In this spiritual Q&A episode, I respond to listener-submitted spiritual questions spanning a variety of themes.
Be open to possibilities…
Topics include the paradox of striving versus letting go, how seekers sustain their practice, and ways of recognizing the background presence behind experience. The conversation explores not-two-ness, emptiness, the value of doing nothing, and the limits of control. Listeners are also invited to consider profound questions such as whether an ant has a self, how to discern the root of our reactions, and what it means to see beyond the opposites of life.
Even meditation alone is insufficient. One will not complete the journey of going within solely by sitting and self-reflecting. Unless one’s lifestyle inspires self-reflection, one will fall asleep and forget one’s commitment
Bob and I discuss how life constantly calls us to lose ourselves, making self-definition the fundamental human challenge. By turning attention inward and examining afflictions to the sense of self, we can cultivate deeper awareness, as seen in practices like Ramana Maharshi’s self-inquiry and daily reflection. Being open to doubt, challenging ourselves, and meditative writing serve as essential tools in the search for authenticity and true self-understanding.
Tyler Matthew is one of many unpretentious, extraordinary people doing their part as friends along the path to spiritual awakening.
Right now, your true self, your absolute identity is fully here in the exact same way its fully here in deep sleep and the dream state and the awakened state…. You can learn to abide by it.
In this episode, we discuss self inquiry, letting go, earnestness, and other topics on spiritual awakening.
Filo Sophie King is one of many unpretentious, extraordinary people doing their part as friends along the path to spiritual awakening.
What you think of as nothing is in truth, everything. Remember it is all only a dream. Realize that what you want is not up to you, and will never be achieved by you, even though it is what you are. See that everything has already happened, and yet nothing has happened. Accept your destiny, whatever it is and however long it takes. Surrender, yet keep going, for love.
In this episode, we discuss self inquiry compared to self-remembering, the teachings of Gurdjieff and the Fourth Way, and other topics on spiritual awakening.
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QUESTION(S) OF THE DAY: What was your favorite quote or lesson from this episode? Please let me know in the comments.
Selected Links and Topics from this Episode:
The rationale for not charging for spiritual teachings, and Filo’s offering to help anyone who reads his book: “Everybody belongs to everybody.”
Filo’s primary teacher was in the Fourth Way tradition, but “the Fourth Way doesn’t take you all the way.”
The desire to move away from suffering.
What is Self-remembering? Being present, mindfulness. However, “self has to remember itself” is how it’s described in the Gurdjieffian teachings, which splits the self into two. For many years, it was the ego trying to awaken, which is impossible.
The personal self is a construction. The Fourth Way teachings stop at the person learning how to be present.
The difficulty of moving away from a teaching when it becomes your social structure, it’s like leaving friends and family.
The difference between being present and Awakening. Self-remembering has to become Self-realization.
“If teachings burn out the ego, they are doing their job.”
Using non-dual teachings as spiritual bypass.
Self inquiry compared to self-remembering and other thoughts on spiritual awakening.
The belief that the mind is not silent. Thoughts arise in silence. Exploring that when you’re waking up and falling asleep and the thoughts are less active.
The value of relaxing.
How to do self inquiry.
Contact – a film with Jodie Foster that’s an analogy of the end of the spiritual search and perhaps the beginning of spiritual awakening….
Most recently, Federico Faggin founded the “Federico and Elvia Faggin Foundation” to support the scientific study of consciousness. But his path to the study of consciousness was preceded by his contributions to some of the key technologies in the computing world. In 1968, Dr. Faggin moved to Palo Alto, California, to work at Fairchild Semiconductor, where he created MOS (metal-oxide-semiconductor) silicon gate technology, which is a core technology used in fabrication of most microchips today. From there Federico Faggin did groundbreaking work at Intel, co-founded and led Zilog (conceiving the Z80 microprocessor), cofounded and led Synaptics (which pioneered touchpads and touchscreens), and became president and CEO of Foveon.
I asked for help. I prayed, not verbally and not even consciously, searching for an answer to my fundamental questions: “What is the meaning of my life?” and “Is death really the end of everything?”
In this episode, you’ll be treated to one of the top minds working to develop a new science of consciousness, and one inspired by his personal experiences of the profound.
“I could in no way to get qualia out of electrical signals.”
Faggin’s first spiritual experience in 1990: “I experienced myself as the world that observes itself with my point of view. I was a point of view of the world upon the world…. I was both the observer and the observed.”
“My desire to understand consciousness was genuine.”
20 years of exploring consciousness.
While CEO of Synaptics, Federico dedicated 30-40% of his time to study consciousness.
Federico Faggin reached the conclusion that consciousness cannot be a property of the brain. “What was clear was that consciousness must be fundamental…. Consciousness cannot emerge from something that has no consciousness.”
Consciousness and free will go hand-in-hand.
Identity, consciousness, and agency (free will).
“One” is the totality of existence.
A monad (part-whole) is a consciousness unit.
One want to know itself, and when one knows itself it brings into existence a monad. If One doesn’t know, it doesn’t exist. It is potential existence, but it doesn’t exist.
Every cell of the body is a part-whole of the body. Each cell contains the entire genome of the fertilized egg so each cell has the potential knowledge of the entire organism. We are fields, we are not the body. Each field is a part-whole of the totality.
The body is quantum and classical.
“At the deepest level reality is organized as a hologram.”
The difference between knowledge and being. “The difference between living an experience and reading about an experience.”
A quantum bit has an infinite number of states, while a classical bit has one state (0 or 1, up or down, right or left, etc.).
“Only a conscious being knows what is represented by quantum physics as those states.”
“A quantum state cannot be reproduced. You cannot make a copy. You can make a copy of a bit.” “That’s exactly like our conscious experience. I’m the only one who knows the state of me… The state of this field we are…. We are fields that control a body, and the body looks at a reality and makes an image of that reality that we, conscious beings, feel and perceive as reality…. But the body filters out all kinds of stuff.”
“What we believe to be reality is only what the body has given us to look at as conscious beings.”
Out of the body experiences.
“I have confidence that what I need to know will come.”
The Diamond Heart Approach, A.H. Almass, was a major part of his understanding of consciousness. Diamond Heart is a spiritual and psychological method.
“If you want to just know for knowing’s sake, you will come to know.” ~ Federico Faggin
Uniting science and spirituality.
“Hard Problem and Free Will” theory of consciousness paper with Giacomo Mauro D’Ariano and Federico Faggin
“You can no longer believe that life emerged out of no life.”
The postulate that One wants to know itself.
Scientism versus science; changing the paradigm.
“We are not a computer. We are quantum and classical.”
“We cannot solve the problems of humanity that are in front of us if we do not understand who we are.”
Death, identity, and near-death experiences. “I lost completely the fear of death.” “To me, death is a passage to who you really are.”
“The ego pays attention exclusively to the information produced by the body.”
Federico Faggin confirms that cats are conscious. The great questions of life have now been answered. 🙂
