Transcript
[0:05] Let's see. Hello teacher. Uh recently
[0:08] during a plant medicine ceremony intense
[0:10] energies were unlocked from the lower
[0:12] energy centers naval down.
[0:15] This is the first time on my spiritual
[0:16] path that I have felt a kind of
[0:18] fragmentation and terror where things
[0:21] started to feel so out of control that I
[0:23] thought I might actually go insane and
[0:25] really damage or harm myself.
[0:27] Before that experience, I had a strong
[0:29] experience of how traditions and
[0:30] lineages serve of as anchors or guiding
[0:33] lights that allow us to
[0:36] further let go and surrender without
[0:38] getting lost in intense experiences.
[0:41] What I'm now curious about
[0:43] is when I was swept into this space, I
[0:46] felt like there was a complete loss of
[0:48] any support or resource from any
[0:50] spiritual insight, groundedness in
[0:53] spirit, prayer, connection to anything
[0:56] trustworthy and positive that has been
[0:58] with me so far on my path.
[1:01] This left this underlying new experience
[1:05] of fear that I might just lose it at any
[1:07] moment.
[1:08] Shortly after the experience, I felt
[1:10] grounded in spirit, connected to masters
[1:13] that have walked before me,
[1:15] and prayerful again, and I am not scared
[1:18] of the underlying
[1:20] terrorful
[1:21] ex- feelings that have been unlocked,
[1:24] and I have a good sense that what I need
[1:26] to do is carefully bit by Listen to
[1:29] this.
[1:30] I have a good sense that what I need to
[1:33] do is carefully bit by bit invite these
[1:38] energies up, and that I can do I can do
[1:42] so with developing a deeper sense of
[1:44] patience and gentleness in the process.
[1:50] Still, I would like you to share on this
[1:52] topic as I know you have had many
[1:54] challenges after your ego death
[1:56] experience. Could you also talk about
[1:59] what is the difference between a
[2:00] spiritually significant and positive ego
[2:02] death experience and an experience that
[2:04] is just too much
[2:05] and can potentially send a person into a
[2:08] deeply disassociative
[2:10] and or excite psychotic state with deep
[2:13] love and appreciation. Diesen, thank you
[2:16] for this Diesen. It's a It's a timely
[2:18] question, you know, as all sorts of
[2:20] different
[2:22] hallucinogenic drugs and plant medicines
[2:25] and
[2:27] all sorts of stuff have sort of
[2:29] re-emerged. I kind of feel like it's a
[2:31] little bit like the 60s all over again
[2:33] with the
[2:34] with the drug stuff, but I know it's
[2:36] it's a different a little different
[2:37] angle and everything. Um I think it's a
[2:39] bit more serious now.
[2:41] Which is a good thing.
[2:43] Um but what Diesen really talks about
[2:46] here, if we go back to the beginning
[2:48] during a plant medicine ceremony,
[2:51] um
[2:53] felt some kind fragmentation and tear
[2:55] where things started to feel so out of
[2:56] control I thought I might actually go
[2:58] insane and really damage or harm myself.
[3:02] Um
[3:03] what a powerful drug
[3:05] does is it takes
[3:08] the whole thing out of your hands.
[3:11] That's what it does. That is the beauty
[3:14] of it and that's the potential danger of
[3:17] it. It's both.
[3:18] Um the beauty of it it can take it out
[3:20] of your hands so your hesitations, your
[3:23] doubts, your conditionings, your holding
[3:25] on
[3:26] um
[3:27] basically can mean nothing. Like this
[3:30] whatever that unfolding is going to be
[3:32] under that experience, it's going to
[3:33] happen no matter what in some
[3:36] circumstances, right? You're not going
[3:37] to be able to change the orientation.
[3:41] Um
[3:43] and so it's that that's why people often
[3:45] use these things, right? So that it can
[3:47] so that their own blocks don't sort of
[3:51] get in the way. So something bigger and
[3:52] stronger than them can take them beyond
[3:55] them.
