Revisiting Our Core Thesis on Spiritual Teachings

Peter: 00:00:06

Views, interpretations and opinions expressed are not advice nor official positions presented on behalf of any organization or institution. They are for informational and entertainment purposes only. Now join Ryan and Peter for another episode of the Tracking Wisdom Podcast.

Ryan: 00:00:23

Good morning, everybody, and welcome back to another episode of the Tracking Wisdom Podcast. I'm Ryan.

Peter: 00:00:28

I'm Peter.

Ryan: 00:00:29

And today, round two, since I forgot to press record, we are discussing sort of a throwback or callback to our original thesis.

When we first started this episode, this show, this project about three years ago, we had a thesis that all spiritual teachings had an underlying message, an underlying truth that, that infused through all of them and through institutionalization and the siloed nature of either geographical and otherwise.

These teachings would, at least this was the thesis, would veer off track from the original core teaching, but that the fundamental nature of that teaching was still evident and relevant within the teachings. And when that started, that was a concept that I believed in, I recognized.

But I had never heard of the term perennial philosophy, which is a term and a book. Was that the name of the book?

Peter: 00:01:37

That's the name of the book by Aldous Huxley.

Ryan: 00:01:40

And that was something I was unaware of until we investigated and were learning about Donald Hoffman. And he had some discussions with Rupert Spira. And Rupert brought up the. This idea of the perennial philosophy.

And that was the first exposure I had had to it. Peter has had the book. Peter bought the book, but never really read it. I knew the title had awareness of this as a thing. And so in the pursuit of.

Well, we went through our project and we were investigating lots of different avenues and forms of different philosophies and sciences ranging from Donald Hoffman and his interface theory, that's interface theory of perception, okay, to Ian McGilchrist and his split brain theory and Carlo Rovelli.

So we investigated and explored scientific pursuits and different spiritual and theological pursuits, ranging from Geoffrey Martin and his finders and the fundamental well being to even Joseph Campbell and the power of myth and how that idea of cultural mythology and the teachings behind that infuse culture. And we've recognized it even in media, in certain things.

I mean, we mentioned Star wars even recently amongst us, but have brought up where this perennial philosophy has presented itself.

And I prefer the term perennial wisdom, the original term perennial philosophy and the concept behind it, from what I understand was specifically pointed at religion.

And what we've observed over this exploration is that the perennial wisdom that is inherent, the underlying fundamental truth, if you wanted to call it that, is evident everywhere. And that's been really interesting to us. To recognize that. And I wanted to spend some time today reconnecting with that original thesis.

Reconnecting and regrounding the show in the exploration of. And the recognition.

It's not going to change the show per se in that we will continue to explore all these varieties of philosophy and teaching, science and psychology and theology and spirituality and all these different avenues, but to maybe reorient towards recognizing this perennial wisdom in all of its manifestations. Think that about.

Peter: 00:04:37

Yeah, I mean, I think it's. It's what we've. It's what we've been learning. It's making the lesson that we've learned explicit.

And Campbell actually pointed in Power of Myth, it's really pointing at the perennial wisdom, but he doesn't use the term. And we recognized it when he talked about it. Like, yeah, that's. That's what we're talking about.

This central thing that runs through like all different cultures and perspectives. What I call the baby in the bathwater.

And then you had introduced the idea of kind of cultural accretions that build up around these central teachings.

Like there's one teacher who sees the truth and then he gets followers, and then all these practices start to build up around that central truth and it gets sometimes obscured.

Ryan: 00:05:23

Right.

Peter: 00:05:23

And then we also talked about the difference in teachers of they don't always know or they don't always focus on the central truth.

And sometimes they focus on the trappings and the methods and stuff like that, and they lose sight of this perennial wisdom, which is what we're interested in.

Ryan: 00:05:44

Right.

So I guess to be explicit about what the core elements of the perennial wisdom really are is number one, there's an underlying one oneness or interconnection of all things like that that seems to be pretty core. A pretty core element to.

To the philosophy that the teaching is that all things are interconnected and that there is generally fundamental oneness among all things. The next is that the ego is an illusion and that there is an underlying true self, which kind of points to you're not quite.

You're not what you think you are, which I guess is kind of an.

Peter: 00:06:26

Abstract concept, but I'm the idea of true nature.

