The WORLD is SHIFTING FAST — but this is what we must do next | Lawrence Edwards 2nd Interview

Please note, this is an automated transcript so it is not 100% accurate.

Lawrence:
Uh, you know, it’d be like a, a carpenter. Think he’s just a hammer. Um, well that wouldn’t be so good. We’re the, we’re the infinite thinking. We’re just this finite, one little being. Um, and so awakening consciousness, is that add. The fullness, not get rid of the finite, we’re gonna add to it the fullness. So now it becomes a clear vehicle in service of the highest, the divine, within the divine. That’s all beings, all creation.

Guy:
Guy here, just a quick one from me as I welcome back to the podcast today, Lawrence Edwards, and I just love this man. He is a beautiful soul. Anyways, the second time I’ve had Lawrence on the show, I. And if you enjoy this episode today, be sure to go back and listen to the first one as well. ’cause in the first one, we get into his personal journey and his own spiritual awakening, and today we dive into the journey of spiritual awakening and the soul’s evolution.

One thing I’ll say about Lawrence, every time I sit with him and I’m in his presence, you know, I just feel. The world’s gonna be okay. You know, everything’s gonna be right. He’s just got that presence about him. Uh, so much wisdom. So if you’re watching this on YouTube especially, be sure, let me know when the comments blow what you think of the episode today.

Let me know where you are in the world as well connect. It all helps as we. Get beyond the walls of technology. And the last thing I wanna mention as well, tickets are selling very well for our Bali retreat, uh, mastering Year in a Mystic,

Be sure to come and join us all. of our previous retreats have sold out and we will be in Northern New South Wales, in Australia as well. So if you wanna. Come and experience this work for yourself. Come meet us in person. Come and join us. Anyway, enjoy this episode with Lawrence. Uh, it’s awesome. Much so from me, and I will see you soon. Lawrence, welcome back to the podcast. It’s so great to see you, sir.

Lawrence:
Oh, good to see you. My delight to be on with you.

Guy:
I, um, we’re talking off air and, and it’s, it’s typical is as things start coming up, it’s like, nope, let’s just hit record ’cause it’s too good to miss, you know? But, um, obviously this is the second time you, you’re coming on the show and I don’t wanna dive back into your background and history and your journey ’cause we’ve already, we’ve covered that on the podcast.

I’m sure things will come up today as well around that. Just for the new listeners, if you were sitting on an airplane and somebody said, oh, what do you do? Or something like that, and he was a complete stranger, how would you, how would you answer that?

Lawrence:
I’d say I, I have the privilege of being able to serve people and walk with them along their spiritual journeys and share what I’ve been through my background, personal experiences through yoga, meditation, Kundalini, um, Buddhist and Tibetan Buddhist teachings and, and traditions and great teachers I’ve studied with. And so I do my best to just share that and support people, uh, as they deal with the obstacles in life.

Guy:
Yeah. Beautiful. And I, I gotta ask you before we get into the kind of meat of the, what we’re gonna talk about today with everything is that, uh, since our last podcast, I see how busy you keep yourself. I’m subscribed to your newsletters that come through every week. You’re holding space, you are sending out newsletters constantly. There’s books happening. Like what is it that. Drives you, you know, that, that you continue to be of service like this.

Lawrence:
Right? Uh, that’s a beautiful question. ’cause I think it’s true of, uh, I think it’s our, our highest calling. Everyone’s highest calling. I just have heard it so clearly I couldn’t ignore it. Um, and that’s to love and to serve. To know and to serve. It’s the last chapter in my book. The first book, the Soul’s Journey. Guidance from the Divine Within it culminates the path culminates in being available, accessible.

Once you know, then what do you do? Uh oh. You serve. You serve all beings with love. You serve, uh, to help all beings become free of suffering. Serve with love wherever you’re called to. And, and so what you see, um, that comes up on the e-newsletters or, or books. The books have been asked to be written or inspired.

Poetry that keeps coming up in meditation. And, um, you know, people who’ve read those works of mine know that it’s a, um. Andrew Harvey spoke about it. He says, oh, Lawrence is one who has this long love affair with the great mother, the goddess Col. And she speaks to him in meditation. And that’s what I then share with everybody, uh, and hope that it inspires uplifts, um, motivates people to, to do the work, walk their path, um, really know that the highest truth in their heart, in their being, in their life.

Guy:
Hmm. How does she speak to you? Is it like a knowing? Is it a sense through, I know ’cause you had your own awakening. I’m, I’m always curious to know how that information comes through to then be able to just allow it to come out for others. Yeah,

Lawrence:
yeah. Well, sometimes it’s, it’s literally in words. Um, and, um, you know, it’s, it’s. One has to understand that when I’m talking like this, it’s, there’s only one, there’s only the divine. Um, the play is that there’s two or more. But in meditation, when I, I’m in this state of dissolution, um, it’s the voice of myself. It’s the voice of the divine within. But that voice can wear different faces at different times.

