Exploring an alignment with oneself with Dr. James Cooke (Part 1 & 2)
Exploring an alignment with oneself is possible through the recognition of our being and its unfolding. In this new podcast with Dr. James Cooke, we explore being fully aligned with who you are, as well as the different modes of being. Along with talking about alignment, James also shares with us his experience with psychedelics and their impact on his life concerning consciousness and emotional healing.
Show Notes Links:
Learn more at:
https://www.drjamescooke.com/
Full Podcast Transcription:
Exploring an alignment with oneself with Dr. James Cooke (Part 1 & 2)
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Dr. James Cooke Part 1
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[00:00:00] Host: Hello, my friend. Welcome to the today. Dream of podcast. I'm really happy to have you here, even though I can't see you. I'm definitely imagining your presence. Yeah. Your presence out there and in. And I appreciate you. I appreciate you taking a moment to be here with us in the here and the now. So the show is here to help you cultivate your practice of presence, and it's my sincere intention to help you on that journey so that we may hopefully, and, uh, consciously contribute more fully to.
[00:00:52] Blossoming of the emergent world story as it continues to unfold. So we have explorations into conversational spaces with a whole host of different guests. And today's guest is Dr. James Cook, who is a neuroscientist writer, speaker, and focuses on consciousness, meditation, psychedelic states, science and spirituality.
[00:01:19] The conversation will, will be around mystical experiences. Non-dual insights that may be derived from those experiences or may arise psychedelics and James's process of emotional healing. Yes. Let's wanna again, say thank you for being here with us and if you forever, for whatever reason, feel like connecting more deeply with the show with the community.
[00:01:49] With me feel free to reach out today. dreamer.com is a place you can do that. We can shoot me an email Michael today, dreamer.com. I think that's all I really wanted to say. Let's get into this conversation with James and yeah. Thank you again.
[00:02:09] Guest: Yeah. I think that's as, as good, a place as need to start because you know, when we.
[00:02:15] Think about, well, when we think about anything and we try to come up with a coherent picture of the world, our starting place really is experience. You know, we, we find ourselves here experiencing something, uh, and then we extrapolate from that. And so I think it's reasonable to start with, start from there.
[00:02:35] And, and also with certain aspects of experience that seem consistent from person to person. So, you know, it could be. That this is all kind of an illusion you're in the matrix. It's a dream, some simulation, whatever, and you are really the only mind. Uh, and it just seems that there are all these people around you who agree with you.
[00:02:54] You can never get out of that SOOP trap. If you try to disprove that, that that's not something I find worrying because the other route to go is you find, we find ourselves here and I have an experience where certain parts of the world feel like me. They feel. under my control. Um, we can really, we can dig down into what that really means, but other parts don't seem to be under my control.
[00:03:20] You know, when a bird flies by that's different to me moving my hand. Um, so there seems to be self and other in some way. And then if you speak to other people, they'll tell you similar things. And there seems to, this is this kind of inter subjective situation. We find ourselves in where it really seems like there's me and her world and other people, um, other beings.
[00:03:43] And you can get that impression from your conscious experience of the world. And as I say, could all be a trick, could all be you're in the matrix. But, um, I think for me, there's like a often how emotionally stressed out one is pushes you on that spectrum. You know, if you are. If you're very stressed out, you could be freaked out by a sense of disconnection isolation.
[00:04:09] You don't wanna be the only thing in existence. And I think a lot of people can get themselves wound up into these concerns around solid and sometimes, um, the idea that you're the only thing that exists. And then if you become more peace and more grounded, then you feel more trusting in this feeling that you are connected to a wider world, but also.
[00:04:33] If it turned out, I'm currently in a simulation of when I die, I wake up from in I'm you get unplugged for the matrix or whatever it is. Okay. Fine. While I'm here, I'm gonna have this experience. The experiencing is definitely real, even if the content is losery so I'm, I'm okay with it. There's a level of non-attachment that I think is, is wise.
[00:04:52] Um, yeah. and
[00:04:54] Host: yeah. What, what did you mean when you said concerns?
[00:05:00] Guest: What context they say
[00:05:01] Host: concerns. You meant, uh, you said the concerns when it came to, so, um, so if you are under certain stresses or you are going through difficult times, um, right. Are, are you kind of pointing to the idea that you may be more likely to lean in that direction?
