Episode 156 A Pilgrimage of Consciousness

In this episode of the Real Enneagram podcast, Dr. Joseph Howell and Nanette Mudiam reflect on their recent trip to India and how their experience relates to the Enneagram. Joe shares how this pilgrimage helped him gain a deeper understanding about humanity.

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Transcript

Outro  00:00

You're listening to the Real Enneagram podcast, a Spiritual Quest, brought to you by the Institute for Conscious Being.

Nanette  00:11

Well, welcome back to The Real Enneagram.

Joe  00:14

It's a spiritual quest.

Nanette  00:17

It is. It is a spiritual quest. I'm Nanette Mudiam. I'm here with Dr. Joseph Howell. We're so glad you're joining us today. How are you, Dr. Joe?

Joe  00:26

I am doing very well today. It's a spring day here in Alabama. It's very sunny, but it's very chilly. And it's beautiful.

Nanette  00:38

Yeah, it's definitely one of those bright chilly days. But we know that spring is coming, which is always nice to know that the seasons change and that a beautiful new one is about to spring forward. So Joe, I have spent a lot of time with you recently, and we've recently taken a rather big, I would call, pilgrimage to India with your wife, Lark, and with my husband, Sai. And we've been back a few weeks now, so we are not jetlag too much anymore. I don't think. I think we're finally back in this time zone.

But I was hoping today that we might just talk about... I know you had a number of spiritual encounters while you were there, and I believe maybe you've had a little bit of time to process it. And so I thought maybe we could talk about our trip to India today.

Joe  01:36

Yes, I would love to do that, Nanette. That trip is really hand in glove with the Enneagram, because the Enneagram is really just a spiritual tool that helps us get in touch with and live out of our soul. Sadly, it's taught only on the level of personality very frequently. And that's why the Institute for Conscious Being came into the existence.

To help promote the original object and purpose of the Enneagram which is to help us return to our essence. And in India, I had several experiences of soul and essence and of coming to deeper understandings about humanity, and the soul of humanity. So for me, this pilgrimage was definitely a pilgrimage of consciousness.

Nanette  02:42

The universal truth of consciousness, it's amazing when we, when we get out of our familiar patterns, culturally and geographically. When we change the pattern, and when we see people who are essentially the same, yet living with different foods and different patterns and different expectations and cultures. It's amazing how we still see the truth underneath it all.

Joe  03:11

Yes. And you know, even in the hotels, and then vendors on the street, there was a, as you well know, because you've been to India multiple times, many, many more times than most people because you're married to a person from India. How many times by the way, have you been?

Nanette  03:33

You know, Joe? I don't know. So many times, I can't count. I don't know. 20-30-40? I don't know. A lot. 

Joe  03:41

Fair.

Nanette  03:41

You know, I've been going at least multiple times a year, and we've been married for 30 years. So yeah, a lot. Many times and so, yeah, it's been a beautiful exposure for my life for sure.

Joe  03:56

Absolutely. And just to see in the culture, whether they be street vendors or people in hotels or people in elevators, or people who greet you at informal functions, the use of the word Namaste. And the cupping of the hands and the slight bow, to me is it isn't saved just for people at your temple or your mosque or your church. This is a more of a cultural thing.

And I'm thinking to myself, if Namaste—which is may the God in me meet the God in you—that has become a cultural more and greeting of a society. What does that say about the Gods centeredness of that society? The pervasive presence of the spiritual and even a business meet, what does that say? It's not really like this country or other countries that I visited in Europe.

Nanette  05:18

Yeah, that is true. And if we think about, you know, just the history of our country's interaction or people, it has been a common pilgrimage really. I mean, not for the masses, obviously, but many people have gone to India is to have a spiritual experience. And so yes, I would say that there is something uniquely spiritual about that country, for sure.

Joe  05:49

And then, we had the opportunity being because of Sai and his contacts in India, of course, you know, that we had the opportunity of visiting an ashram on two separate occasions for two entire day. The same ashram. And on the first visit, I was blown away, because of the beauty of the ashram. It was not like the ashram I saw in Eat, Pray and Love with Julia Roberts, which was, I think one building. It was acres and acres and acres of places to walk and be, and lush vegetation, a stadium for 1000s of people to come and meditate together.