It can wear different costumes in a sense for different people. Somebody, it might be Buddha for somebody else, it might be Krishna, somebody might be Jesus, somebody that might be Mother Mary. Um. For me, it’s been so consistent. Uh, this great goddess, uh, that was mindblowing. I’m just sort of a westerner, grew up in the suburbs in New York, and Ali Ma Ali, Maha Ali starts showing up in meditations and talking to me and giving me instructions. Um, wow.

Lawrence:
And that was, you know, 30 odd years ago. Took a bit to like go. Okay, well this will get integrated by her Grace and, and have, you know, as a licensed mental health practitioner, a psychologist, you know, having run psychiatric institutes, I know the danger of listening to voices can, what doesn’t have integrated.

So, I, I say that a tongue in cheek, but this is really that, that powerful presence and that’s what comes through.

Guy:
Wow. Incredible. I guess one question is how, like when, especially when you first started leaning into that and thinking, okay, this is, this is showing, how do you know of that those voices are of the highest good? Is it because of what you’d been through previously?

Lawrence:
Yeah. I mean, you know, I had been doing meditative work from many, many years. Had wonderful teachers, um, who I could also go to. I’m saying, you know, this is coming up in meditation and get their. Feedback. You know, a great master will say, okay, uh, you know, hold, hold steady, be present with that.

Let’s see what unfolds. And they’re always like, you know, just sublime highest truths. And so nothing wonky. Um, you know, you can, you can see what happens when the mind gets involved and when people’s, you know, their individuality and their own psyche starts to, um, contaminate it. Because that’s, that’s really what happens so often is people get inspired by, uh.

And experience a meditation. Then they try and act on it. Do something with it. Well, what are they acting? What are they doing with they’re, they’re now using the vehicle of their mind and body and any, any contractions, any distortions, any limitations that are part of the vehicle of mind and body are gonna get imposed even on what might have been a high and beautiful and pure truth that they experienced to begin with.

Guy:
So true there. There’s a couple of things you said about. You know, what am I gonna do with this now that I know? And to speak to, to become of love and service and to, and to spread a beautiful message to ’cause you wanna see other people light up like, like yourself. I, I still, I ask this question many times and I, I do always still ponder on this.

Why then do we have to go through like this hero’s journey almost first to be all me, all self, this is all my problems, this is all my pain. To to metamorphic into that aspect of ourselves that was ever present all along, I mean, right. If you look at the state in the world right now, it’s, I, I mean we, whatever we focus on, we get. So if, if we’re always in fear, we’re just gonna see more fear anyway. But I’m just curious to hear your perspective on, on these things.

Lawrence:
Right. Well, you know, the, the hero’s journey is an archetypal depiction of how do we go from being caught in that sense of, I, me, mine, uh, Mitra Vails might this my, that. Uh, two, who am I as the infinite? As, as beyond abundantly full. Um, well, because we’re so identified with that very limited sense of self, that limited ego mind. Um, and it’s the identification with it. That causes the issue, not it, it’s just the structure that’s meant to serve the highest. But if our consciousness becomes just completely wedded to that identified with, all I am is this mind, this body, this identity is this guy in the 21st century dealing with life as it is.

That’s a very contracted view. Um, and well most people would call it reality. I. Accept the mystics and say, no, that’s actually just, you know, an Adam’s worth of reality in that. Um, and so the, the various traditions and paths and what symbolized, uh, by Kundalini awakening is power of the infinite to know itself as infinite.

Well, Kundalini is awake in terms of it’s, that’s also the power to know the finite as if you were just the finite. That’s the other side of Kundalini. That’s the ordinary functioning of Kundalini. Maintain the body, maintain a sense of limited self. It’s not until we evolve literally across lifetimes to have explored that, got sick of it, done with it, and then have to do the work of going, okay, now I need to, um, unuse consciousness from vehicle of consciousness. You know, it’d be like a, a carpenter. Think he’s just a hammer. Um, well that wouldn’t be so good.

We’re the, we’re the infinite thinking. We’re just this finite, one little being. Um, and so awakening consciousness is that add the fullness, not. Get rid of the finite, we’re gonna add to it the fullness. So now it becomes a clear vehicle in service of the highest, the divine, within the divine. That’s all beings, all creation.

But until we can know that. Until the, we’ve done the hero’s journey. The hero’s journey is one of leaving the confines of the ordinary world, meaning conventional society and reality with all their definitions of what’s a man? What’s a woman, what’s a child? What’s an adult? What’s this, what’s that? That we’ve identified with?

