Ego Spirit Continuum With Ebenezer Chinedu Eneh (What Is Now?)

Hey there.

So in this session we have another guest explorer and his name is Ebenezer Chinedu Enneh.

He's a medical student at the University of California,

San Francisco and he's interested in particularly visualization and the impact of visual on the way we think.

And he's also interested in exploring individualistic versus collective societies and how those different perspectives might affect one's experience of the truth.

And so we went a little bit longer than usual today so I hope you enjoy that.

And it was a lot of fun for us.

So without further ado let's jump in with me,

Sakib and Ebenezer and begin with this one minute.

Welcome to the What Is Now experience.

We begin with one minute of silence and then explore whatever arises.

So please join us for this one minute of doing nothing.

Thank you.

Thank you.

How was your experience today?

I'm just resting in it for a moment.

It's also noticing the silence afterward and especially with three of us here today and like the maybe the urge to move in to say something but also kind of nice to I have my eyes closed for that time and then to open it up and we're all just kind of sitting here in this silence.

Something kind of nice about that.

I also noticed right as right towards the end of that period of silence something I kind of like in meditation or whatever you might call it is it seems like when I get into a certain space or maybe particularly a physical posture stuff will happen like noises in my body or gas being released and that kind of stuff and that happened towards the end and I had a little burp to express.

I don't know if you heard it or not but that's something that I've enjoyed.

I might have mentioned it in here before but I burped one time in meditation like pretty loudly and this might feel weird to say but I farted too in that meditation and both of those noises or experiences to me felt like expressions of truth.

It's this thing that's coming out of you and it's not in my control but it's also happening through me and that it feels like it's an expression of truth in some way that's happening.

And also maybe interesting in that they're both things that might generally be perceived as bad or gross or something negative about them.

I guess they might have smells but those are also being interpreted in a particular way.

So that's one thing that I noticed a lot in that period of silence for me.

Also a ton of energy sort of exploding out of my core which I've noticed in these particularly in when we have group meetings like this when there's three of us a lot more energy for me.

But yeah just a couple things.

I don't know what about for you too.

Yeah I think it's I think it's funny that you had a meditation and you didn't part it like it's true but also also sort of like when you think about meditation or whatnot it's at least in modern times it seems so like esoteric in a sense but that normalizes that you know it's like it's not like you're you're coming to terms with yourself in a sense but you're also still a human you know like you still do human things.

For me during the moment of silence I was I felt a lot of excitement you know like I'm kind of like nervous excitement you know I've never I haven't done something like this before so there was that and then also and all the things that came with that but then after like kind of like acknowledging that and getting and moving past that there is also like I'm interested like the stuff that I've been doing throughout the week came up especially like the books that I've that I've been reading and I'm I'm curious to hear y'all's perspective on it or at least at least to share some some of the things that I found really profound.

And what was that what was the most profound thing for you?

I mean I think the most profound thing for me was is Carl Jung's description of his of like consciousness versus unconsciousness.

I up until that point it really kind of hit me what that he was basically stating that that the that everything that we experience is just a point right and then there's a whole all the things that we think we are it's just this one aspect and there's a whole personality behind that that is influencing everything like the way we moved our beliefs our fears are all other aspects and he kind of described being the the individual being at a crossroads or the junction between the consciousness like the consciousness who wants to understand but can't and then the subconscious who wants to understand and wants to express but is unable to and and traversing that relationship as I'm as I'm reading it just it just hits me the kind of the depth of what that entails and the the idea that you may not be in control of everything that you've done up until this point was like shocking.

What was the the title of the book again?

It's called memory I think it's just like memory dreams and reflections memories dreams and reflections Carl Jung.

Yeah yeah yeah.

Did you say you've read that Sakeet?

No I haven't read that I have like read it in part some of its parts but yeah I can totally relate to what Ebenezer is saying about you know this yearning of the conscious mind to learn everything but not being able to learn everything because it is the unconscious that is learning everything because the conscious is only you know can have taken only limited experiences whereas the whereas the unconscious is taking in everything and I remember when I read that for the first time that was also very eye-opening for me that yes you know we we think that we grasp every everything in the now in the moment but there is such a narrow perspective to our to our vision usually in in this in this human context that maybe when I'm you know I'm saying I'm in the now here I'm looking at the screen but my conscious is taking the contents of the screen however my unconscious might not be also be taking the contents of what's happening you know on the right side of me on the left side on the back of me so that's something I could I could relate to the now you know what you mentioned.