[00:05:19] Guest: Yeah, I think so. If you take someone who is. Delving into philosophy, trying to find answers that come across this idea that maybe they're the only mind in existence or even they just have this realization. They feel certainly trapped in their own experience. Um, and they're like, wait a minute. How could I ever know anyone else's conscious?
[00:05:43] And they get freaked out by this, um, from inside their head, there's like a logical consistency to what they're saying. And it's hard to kind of logically get yourself out of it. , but from the outside, me looking at them as an emotional, being as a, what I perceive to be part of a greater whole and my understanding of the psychology and neuroscience of, of mental health in general, I tend to think in terms of.
[00:06:15] It just seems to be the case that when systems like us are connected and interdependent and mutually flourishing, that's when we feel good. That's, there's a kind of the feeling of good could be a kind of signal that that's the direction we wanna move in. It's it's better for our flourishing. When we feel isolated, lonely disconnected, that's at the pace of a lot of, uh, emotional, mental struggles, depression, anxiety.
[00:06:39] Um, and so. What I would say from that person is okay, they're having, they're going through a, a fantasy of isolation really? They're, they're concerned that they're isolated and disconnected. And so what feels to them, just like a logical, philosophical concern, cuz they're not thinking about their emotions.
[00:07:00] They're just in their head in a kind of dissociated eco way from the outside to me, it's like, okay, well here's some, here's a system that's been stressed out on it. And now it's, it's concerned. You're asked you why you concerned. It's it's become attached to beliefs and constructs, and it's, it's trying to use ideas to find a way out of this problem, but the egoic rational mind is never gonna find a solution to emotional problems of that kind.
[00:07:26] Uh, well it could find solutions. It could read the right books, but then ultimately the work happens on an emotional level, on a level of letting go in a non-attachment and just allowing and coming into connection with everything else.
[00:07:40] Host: Yeah. What kind of was coming up for me as you were sharing and kind of, yeah.
[00:07:44] Kind of part of where the entry point came from was around the idea that you, that you shared on one of your AMAs around something that may have been quite a alive for you recently around, uh, social matrixes and something that may have been kind of zoomed down and explored through a psychedelic experience around.
[00:08:02] The idea that, um, you know, the, I guess the masks that we, that we wear, um, and in terms of, uh, I'm just trying to kind of, put these in the words that you shared them, the, uh, this thought in, but I think I would just kind of go my own way. It was something from what I understood around, you know, this idea of, um, narcissism and darkness.
[00:08:27] Maybe there was more layers of the masks that were kind of being worn. And there was more of a separation between what was being shown and, and who we truly were. And maybe the lightness was in the other, in the other space. And, um, this idea that I've come to is, um, I've just kind of realized the potentiality of, of, um, An awaken path through relationship.
[00:08:51] And, and it's interesting how that in in fact is a mirror and it allows us to kind of unpeel some of those layers and, um, live more, more authentically or, or more closely to that kind of, um, or show, show more transparently, um, and be who we are on a more transparent
[00:09:11] Guest: level. Right. So when you go from. I guess I was talking about the more fundamental layer of, uh, initial concerns with how do we even know that other people are yeah.
[00:09:24] Uh, agents like us, but then you're. Yeah. So what you're pointing to is this, when we accept that, when we accept that we navigating on the world and, uh, other people are conscious and they have opinions about us. And, um, that, yeah, there's a, so the entry point to this, uh, for me in talking about. On my own.
[00:09:48] Um, my own work was, uh, an experience I've had many times, uh, spontaneously. I think I often have it quite reliably with psychedelics, um, which is this kind of zooming out and a feeling of a kind of poignant viewing of, of social dynamics from a like kind of an overview effect, um, feels similar to like say in a movie.
[00:10:16] Someone's looking in through a window at a scene in, in someone's house. And there's like, uh, an emotional scene playing out. And there's a sense of kind of poignancy. Uh, it feels like you can have that with, with, get out of your own head and you see your own interactions with people and you realize how you've been stuck in certain kind of yeah.
[00:10:34] Social matrices of like, how are they gonna think of me? Uh, am I coming across well, like all of, all of these things, and I think the. This comes back to kind of connection and disconnection. The point you see there is I guess, because there's, it's hard to be, uh, it's hard for most people to be perfectly vulnerable, um, for everyone to be, to be absolutely 100% perfectly open, vulnerable, transparent, um, and therefore fully connected.