Leave that behind. They start to throw open the doors, and then we have to see, oh, what are all the hidden unconscious identities that have come from family traumas and ancestral things and things that people might encounter. We have to know all that’s gotta be set aside. See, no, I’m, I’m, I wanna know the infinitude of being.

That’s what Buddha said out to do. His intention was, I am not gonna stop until I have found how to relieve and free everyone from suffering. That meant how do I get to know the infinite as the ground of all being, all beings? Um, and he then left a path for doing that. Well, that’s the mystics path over and over again.

That’s the hero’s journey. So we have to shed those limitations. And in order to come to know the infinite dude, we didn’t take on those limitations by accident. That too was part of how this universe was created by the infinite. So it said that Shakti, you know, Shakti Kundalini creates the veil that hides the infinitude of being so that we can know as the infinite what it is to be finite. Because if we didn’t forget our infinitude, we’d never take being finite. Seriously. Isn’t that funny?

Guy:
Yeah. That wow. There’s a lot in there. Yeah. Yeah. This might seem like a silly question. I, I don’t know, but what is the divine, like, get out of it by us being here in the, you know, in the density of it all.

Lawrence:
That’s, yeah. So in the question is our humanity, what do we get? Um. Infinite is infinitely creative. It’s an expression of its infinitude. If it couldn’t know what it was to be finite, it would have a limitation. So in its expression of all its infinite nature, creativity, consciousness, it creates all that’s conscious, all its seems unconscious, all that’s finite, as well as remaining purely, uh, infinite in its consciousness. So it’s just a total all embracing consciousness and it’s, its nature to create all that is.

Guy:
Wow. I’d have to sit with that. That’s, yeah. Yeah,

Lawrence:
yeah. Because it doesn’t need anything. It doesn’t, it’s not out to get anything. It’s, it’s just expressing the fullness of its own nature, which is beyond Imagine why the mind, uh, only comes to know. Truly in silence, in absolute silence and stillness because the mind is always trying to act like the instrument for knowing. It wants to encode it in words. It wants to give it an image, it wants to give it an idea. It wants to have an inspiration. It wants to, those are all within a limited domain of mind. Um, the infinitude of being is utterly beyond that. Ineffable knowable because it’s the nature of consciousness not knowable on that level by ordinary mind. Hmm.

Lawrence:
That’s humbling for the mind. It’s hugely humbling. It’ll fight that tooth and nail. Uh, trying to come up with just the biggest, grandest concept, enlightenment, framework, whatever it could come up with to try and hold what that is and it’ll always fail.

Guy:
Yeah. Well, I’m always continuously proven wrong and surprised. The moment I think I’ve got some the hang of something or Oh yeah. It’s like, no, not at all. Yeah. Uh, yeah. Do you feel then that this particular period in our lifetime that are more people. Yearning and leaning into this at this present time. I just think when I was like 20, I didn’t even know any of this existed.

I was completely removed and now it just feels like my, my world is, maybe it’s ’cause where I just lay focus, but it, but it feels like there’s more and more people yearning for that, that deeper truth, that deeper connection from what, what I can see,

Lawrence:
uh, yeah, I, I mean I do think there is, and I think there’s, um, I. People have been turned off or realize that, um, having material success, uh, having material goods, uh, still leaves one unhappy. That deep fulfillment, deep happiness, though it was, seemed to be framed in having all the material once it needs satisfied, then what? Um, so now that more and more people have.

Once and needs, not everybody, we need to help those who don’t. Uh, but even those who do, um, they go, oh, this didn’t do it. I mean, I, I remember working, a person came to me, um, very wealthy and, and you know, she said, I have, you know, in her checking account, she said, I have $16 million in my checking account. Um, that’s a small fraction of what I have. Um, and I’m always in fear and I’m always worried.

So that’s the, that’s the human psychic. Getting that, oh, no material possession. And realizing that the, the ordinary mind as, uh, as it’s ordinarily employed is at the, at, at the command of ego mind. The ego mind is about prediction and control. It evolved that way. It helped us survive, you know? In jungles and not getting eaten.

Prediction and control is a major concern for the, for the mind. Uh, and it brings that concern to spiritual practice. It brings that concern to relationships. Uh, things aren’t predictable if they’re not controllable. Uh, the ary mind gets very, uh, ill at ease. And we’re in a, we are in a period of turmoil, and so some of the old paradigms, addiction and control aren’t working.

And that causes some segments of the population to wanna become even more controlling, even more fear driven in their pursuit of control. Well, that’s why you wind up with fascism, fundamentalism, things like that. That’s, that’s that fear driven. I gotta control it. It’s gotta be under my control. I’m gonna make it under my control and that’s it.