Ryan: 00:06:30

Right.

Peter: 00:06:30

I guess a comment I want to make is that because we've. We've talked about. I mean, this. This journey has been. Become a lot about our mutual awakening journey, which we didn't.

When we started, we had no idea that we were on a way like that. We were getting on an awakening path. And we started learning about awakening, starting with Jeffrey Martins and then from. From different people.

And then recognizing that the perennial wisdom. I guess the point I want to make is not particularly a teaching. Right. That's not the point of it.

Ryan: 00:07:07

Correct.

Peter: 00:07:08

The point is that it's a description of this common human experience of awakening.

Once you have an awakening experience and you start to move down that path and explore it, these elements that Ryan's describing are the things that you recognize. It's just. They become apparent, which has been our experience.

And, you know, Ryan has a lot of times said, oh, now I recognize, like, that's what I've been feeling, you know, And I'm kind of coming at it from a different direction where I've read about these things and I've starting to have the experience. Like, oh, now I'm. Now, like, that's what they're talking about. So, yeah, that's been an interesting partnership because of that.

Ryan: 00:07:54

Yes.

Peter: 00:07:55

That dichotomy.

Ryan: 00:07:56

I believe one of the episodes you mentioned, the. You pointed out, interestingly that we were, like. I think you're saying, like, we were on, like, the same path. We were through the woods, basically.

Like, our paths were kind of parallel and we could see each other, but we were still kind of coming from different.

Peter: 00:08:15

Right.

Ryan: 00:08:15

Trailheads.

Peter: 00:08:16

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So I actually. Speaking of experience, I just had. And I'm. I actually might jump ahead of your notes a little. That's fun.

I just did a je. Last Thursday, and I was very surprised at the end. To what. What did I describe? I think I was, like, looking.

When I opened my eyes, I looked out the window and I saw the tree. I saw trees and buds. I saw these things. I didn't have names, like, in that state.

I was like, wow, I'm seeing these things, and I have a sense of nonsense, is what I said. And I'm seeing these things, and they don't have names, they're just there. And I was actually laughing when I said it because it was very weird.

Ryan: 00:09:02

Yeah.

Peter: 00:09:03

And it sounds weird, but that's an experience that I've heard described, but I've never had it. And so Thursday I had it. I was like, oh, wow, look at that. That's. Oh, yeah. It's really very much like, oh.

Or a sense of recognizing something that you've heard about or just recognizing something that you've never heard about is another kind of flavor of it. You have this very strange experience, but it's like there's a sense of recognition as opposed to weirdness. It's. Anyway.

Ryan: 00:09:37

Yeah. And it's beyond the intellectual it's that experiential piece of it.

Peter: 00:09:41

Yeah.

Ryan: 00:09:41

For the audience, GAE is group awareness exercise.

Peter: 00:09:46

Yeah. It's a form of group meditation that is taught by Jeffrey Martin and others. But yeah.

So just to bring it back around to where you were is that there are writings about perennial. The perennial philosophy or about perennial wisdom. But we're interested in it not as teaching, but as reflecting experience and.

And then being able to recognize when certain people are describing their experiences this way. And you said Tony Robbins. Yeah, Robbins had done that.

Ryan: 00:10:20

Yes.

Peter: 00:10:21

And. And I think I've. I've referenced, like, art, some different forms of art. I mean, people hear it in classical music. You know, that's like.

This piece transports me in this way.

And often it's hard to describe, but I think that what we're talking about is it's a connection to this mutual experience where the artist has touched this in some way and is expressing it. And the artist may not know that. The artist may not identify it as an awakening experience.

And certainly the audience often does not identify it as that. But what I'm postulating is that the reason that it's moving and the reason that it's universal is because that's what it is.

It is touching this experience of awakening in some way and making it accessible to people who don't formally recognize awakening or aren't thinking about it or don't have language around it.

Ryan: 00:11:25

Anyway, so that's a great point. And I've noticed or recognized art in myself. Now, I'm not a professional artist. I'm not connecting with an audience in that way. But the.

And in fact, I've written on this as well, the activity of art and creativity connects me in a way to this underlying universality, which I framed it more like meditation or mindfulness, meaning that the activity of being creative and in that moment was a practice of mindfulness that helped me to connect or. Helps me to connect.