[00:11:05] Well, ideally, cuz if you're fully transparent, the fear is that there won't be connection. There'll be rejection of some kind. So there's usually some. Some attempt to manage the image of, of who you are and that, that kind of occurs on a spectrum. So you, because of the privacy of consciousness, cause I can never appear directly inside your, your soul and see what's going on in there.
[00:11:29] Um, there is always this gap between I'm appearing on a screen right now, depending on how I move my face and my hands, it CS up a certain image. Um, At the moment. I'm not that aware of it. It's coming out very naturally. And I probably just look like someone talking in a normal way, but if I started behaving strangely, that would produce different effects or, um, so there's this disconnect between who I really am in my felt subjective sense and who I appear to be on the outside.
[00:11:57] Uh, and when that distance is as small as possible, when you can be as open and as vulnerable and as, um, and just allow. Allow your truly instinctive way of being to, to come out in your behavior, then people really do kind of, there's a sense of connection. Like they're really seeing the real person.
[00:12:20] There's no pretense there. And then there's, there's a spectrum through to kind of, NA's a good example of it. Something where you've really re your, your, if you think of, I mean, one way of thinking about narcism. For people who have come to it through trauma, that there's a really wounded, uh, terrified part inside of the person who is just terrified to be vulnerable.
[00:12:45] And so they, they put a lot of effort into crafting a very well, they think to be a very kind of appealing, impressive, attractive mask. Uh, and so they exploit this, this discrepancy, the fact that the appearance doesn't have to align with the. with a true person. And in kind of, I mean, this is one reason, the spiritual traditions, why truth telling is such a, a kind of important ethical norm.
[00:13:14] Uh, and you can understand truth telling to not just be in terms of like verbal proposition things like, you know, I left your ball by the tree or some, some information like that. Uh, but instead. Can just be this, this intuitive way of being, you know, like you are not being deceptive even in your body language.
[00:13:33] And that just means, again, more allowing more, letting go more, being less self, being less self-reflexive, um, and self-monitoring and being self concerned. And the way to move there is, is often through. Emotional work, trauma healing, feeling more grounded in the world, more safe, um, which is a process of learning to trust yourself.
[00:13:54] You don't just surrender and pretend you're, you know, if you're in a dangerous environment, you have to learn to resource yourself and have the skills to navigate into a situation where it's truly safe to, um, to surrender. But so it's people often talk about kind of light versus dark. um, in spiritual traditions as well.
[00:14:17] And that can mean a few different things, but I think generally for me, when we're talking about human behavior and we, you know, we equate kind of evil with darkness and good, the good with, with light. And I think part of that reason is what I was saying here about this kind of this discrepancy between the image and, and the person, because they're hiding in the dark.
[00:14:42] There there's some. There's some shadow being cast by the, the image that's allowing them to, to hide. Um, whereas when you're fully aligned with who you are and how you present yourself, then there's a full transparency, a full illumination as, as much as possible. Um, and the miraculous thing is that you, even though technically.
[00:15:08] Where these kind of subjective islands that we started off talking about, that I can never know your conscious for certain we have, we have, it's possible to have deep connection it's possible for there to be a full, uh, alignment coordination between two different technique. I mean, I hesitate to say technically isolated, cause they're not really isolated.
[00:15:28] We're all part of the same unfolding. Um, but it's from, from the scientific philosophical way of thinking. That's come out. The European tradition, that's been very concerned with a feeling that I am an individual self that is isolated and separate to you in that way of viewing. It seems miraculous that we can actually truly connect and truly know each other.
[00:15:52] Um, from a view that sees that as kind of an illusion where actually you are just part of a greater hole and it's kind of obvious that we should be up to connect and cuz we are inherently connected.
[00:16:05] Host: It seems quite miraculous and it seems, yeah, it seems like, kind of like you mentioned obvious that, that, that kind of pervades, no matter what.
[00:16:14] Guest: Yeah. I mean, it's, I mean, I guess D couple different kinds of miraculous. You've got the kind of, uh, the miraculous of the, kind of the scientist who's like, I don't believe it. How could that, what's the possible mechanism by which my consciousness could interact with yours and truly connect, um, and sort of, kind of dismissive way of thinking about it, or there's the kind of miraculous, which is.
[00:16:35] The kind of awe inspiring, um, elation you can feel when you, when you are in connection, when you feel, you know, cuz I guess the way I think about it is the way, the reason we kind of connect is we're we're over kind. We're the same phenomen, similar phenomena, you know, you've got, um, the universe makes things like us and it's cause we are the same thing, same kind of thing.