Um, and all those paradigms aren’t working for people. Um, and there’s those who have gone, no, this isn’t the way. Um, this is a huge evolutionary, um, step in human evolution to go from that individual survival mode that, you know, Darwin talked about in terms of, you know, the survival of the species was guaranteed by the survival of the individual.

Um, and that works on, on a small population, in a kind of an animal setting where there’s lots of resources. Um, we’ve gone past that. We’re facing problems now where we have to be awake as a collective. We have to be awake to knowing that, oh, we’re in this together. This is where oneness really becomes real.

Um, and that if we have a, a vision of our unity, then there is no other to exploit control, dominate. There’s only the one, there’s only my own self, my own divine self manifesting as that person, this person, the environment. How could I dominate, exploit control. Uh, that, uh, why I wanna come from a place that the natural wealth stream of love and compassion.

It says, I want all beings uplifted. I want the preservation and the flourishing of life of, of your intelligence, your creativity, your capacity for being all that you are is gonna make all that we are even brighter. I. That’s a very big shift that is being demanded of humanity right now. Because what we’re facing in terms of global wars, global economics, global pollution, um, environmental hazards, um, these demand collective answers, we are in it together. Huge change for humanity.

Guy:
Oh yeah. Yeah. So how would you then define the antidote to. That prediction and control and becoming part of the collective because it’s, I, I feel, especially something I’ve grappled with over the years is recognizing the divinity within myself and, and coming from that place. But there’s still that other part of me that’s like, oh, freaking out. You want me to let go here? Are you, are you shit me? You know, that kind of

Lawrence:
thing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that’s, well, you, you, you started out asking why is this hero’s journey and why is this so long? Because that’s deeply ingrained to see others and to feel, oh, if they have something, I’m gonna have less of it.

Um, our, our condition in mind. Is based on that fundamental ignorance. What the Buddhist tradition, the yoga tradition, mystic tradition. The basic ignorance of not knowing the truth of who our divin. That we are intimately unified in with all beings, with all creation. So that’s why the, the mystic traditions have aimed at cut the root of that ignorance and then spontaneously, you’re free of that paradigm of, I gotta predict, I gotta control, I gotta exploit.

No. No, I wanna see flourish. I wanna bring love, I wanna bring compassion. That’s what’s rising in my heart. If, if I’ve s slain the dragon of fear, based on that comes out of a limited sense of who I am, then what opens up is that capacity for selfless love, selfless compassion, um, that willingness to say, oh, I wanna, I wanna see all, all beings flourish.

Guy:
Hmm. Can we lean into then the, the word dharma and Living Dharma? Mm-hmm. And break that down a bit as well. I, I, I’m intrigued to, to hear your perspectives as well. ’cause I, I feel as well, it’s quite easy sometimes if the, there’s all this, there’s pressure or it feels like pressure that’s been put upon us externally. That one thing is, is to, that I can just go in a, my little meditation gave and just. Be in my little spot, but then I don’t almost ignore what’s happening, so then I can just be spiritual. Right,

Lawrence:
right, right. But that’s, I mean, so there’s, there’s a lot in your question because part of it is also being able to retreat into the truth. Um, because that’s, you know, retreat practices have been a part of spiritual traditions. You were on retreats, I’ve run retreats. So this being out, that’s part of the hero’s journey. Where do you step aside from the, all the demands of conventional life so that you can turn your attention? It’s a way of freeing attention so that we can give it then to what we know is this highest.

Presence, our own divinity, our own self in that moment. Then after we’ve, you know, sort of had the, the cloth of our mind and body dipped in that we come out again and go, okay, I’m, I’m, I’m refreshed here. Um, then we dipping it in the world and it feels like it got all solid again. Oh, I better go back and sit in my thing routinely so I can stay ahead of this.

Um, but as we begin to really abide in that, to inhabit that. Uh, then it’s less and less affected by the outer world, not because we’re disconnected from it, but because we see through it and we see. Then also, where’s that calling to walk? That truth that we felt sitting in our meditation spot, um, or doing our practice and say, now how does that get walked into the world?

How do I live that into my relationships? How do I live that into my family? How do I live that into my work? How do I live that into, uh, I’m driving down the road, somebody cuts me off. Am I awake there or did I lose it? Um, did the ego mind go? He cut me off. That’s my lane. ’cause the ego, mine is all about self appropriation.

It’ll, it’ll steal anything around that. The parking lot has my pocket space. You know, the road has my lane. It’s all gone. Me, me, me, my, my mine. Nah, no, no. Let it go. Let it go. So when we talk about dharma, there’s dharma on various levels. You know, there’s dharma as practice. Um, but there’s, there’s a dharma of our roles in life.