Peter: 00:12:05

Yeah. This is interesting because a friend of mine, a classmate of mine from the teaching program, actually has a plan to teach art as mindfulness.

And we asked her about it in a group, and she gave this, like. She just started talking. Oh, this here's what I'm thinking about. And we were all just like, wow, it was really interesting.

So there's definitely something there.

Ryan: 00:12:27

Yeah.

Peter: 00:12:27

Saying, yeah, and there are people who. Who do teach that. So I think I interrupted your list of elements, but.

Yeah, so I interrupted the list of elements because I wanted to make the point that we're not interested in presenting a teaching.

Ryan: 00:12:46

Correct.

Peter: 00:12:46

Right.

We're interested in, like, oh, we found this description of stuff that we've been looking for and we've been looking at and we've been experiencing and we've been finding in different places. And now we've discovered that, yeah, there are people who talk about this in a formal way and give it a label and stuff like that.

Ryan: 00:13:06

Yeah.

Peter: 00:13:07

Which doesn't make it more real, but it makes it easy to talk about in a way.

Ryan: 00:13:11

Yeah, that's a good point. I have found it interesting. I will get back to the list. You made a great point, and I like the way you phrase it.

As far as we're not looking at this as a teaching, but really more an illustration of a fundamental essence and maybe some of what I'm experiencing and I suppose you as well. I just don't want to speak for you. Is that what's the idea that, you know, when you're looking for something, you find it kind of thing? Not in a.

I don't think in a. A bias way. A cognitive, perceptual bias. Yeah. What. Whatever the term is.

Peter: 00:13:52

Yeah.

Ryan: 00:13:52

You all know what I'm talking about. But that the awareness of it makes it more evident, I guess. I think the.

The generic cliche kind of look thought is, you know, you buy a car and then all of a sudden you see your car everywhere kind of thing.

Just because your perception is reoriented to a certain characteristic, not that that characteristic is being forced or manipulated, but that you are tuned into its existence.

And what I found interesting and also conflicting in how I feel about it is how prevalent I have seen this wisdom, and yet it's not taught as that fundamental essence. And I just don't think people know or see it that way.

Peter: 00:14:47

Yeah. So this makes me think of another experience around this. What you're describing, this seeing it everywhere and recognize it.

And there's a difference between. It's funny, we can't remember this word. I think it's perceptual bias. I don't think that's the word, but okay.

Ryan: 00:15:08

It is a bias. I know that.

Peter: 00:15:09

Right. It's like seeing you keep on seeing something that you.

When you focus on something, you keep on seeing it, but there's a difference between reading it and recognizing it, which is what I used to do. So coming from a Christian upbringing.

Ryan: 00:15:28

Confirmation bias.

Peter: 00:15:29

Confirmation bias. Thank you.

Ryan: 00:15:31

Goodness. I know that.

Peter: 00:15:32

Yeah.

Ryan: 00:15:33

Sorry to interrupt.

Peter: 00:15:34

Sure.

You know, coming from a Christian upbringing and then moving into interest in Buddhist teachings, I found myself like, oh, well, Buddha already said this. Right, Right. And there's this. This kind of attribution.

Oh, well, so who said this first kind of attitude of recognition where you start recognizing, but it becomes kind of an attribution contest. But there's this. What we're talking about is an internal recognition of.

An experiential recognition of, oh, he's talking about what I experienced as opposed to he's talking about what I saw. Someone else said.

Ryan: 00:16:14

Right.

Peter: 00:16:14

And I think it's a very key distinction.

Ryan: 00:16:17

It is. I also think that, you know, that that has been the nature of those observations. Buddha. Right.

Buddha didn't make it or come up with it or conceive of it. Buddha recognized that fundamental essence, taught about it maybe thousands of years before another.

But that doesn't make that experience of it any less real when somebody else recognizes it.

Peter: 00:16:44

Exactly. Well, and to your point, Tony Robbins didn't invent this stuff. Right, Right. In fact, none of them. Nobody invents this.

Ryan: 00:16:51

Right.

Peter: 00:16:52

Because it's essential. It's essential to human experience.

What teachers do is they recognize it for themselves and then they package their own experience and express it in terms of their own experience. And then people say, oh, he invented this, he invented that. It's like, well, he had the experience, he's describing experience.