It's making me think of and there are a couple of things in there that were really interesting one thing I have a response here but I wanted to just mark something you said that I that I thought was a cool way of saying it was like coming to terms with yourself sounded like a description maybe of meditation and so I just wanted to to restate that and maybe just to remind me to come back to that again or not even in this conversation again in my life at some point so I thought that was a cool way of putting it but what you're describing there about Carl Jung and like this point sort of of consciousness and then this whole vast thing behind it of maybe what you could call unconscious or subconscious or maybe everything reminds me of an experience I had one day where it was quite a bit of meditation going on and a lot of stillness and a lot of reflection and I remember sort of thinking about it's almost as if at least for me I'd be interested for both of you it's almost as if there's this so there's this whole story of like Charles and of my life and my experiences and the way that I view things or my opinions about things or the way I would do things maybe the way I walk or say certain things or like all of this stuff is accumulated and collected and gathered over time and it makes up what feels like this kind of this sort of structure of my life and the story of my life almost as if it's like behind here somewhere this big like and I'm pointing behind my head this big like structure that lives here almost like a building and all the stuff is in there and like I know it's there but I had some experience of like it's almost like I was looking for that thing and I'm pointing kind of across my face and over my head back to where it might have felt like that structure was and kind of like looking there and there being nothing there at all like it's just like kind of grasping for this thing that has felt like it's so solid and is this structure of like so much that maybe there's like nothing there to grab and almost like grasping at air for this thing that you thought was so solid and then there's like nothing and then back to just this point that I'm in right now which maybe makes up everything and which on one side could be a maybe a real relieving of a ton of weight that you one had felt there but also potentially scary experience because a lot of that is like a foundation or a groundedness of your whole existence and then to not have that would be like to lose so much of what makes sense of life and just you mentioning that point and the thing behind it that was that's like the image that came up for me and it's still something that I continue to experience and I've shifted more into it being a liberating thing but there is still also like kind of the scariness sometimes or the like the lack of groundedness that goes along with the airiness of that structure that I used to perceive as the solid thing behind me that carries all of my story and maybe is all of the unconscious and everything so maybe in a way it's there but not in a way that I can ever really hold on to so I don't know if any of that's making sense or what like or what comes up for both of you when I share about that.