It's the Heartfulness Meditation Ashram, or Center, in Hyderabad, India. And being there, and speaking with some of the leaders was a heart centered thing for me, because we were welcomed with such intimacy, right from the beginning. And being able to be invited into some of the leaders’ personal homes was beautiful, and being able to sit in meditation with them, before we even talk was an absolutely beautiful thing.

Nanette  07:31

It's their practice. And let's just say, Joe, to our listeners, it's their practice there to not have conversations until there's meditation. And because that they realize that we will have a much more real and authentic and soul-centered conversation and elevated conversation, if you will, if we do that out of meditation, which was so wise, I thought.

Joe  07:59

Oh, I love it.

Nanette  08:00

Yeah, and a beautiful experience.

Joe  08:02

Yes. And then, you know, to be given a tour of this facility that has really physically sprung up in the last eight year. Of course, the organization has been going for 70-75 years, begun by Lalaji, in the early 19… Well, I suppose the mid-1900s, and then to be able to take a tour of the various gardens, and labyrinths and bookstores and libraries on the scale of a place bigger than Disney Land, Disney World. With people driving golf carts around, only at 25 miles an hour.

Nanette  08:56

Yes, definitely a slower pace was the objective.

Joe  09:03

And to see the spirit of people there, Nanette, who aren't worry about if they're driving 25 miles an hour. If they're gonna get where they're going on time. They get where they're going when they're supposed to get there. I don't know that that would work here and my life here, unless I try to make it work, which means that I'm going to be late. And I'm going to run over in my speaking engagements. And I'm going to have to make excuses about the fact that I was not there when I had hoped to be, but they do that. That's okay with them. Because they're on a different time schedule.

They're on a… It's, I guess we would call it Kairos time instead of Chronos time. I like that, because the mechanisms of that clock are all spiritual. And it touched my heart to see a community of thousands of people who all had their jobs, all had their things to do, but everyone who was working in synchronicity in God's timing.

So then we go and go to other places in India, as you well know. And we're given a call back from the leader of this Ashram who we did not get to meet on our first trip. Daaji, who is the spiritual master of the ashram. And the people that we met with first told him about us, and he desired to have a personal meeting with us. Now, this is a very, very busy human being with an organization of well over 600,000 people across the globe, and counting. And they have just had over 100,000 people from all over the globe, the weekend we were there. He was in charge of all that. But he wanted to meet the four people from Alabama. And he made space to do it. And we were invited to walk with him, sit with him, being with him, listen to him speak.

And before we did, again, we had meditation before we spoke. And one of the beautiful things that happened was when we were on our walk, there were two little children who were on the walk as well, I guess, four years old, five years old, the little boy and a little girl. And never will forget that Daaji only spoke to the children at first. That's the only people he communicated with. And there must have been maybe 10 of us walkers, adults walking with Daaji around the lake. And then when we come to sit down, he talks to the children. And the children are just children. They don't know who he is, but they're drawn to him. Because just like a grandparent, they were magnetized to that love. And I never will forget one of the children, the little girl child, said to Daaji, “Look, I'm going to get a handful of this dirt. And when I drop it on the ground, I'm going to shape it in the shape of a heart.”

Well, I'll never forget that because the heart is a symbol. For me, and for Lark personally, of our children. And the love we have for them. And to see a heart is for us to really have a sign that their souls are present. And I knew within my heart of hearts, that when that little child—oh, she couldn't have been more than five—said that I'm going to scoop up a piece of this earth, dirt. And I'm going to put it on the ground right here. And I'm going to shape it into a heart which she did, I then knew that more was going on in that little sharing moment than just people talking. My sense was that the Holy Spirit was present, and that no one needed to talk except those children, because they were the only pure souls who were there. And what they said and what they did set the tone for the rest of our day in that ashram, for me, at least.

And after that, we were invited, just the four of us were invited to come to the Master’s home to speak with him about our work. And he had gotten from some of the other leaders, a copy of the book called Becoming Conscious. And that's the book we use as our major text book in The Institute for Conscious Being. It's about the Enneagram, the soul child, and the soul. I think I wrote that about in 2012 or 13. And he had read it. And he wanted to talk to you and Sai and me and Lark about it. And I never will forget this great master, this spiritual leader, pull out this book and began reading passages to us, and saying how much those who agree with the teachings of what they do at the Heartfulness Meditation Ashram.