Or he, you know, decided to teach in a particular way. But, you know, I think really it comes down to experience.

I don't think that Jesus taught in the particular way because he thought, let me figure out how to teach this. I think he expressed it the way he expressed it because of his conditioning. Meaning, his context.

Ryan: 00:17:39

Yep.

Peter: 00:17:39

Right. And his life context and his cultural, cultural and historical context and all that. And that's what each teacher does.

Ryan: 00:17:48

Right.

Peter: 00:17:48

And the problem that we've always struggled with, which is kind of the whole point of our conversation, is the problem of people. This attribution.

Ryan: 00:17:59

Right.

Peter: 00:17:59

Contest. Right. This is the right way. This is what this guy said is the truth.

This teacher has the truth, you know, meaning that these other teachers don't have the truth.

Ryan: 00:18:12

Right.

Peter: 00:18:12

And that's what we're trying to tear down, which is like, no, everybody has the truth. You have the truth. You don't need. You don't essentially need a teacher to tell you the truth.

You just have to stop being distracted by everything that your culture and history tells you. Conditioning, all your conditioning. I mean, and this is another thing we've talked about is how.

How our culture devalues awakening, devalues mystic experience, and literally tells us, oh, you're just imagining that.

Ryan: 00:18:47

Right.

Peter: 00:18:48

And now there's a. The contrary Thing which is. I can sell it to you. You need this. And I can sell it to you.

Ryan: 00:18:57

Which you talked about in one of our recent episodes. Yeah.

Peter: 00:19:02

So. Yeah. So this. Anyway, I just. Just to make the point that it's an essential human experience. It's not something that someone owns.

It's not something that someone has to tell you. It can be helpful to be exposed to it intellectually and become curious about it and begin exploring it. And that, you know, can.

Can be helpful, but it's not necessary. I'm. Some people, it just comes to them by themselves.

Ryan: 00:19:29

Right.

Peter: 00:19:29

So.

Ryan: 00:19:30

And it can be distracting if, you know, presented in a way that is pulling the focus away from the true essence.

Peter: 00:19:39

Well, it's. It's two things also. If you have the experience without having the context for the experience, that can be distracting.

And that can make you think you're crazy.

Ryan: 00:19:48

Yep.

Peter: 00:19:49

Which is a thing that happens.

Ryan: 00:19:50

Yes. People met people.

Peter: 00:19:54

That's right. Oh, my goodness. We have.

Ryan: 00:19:56

They're very uncomfortable with the experience because.

Peter: 00:19:59

Am I intellectually, they.

Ryan: 00:20:01

They have a hard time reconciling the experience.

Peter: 00:20:03

Well, it's countercultural.

Ryan: 00:20:05

Right.

Peter: 00:20:05

It's like it's. This is contrary to what I've been taught growing up.

So in that sense, it's helpful to have some orientation just to help it be more comfortable or help you make sense of it. And that's what a lot of what we're trying to do too. Right. It's trying to help people make sense of. If you are having this.

If you are seeing this stuff, it's really normal.

Ryan: 00:20:30

Yeah.

Peter: 00:20:31

It's just.

Ryan: 00:20:31

Okay.

Peter: 00:20:32

It's just that we're told it's not normal.

Ryan: 00:20:35

Even in the sciences, though. That was really interesting to me.

Is that because our culture's theology tends to be science, and not to say science is theocratic, but that the industry and the mindset around it can become dogmatic. And yet even in the sciences, we're seeing evidence of this kind of thing. They haven't fully become mainstream.

You know, Donald Hoffman had presented his theory, I think he said, like 10 years ago or more. You know, we're talking decades. Ish. And still these things aren't in the mainstream.

And we have quantum sciences and quantum mechanics that operates in our society, even, you know, the quantum computing. And this is. This is science that is mainstream, but it's still taught in Newtonian mechanisms.

Peter: 00:21:34

Right. Well, so, like, we all carry quantum technology in our cell phones. Like, we couldn't have smartphones. We couldn't have this level of micro.

Micro circuitry without applied quantum mechanics.

Ryan: 00:21:48

Right.

Peter: 00:21:49

Which freaks me out. Like, this is something I learned when we're going through Hoffman's stuff.

Ryan: 00:21:55

Yeah.

Peter: 00:21:56

But nobody. It's not that nobody understands it. Look, nobody understands, but it's kind of. I mean, I.

