or something disturbs you, they're disturbing you out of what?

SPEAKER_02 46:19

Self-awareness out of peace.

SPEAKER_03 46:28

This is why we call it Yeah. I named it lightness because it was the word that came to my mind. In Portuguese, it's yeah, I'm Portuguese, Portuguese it's visa, and I think it's uh I don't know, an appropriate word, but yeah, peace.

SPEAKER_01 46:49

You're absolutely right. Light because lightness is peace. To me, it seems like the same thing: the lightness, right? Because the effort is heaviness, suffering is heaviness, trying to become is heaviness, but being not striving, effortlessness is light. And all that is light, all that is effortless, all that is still, all that is of the nature of simply being and not trying to become, is peace. That is peace. And the disturb, I want you to realize this. This is a very subtle. I hope everyone is realizing this or seeing this. This is a very, very subtle thing. If you don't pay attention, uh you don't notice it. And this is in fact the only reason why we do not have peace, is because we don't notice this. This is a fundamental, undeniable, no arguing about it kind of fact. When you are disturbed, you are disturbed from peace. The disturbance itself points to its opposite. The disturbance itself points out your true nature. If disturbance was not a disturbance, it would be your nature. We call a disturbance a disturbance because it takes us out of that which is natural to us, which is normal to us, which is the standard for us, which is so natural to us that we don't even notice it. We notice movement. See, if you, for those who are watching right now, for those who have uh a visual, but they don't need to, the books behind me right now, there are dozens of books, but they are not drawing your attention. Because they're not moving. If something that was not moving drew your attention, you would be at high stress all the time, at high alert. You would be overwhelmed by the movement, by the impressions, by the disturbance. It is because they are not moving, it is because they are at rest, it is because they are expending no energy whatsoever that you do not notice them. However, your not noticing of them is what is calming to you. This is why stillness is calming, because it is not disturbing, it is not moving, it is not um drawing effort towards itself by just the sheer notice of your attention being there, your attention being drawn, um, your notice of things being forced in a certain direction. Just by them not doing that, you are relaxing. It is effortless, it is still, it is peaceful, it is light. And this also points to another fundamental, crucial, but very, very subtle truth. That peace is not going to tell you that it's there. Peace is not going to say, uh, hello, I'm right here. Don't be disturbed by those things. Look at me, look at me. I'm right here. It's not going to say that. Only disturbance does that. Disturbance is, hey, look over here, look over here. You need to deal with this. This is your problem right now. Until this is fixed, you cannot do anything else. Right here, look right here. But the more you notice that this is a disturbance, the more you will notice the stillness around it. The more you see the nature of disturbance, that it is in fact not your nature, the more it will point out to you what in fact is your nature. And that's a very subtle thing, like I said, because nothing at rest, nothing at peace, will raise its hand. Everything that rests is resting. It will not raise its hand. It will not say, hey, I'm here. It will not call for your attention. You must notice it. And once you do, you cannot unnotice it. You will see it. Disturbance, ego, the identities, the striving, the trying to become, the ambition, the greed, the vengeance, the jealousy, the envy, these are all disturbances. But as you know, we do not resent anything. We do not try to kill anything. We do not wish for the non-existence of anything, because we say, Thank you, my anger, thank you, fear, thank you, jealousy, thank you, resentment, for pointing out what is your opposite. If it wasn't for you, I might have never known. If this world had no darkness in it, and it was just one bright light, light everywhere, no shadow, you could not see, you would be blinded by the light. It is the light and the shadow, the contrast that makes beautiful forms visible. And just in the same way, it is disturbance that points to peace. It is the not self, the false self that is pointing to the true self. So every time you notice movement, notice stillness. Every time you notice effort, notice calm. Every time you notice war, notice peace. Every time you notice disturbance, notice what you are disturbed out of. And if you can really be disturbed out of it, if you just don't give your attention to that which is seeking it. Your attention, contrary to how it might feel in the moment, is not being grabbed and taken away. It is not. We come out of our peace to deal with the disturbance so that we can relax back into peace. But a mind who believes in disturbance, who believes that it needs to deal with every single thing that is seeking its attention, will never be at peace. It doesn't know how to be at peace. It only knows how to how to strive, it only knows how to fix. So we are so good at pursuing peace, but we have never learned how to be at peace. Those are completely two different skill sets. Because to become, to pursue peace is an act of effort. It takes striving, it takes energy, it takes doing. But to be at peace rather than to pursue peace is an effortless state of being, not a state of doing, a state of being which requires no becoming, no striving, no wanting, no proving, no overcoming, no winning, no achieving, nothing. Because it is your nature, it is you at rest. Peace is you at rest. So every time we strive for peace, we come out of peace. Although it is yet another thing to notice that you can actually never be away from peace. Because all our striving, all our doing is on top of peace. The peace, the peace is your workbench, and you're doing things on top of it. Every single challenge, every single striving, every single act of becoming and still being incomplete, not yet being, takes place on the surface of peace. It is the rock you're standing on and operating out of. But you won't just sit still. You won't just lay on it. You have to keep doing. This is simple stuff, and I'm making it sound like it's such a complicated thing, maybe. But uh, it needs to remain simple. There's a roomy quote that goes something like this. Uh maybe you should look it up yourself because I might paraphrase it too much. He talks about a knocking. There's a knocking on your door, but the knock is coming from the inside, not from the outside. Meaning uh that which you're looking for, you're looking for from the inside. And there's a knock, and all you need to do is to open the door and realize that you are on the outside looking in, not on the inside looking out. You are there. The knocking is coming from the inside, not from the outside, and you need to go pursue and get and meet this person that is outside of you. And so that's every single challenge, every single suffering, every single disturbance in your entire life that has ever happened to you, that could possibly ever happen to you, is pointing at peace. It's pointing at its opposite. Because without its opposite, it could not exist. And if its opposite was not effortless to you, you would not call it a disturbance. If peace took so much effort and so much work from you, it would be a relief to be disturbed. You would say, ah, thank you. Finally, I don't have to be with peace anymore. It is so much work. You would not call disturbance disturbance, you would call it relief if peace was not something effortless. So that's what the question this week is trying to point out. It takes effort to become and remain disturbed. What is the opposite of effort and disturbance? It is peace, lightness. Lightness is the opposite of disturbance, and it is also the opposite of effort. Peace is the opposite of both effort as well as disturbance. Does that make any sense to you?