[00:16:59] We can recognize each other. And in that, there's this, um, I mean, fundamentally, what we're talking about is love. We're talking about feelings of, of deep connection recognition and it's as a scientist, it's still slightly baffling to me. Why,
[00:17:20] why this ex why this is so fundamental, why this feeling of love and connectedness, um, yeah. Is so. Is at the bottom of our psychology, uh, and is so robust. And part of me, you could give a dismissive easy answer of like, well, we're social primates. And we evolved, uh, uh, for, for, you know, social bonding and that's usual for our survival.
[00:17:48] And that could, could just be that. Um, I say just, it still makes it PA it's, it's still meaningful and powerful, but it feels to me like it's at a deeper level, it feels like to be a living. Mutual dependence kind of interdependence of other things is a fundamental principle that helps you to flourish.
[00:18:06] And so really to, to be the universe, experiencing yourself to formula island of order that can then experience the world as happens with life. That connection is the, is the, the way you do that, basically. And so in spirit traditions where people feel like love is the fabric of the universal love is J is the nature of God or something.
[00:18:29] That's the experientially. That's the, I have that, that experience with where it's like this, doesn't just feel like a social primate thing. This feels like, uh, even lizards and things that we don't empathize with. And we, you know, we use language cause we're mammals. We use language like warm and fuzzy to talk about love because we're a warm blooded, hairy mamalian things.
[00:18:49] We intuitively associate those things. So it's hard for me, you know, intuitively I look at crocodile and I don't think of it as. As loving things, but that could just be a human kind of mamalian centric way of thinking. And when it's nurturing it's well, I guess it doesn't nurture it's young so maybe it is a Manian thing.
[00:19:09] Anyway, this is something I've not come to a firm conclusion on at the moment. Um, yeah. Yeah. It
[00:19:15] Host: seems from what you were saying earlier, it's probably not best to come to firm conclusions and that's true. There's this idea of, uh, Yeah, just kind of, uh, just, it seemed obvious to me, but maybe not so much, maybe, obviously isn't the right word, but this kind of ever pervading nature of love that even, um, shines through the kind of illusion of separateness, it, it seems like kind of beautiful, um, poetic kind of thought, I guess.
[00:19:45] Guest: Yeah. I mean, even if it's, it's also it's for me, it's, it's a, it's a vivid. Incredibly powerful experience as well. That's um, and you know, when we, when I'm saying love, I'm not talking about like some force that physicists need to describe or something that is like a, you know, exist out there. I'm talking about a kind of a dynamic, a way of being that is so it's quite a complex thing, but it's when, when something like us is in a mode of openness and connectedness, it feels a certain way.
[00:20:16] So you've got the kind. You've got both the physical thing of opening up being connected, but then also the subjective dynamics that go along with that. And that that package is what I'm calling love, particularly the subjective side of it. Um, but it's embodied, so it can't go along without the physical stuff.
[00:20:33] Um, and so it could be that love really exists in. Primates, you know, or man, sorry, I should say mammals that, um, have evolved to, to kind of bond that they're young and with each other. Uh, and, but E even if that's the case, because what it is is the reason that evolve is because mutual interdependence and, you know, mutual flourishing is, is a good way to survive a good way to be a good way to exist a successful way to exist.
[00:21:06] So even if it only exists in mammals, What we're getting in touch with is a, is a fundamental principle of, at kind of metaphysical level, at a level of physics of, of the way the universe works. It's a holistic interdependent framework. So even it feels fundamental. Cause I think it is even if it only exists in us and it doesn't exist.
[00:21:25] You know, when, when things feel fundamental, people often have the habit of saying, well, it must be fundamental that it must be the fabric of the universe. I don't think that's necessarily the case, but I think it's an attribute. The fabric of the university could say that we're getting in touch with. Um, but again, it's just a mode of, of being where you open and you are you're coming into, into interdependence.
[00:21:49] And so it's, to me, it's, it's the, like, if you had to, if you're trying to offer guidance people in life and you could just use one word as an instruction, Love would be, would be the one to me and I, and you know, the, what I mean by that is if you, if you just move in this direction away from separation and into openness, trusting mutual interdependence, um, and you, you use your feeling states to feel out what feels like love.