I think what I'm saying is people, like the people who do understand it don't explore the implications of it always. Right, right. It's like I'm just a technician. I'm just doing this because it works.

Ryan: 00:22:16

Right.

Peter: 00:22:17

You know, or, you know, more than a technician, like a theoretical someone, like, with a deep understanding of it. And it's like, let me do these calculations and stuff so that we can make this work without necessarily doing what Carlo Rovelli did.

And so like really thinking about the implications of this and how these discoveries were made and how sense is made of these kind of nonsensical things. And then you can exploit them and use them to achieve effects, and yet you just kind of ignore the magical nature of it.

Like, the magical in the sense of this defies logic. Right, Right. It defies what we know of. It defies Newtonian physics.

Ryan: 00:23:08

Right.

Peter: 00:23:09

Which is what we call the logical world. Because when you get into quantum stuff, it's not logical. It makes mathematical sense. This is. And now we're.

We're veering off to like getting over our heads stuff. Right. But our understanding is it makes mathematical sense.

Ryan: 00:23:24

It is observable.

Peter: 00:23:25

And it is observable, but it doesn't make logical sense.

Ryan: 00:23:29

Which is weird in the way we understand the material world.

Peter: 00:23:32

Right, right. Because it's at that boundary of math and I guess there's a boundary between mathematics. I don't know.

Ryan: 00:23:44

Okay, so just to kind of touch back to the core elements of the perennial wisdom, I have a couple of things here, but the intercon. The interconnectedness and oneness, which we kind of just talked about at length, this recognition that there is a.

Again talking about ego versus true self and what we've talked about with it, that there's this conditioned self. I mean, would you. Would it be fair to. To equate the ego with the condition mind?

That's kind of how I feel like makes the most sense, but that there is this again underlying nature, which to me points back to the oneness and the interconnectedness.

But even in abstract of oneness, the idea that there is a fundamental self that is separate or different from the egoic mind, compassion and right action, meaning the primacy of love and that love as wisdom in motion, the idea of presence and then eternal moment. The now and then.

I did have inner work and transformation, which I think is actually separate from the perennial wisdom insofar as it's not a fundamental nature, but it is a nature of, or an element of the experience of the fundamental essence. So those are the. The core elements that I put down. I don't know if you have anything you would like to add to that.

Peter: 00:25:19

Well, did you touch on presence and surrender and flow?

Ryan: 00:25:23

I mean, I did, but if you have something. Not extensively, I guess.

Peter: 00:25:28

I mean, there are. There are kind of paradoxes in all of this. And my own experience is that awakening introduces paradox and awakening makes paradox. Okay.

Which is to say that that's. That's how that relates to the idea of stepping beyond the conceptual mind or the rational mind.

Because the rational mind is the thing that objects to paradox.

Ryan: 00:25:57

Right.

Peter: 00:25:58

It's like, well, this cannot exist. It's a paradox, which means that it cannot exist. That's what. That's the meaning of it.

And the rational mind is locked to definitions and, you know, binary answers. And it rejects. It rejects. And. And then the experiential moment says, but this is the way it is. This is actually happening right now.

Both of these contrary things are existing in my experience right now.

Ryan: 00:26:26

Yeah.

Peter: 00:26:26

And so the sense of transformation, I mean, it can. Inner work. What do I want to say about that? I mean, that's the general. It's the bell curve. That's the middle of the bell curve. Right.

And as with all human experiences, their human experience, I think, occurs on a bell curve. And there are people who live in the tails.

Ryan: 00:26:47

Yeah.

Peter: 00:26:47

And so kind of saying, there are always exceptions. I mean, so some of this stuff is absolute. Absolutely. And. But things like inner work are not necessarily right because some people just have.

I think it's possible. I think it's possible to have complete transformation without inner work. It's exceptionally rare. I can't name any.

Well, I mean, I know the Buddha definitely had inner work. I'm wondering if Jesus had inner work.

Ryan: 00:27:19

There's a lot of time that's absent from the documents. It's hard to say.

Peter: 00:27:23

Yeah. I mean, so I'm thinking about the Passion, which was a transformative time. And maybe that's part that. That's kind of sucks, like get crucified.

But I mean. But I mean, there's definitely kind of that description of him. He's going through a change. Right, Right. I mean, he's calling. He's.