SPEAKER_02 59:52

Yes. That uh uh I will uh want here again because many, many great fights there. The notion of quant light and shadow. I think that is that is pretty uh and it makes sense, yeah. I think um this is something we nowadays and other times uh human beings in general stripes you know those uh kind of mundane things and a it's not that it's a bad thing, but I think balance because if you don't have a that equilibrium can uh can lead emotional, even physical and disturbance anxiety, a lot of bad things because uh that that happens because we can we sometimes can uh be led uh like uh stray to uh to be off-center, to not be in our essence, and when that comes, that's when the disturbance happens, and we get we have to center ourselves back again, yes, and and and what more can be centering than to use the very thing that is de-centering you to point you back to the center.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:50

The disturbance points you to peace. Every time disturbance happens, it says, look, I am taking you out of peace. My opposite is peace. But again, to also realize that there is no direct connection, the disturbance cannot force you out of peace. We are always the one coming out of peace because peace is in our nature. If we just don't do anything, meaning the disturbance comes and we don't do anything, then we remain in peace. It's our ultimate power. By not doing anything, we cannot exhaust ourselves. The disturbance is the one that needs to run like a machine and it's gonna run out. You are the one who can just remain still and uh thereby eternally resist disturbance without effort, because it is your nature. As straining as it is for us to swim to a fish, it's hardly anything. A fish doesn't know how to move any other way. It's its nature, it's its effort. Yet even a fish gets tired. But a human being does not get tired of peace. There's no such thing as getting tired of peace. Isn't that amazing? It is the eternal, non-being, effortless condition. And that's what I hope uh we are all realizing, and that the so-called work of life is maybe turning into more of a letting go of an effortlessness rather than a work of doing. It is simply uh a work of doing less. Because for some reason that takes work. For some reason, it takes work to do less. For some reason, it takes striving to become fewer things. When we're when we say we're trying to let go of identities, and it's so much work to let go of identities. Wow, it somehow is work, yet we're doing less, we're being less, we're emptying ourselves that should be effortless, which should just open up the drain and it should just flow out. No? Why does it feel so effortful? Because there's that inside of us which is resisting, which is not us, but which is resisting peace. There's something in us, not of our nature, not of us, but nevertheless with us, that does not know how to be at peace, does not understand peace, does not feel alive when things are not moving, but only feels alive among drama and anger and violence and deception and fear and sadness. The more we realize that that is not us, that which is resisting peace, the faster we can uh be with that which we are already sitting on and stop getting up from it. But so I I very much appreciate um your answer because lightness is a great word. And at the same time, it is uh showing the nature of peace. It's lightness. Everything else is heavy. Again, to carry something is an effort, it takes energy. To not carry takes no energy. To not have a burden takes no energy. And so that's what we need to think about. So uh just because we're running out of time here, I'm gonna move you back to the audience with uh great gratitude. Thank you so much for answering that question and making us think about it in terms of lightness, uh, which is absolutely true. And um I want to remain with that. That's what I'm doing these days. So my entire focus is on this. The realization that disturbance points at peace, it always has. I just haven't seen it. I thought disturbance was something to overcome, to wrestle with, and then to defeat. And then after it, we get to peace. We're not at peace yet, we're far away from it, and in between peace and us, there's disturbance. There's becoming, there's achieving, there's triumphing, there's overcoming. And once we overcome overcoming, then we can be at peace. I realize now that what I was striving for, I was striving with. What I was trying to become, I was operating out of. I was sitting on top of peace and operating from peace to get to peace. And so the focus these days for me is to realize what I'm sitting on finally. To realize that what have I been operating out of? What has been giving me a foothold for all this ambition, for all this striving, and for all this trying to become? What have I been standing on? Why have I not been just falling in empty space? What has been supporting me this whole time in this striving? And so I I wanted to just bring you into this if you want to do this together, if you want to put at least more of your focus on, take it from some other things. Maybe take it from uh trying to watch the news so much, making sure that the world is okay, as if you can do anything about it. Try to take it from comparing yourself, your so-called self, which is not the real self, to others' so-called self, which is not their real self, and to compare illusionary units of worth against other people's illusionary units of worth, and to see if they have more or less, and how you could get more, how you could get some of theirs, or to be thinking about what other people are thinking about, which are thinking what other people are thinking about. Maybe we can take some of those thoughts and put it towards the thing, towards the chair in which we're sitting, to do all this thinking and to do all this envy, to do all of this gossiping, to do all of this worrying, to do all of this scheming and planning to finally be someone. Let's see what we're sitting on to do all of this this entire time.