[3:56] Okay, in a certain sense, all well and
[3:58] good if that goes well and good.
[4:00] It doesn't always go well and good.
[4:03] Um
[4:05] you can have so everything just yanked
[4:07] away from you and you can feel there's
[4:10] no control in this whatsoever and that
[4:13] can just be really really really
[4:15] terrifying.
[4:16] Um I think you experience a lot of the
[4:18] fair amount of that fear yourself dies
[4:20] in.
[4:21] Um I know at that very moment people
[4:24] would be going, "Oh, just let go into
[4:25] ego death. Let go." Okay, great. If that
[4:28] goes well,
[4:29] good.
[4:31] And yet I've met plenty of the people
[4:32] coming to me
[4:34] where that didn't go well. So, I have a
[4:37] little bit of a
[4:39] you know, I'm
[4:41] I'm glad there's a lot more research
[4:43] going on. I think to me, the biggest
[4:47] aspect of of all the research that's
[4:49] being done is the potential it might
[4:51] help with people who have sort of
[4:53] untreatable depression issues and some
[4:57] anxiety issues, different issues that
[4:58] are just untreatable sometimes.
[5:01] Um some of these plant medicines, if
[5:02] they're done in a in an actual
[5:04] professional manner,
[5:06] um can be can have shown to be helpful.
[5:10] But,
[5:11] there's also dangers with them and I
[5:13] don't think the dangers are emphasized
[5:15] enough.
[5:16] I don't mean to scare anybody, but I
[5:19] think but I I always chosen to be
[5:21] truthful.
[5:23] Um and I've seen plenty of people
[5:25] who it's just been too too much.
[5:29] And it kind of fractures their mind and
[5:31] they come back and it comes back
[5:33] together and, you know, okay, but
[5:35] they're terrified or they're scared or
[5:37] they're scared of opening cuz they think
[5:39] opening
[5:40] is going to be associated with the same
[5:42] way it is on the drug experience and
[5:45] spiritual openings without drug
[5:48] uh enhancement are they feel different.
[5:51] They they feel somewhat different. They
[5:53] they can be challenging at times still.
[5:55] But they're different. So, I'm very well
[5:58] aware of the
[5:59] the help that people have gotten.
[6:01] I've met hundreds of people that kind of
[6:04] had some sort of drug experience as what
[6:06] I'd call a door opener. It showed them
[6:09] what was possible and potential and it
[6:11] helped them get into a a deeper form of
[6:14] spirituality.
[6:16] So, I mean I could go on and on and on,
[6:18] but I that's not really my area of
[6:20] expertise. It's not really uh I can't I
[6:24] don't really want to go on and on with
[6:26] it. However,
[6:28] um
[6:32] at the end of this, to get to Daisen's
[6:34] question, could you talk a little bit
[6:36] about the difference between spiritually
[6:38] significant and positive ego death
[6:39] experience and an experience that is too
[6:42] much and can potentially send a person
[6:44] into dissociative dissociative and
[6:46] psychotic states.
[6:49] There's a reason
[6:51] that traditionally, and I mean
[6:54] over generations and generations and
[6:56] generations who've done this stuff for a
[6:58] long, long, long time.
[7:00] I in those traditions, those mystical
[7:03] traditions,
[7:04] all of them have basically come out and
[7:08] talked about the importance of certain
[7:11] kind of grounding.
[7:13] And in spirituality, there's certain
[7:15] kind of spiritually grounding, you know,
[7:18] exercises. That's I think that's
[7:20] often why a lot of yoga was developed to
[7:22] open up energetic pathways. So, when
[7:24] energy does get evoked, it's a little it
[7:27] has it's a little more open and it can
[7:29] move freely and and there was all these
[7:32] preliminary practices, which today
[7:34] nobody wants to do any preliminary
[7:35] practice. You know, they just like,
[7:37] "Just just get me to the top of the
[7:38] mountain, man." That's it.