He's rejecting God and saying, or, you've forsaken me. I mean, it's definitely stuff that he hasn't done before.

Ryan: 00:27:58

Right. On the prayer and the Gethsemane.

Peter: 00:28:02

Right. You know, let this pass from me. And.

Ryan: 00:28:05

Yeah, so there's definitely wrangling going on.

Peter: 00:28:07

Right, Exactly. And so, you know, we're just naming these two major teachers and figures of traditions that kind of illustrate that aspect of.

Of inner work and transformation. But I think it's also possible for people. I mean, I think Eckhart Tolle is. I think.

Ryan: 00:28:30

I don't know his history.

Peter: 00:28:31

I think his history was, I was sitting on a bench and I woke up kind of thing. Like he was, I think, a common thing with modern mystics and modern enlightened beings. Often, they, quote, hit rock bottom.

So I think that's true of Eckhart Tolle, and I think that's true of Byron Katie. But at the same time, I guess what I'm saying is the inner work isn't intentional always that. Maybe that's the difference. Maybe it always happens.

Yeah, it always happens. Like life puts you through hell.

Ryan: 00:29:03

Yeah.

Peter: 00:29:03

Because that's what happens. Like I said, and I think we talked about this. This is another episode where we talked about not having a struggle. Right, right.

And like, oh, all these great teachers have these struggles. You know, Tony Robbins started out with nothing, and da, da, da. And so.

So, for instance, with Tony Robbins, I think the inner worker was apparent, and that's what he teaches, is this is how you do it. Because I did this. Whereas Byron, Katie teaches. This is what. I had an awakening. This is what came to me. I don't know.

At least that's my understanding of it. Like, she hit rock bottom and then she just woke up. And then the work, what she calls the work is these.

The series of questions to ask, of questioning the way you question your thoughts came to her afterwards. Like, it's not like, oh, I decided to start asking myself these questions, and I know I worked on it for a couple years, and then I got healthier.

Ryan: 00:30:04

Right.

Peter: 00:30:05

You know, so I guess that's what I. So when I saw, you know, inner work, I wanted to explore that a little bit. Like, what does that mean? But I think for most people.

For most people, it's a. It's a. It's a journey of effort. It's a part of the question myself. Yeah. I mean, not always.

Ryan: 00:30:25

Yeah.

Peter: 00:30:26

I'm hearing the words coming in my. Out of my mouth, and I'm like, but that's not what I was taught. Like, you know, you know, in.

In some Buddhist tradition or in meditation traditions, some, like, oh, there's no effort.

Ryan: 00:30:40

Right.

Peter: 00:30:41

You know. Well, again, this is paradox. That's why I'm. That's why I'm getting stuck, because I'm trying to talk about this, and I'm real. Well, what about this?

Well, it's paradoxical.

Ryan: 00:30:49

Well, and inner work doesn't necessarily mean effort. I mean, I. This kind of goes back to.

Peter: 00:30:57

That's what we were talking about with Katie and Tolle. It's like they had the work forced on them by their circumstance and their internal process.

Ryan: 00:31:07

So maybe internal work is inner transformation.

Peter: 00:31:10

I think. Yeah. I mean, your system may be working.

Ryan: 00:31:14

Right.

Peter: 00:31:15

Without you, or you may choose to do the work. I guess that's the point is like, you may choose to or you may not have a choice.

Ryan: 00:31:22

Right.

Peter: 00:31:22

But the work is getting done. I guess that's. That's. That's what I was trying to resolve when I saw that. And then. Yeah. Presence, surrender and flow.

Well, and this goes back to art and creation because, I mean, common characteristic of the experience of awakening is surrender. And that is. And flow and kind of ease and non doing and just things happening. And that's also a common description of creative process. Right, Right.

It's. There's no choice. There's no doing. This is happening through me. So I. I don't know. I just wanted to point that out as well.

Kind of the whole point of the episode is what we're saying. Right. It's like how we recognize these things in different contexts.

Ryan: 00:32:20

Right.

Peter: 00:32:21

But they're the same thing.

Ryan: 00:32:22

Exactly.

Peter: 00:32:23

Right. That creative flow of like, oh, this is just happening through me.

That is a characteristic of experiencing this ultimate truth or true self or awakening or all these versions of it. All right, I'm gonna stop.