I think what comes up for me is I recently remember we did a session together Charles and I was introducing myself in that session and I just know that you have mentioned this identity that we you know hold on to kind of which you feel at the back of your head so usually for me it's inside the head you know like it's a collection of memories that is inside my head and whenever asks me that you know who I am and I have to give my introduction so I would refer to that and pick up those memories from you know those parts of the brain and I would throw that to the person and recently I remember having this experience when we were doing a session just yesterday I believe and I was giving my introduction and I thought that is this really necessary do I really need to tell who I was or do I just am in this moment and the other person can simply experience me in this moment because what I am saying about myself is actually it's gone it's no more relevant you know so I can totally relate to what you are saying because it's scary also because that's like giving up the identity whatever we did till date you know so all the university degrees and the job positions and everything giving up everything and then just being in this moment it's it's actually scary but actually that's beautiful as well because now I'm not defined by what I was and I'm just you know here in this moment and the other person can experience me as that it could be a cool way to introduce yourself if if you were like so rewind back to that meeting and like you're called on to introduce yourself and in some way you state that like there is a collection of story about me but that story is actually totally intangible and isn't real ultimately but I am here in front of you and and this is me even beyond you know the name that I have that you might call me so hello that what you both said also like it excites me listening to it because it triggers like another part in in his book when and this part like is is really hard for me to really to understand at this point or to fully grasp when he's older he begins he like talks about about death right and he has an experience in which he has in which he basically almost dies right and and has his vision and in this vision it involves him shedding all his connections to to the world to like earth right and coming to a point of acceptance that everything that he ever of acceptance of like full self understanding that this is it essentially and the and the bliss and the bliss coupled with the the emptiness at the same time like really reminded me of what you were talking about Charles and for for a young person that talking about talking about that or even thinking about that it's less bliss more emptiness because it's like because you I mean you don't want at least for me I don't want to give all the the future seems like there's so much out there to do to experience and it's such a uncomfortable sort of feeling to to even begin like think about oh it could be it could be gone like in 10 seconds from now you know I'm curious what what y'all like what your perspectives on on that is whether you could offer some some insights because it ties into the grasping for ties into the self or what the or what you believe yourself it is coming to grab coming to terms with the really coming to terms with the idea that that's that that's arbitrary in a sense and then but continuously doing that you know living in that way you just mentioned I think I'm you just mentioned this idea of you know that that you see because you feel that being a young person it becomes really difficult for to let go of that idea and I was then I it came to my mind that okay maybe this idea of being a young person this again is also you know kind of information that we get from maybe this idea that we are holding on to in in our minds and what actually then that brought me to the question that what actually is young and what actually is old and so that you know this I think this convo as you were speaking this at the back of my head this conversation was also going on that young as in young with age and young or or maybe you know that youth can be different for different people so maybe someone who is let's say in terms of this labeling as an age someone is 50 years old they can have that still youth inside them of wanting to experience more of life and not wanting to let go of you know the identity that we are talking about and maybe someone who is in the age wise 20 years old maybe is is okay with letting go of the identity that we are talking about so this idea of young also kind of seems to be a construct here it makes me think of the how we can experience time so differently depending on our state of mind or the type of presence that we bring to something like when we stop for a minute to do nothing it might still feel maybe fast but it probably feels a lot more spacious than if we were engaged in something otherwise or just engaged in like tasks or your typical thinking or on your phone or something like that and how to have more and more of your experience be one of that openness it's making me yeah think of that question of what does it mean to be old or young or or maybe like an old person could have a had a life that was not very open and spacious up until a certain point and then something might happen where they shift into more of an awareness of this like point experience that is actually right here and then you could have one year maybe that is like longer or fuller than your whole life up until that point which is exciting for me to think of you Ebeneezer like considering this stuff at your point in life and I mean I mean maybe ultimately it's it's no different if so someone is on their deathbed and they become fully aware they might have the full experience that that you potentially could even at a young age but it just feels exciting for me it's making me wonder now and think about how you sort of became aware of this or if you if you feel like this is something that sort of has been a part of you this curiosity or this openness your whole life or something what if you want to share kind of triggered it to become more a part of your experience also because it feels like and this is how it feels generally to me but it doesn't matter your age like in in these kind of conversations specifically for example it it doesn't feel like maybe me and Sakib have any more authority on what we're exploring here than than you do or what anyone does because we're just exploring something that is beyond kind of all of us and that we're each authorities on it if we're just being honest and open and present so yeah that's a couple different thoughts in different directions yeah well I think to Sakib's point the the construct of young versus old like that's that's a that's that's fair like perhaps it's just in my mind that like who's perhaps it is just in my mind is as far as oh I'm a young person versus an old person and I'm not and I'm constructing that I also think that that's like in a large part a result of the kind of system that I'm in that we're all in and and our propensity or our obsession with time that like pushes us towards achieving more and greater things because we're like it's almost like we're racing against against an inevitable inevitability so thanks for pointing that out to me rather but at the same time it's harder to it's easier said than than done to come to terms with that I don't I suppose I've always been some like as a kid I really enjoyed reading about like mythology and and really learning about different histories different cultures and how people how people