[00:22:24] This could just begin with think of one thing you love could be something trivial and then notice how that feels in your body. And then. Take that feeling that warm light, whatever words you wanna use to describe it, that feeling, and then shine it on whatever, whatever arises in your experience. And then that's the whole project.
[00:22:46] Basically, if you just keep expanding what you can love uncon, unconditionally, we're talking about unconditional acceptance and you know, which is one reason, the word I love here, uh, that takes you in that takes you all the way into. Kind of full non-dual, you know, insight into the unitive nature of the universe and, and it, the kind of timelessness of consciousness, all of these different insights come out of a true surrender into, into this openness that I'm, I'm pulling love here.
[00:23:17] Uh, so it's, it's, it's funny, cuz
[00:23:23] with, with this one word, um, you know, the other day I was, um, I write songs sometimes. And I, I was, I thought it'd be fun to collaborate with like an AI to, to see if he'd give me some ideas. um, and so I was, I was playing around with some, some AI stuff and this AI song, writing generator, I just went for the, I found one that existed already.
[00:23:46] And I went for the default settings and it came up with a, a terrible, terribly written song, but every single line had the word love on it. And. That tells you something about human culture and you know, this just from watching movies and listening to songs and going into card shops. This is if there's one word that's imbued with the most power or that we're more obsessed with anything it's love and growing up in England and as a scientist, what I'm supposed to say now is, oh, of course it's so cliche and it's, uh, you know, I'm and I'm fully aware of that, that that's the reaction people have is a defensive kind of like, no, like it's.
[00:24:21] We have to dismiss it, but it's as a, I think as a species we're in this neurotic struggle with love where we know it's right. We know it's good. We know it's what we won, but it's, it's hard to get there because we said, you know, you can't just surrender into it. If you're not safe, you need to learn to trust yourself, resource yourself, empower yourself, mature and parent yourself to get to a place where you can navigate to the world where it's safe, you know, in a way where it's safe to love because of that struggle.
[00:24:47] We have, we have all these cynical kind of reactions around him. We dismiss it, but. It's clear. We're not gonna just get rid of it. We're obsessed with it. We, we know it's what we want. Um, and I think it's, you know, in my own personal experience this, once I, once I kind of aligned my trajectory to the center of the bullseye have unconditional of in this kind of just open to whatever rises an experience, it was like more be a good analogy.
[00:25:15] Uh, I feel like I've not seen, I'm not that proficient with knowing like sci-fi movies. But I imagine if someone's like being beamed into another dimension where all their molecules are like vibrating and they're being kind of teleported or something, it felt like that it felt like I was in the, in a current of something that was at a kind of every, from the largest to the smaller scale of my embodied experience of the world was, was opening me up and, and.
[00:25:44] I couldn't think of anything more powerful than that experience and all it was was just, and this was, so this is not psychedelics or that can help. Um, uh, yeah, it, it, it's when I had the experience, I was like, wow. Okay. Now I, I know why people are obsessed with this. I know why it's important spiritual traditions.
[00:26:02] Um, I'd had a lot of insight into the kind of mental side of spiritual stuff before I had the insight into the love stuff. And the love really completed the picture for me.
[00:26:12] Host: Yeah, thank you for sharing that. That was quite beautiful. And something kind of stayed with me around the kind of distillation down to one word.
[00:26:21] I had a conversation with forest Landry a little while ago, and he kind of, yeah, he talks a lot about choice and you were talking a lot about kind of navigating and, and the trajectory of our lives and the stream of, or the current of love and flowing with that and finding a way I'm picturing like a river kind of analogy and.
[00:26:41] Kind of surrendering into that space and yeah, I I've, I've had a similar experience in my life. Um, I, yeah, I wouldn't mind kind of moving our trajectory into, um, into the space of psychedelics if you're open to the idea and absolutely. Yeah. And, and maybe exploring some of the kind of psychotherapeutic work that you've done in that space and, um, yeah.
[00:27:05] And. Also, you know, if, if you wanted to link it in terms of, um, I was wondering if, if you do see, see a link in terms of this kind of capacity to, um, allow these masks to fall off more and more, and, and open into this space of kind of vulnerability and transparency and truth and love and. If you see if you see kind of bridge there at all.
[00:27:32] And I was just curious what comes up for you.
[00:27:35] Guest: Yeah. Um, yeah, so I, my entry to this stuff was, was having had a kind of what I guess, I, I think the best tone for. Is non-dual insight and insight into the unitive nature of existence. And the fact that the map isn't the territory existence is this unnamable thing.