[7:40] >> [laughter]
[7:41] >> I understand that, but it's a very sort
[7:43] of modern mindset and it doesn't pay
[7:46] respect
[7:48] really
[7:49] to the subtleties of the human psyche.
[7:52] Uh
[7:57] and the subtleties of the human psyche,
[7:59] then things get a little bit more
[8:00] complex.
[8:02] You know, if you're ready
[8:05] to have your ego blasted into oblivion,
[8:08] great. When it happens,
[8:10] you're all right.
[8:12] It's still going to be a heck of a ride.
[8:15] If you're not,
[8:16] it can be utterly terrifying.
[8:19] Um
[8:29] So, I'm not the kind of teacher that
[8:31] likes to tell people what to do or not
[8:32] to do and I'm not even sure in this
[8:34] whole realm
[8:35] uh anymore cuz I've seen people that
[8:37] have been really, really helped by plant
[8:38] medicine and I've also seen seen people
[8:41] that have been really, really hurt by
[8:42] it.
[8:43] And I know every time I mention to this
[8:44] to teachers that use plant medicine,
[8:47] they never want to hear anything about
[8:48] it and to me that's very disturbing.
[8:51] There should be a place
[8:55] where
[8:56] the challenges that come up in plant
[8:59] medicine usage or drug usage um they
[9:02] need to be talked a lot more. There
[9:04] needs to be a lot more honesty about
[9:06] what's going on out there.
[9:08] Um cuz like I said, I
[9:11] often see
[9:13] you know, I've seen a lot hundreds of
[9:14] people that have been helped. I have to
[9:16] admit that and it's been really
[9:17] wonderful and I'm glad they've been
[9:19] helped by it.
[9:21] And I've also met a lot of people who
[9:23] who really just had the the [ __ ] scared
[9:25] out of them.
[9:27] Um
[9:29] and so
[9:31] just be intelligent.
[9:33] Don't assume
[9:35] that you're ready. Be very patient, be
[9:38] careful. Be careful about your settings,
[9:42] um your preparation,
[9:44] um
[9:46] and don't think that this is going to be
[9:48] the golden way to enlightenment. It's
[9:50] not. It opens doors. That can be nice.
[9:54] Um but enlightenment is not an altered
[9:58] state of It's not an altered state. It's
[10:00] not like being on any drug I've ever
[10:03] been on. It's nothing like it.
[10:06] And I've had you not and not united
[10:07] experiences my 20s, you know, with the
[10:10] drug of mushrooms or whatever it was.
[10:12] And then when I had it without that,
[10:14] when it just came on its own,
[10:16] there's some similarities, but it's not
[10:19] it's not the same. It's not exactly the
[10:21] same.
[10:22] Um we don't The goal isn't to have a
[10:25] consciousness that feels like you're,
[10:29] you know, on the drug all the time. Um
[10:32] so, the people have gotten the insights
[10:34] and really good things with them and
[10:36] helped them with all manner of things,
[10:38] wonderful. I'm really happy for you.
[10:40] There is some I do believe there is some
[10:42] great and amazing potential in all this.
[10:45] I think a lot more research needs to be
[10:48] done, right? It's It's too haphazard for
[10:50] my my feeling right now. So,
[10:54] ego death experiences are always a
[10:57] little bit shocking.
[10:59] But when they kind of happen naturally
[11:01] without a chemical prompt,
[11:04] um See, this is the thing about a
[11:06] chemical or a plant. They tend to not
[11:09] have
[11:11] a sense of timing.
[11:13] Whether is this the good timing for
[11:15] things to open up like this for you or
[11:17] not. The plant The chemical is just
[11:19] like, "Boom, we just opened it up. Ready
[11:21] or not, doesn't matter. We're not It's
[11:23] not even thinking It's not even That's
[11:25] not part of what it's
[11:26] thinking about. It's not It's not
[11:28] thinking at all, right? It's a drug, for
[11:30] God's sake.
[11:32] And so readiness
[11:34] is a really, really, really important
[11:37] part of this.