thought and moved in the world and I think and and I don't know I suppose it hits me a little bit more strongly or at least I top like themes or themes are around around that or the or the transientness of life seem to be there's there really uncomfortable questions or an ideas that I don't that I'm I don't know it's it's it seemed I don't know that I'm asking these questions earlier than most than people normally do you know yeah I don't know what I'm doing that but it's but they seem to be such big questions without without answers and when I look at what what exactly I want to do with my life you know from reading and from like looking at what other people have done essentially those who found fulfillment also do something that that ties into that essential question of like of like what what occurs when you've done everything you know when there's nothing when you don't have the time to do anything else I hope I'm making sense the thing I'm wondering is what the discomfort is like yeah how would you describe it it's it's like it's like a not a queasy feeling but but on a feeling of like on stillness like in my like in my stomach when I think about the idea that I could be I could be gone you know that's that's where that's what that's what happens yeah and it's like it's like it's it's a that's that's basically what it is like a weird weird portion or convulsion in a sense like within my within my stomach yeah it sounds like a begins with maybe a more kind of intellectual or philosophical exploration or consideration of something which triggers a feeling that kind of finds itself in the in the gut in some way or some kind of nauseous unsettled feeling yeah I'm just kind of sitting with that feeling for myself because that's something that I can connect to I wonder how at the core for everyone or how much at the core for everyone there is kind of that pit of the stomach or like dropping sensation feeling that lives down there with these questions or like the question of death and maybe it triggers something the first thing I'm thinking of also I would want you to maybe it would be hard for you to feel comfortable to say that but I I wouldn't want you like to push you to share like more about the feeling because I can feel myself moving into the mode that I'm typically in like throughout the week which is when I work with individuals and I just think this is so interesting and it like my typical mode would be to move into the sensation and to like break the whole thing down and to see what the experience is now and how this continually is a new experience and how like we we inevitably have the tendency to turn it into like a thing a certain week maybe it's an existential anxiety or something like that it becomes kind of a familiar category in a way but for me like one of the best answers to such a feeling is to engage with it creatively and like playfully and to see what it's like now in this moment and to get detailed with it and even to be more on the imaginative side with it like what does it even look like it is what's the texture of it what what does it say to you and because that probably might be different for for everyone and or then what do you or maybe it says nothing and that could be frustrating or what do you say back to it I'm just thinking of all this for myself because I can feel that like nauseous kind of feeling that's down there in the in the pit of my stomach and maybe is related kind of back to what I was describing of the looking for that structure of myself and not finding anything and there's some kind of terror feeling but there's also like wow this is amazing like this is it and I'm fully here and alive feeling at the same time it's making me think of the term like the quote unquote ego or the thinking mind that maybe is is sort of on the cusp of being seen through and that sensation is is like a freak out of the maybe the bigger you kind of becoming aware or becoming awake and this other you that has been in control this whole time and has been playing by the rules of the game and sees this like this system thing as the ultimate reality and I have to play by these rules and and win in a particular way it's like there's something that's calling to show you something beyond it all not to say that that the the system is is unreal necessarily but it puts it in a different perspective which could maybe be a terrifying and nauseating thing for that part of all of us that is very tied to there being a like a me and a Charles and a certain making sense of my life and and and a complete in comprehensive incomprehensibility of what it would mean for me to not exist like for Charles to no longer be in terms of death like maybe this really scary thing there is the unknown because it's just beyond any comprehension of what that would even mean so I've yeah I really appreciate your your willingness to go into that area and also to share about your sort of in the moment experience and I certainly relate to it yeah wondering what what that's like for you or Saka or what this brings up for you yeah I think as I was listening to you I could feel I was just bringing my awareness to my chest what am I feeling right now here maybe you know these questions and I was kind of repeating the question in my mind about death and about you know losing this identity and you know because as Ebenezer said that it's easier said than done you know we can say here okay let's lose our identity or let's lose this idea of age that we have but it actually when we go you know when we end this session and we go into our world it becomes we we start behaving that we usually you know we will then identify ourselves with it we will identify ourselves with this identity but and I remember a time when I used to have a lot of anxiety around this myself and it was even a you know phase in my life when I was very nihilistic about existence that maybe nothing exists you know this everything is just illusion and you know there's no point in even you know existing maybe but then I watched this video on YouTube and it was by Rupert Spira and in which in which he was talking about the excitement of existence and he was saying that how exciting it is to not know because for someone who knows everything it's like a boring kind of state you know I know all the answers maybe someone like for example right now what comes to my mind is someone like a Buddha maybe you know who's enlightened it's like I know everything so now what is there to know but this state in which we are in which we don't know these answers to these questions existential questions it's a very exciting state to be in because now we have the opportunity to learn and know it's like a you know excitement that a kid has that oh you know what is this world around me and I need to figure that out and it's like going up the ladder and growing in each and every moment exploring that so when I when I listen to that we do I my perspective totally changed and I was like yeah he's absolutely right even this idea of you know existing even this idea of just waking up and seeing that you know there is a world around me it is so beautiful it is so wonderful to explore because now there are so many things to explore and I can explore what this existence is about and it's exciting that you know even that there is a ball of fire in the sky and we call it a sun we don't even know what that is maybe it's so exciting to know about that and to know about everything so that actually changed my perspective and however you know still at times I feel that anxiety as you mentioned but gradually it has started becoming exciting.