The dharma of a, a father, the D of a mother, the D of a son. D of a daughter. In many ways it’s about. Right. Living and living informed by the highest wisdom. Sometimes we are carrying that highest wisdom directly because we know it. Sometimes we’re carrying it because right now it’s more of a teaching. I. I really, uh, am a committed to, uh, so, you know, one might be committed to the noble eightfold path of Buddha, or one might be committed to Ang yoga, the eight limbs of yoga. And one might be saying, oh, the, the yamas in the niyamas, the restraints and observances, they’re all definitions of dharma. There’s ways of living dharm in the world, uh, a SSA nonviolent being the, the ground of that, the foundation for.

And so what we’re doing is saying, no, there’s a higher order of being Inc congruence with what the divine is. And until I’m living from that spontaneously, I’ll have guidelines. Well, those are the rules. Those are the, you know, those are the yamas and the yas. They give the ego mind an orientation saying, no, you can’t just go off on doing what you feel like, um, because then you’re gonna get further and further out of congruence with the highest.

So work within these parameters. Be loving, kind, compassionate, patient. Wow, what That takes a tremendous amount of effort to be patient in the face of things, not going right. Um, well that’s what the yoga tradition and talked about Tapia. It’s the heat, the friction that’s generated by practices rubbing up against the ego, wanting to have its impulses to go do whatever it wants versus the restraints, the constraints that are being imposed upon it.

First by the disciplines of practice, um, because that’s what purifies it. Then later. Then the ego mind is pure and it becomes just a pure channel for your highest self to come through that love. That is just spontaneous. That patience, that is inexhaustible, that equanimity, that’s unshakeable. These are your nature.

Guy:
Wow. Just. I guess random question, but is it, is it possible for a human to, is this what, uh, um, the great masters are not to have any of that friction left to, to be just a pure vessel of Yeah. Oh yeah. The divine.

Lawrence:
Yeah. And I think you see that in mystics across traditions. I mean, so it’s not like one tradition empowers people that way. Mm-hmm. Uh, because the foundation of every mystic tradition is the one, the divine. Known and called by so many different names, but just the one, so living from that space of that all embracing consciousness that doesn’t see another, all it sees is itself. So St. John of the cross writing, uh, and, and a poem saying, when he was given the vision to see through God’s eyes, he said, why did the church never tell me?

Well, God sees is himself. What a sublime, sublime opening to know that and, and to then find yourself in opposition to a church that wants to talk about sinners and people denigrated and degraded. Um, that’s not the vision of God. That was clearly why mystics across traditions have often been at odds with the bureaucracies of religions, um, because they have a different agenda. Um, their agenda is, is different from just knowing the infinite, knowing the divine as yourself and living that into the world.

Guy:
Hmm. And I guess the, the, the dance is, is when those frictions come up, that that heat, that rubbing against the self is to. The inquiry into it as opposed to judge it, the meaning and, and the story that comes along with it. Which, which we’ve well rehearsed probably. Yeah.

Lawrence:
Right. Well, the ego mind likes to justify its position, you know, so, um, and so often this is why surrender, the letting go is, is what’s being called on that, the, the friction, the heat. Irritability, if we use that when it’s coming up by saying, oh, what am I attached to? What am I identified with here that’s causing this friction? Uh oh, it should be, it should be this way. It’s not that way. I’m getting you annoyed. Um, that’s a big one. We have a hard time dealing with what is versus what we think should be, or how it should be, or how I want it to be, because that’s how it should be. All those things that the ordinary mind generates, well, they come up against reality. Then there’s the posse. Yeah. This heat

Guy:
when, when you were on your journey and had your awakening and, and realizations. Was the, was the ego part of yourself chasing any of that at first, or did it happen because I, I see a lot of people almost running away from the things that they don’t wanna face to have that connection. I. With the divine. You know, they might have heard having a con, a Kundalini awakening, or they might have said, oh, I want, I just wanna have this, this experience. And yet, but not actually, you know, living the dharma per se to, of being in that.

Lawrence:
Yeah.

Guy:
Yeah. Curious. Well,

Lawrence:
you know, from my own experience, I, I was having, and I wrote about it in the Soul’s journey, I was having experiences when I was, you know, three or four years old telling people about this exquisite, you know, visitation from the great mother, the goddess just made of light looking over my crib.

I mean, so I don’t think I’m usual in that sense, um, because it felt quite natural that, well, there’s a lot more going on here than these adults are talking about. At first I thought they might have known, but then I realized no, most of them didn’t know either. So, um, so things, you know, but I felt, I always felt led by that inner connection.