[00:28:01] And then our models of it are a different thing. Is this feeling of like, uh, You could say that like the, the universe is like the body of God, like it is and using God, just to mean to point to a concept that's beyond all other concepts, just it's it's this unnamable or inspiring thing. Um, that's just, yeah.
[00:28:22] So I'd had this experience and, and practiced a lot, just kind of being in touch with this way of seeing and. Then this was before I'd done any kind of psychedelic work. And I, I wanted to talk in public about it because I felt that for me, it was really grounding. Very kind of, I felt like it reframed the world in a way where a lot of problem, things that seemed like problems no longer felt like problems.
[00:28:50] A big one is fear of death. Like. People who have these experiences typically no longer are particularly concerned with their own egoic, you know, versus of di of, of being dead. I should say. Um, other people dying is still emotional thing, but, uh, there can be this kind of evolved terror, terror around death that can go away when you identify with just the unfolding of all of existence.
[00:29:13] Um,
[00:29:14] Host: when you say go away, I'm, I'm sorry to interrupt. I'm curious. Um, not at all. Yeah. Do you mean go away fully?
[00:29:23] Guest: I mean, so I had this first experience when I was like 13, at which point, I mean, I guess I was probably afraid of death then. Cause I was reating about hell, cause I was raise Catholic. So you could call that fear of death.
[00:29:34] But yeah, I would say, I mean, for me, you know, I, I, I should come back when I'm on my death bed and, and see if I'm, if I'm talking nonsense now, but I, I feel quite C. That, um, I mean, just in my life, my, the idea of my own mortality has not been a, has not bothered me really. Um, I would say, would I say totally there's, there've probably been moments where there have been moments of poignancy where I've been like, ah, you know, sucks that this can't go on forever, but then it's immediately, it's immediately kind of extinguished by the non-dual kind of realization of, well, it does go on forever.
[00:30:16] You are the fact of being. Being cannot, there cannot be non being, like that's not a stable, that's not a thing that can exist kind of by definition. So you are the ongoing unfolding of just the universe that will, and not just this universe of all being, but will always continue. So like there's no, it, it really feels like an illusion falls away and it's like, there's not really anything to worry about.
[00:30:37] Um, so I would say pretty much totally, but I'm not gonna say fully totally because you know, you're still. As well as identifying with just being, you still are a human with your human program. So you still have thoughts and you still have emotional reactions, but it's, it's more than my experience. They come up and then they're, they're immediately, recontextualized like half a second or later, so you're not stuck in it.
[00:31:00] You're not worrying about it. Um, relationship. I see it. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Um, so, uh, where was I going with? So
[00:31:12] Host: you were, uh, so this happened when you were 13,
[00:31:15] Guest: right? Right. So then, um, I wanted to talk about it cause I saw it as fitting with science as well. And I felt like there wasn't, um, thankfully, there's a bit more about, about it now.
[00:31:29] Kind of people talking about how mindfulness and meditation fit and psychedelic medicine mm-hmm, fit with science. And, but when I was first interested in talking about this stuff publicly, there really wasn't that much being said about it. So I felt that this, um, I wanted to talk about it and then I, but I knew I, I knew I wasn't ready.
[00:31:49] I couldn't tell you why, because I felt like. When you have this non-dual insight, awakening, realization, whatever you wanna call it. Um, you're in touch with just the fact of being, which is just absolute. It's like there's no, there's no real nuances to it. It's just, it's it's existence and it's, um, you can't really go deeper.
[00:32:10] It's just, if you get it, you get it. And so part of me was like, okay, I get it. Like I'm I think I should be ready to talk about this. But then part of me was like, not you don't, I don't feel fully baked. I'm not sure. I, I dunno why, but I know I'm not ready to. Um, and so one thing I was interested in was I've, you know, read papers around.
[00:32:34] These kinds of what sort called missed experience, um, being produced by psychedelics. And so I thought great. Like if I think this is something that should be freely available to people that they can have these insights and hopefully live better lives, then this could be a good mechanism to Democrat democratize it.
[00:32:52] Um, and you know, I don't want people to have to. You don't wanna just wait for people to have these spontaneous events like I had. So then I, I thought I would try a high, high dose Ibin trip just to, to see if it's similarities and differences. And, um, the core insights are the same because you're still, it doesn't matter really how you get there.