It's making me think of the the energy that I think a few maybe all of us talked about at the beginning of this meeting too we were in the period of silence and there maybe being some anxious energy and also just energy I think mine could probably be described as both anxious and just energy but I felt and still feel a ton of energy because maybe it's it goes along with that realm of the unknown which which is interesting maybe on one side it's just two different perspectives on one side that's a scary thing on the other it's like a really fun thing and I was just you mentioned the Buddha and I wonder if someone like that maybe they they know everything but it reminds me of that line it might be Socrates or something it's like all I know is that I know nothing and that that that's maybe the deepest knowing but then that makes everything exciting and interesting and like I don't know what's going to happen when I walk back out of this office and what things will look like out there or what the rest of my evening will be like I have some idea and that idea might give me some sense of control over it but it's also going to really limit what my experience could be of it like I know I'm planning to get some Iranian food and I'm excited about that but I also want to just be totally open to the experience of it it's the I've been thinking a lot about duality recently this this is making me think of that and how it just maybe plays out in everything like there's the just this constant back and forth dynamic that is playing out in every moment of and so maybe in this case sort of the knee that inevitably seeks control or is functioning in the world and then the bigger me that is not bound by any of that and that is like beyond time and space and that is totally alive and can just see how amazing this experience is but that both are there and it's almost like I'm constantly sort of shifting back and forth between them I wonder if they can be together if that makes sense or if you're if we just sort of inevitably might go back and forth or maybe you might just have an existence that is all on the one side of ego or all on the other side maybe of you could call it spirituality or if there's something where you kind of have both of those together yeah that the as you were as you were speaking a few things came up first with like the duality piece like when I first like found out about like wellness and mindfulness and all that I myself and like my group of friends were like okay we're gonna get rid of our egos basically like ego death transcending everything you know don't think type of type of mindset but I found that like I found that that's not that's not necessarily correct right because we were doing it in a sense that okay we're gonna do this and it's gonna we're gonna get to the next level but there are many ways to get to that next level and as far as duality goes you could think you can take a like think about it from like a societal perspective and say there are people living on ego ego to like spirit no ego continuum and you'll find people on each side and perhaps as a human consciousness we then are able to enter interact with both parts of the spectrum but then on a personal on a personal note it's like I mean you could say ego versus no ego good versus good versus bad or whatnot and like being able to to touch or or talk to both parts and and and accept or at the very least acknowledge thoughts which come from various aspects the various parts without necessarily repressing them and then allowing yourself the fullness of decision making like capacity or capability so really as you're living life you you can you're you can interact or or or be a part of both worlds and find like a more wholesome existence I think there's the there's a I think it's tau there's like a I think a Chinese principle that that reflects that which I thought which I think is like pertinent to what we're what we're talking about so it makes me think of the term within within Daoism of Wu Wei at least that's what I've heard it called which is or Wu Wei Wu I think which is like action in inaction or the term just might be inaction but it's a way of acting without acting but it's inherently paradoxical and there's also I think a line from from Lao Tzu the assumed author of the Tao Te Ching which is says something like all truth is essentially paradoxical in nature because I guess for it to be true it has to comprise the the duality or the poles but so to express something that is true will sound paradoxical and nonsensical maybe in nature because it's holding both pieces at the same time yeah I think what Ebenezer also mentioned that my mind is there about being wholesome and having this wholesome experience of life from you know the spectrum of no ego to ego and I was thinking that how I was in my mind just trying to imagine how does that situation look like because on one as you mentioned Charles previously that on one end it's like you know having a lot of a lot of ego that okay I am this I am that and I want this I want that on the other end of the spectrum is this no no ego in which basically there is no I you know there is no I and this concept of I itself is like a construct but then I was thinking of okay what can be you know maybe an existence which is abroad which is kind of paradoxical as what you said right now which Lao Tzu said in which everything is encompassed or wholesome you know existence then I was thinking maybe is it something like in which I am existing in this body but I am also feeling that oneness with everyone existence maybe you know in that case it might be that and I am just you know thinking this I am not sure if this is even right again and right and wrong but also this is just concepts that I have this identity of mine okay you know I am Saket but I am not functioning from a place of ego in the sense that now I will not say that I want this for me I want that for me because I am also I can also see that there is there is this oneness with existence in which there is no ego you know we are all one in that sense and then my actions become maybe more compassionate so I am just thinking about how it is how that situation looks like it makes me think of what Alan Watts has said about the ego life being like a game and maybe we inevitably are playing the game there is this other thing like you could call it the Tao but you can't ever have the Tao or you could maybe call it God or any variety of terms that is constant it is the substance of everything and it is playing out through the game and the way Alan Watts talked about it at least from what I remember or my take on it is that there is a way of seeing the game of life and the ego life as a game through the perspective of kind of dropping back into spirit even though you can't really stay there you can maybe have more and more of that larger perspective that can then it can allow you to play the game with maybe more freedom or more flexibility or kind of more choice I think maybe like as you said it Ebenezer and it is like it gives you more degrees of freedom within the everyday life of the game and I think the way he put it was like noticing the game and shifting into more of a stance where it is no longer a game that has rules that you are supposed to win at the end but is more like a child's game and you can move back into the space of playing all I really have is the way that I can play in this role that it has gotten to this point somehow and this is what it is now and today I have the chance or maybe just in this moment I have the chance to play in the way that really feels like true to me and if I could just string together continual moments of playing in the way that feels right I can have trust in maybe this big bigger spirit thing that the game is going to unfold well maybe just the game will unfold the way it is going to no matter what but that maybe I can rely on just trusting in this moment if I can kind of zoom out and engage in the way that feels right that the rest of it will take care of itself and I can let go of trying to figure the game out or winning the game because all of that maybe is totally nonsensical