And that highlights something that’s not unique to me. We, uh, anybody who’s really gotten profoundly interested in spirituality, spiritual development, that already speaks to lifetimes of cultivating that interest. And so we come in with the good karma that we come in with, the positive influence from practices done in various traditions and past lives.

So that’s why, you know, people come in looking like, oh, they’re so far ahead and they’re only six, you know? Well, yeah, fortunately they did a lot of work in another life. Um, but you do see that dance where the ego mind sort of sees like, boy, there’d be really something good about this. But, you know, the ego mind, it’s na, it’s notions of what’s good have to do with more pleasure, more power, more something.

I mean, it’s the, the ego mind is, is works off a deficiency model. It works off a sense of lack and want and need. That’s what drives it. Um, and so when often when it first hears about, you know, great mystics or what they’ve attained or this or that, it’s gone. Yeah, I could have that. I want that. Um, it’s not thinking about thee gonna have to go through, it’s not thinking about the hero’s journey where it’s gonna be stripped naked, uh, and you know.

Everything’s gonna go in some form or another. It’s not thinking about that. It’s thinking about what am I gonna get more power, more money, more sex, hotter sex, something I don’t know. Um, and so it, it begins relating where it is. That’s fine. Um, if that’s its initial motivation that’ll get cleaned up along the way, as long as it stays with it.

Um, it’s like, it’s like Krishna talking in the bug of Gita saying, well, even those who hate me. Who so hate me. They’re focused on me all the time, in the end, become absorbed in me. So it wasn’t so much the motivation, um, it was stay focused and pursue farther and farther until you leave all those things behind because that’s gonna be the, the Shakti drawing you. That’s the power of consciousness saying, this is where you are, you’re gonna start with this. Fine. We’ll go with that. And we’ll just keep going.

Guy:
Wow. I never thought of it like that. Yeah. You mentioned as well the, um, in a past life we might have already stepped onto the path and, and experienced mm-hmm. And we’re bringing that damer into, into this life. It raises the question for me then what, what is the, is there an end goal of the soul, like through that evolution? So if, if, what do you believe? Right. I’m interested.

Lawrence:
Um, well, what I know from my experience, uh, is that yeah, the evolutionary process of consciousness, um. Shedding first, you know, first there’s a phase of the evolution of consciousness. And again, this is both in the soul’s journey and the book Awaken Kundalini, and there’s a depict, there’s a graphic on it. It’s like the first half of the journey is about taking on form. It’s called sti. And that first half of the journey is lifetimes and lifetimes of lifetime.

Exploring what it is to take on this form, that form, another form, a different form. I’ll be a bug, I’ll be a giant, I’ll be a this, I’ll be a tree, I’ll be a. It’s like consciousness exploring what it is to create and habit experience, and it’s going, wow, wow. More, more and more. It’s blossoming in that. And then it goes, you know, I’m getting tired of this game.

Um, and that’s where the intuition starts to arise because it never can separate itself out from. The fullness of its real divine nature. Even limitations unfolds within the body of the infinite. There’s no outside the infinite. There’s all one. So even the illusion of separation is happening within the infinitude of being.

And so that’s what we’re seeing. And so when we’re doing that, um, that’s that phase of that evolution. Then the evolutionary, when it starts to go up, it’s time to wake up. Then that’s where it is about, oh, okay, now I have to shed all those different forms, inhabit the, the habit of inhabiting forms. I. It is, it’s what drives the mind and there’s, there’s literally millions of lifetimes of momentum behind that.

This is why it’s so hard to retrain the mind. It has so much momentum behind its past training. Right? So then the shedding of forms and shedding of forms and shedding of forms to have that delight of coming back to pure union again, a union that was never broken, it was just forgotten. That’s why many of the paths talk about it. All paths are the path of remembrance. It’s remembering the truth of who you are.

Guy:
Is there, is there a point where we, once we remember the truth of who we are, we don’t come back. I. Do

Lawrence:
well. So, uh, now there, that’s an interesting, um, that’s a great question because the traditions look at a little differently. The, the yoga tradition and even the, uh, the Maha, I mean, the Ana Buddhist tradition sort of looked at to begin with enlightenment meant then you left that whole wheel of samsara, uh, the wheel of the rounds of, uh, birth and death.

And so you, you attained that and then you took Maha Samati. Um, so in, in the yogi tradition, when a great master leaves his body, it’s called the Maha Samati, the Great Samati because it’s the final one, there’s no coming back. Um, the Buddhist tradition, especially the, the Maana Buddhist tradition took the, took a slightly different view of it and said.

You know, when you reach that state, you still have this feeling for all the beings who aren’t in that state, who are still suffering. And so that seed that came from Buddha, Saima, Buddha, I mean, there’s been many Buddhas. Buddhists say, I’m, I wanna free all beings from suffering means that, oh, I can’t give up everything.