[00:33:13] You are still having insights into yourself and into what you are as a piece of existence. So they're still valid. Um, some people wanna dismiss them as kind of lesser than spontaneous ones, but I think. There are differences, but, um,
[00:33:27] Host: but you're reflecting on the differences from when you were 13. This was, I'm assuming quite a
[00:33:32] Guest: bit later on.
[00:33:33] Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So, um, yeah, it's probably as many years later again, so, um, so yeah, you, there are definitely differences, but it's the core thing is still the same. When you have this kind of mystical ego dissolving experience. Mm-hmm um, Sorry, reflecting
[00:33:53] Host: on the similarities. Would've been a better way of putting it.
[00:33:55] Yeah, I get what you're saying.
[00:33:56] Guest: Yeah. So then, um, you, then what happened to me though, was that I'd as can happen with psychedelics, it just started to kind of bring to awareness, emotional or emotionally charged and memories and, and. I just started to, to feel into my feelings and embodied way in a way that I'd never really done before.
[00:34:21] I'd always thought of myself as a kind of open, sensitive, uh, feeling kind of person. But I had an ex I'd had, you know, a challenging time growing up. And as a result, my, my whole physiology was, was tense and, and braced against the world. And this is a kind of a strange thing to get your head around when it comes to.
[00:34:43] This kind of non-dual insight, which is that you can really have it whenever you can be someone like me who is completely wound up and felt separated and isolated and, and really, um, not a good candidate, not someone who's done yoga and meditated and has really opened themselves up. And you know, me when I was 13.
[00:35:03] Um, and yet even then you can just have this switch where you notice, despite all of this struggle. Another way of looking. There is no struggle. There's just, everything just exists and it's all lawfully unfolding. Um, but then the trick is to integrate those two things and bring your, your way of being and your embodied being, feeling like a human into alignment, what it feels like to just be the fact of existence unfolding quite a task for a 30, sorry.
[00:35:30] Quite a task for a three year old. Yeah. Well, that's why it took me well over another decade to, to figure it out. And, and in the meantime I was. Engaging it in what would be called spiritual bypassing and just kind of, um, escaping from my suffering into this perspective where it's like, oh, if I just look at, if I shift into this awareness of where it's just awareness and everything's arising in it, there's no suffering.
[00:35:53] Great. And then the thing is, I, I couldn't, I couldn't just wake up in the morning and spend 18 hours going about my day in this perfectly enlightened light, you know, way of being, it would be. I could shift into that whenever I wanted, but then seconds later it just collapsed back into feeling like a burdened ego, and I could shift out again.
[00:36:13] And, but then, so it wasn't, uh, yeah, I still felt like I was suffering as an ego and needed to integrate this somehow. Uh, yeah. And then luckily enough, the, I, it was through because psychedelics actually act on the physiology and because you know, mind and matter are not. Separate your, your consciousness is an embodied process.
[00:36:37] Um, if you, I mean, for me, I need, I think I, with my brain circuits and my physiology, just being set in a certain way as an adult, I needed, I needed things that would increase neuroplasticity and would open up, um, change my, allow me to change my wiring basically, and to, to allow this physiological. Uh, embodied change to occur.
[00:37:05] And the crazy thing is with, um, where people carry, embodied traumatic stress. You typically don't know that you are because they, it typically happens when you feel overwhelmed and it's a coping mechanism to kind of switch off and isolate that, um, whatever the thing is, the emotional reaction that was too much.
[00:37:27] And so you don't know that it's there. Um, You know, for example, uh, in my twenties I would drink espressos and I could have multiple and I would never, I would never really feel it. I would feel like coffee didn't really affect me. Um, I, I don't really drink caffeine anymore, but yesterday I had an espresso and for the, for about 12 hours, it felt like I was in an altered state.
[00:37:50] I, I did it because I wanted to work, do some very deep, intense work and it worked really well, but I was. It was like a, a mild LSD trip to me or something and were just talking about normal cup of coffee. And that that's because I've spent years now just kind of really being in touch with my feelings and my, and my body and releasing stress.
[00:38:07] And so now I, I read all of the signals, you know, if there's a fluttering in my stomach, I detect it and I interpret it. And instead of. Just feeling like you're in your head and shut off from the body. Um, it's amazing. You can create these kind of blind spots when you are, uh, when there's emotional struggles going on.