there is really just kind of this move right here and that's all I can take care of these words that I'm saying and maybe I can maybe there's some other continuum there I don't know if it's like ego to spirit or whatever it is but there's some continuum that I can gauge in any moment of how forced it feels or how like unreal it feels or inauthentic it so maybe authenticity you could call it that how inauthentic it feels or how authentic it feels maybe I can never get to the to the point of authenticity but I can feel I can gauge it and get closer to it and then in this moment I can try to express something that feels closer to that side of it and then just keep trusting in each moment that I can keep doing that it's also just interesting to notice how a point begins and ends just like me thinking of something and then attempting to share it like I don't know how I got to that thing or what it is that I'm trying to share with you but somehow a point starts and then it kind of gradually finds its end and I'm thinking of two ways that it can happen maybe there are many but one in which you feel like the point is closed or two in which you feel like you kind of lost the point and it's not worth pushing it any further and the ending of this recent point was somewhere in between those two as you were speaking I had a I had a I resonated with what you were saying and I think like at a maybe I'm projecting right but I think life would at its at its core if you can find something that that in which you really enjoy doing and comes across to you as a game as like a childish game or like playing music or like dancing if you were able to dance your way if if you could offer someone hey taking this perspective you will dance your way through life and have as much fun as you can possibly have throughout the entire throughout the entire thing irrespective of how long you live out short you live people would take that and as you were explaining that it's like as you were explaining kind of taking a step back in and acknowledging the game or what it is making more decisions allowing yourself more room to make decisions or at least live to a greater that was sort of the image that was in my mind that someone like taking a step back and really dancing and trusting the system or the universe or whatnot to do what it is that it will do and you're a part of that flow and really enjoying that and I mean and and when and what you said at the end about often I'd like a continuum of authenticity is really poignant because as you were speaking I also thought I was thinking to myself and Michael come I would be amazing but how can I how could I do that you know especially as like a medical student who has like they're definitely concrete deadlines and things that you must know superimposed on adventures and things that you could know and have the opportunity to right so it's like you're not it's not although it's not going to be a dance off the way and you may and it may not feel authentic the entire time but what but I'm curious as to like what methods can can one use to to begin to explore that right for me maybe like meditation is a way to begin to explore that and maybe like journaling and and dreams may be another way to kind of explore that but just the way that I work I'm like okay if that would be and that would be ideal so how can I how can I move in a way to get to that ideal it makes me curious to mention about deadlines and you know you being a medical student how there are like fixed kind of maybe things that you would study what I'm curious about is that is there a room a space to bring in something to your study which might be coming from the soul you know which might be which is out of that flow and curiosity that you have and maybe going a bit beyond what what is there in the study and exploring that is is that the case for you yeah there there are and I think in a large part what I've come to to terms with or or an understanding is that I have to like I I'm actively trying to find to place myself in a position where I'm doing that all the time or at least I'm I've completely integrated that into what I'm so how I'm living yet it's that's a that's a journey and it's a it's like a difficult one to to begin to uncover what you don't know you don't know I'm just thinking for myself like in my doctoral training and I guess some strategy of trying to connect with everything that I'm doing on that level of what is most meaningful to me and noticing if maybe my resistance to being able to be playful with something might be ego based in some way like there's some resistance that I'm imposing on this or like is it just that this thing is not congruent with that deeper thing for me and then that can become a really well I guess it could go two different ways like it could a a become something that makes you decide to do something different or which could feel drastic and like especially if you dedicate a lot of time to something and like I was also thinking of the gut feeling it's there's there's a way of looking at it it's like it could be a terror of the ego and it's also maybe like spirit sort of calling giving you a sign or like showing you a door and and either way like could move you away from that feeling but but maybe filling it up with something or avoiding it or another is to go into it and it kind of leads you in some direction which could be scary but also really exciting and alive and which maybe makes you be able to play this game and only the way you could but it might also mean you sort of blazing your own path without a lot of security but I'm just thinking for myself like so back to my doctoral training I guess two ways so one in which you just kind of like realize this isn't what I want to be doing or two you realize ultimately it is and yes I deeply connect to this work and this is just one thing that's along the path that I that I realize I have to get done and this thing doesn't represent that deepest playfulness but I can also like be playful about that like I realize I hate this thing and it's not that important but in order for me to do the thing that that I do really want to be doing I have to do this and it can maybe even take pressure off of it I think it goes two ways because it makes me think of there's a term existential guilt that sort of it became more and more a part of my life as I progressed in this this PhD program because I realized a lot more and more of what I was doing was not actually representative of what I really wanted to be doing and it would and this existential guilt is the term I use for engaging with a paper or something or a task that is just not representative of like what I know about myself and even if it's an easy thing to do it might make it so difficult to do because it's like every type on the keyboard is like this is it's not me and so it just be like almost painful to do it and I think over time I I move more in the direction of pulling away from like the typical path of of the clinical psychology PhD and it really kind of saw the the getting the degree as an opportunity to break from the the rest of the path and move into something that's more my own which feels like way less secure than than how it might have looked if I continued down the path and like pursued licensure in clinical psychology and kind of stayed within the structure of psychology as a whole but and I also just I mean I was really kind of lucky because I didn't get a fellowship position which would have probably put me down that path and I'd be in a very different place now than I am now if I had gotten that position so I'm very thankful but at the time it was disappointing but it was like well okay now I have to just pursue this something that feels like it's coming from the core of me which is kind of what I'm doing now which is really exciting and I don't know what it's going to look like in like a couple months from now and it's just it's just kind of happening and it feels great and it feels exciting but there's like zero security to it so yeah that's just some of the stuff that I was thinking in response to what you were saying I wonder what that sounds like to you.