Ryan: 00:32:44

So one of the things. I'm not gonna go into it because we're kind of pressing time.

But one thing that came up for me that spawned the idea of this episode that then kind of morphed into reconnecting with our original the was. I was reading the Meditations, Marcus Aurelius.

And in book four in particular, there was about eight or nine different passages that really stuck out to me as like, highlighting the perennial wisdom. And that was kind of a light bulb in my head again. It's not like it was a new thing, but it was like, here it is again kind of thing.

And so I wanted to bring it to the group. And I would say, read it.

Read book 4, passages 1, 4, 20, 24, 29, 39, 45 and 48 are the ones that I really pulled out as things that highlighted this one, I think I would like to touch on passage one, which is the mind is fire. It had this metaphorical description of how the fire consumes everything but keeps burning. And so the idea of the fire as like, challenge.

So this kind of points back to what we had discussed before with struggle. Right. Struggle being a catalyst for growth. And here it talks about whenever it's in agreement with nature.

The ruling power within us takes a flexible approach to circumstances, always adapting itself easily to both practicality and the given event. It has no favored material for its work, but sets out on its objects in a conditional way, turning any obstacle into material for its own use.

It's like a fire mastering whatever falls into it.

A small flame would be extinguished, but a bright fire rapidly claims as its own all that it's heaped on it, devours it all and leaps up yet higher in consequence. So what? That when I read that, it immediately jogged this idea of struggle being the fuel and catalyst for growth.

So that was an example of one of the passages that stuck out to me. There was a number of them. They all have different flavors and essences.

All of them, to me, kind of pointed to these core elements of the perennial wisdom. And before. So I also had one question. It wasn't a question. It's a question I'm posing to you.

It was an idea that came to me in contemplating this whole episode and the meditations and all of that was this idea that awakening is the experience of perennial wisdom, and enlightenment is the embodiment of perennial wisdom. And that kind of just popped in my head as kind of referencing conceptually what these are in relation to the perennial wisdom.

And so I wanted to post that to you and see how you feel about that or if you have any.

Peter: 00:36:13

Yeah, I mean, this. This terminology around awakening continues to be a significant challenge that I'm not yet comfortable with because I used.

Okay, so a big part of the problem is that different traditions co op these words in different ways. That's a. That's a significant problem. So if you use the word, then someone from one tradition will say, oh, I know what you're talking about.

That's this. And someone from another tradition will say, oh, I know what you're talking about. It's this, you know, and so that's part of it.

And then the other thing is kind of the question of the ultimate. Because we agree that we're awakening beings and we recognize in each other and we've talked to other people and we are confident in our awakening.

It's not like, I think maybe I'm starting to wake. It's like, no, we're awakening. But are we enlightened?

Ryan: 00:37:13

Right.

Peter: 00:37:13

And we think like, yeah, we're not enlightened, and what's the difference? And. And then I. I came across something that talked about liberation. Oh, liberation. That's what enlightenment is, liberation. But what does that mean?

Ryan: 00:37:27

Right.

Peter: 00:37:28

Ooh. Actually, we could jump on a call this afternoon and ask that question. Yeah.

So when you ask something like that, I don't know, it's so, you know, to find the words for this stuff, it's very hard. And I don't feel like I have an experience of liberation, enlightenment that I can. Well, yeah, I mean, in a way, I think that maybe.

Okay, my experience of awakening, which is very, very clear, is. This is so tricky. The experience of it is transient. The awakening is not transient. It's there always.

But it's very, very easy to turn away from it, to get distracted from it, to not be able to see it because of conditioning, because I'm upset, blah, blah, blah. I'm tired. And so, you know, our idealization is, oh, there's a time or place or person or experience where it's no longer transient. Right, Right.

There's just this permanent experience of that oneness, that flow, that freedom, that ease. All this stuff is just permanent and you never disturbed. And we have this concept, but I don't know. I don't know whether it really exists.

I guess that's what I'm saying, because that's. That. That's what I would call enlightenment or liberation.

And yet, you know, I always go back to the Buddhist story, the Buddhist tradition, and, you know, the stories of Buddhist Buddha having tea with Mara or Mara's showing up. And so the point is that Buddha was enlightened. I mean, he had said long, like years previously, I am awakened. I am fully enlightened.