I felt that we were getting a blessing from somebody in another world, 12 timezones away, in another culture, but a person, who was of God, and who recognized something of God, that we were doing with our lives, that what we were teaching, what we were trying to bring in to the consciousness of the side of the hemisphere that we're in. And it was a substantial blessing for me, Nanette, and of course, we've had talks since then privately—you and I, and lark, and you and I, and Sai and I—and I know that it was a blessing for you, too. So yeah, that's what I'd like to offer and answer to your question. What do you have to say about that?

Nanette  16:37

Well, you know, as I kind of referenced earlier, I'm just always amazed that when you engage with people who you assume to not be like you, that you always find the spiritual common denominators. You know, that there is an intersection in us all, a universal call to connect with God. And there are universal truths and patterns that intersect. And what I found is in speaking with them, was, yes, we may use different words, or maybe even different language, but at the end of the day, the truth we find is still true. And it's shared, and it's common. And I think that's so affirming to us that we start to realize, like, oh, we haven't made this up. This really still works.

And as we've said before, you know, the people can do that, if we just bring it back to the Real Enneagram into the path that that one of the paths and teachings that we are using—although the Heartfulness Center does not use the Enneagram at thier teaching—we find a lot of shared ideas and shared truth. And I just think it's encouraging and people do the work of the Enneagram, whether they realize that or not, which, you know, may be a discussion for another day, but certainly the patterns are true, and they work, and they're obvious.

So that when you see someone who is conscious, who is functioning in a higher level of being, if you hear their story, you can kind of chart their path and you can say, oh, I can see their spiritual progression with the map of the Enneagram. And I find that interesting and we found that in so many of our interactions, whether it be with tour guides or with friends or people working in different hospitality industries. You find their personalities are there and you see the commonality of humanity, which is just always so encouraging and inspiring to me.

Joe  18:59

Yeah, like we are souls.

Nanette  19:03

Yes, yes. There’s something shining behind that. I love how—if I tell on Joe for a minute—everywhere he goes, he engages with kids. He smiles. He interacts with parents and you know, just you're so open to interacting with people, to wanting to know people and to have real conversation with people and real connection, even if it's just momentarily or a train ride or, you know, a few moments at the Taj Mahal with somebody you'd met on the train before, which really did happen, y’all.

And so, just Joe's openness to our connections in the world because we know that we're all universally connected. And it's just always amazing to step into some place that is unfamiliar and still find human connection. So it was a beautiful experience. And we're not even telling the numerous other ones, obviously, that we had, because there's not a lot of time for that. But the Heartfulness Meditation Center, people can find it online. They have free meditations that can be shared. And it's a wonderful organization. And it was definitely impactful, I think, for all of us to have visited there.

Joe  20:28

Absolutely. And I have since learning their technique, the meditation technique, while we were there, makes me want to study that more, and incorporate it more so and what we do at the Institute for Conscious Being, because it's a powerful, meditative practice that it's not like any other that I've ever known. There's not a rigid way of sitting, that… They want you to be comfortable.

And it includes another component. And I want to have a podcast about that meditation practice, Nanette. But they include another component, which is called a cleaning meditation, which actually cleanses us from the psychological residue of the egoic conflicts that we build up inside of us each day. And this is, this is beyond prayer. It's not prayer. It's a process of being in a meditative state, whereby we are cleaned from the inside out. And I love it. And I want to talk more about it.

Nanette  21:47

Well, we'll certainly do that. And so Joe, thank you for sharing with us today. And we look forward to, you know, seeing what other connections we can make and what other things we can learn from wisdom teachers, and we will certainly discuss those more in the future.

Joe  22:08

Thank you, Nanette.

Outro  22:12

That wraps up another episode of The Real Enneagram brought to you by the Institute for Conscious Being. If you're interested in furthering these conversations, please reach out to us through our Instagram at the Real Enneagram or if you're interested in our upcoming trainings or other resources, please visit our website, www.instituteforconsciousbeing.org. Thanks for listening.