I mean as you as you were speaking I'm curious well I think it relates to that feeling that we were talking about earlier as it when we when we speak about death and and what I thought was that perhaps like really sitting in that feeling like you mentioned and beginning to describe it and characterize it and and even speak to it and use more imagination may like uncover like may then prompt you to live in a way that that fully that is more full right so kind of like it it seems to me when when you talk about that existential crisis I thought myself perhaps perhaps that feeling that I get when I think of is an indication that I'm not I'm not living in the way that fully fulfills myself and if I were to be living in that way then I'd be like oh well I'm already dancing so if the dance were to stop now I've already you know had my fun type of type of deal and and so that's that's what that's that was the primary like insight or thought that came up as you were speaking and and then from that I was like I'm not curious as to like what the process of of kind of coming to or even acknowledging that existential guilt that you mentioned what that process was like but that's that's an aside from like the like that main insight myself to keep you like you smile or suck it right that's yeah yeah you smiled when I was when I mentioned the when I mentioned that like the piece about the fulfillment yeah I can be smiling because as you two are sharing you know this as Charles was saying existential guilt it took me back to my old days college days and you know I remember how I would end up reading stuff that was never related to my study and I remember I so I did my MBA program and during that entire MBA program for two years I never even you know took up a single book that was related to MBA apart from just you know studying cramming it up before exams and I would keep reading about spirit and that was the time when I was you know exploring spirituality and religions and I would just have books all around me of religions and once there was this professor who entered my room and he was shocked to see that there was not even a single book on you know MBN it was all about religion and spirituality and he told me that you are in the wrong course so yeah I was smiling because of that because those memories just popped up yeah that's um but I'm wondering is because it like gives me cause to pause sorry no you were saying something no I was just I was just like thinking out loud okay no I was just wondering that is is there an answer to this like we I think the three of us mentioned about this existential guilt and you know this idea of studying something but you know wanting to maybe this core energy coming from the core wanting to explore something else and then having these doubts whether I'm doing the right thing here or not I'm just wondering and the listener might be listening to this podcast and they might also be wondering okay so what do I do about it you know if that is the situation if I am in that situation where let's say I am in a particular job or a university where I'm studying but my energy wants something else and it doesn't want me to study that but maybe explore something else so what is the solution to that I'm just wondering seems like an eternal question maybe one that there can't ultimately be an answer to I wonder if that feeling just just also inevitably is there as as a person like as just as you exist you sort of are an ego self in a way and I wonder if no matter what even if you just you know you find the thing that you feel most passionate about and it's still gonna maybe be there ultimately so maybe it's a but there's the potential shifted relationship of harmony maybe between the this this deeper spirit quote-unquote self and the ego self where can accept some of this discomfort that might just inherently be living there at the core and develop more of less of a relationship of conflict and more of a like listening kind of like what we were saying before just trying to hear what is what is this discomfort a what is it really like and then maybe if it had a voice what might it say because it I mean and maybe that's that could be a good barometer in terms of a practical way of going about it does it say something like hey you should not be doing this at all this is not representative of who you are like get the hell out of here this is like this isn't right or it could be like more on the side of I don't know or like it's or it's pointing in a in some particular direction or it might be saying something totally unrelated to the stuff that you're thinking it might be related to could go back to maybe something like from childhood likely it probably does there's maybe there's a bunch of things in there that are these different maybe voices still calling out for stuff and they've never really been listened to and to potentially to listen to them and allow them to speak maybe nothing changes in your life but there is this greater sense of relief just through letting those things speak or just letting the discomfort really be there and and allowing it to be there versus maybe a secondary discomfort of trying to get rid of the discomfort if that makes sense that's kind of maybe a consolation to some of the pause that you're you're describing Ebenezer because I just wonder if it's it's just inevitably there and you can just try to listen as clearly as possible to yourself and and make the decisions based on that but maybe there never is really a clear answer and and the shift can be that being okay what do you think yeah I think I mean I I find myself agreeing with with what you're saying and and I think I really I really think it in the sense of boils down to listening to listening to that feeling to yourself and in general in the past I've been like in the past I've been more of a non-listener to myself where it's like I have a goal I'm gonna get there irrespective of what of what I need to do to like get their sort of deal whether or not I'm comfortable in that process and that's brought with it a lot of like personal turmoil and I have I've definitely had it and I've definitely had more dreams that someone is out to like kill me or like attack me that I think other people have so maybe that and like that kind of ties into my my thought process you but I found that once I've once I've began sort of accepting who I am those dreams have have occurred less and less and and actually when the variations of those in which I find come to terms or peace with the my attacker aggressor have happened so that's I strongly resonate with the listening piece maybe just going within like when we have such questions maybe just going within to find the answers and this reminds me when you know I had this question and now it's coming in my mind that when I heard this question during my course that whether should you know what am I doing here in this course why am I doing why am I even doing this MBA I should not be here and then I remember that okay you know there was this voice inside me telling me why did you come here in the first place you know remember that why did you come here and then I remembered okay yeah because yeah because this is my decision you know of doing this program and I know that I have to do this no matter what I'm thinking in this moment so there are these are like two kind of different voices one which knows deeply which is within and the other one is like out there which which is you know having that anxiety I do want to say that the that that analogy or the perspective of like that touched on excitement the fact that coming to terms with existence or just appreciating showing gratitude for the fact that you are existing and and the unknowns that come with that I really like that and one might say because from one end when you're talking about the unknown or listening there's so much to listen to and so much that you don't know right and that might seem like a insurmountable obstacle or a boulder or mountain that you have to climb while like flipping it it's like oh wow there's for the remainder of my life I get the opportunity to to find out more about myself and grow in that way so that's it it stirs something within me that sounds like a shift sort of into play or into stance of like oh wow look at all of this first and versus wow like there's all of this I have to figure out maybe there's some relief in the like there is no end point to that figuring out process I was also having the vision of the attacker and I was imagining sort of us all having that in some way maybe even related to that gut feeling in some way and that we might all be running from it or our whole lives and you know you just sense it so there's the urge to run away and sounds like we might be talking about a different potential strategy of noticing it and just turning and like and waiting and then seeing what happens although that's a really scary thing but maybe that's the only other alternative to just continually running even though maybe in the back of your mind it's like I'm not running anywhere and it's not any better than where I was before and so what will happen when I turn to this thing I'm just imagining the attacker you know like coming there and trying to scare you or or something and then they just like well what do I do now yeah I'll probably I feel like that image will linger with me after this what's this been like we've really sort of dived into some very deep basic questions what's it been like for you Ebenezer it's it's been good it's been good I definitely like I definitely I definitely have like came in with some some thoughts some ideas that I've been like grappling with and this has helped kind of flush those flush those out in a sense and also given me new perspectives and wish to look at look at things so like it's been it's been great how about how about for y'all I just I really appreciate your willingness to bring yourself to it and to share these like kind of deep mental basic things that have been on your mind and that you face and that's I feel sort of honored to have explored it with you and you've provided you know all the meat for this exploration and I certainly resonate with so much of what you're talking about so I feel really appreciative of your willingness to to do this with us yeah and for me also I love the part Ebenezer the way you expressed what you are thinking you know it becomes sometimes difficult to express what what questions we have or what we are thinking but the way you express that I really like that and this was a very interesting deep exploration loved it totally yeah you might tell we went I feel like way longer than we have gone thus far which is great okay I don't know if you want to shift into something just experiential to finish up yes let's let's see what comes up today in this short meditation that we might do I don't know what there's no plan and as such but whatever comes up so yes we can get into our meditative posture now and if you wish you can gradually close your eyes and maybe we can start with the breath observing the inflow and the outflow of the breath and then maybe we can contemplate on this question what is this I what is this identity of mine what does my name represent and what are the memories from the past that build up this I this identity what is that story of your life and then how would it feel if you have to let go of that if we have to let go of this identity how does it feel to be no one in this moment to be absolutely no one one And then how does it feel to be absolutely new and fresh in this moment?