Just merge into bliss knowing that, oh, there are these countless beings still suffering. So in Myana Buddhism, we take a Bodhi, what’s called the Bodhi Safa vow, and it’s a vow, um, to keep coming back into all beings in all universes, on all planes are free of suffering, uh, and that vow becomes the karmic seed to keep reincarnating.

It doesn’t mean you may. So there are Buddha that are Bodhi ERs that may reincarnate on a non-material plane and continue to support beings becoming free from another plane, another level of consciousness. They don’t have a physical body. They may take a physical body like so many Bodhi RAs and Buddhists who have been here on earth from SA Buddha to um, you know, Padma bva, Ava. Um, so they look at it like that, that, um, knowing that other beings are suffering, uh, that is a motivation to come back in some form. To help others, all others get free.

Guy:
Wow. I, my mind is just like going crazy now. I’m just like, wow. Like, and what keeps wanting to pop in? I, I, I dunno if, is that so beyond this plane level of consciousness? Mm-hmm. Are there more than. Levels of teachings and beings at, at, at different, I don’t know, plot points through, through our evolution of us. Was it like physical and, and oneness and that’s it?

Lawrence:
No, there’s a bunch. There’s a bunch in between.

Guy:
Yeah. Do, would you like to elaborate on that at all from your knowing or,

Lawrence:
well, I, I, I find it, uh, I take my cue from my, it’s a bit of a distraction. Um,

Guy:
okay. Yeah. I mean,

Lawrence:
our work is here and now. Um, and when, when a being needs to know about other levels. They’ll be given that. Um, ’cause you can, you can spend a lot of time trying to explore those things and your life is still crap here on earth. So why not clean up your life on earth? Help all beings here. So that’s the practicality of Dharma.

Guy:
Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. Then. But do. What, what, what’s, ’cause what’s opened it up to me is, is that as I continue my practice and awareness, the, the, the presence comes in more and more. And I’m feeling, uh, like it’s quite remarkable. And, um, yeah, I’m just always in awe and wonder. I’m like, wow, this is, this is incredible. And so my question would be then do we have support? Do we have. Beings are on other levels that are kind of like teachers or guides or supporting us as we evolve

Lawrence:
here? Oh, fortunately, yes. We’d be, we’d be our, our boat wouldn’t get out of the harbor heading with the other shore. So, yeah. I mean there’s, um, you know, and so many traditions talk about it in different ways, uh, about how, you know, how many. Um, you know, these different levels of being come to support us and that when you do practices, you know, Buddhists are showing up, or you know, if somebody’s more angelically inclined, there are positive energies in angelic forms will show up.

But that the infinite, uh, once the support us knowing it’s Shakti. The Shakti is the infinite one, the consciousness of the divine. And she’ll create forms on any level, all levels to support us. And in fulfilling what then is her command. Remember the the pursuit of freedom, the pursuit of knowing in its highest level, that inspiration in S Juice is Shakti is the divine.

Is a gift of grace. Without it, we’re just stuck in the world thinking that, you know, owning more, getting more, getting over on this one, doing whatever is gonna be it. It’s not until that power of the infinite starts to bestow it. Grace starts to pull back the veil and go, no, there’s more than you could imagine going on here.

That we are really pulled towards it. Um, the ego mind identifies and says, I’m driven to that. Well, you, what’s driving you is actually the one welcoming you home, calling you home. Can you listen for the call? Can you get subtler and subtler? Hear it more profoundly and deeply in every moment.

Guy:
Hmm. Wow. So bringing it all back. As we kind of go into the last phase of the podcast, then to practicality then I guess the key is, is taking it into our lives on a daily basis and, and almost giving up the, the, the chase to reach, but having, there needs to be a motivation there to, to. Bring more awareness to the present moment then Yeah. To, to start bringing that into our lives.

Lawrence:
Well, there’s a, you know, then this is the part of the paradoxical nature of, of walking a spiritual path, a meditative path. The mystics path. I mean, at one point Buddha was asked, you know, how intensely should I practice? And he said, you shouldn’t. You should practice with the intensity of a person whose hair on is on fire, seeks. Wow.

Lawrence:
Right? And then at other times he’d say, oh, you have to give up all striving. Ah. So we have to understand that for the limited mind, these kinds of teachings, they’re medicine for the moment. Somebody who’s like, sort of lackadaisical and sort of, yeah, I’ll do a little this, I’ll do a little that. It’s, you know, it’s just another thing on the smorgasbord of life.

Um, they need to get their intensity up. The, you know, the, the infinite is not gonna be known half-heartedly. Um, you’re in it a hundred percent. You have to be in it a hundred percent. Now, how do you act on that? Um, and, and where are the times when that’s just coming? No, I’m absolutely dedicated to these kinds of practices, this kind of empowerment, um, being in even a, a connection with a teacher because without that, we’re stuck in our own ego mind.