And yet he was still dealing with Mara, which is conditioning, which is negative thoughts and emotions. So he's welcoming. He has a really good relationship with Mara. But Mars not absent.

Ryan: 00:39:44

Right.

Peter: 00:39:45

So that makes me think, oh, well, then there is no absence of Mara. There's no absence of Mara. There's just like, oh, there's anger, there's irritation, there's fear. Yeah, okay.

You know, and it's just that relationship. So I don't know. That's why I'm. I don't know what to say about enlightenment. I guess that.

I guess that's my idea is that it's just developing that warm, healthy relationship With Mara. Okay. All right. Sorry. I'm just kind of talking this out. I'm kind of teaching myself honestly at the moment.

So in my experience, when, like this other day when I.

Last Thursday, when I said, oh, I had this deep experience, when you're seeing things that way, you're seeing all the conditioning, and it's still there. It's not like, oh, I'm free of my conditioning. I'm not gonna get angry anymore. It's like, no, I'm gonna get angry. It's okay. And there's just this.

I wanted to comment when you talked about the ego versus the true self, right? And that they're separate, but they're not because the self includes the ego. Like, that's the nature of the self.

And this is going to the split brain stuff, right? Left hemisphere, right hemisphere, the left side. The rational side rejects the right side and says, like, yeah, this imagination, this is imaginary.

It's. It's stupid. It's not rational. It's. It's not real. I'm. I'm the verbal side. Everything I tell you is true.

Anything I don't tell you is not true because it can't be expressed in words. So it's not valid. And the right side of the brain says, it's okay, I accept you.

And I have my experience, and I experience oneness and I experience all this, and I experience your verbal ability as being valuable and blah, blah, blah. And so that's my experience of that. It's not. It's really hard to say. It's not separate. It's not separate. It's this. It's. It's this other thing.

This doesn't make any sense.

Because if you're in the rational state, if you're in a rational state, you can imagine this non rational, magical way of being, but it's imaginary because you're. You're thinking and it's imaginary. And if you're in an awakening experience, it's not imaginary. It's present and absolute.

And it's also not rejecting the rational. And so I don't know how to describe it. It's separate. It's different. It's different, but it's not separate. How's that different?

But it's not separate because this awakening experience that's so different is not separate from anything, right? That's the characteristic of it. It's all inclusive, which is the characteristic.

Ryan: 00:42:47

Of fundamental nature, right? In itself, right?

Peter: 00:42:51

So anyway, I hope I'm not confusing anyone because I'm confusing, like, I'm just Trying to talk out of my present experience of confusion. Talking about is confusing. Being in it is the opposite of confusing. It's really clear. It's really like.

And you just laugh and like, wow, everything's okay. It's like, okay, you know, this idea of. This idea of right and wrong dichotomy and you gotta choose this and choose that and this is.

This is good and that's bad. It's all just, just laughable. I mean, yeah, it's. Anyway, sorry.

Ryan: 00:43:35

Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode of Tracking Wisdom podcast and this conversation and this musing on the perennial Wisdom. We've enjoyed this exploration over the past few years. I think we look forward to continuing to explore this and find it.

Peter: 00:43:58

And thank you for being with us.

Ryan: 00:44:02

Absolutely. So that'll do it for today. Next episode.

I do want to go into the Perennial Wisdom a little bit deeper and a little bit more academic, I suppose, insofar as there's two schools of thought, two perspectives or two philosophies around perennialism itself. And I thought they were very interesting. They come from. They have their unique essences. And I think that both bringing awareness to what they.

How, what they present, and also giving our take on the two different avenues will be interesting. I think that we each. This is my assumption. Or from what I.

I think we each land just shy on either side of this spectrum, but I think by and large, we kind of embrace a blend hybrid of both. So anyways, that'll be on the next one. Thank you for joining us. Until next time, stay open, stay curious and keep tracking wisdom.

Peter: 00:45:16

Thank you for listening to the Tracking Wisdom podcast. Join us next time as we continue the discussion.

Don't forget to follow us on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube and visit www.eth-studio.com for more information and content. Yeah, I'm just kind of sinking in a little because it was interesting. Yeah, it's interesting how I got back to that direct experience.

I know I'm reconnecting with my session last Thursday, which was after this session with Clea.