What is it about this person?

This consciousness of yours,

This body,

What is it about this being that can be explored?

What might be the new version of this being who has given up the previous identity?

What is it about this being that can be explored?

And then in your own time,

You can gradually bring your awareness to the presence of your surroundings.

And then gradually again in your own time,

You can come out of the meditation.

Thank you for that Saku.

I can just say I'm left with something that was lingering with me and that is lingering with me now.

Is again the image of sort of the quote unquote attacker and I'm left with the feeling of excitement to face it,

To like stand up.

I feel very kind of emboldened to and I think there are a lot of maybe different manifestations of the attacker that I can think of but I feel very sort of encouraged to move into that feeling,

Whatever that is for me and like not run from it and just like even seek it out in a way.

So I'm kind of I feel like kind of excited by that for me.

Yeah,

Me as well.

I feel excited to do that like daily.

Usually I'm working or like in the kitchen,

I'll be listening to music or a podcast.

But I'm looking forward to not listening to those things and rather listening to myself and seeing what comes up and having that experience.

For me,

I think it was this question as this guidance was coming up in the meditation,

I was thinking that,

Okay,

I have been holding on to this identity of Satyabh and I have been told about,

Okay,

These are,

This is what I am,

These are my strengths,

These are my weaknesses,

This is my degree and everything.

And maybe now is the time to explore myself more,

This gives me the opportunity to maybe see myself in a new light in a new way and maybe something new might come up about me that can help me in the future.

So it was like more of an opportunity to knowing some those aspects of myself,

Which I might have not known yet because of that past identity.

Exciting.

Okay.

Is there anything that there doesn't have to be,

You might feel on the spot too,

But before we end,

Is there anything Ebenezer that you might want to share with the audience?

It could be something like more specific or logistical that you want them to know,

Or just a message that you might want them to know through this experience before we finish.

Anything like that for you?

And if that's okay,

I'm just so fine,

If not.

No,

Nothing,

Nothing comes up.

I think,

I think we had a good conversation.

Great.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

Yeah,

Thank you.

Thank you both.

Thank you so much.

Thank you all.

Take care.

Bye.

Thank you for joining us.

We'll be back in a few minutes.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you all for joining us in the what is now experience.

We hope that you liked the episode.

If there were any insights or ideas arising for you as you were listening to our conversation,

Then you can share those ideas through your comments.

We would love to know.

Stay tuned for the next episode.

Namaste.