If we’re not in relationship to somebody, um, I mean, I knew this even as a youngian therapist, you, you can’t analyze your own dreams because the ego mind is blind to itself in so many ways. Uh, all the more so when you get into higher levels of consciousness without a trustworthy, reliable, selfless teacher helping, just a mentor to reflect back an authoritarian trip and not all the things that the eagle might immediately would bristle about, but what’s gonna support. You being able to really get free and not just be running around the maze of the mind, uh, convinced that its mirrors are reflecting the truth when they may just be reflecting its distortions.

Guy:
Yeah, no, that makes complete sense, doesn’t it? That, that, that’s definitely being one of my, uh. Ponderings is the dance of that total surrender. I’m just, I’m without the push. But then sometimes, you know, that willingness and that like, there’s a rocket under me going, uh, you know, and that drive behind it. And, and interestingly, since having, um, especially my son, now that’s my second child. There’s been this incredible new space opening for me where.

You know, I, I, I was sitting in the space for nearly a week holding a retreat just 10 days ago, and it’s quite phenomenal what comes out of it and blossoms and these, these, these elevated divine moments. And then I come home and I. I’m grounded. I’m here, I’m a dad, and I’m with my family, and it’s just beautiful. Yeah. And it’s like, wow. It’s, it’s always all around me. Yeah. Ever present if I,

Lawrence:
yes. And so that’s one of the things that gets cleared over time with, again, with practice, is the ordinary mind is an either or instrument. It lives in a, a world that’s facilitated by comparing contrast. It’s a, this isn’t that. It’s either or. It’s all caught up in categories like that. And the divine’s going one, one, all this and more. All this and more, all one. And that one includes an infinitude beyond any form the mind of senses can even perceive.

Guy:
Yeah. Gosh, so true. I get emotional thinking about it. It’s, yeah, it’s pre it’s pretty special.

Lawrence:
It’s, oh yeah. It’s ex, it’s like that’s what moves us to just like fall over in tears. Um, the meditations where you’re just, you’re sobbing out of the ecstasy. I mean, rapture and ecstasy are part of the meditative path. Um, and because they’re a dissolution into the divine, that’s not just, oh, that felt nice. No, no, no, no. No, no, no. Yeah. You don’t even have your pinky in the water then. Oh, no, no. It’s, it’s, it’s rolling on the floor. It’s falling over. It’s like, oh my God. Oh my God.

Guy:
Yeah. Wow. Amazing. Amazing. I’m gonna ask you one more, um, question Lawrence, to wrap up the podcast, but that is. Essentially with everything you covered today, which there’s been a a lot and it’s been beautiful actually. Um, what would you like to leave all the listeners to ponder on?

Lawrence:
Well, to know that this, uh, inner presence of the divine is, is there to empower you to take on the challenges that this life, this time on this planet, uh, is demanding of us. Um, you know, we’re cold. To act in the world. And just like you’ll see in the mythic traditions, like, uh, the Mahata or the Rama, the Ramayana, uh, where certain beings, you know, whether it was, uh, hanah and having to, you know, summon the strength to do these well.

Everyday life summons those virtues and strengths, and they’re fed by the infinitude of our own nature, so that we’re empowered to walk this higher wisdom, this higher knowing, this vision of what it is to be loving, kind, compassionate, patient. Uh uh, generous. Generous, that we wanna uplift all beings. We wanna see everyone free of suffering and to participate in the beauty of the world. We’re empowered to do that. So walk it into the world every day.

Guy:
Yeah. Thank you. And where can I send people, I’ll put links in the show notes because I, I noticed as well that you, I bought, I got your book the other week. Uh, this on Audible. Oh, yeah. When it came through. Yeah. It was great to see the, so where can I send so, so,

Lawrence:
uh, two websites, the souls journey.com or anam car meditation.org. Anam car is an ancient Gaelic term means friend of the soul. So it’s A-N-A-M-C-A-R-A meditation.org, and that’ll hook, you know, people up. ’cause we have, you know, over 150 free videos up on the YouTube channel, the anam Car Meditation YouTube channel, and then other resources, podcasts, connection to yours and other ones that have done on the Soul’s Journey website. So just trying to make it all accessible and freely available to

Guy:
you. Yeah. Yeah. Amazing. Lawrence, thank you so much for coming back on the show as always. I’m blown away. Um, just incredible. Yeah, really appreciate it. Yeah,

Lawrence:
yeah, yeah. Great being with you. Bye.

Guy:
Thank you, sir.

Lawrence:
All right. Take care now.