[00:38:24] So yeah, for me, it was only once I could, I could really open up and for me, a big part of it was breathing. I, I was so fundamentally kind of braced against the world that my breathing was this kind of jagged gasping. Uh, it was almost like with every breath, there was an anxiety. I wasn't going to get enough oxygen.
[00:38:45] So the next breath would be caught with like a conscious gasp. Um, and I, what I had to do was to surrender to a point where my instinctive slow breathing would just learn again, just through basic of all physiological mechanisms would learn to take over. And that actually involved me, like lying down.
[00:39:07] For like long periods of not breathing and then waiting for my stomach to suddenly like, you know, I just have to mindfully, let my let go and let my ego surrender and be with the anxiety and the fear of that. I'm not gonna breathe, but trust that nothing's obstructing my airways and this is during a second journey.
[00:39:26] Yeah, I've done. I've done it both on and off. But I think the first time I did it was, um, on an LSD trip where I, I realized I was just done with, with living in a stressed out way. I was done with carrying the emotional burdens that I was carrying. And I was, I felt this sense of, I, again, as someone who's trained as a neuroscientist, which is a subfield of biology, you know, so, uh, Trained as a biologist, in a sense you I'm familiar with, uh, the evolutionary story of like what we are as physiological beings.
[00:40:00] And, and I was like, I should be able to just lie here and completely surrender and have my heartbeats. And my, my lungs feel were there without consciously doing anything without stressing better. And so I felt I, I, this should be possible. And that I was out this in the sense of. I think we're all we all deserve to just be at peace.
[00:40:20] If you're in a safe environment, we all deserve to, to try to connect with that ability just to be at peace and to rest. Um, yeah. And it's very dramatic and, uh, and not a, not an easy process to go through, but, and I, I still kind of do it now to some extent, mildly, but where, if something happens, that's stressful, I can sometimes feel that there's an instinct to kind.
[00:40:42] Grasp a little bit. And I, but in, in the past that would've felt very reified. Very real when I would've done it. Now, what, what happens is I notice, oh, okay. There's, there's a bit of anxiousness here and a fear and there's, I can feel my throat slightly contracting. And then the thing to do is for me, at least, is just to, we're not going too much into the weeds of technicality of how I do this now, but, um, is you just notice all that and you don't give into the, to the fear and then eventually it kind of dissolves.
[00:41:11] A deep belly breath comes and, but you you're fundamentally shifting out of an, an egoic fear based way of being. Um, and then for me, this, this allows me to be fully in alignment or more and more in alignment with this absolute perspective of just being the unfolding universe, being a physiological, a adult organism that doesn't have to.
[00:41:35] Second guess itself, you know, is a kind of Dallas just kind of flowing with the river way of being.
[00:41:42] Host: Thank you so much for tuning into part one of this two part series, please. Don't forget to check out the next episode to kind of complete this journey, this exploration. And there'll be information on all the guests work in the show notes section and also through the website today, dreamer.com.
[00:42:03] And if you head over to the website, there's. Ongoing there's ongoing offerings in regards to helping you cultivate your own practice of presence, because it's my sincere intention to help you contribute towards the blossoming of the emergent world story in your own unique and particular way. Thank you for tuning in, and I will catch you next time.
[00:42:27] My friend.
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Dr. James Cooke Part 2
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[00:00:00] Host: Hello, my friend. Welcome to part two of this conversation with James Cook. And you're a scientist writer and speaker focusing on consciousness, meditation, psychedelic states, science and spirituality. If you haven't had a chance yet, I've definitely had over and listened to part one before moving into this conversational space with us.
[00:00:22] And yeah, I just wanted to thank you for being here. And that day dreamer podcast is here to help you cultivate your own practice of presence. To help you contribute more fully and in your own unique, particular way towards the ever Virgin blossoming
[00:00:41] Guest: of the unfolding world story. So I hope
[00:00:48] Host: that you enjoy the deepening of this conversation and yeah, I think I'll leave it at that. Uh, there was kind of a recognition of some, um, I don't know, like. Psycho-spiritual emotional work that needed to take place of some sort. And, um, there was a real intention or a real kind of, um, uh, momentum shift in the, in, and, and a, and a kind of, um, influx of power in that direction purposefully.
[00:01:18] And you've gone into that, these spaces and, and, um, intentionally, um, aim to undo some of these knots that have been built up over long periods of time. Deep deep into your past. Yeah. Um, coming into deeper states of presence and, and, um, intuitively uh, feeling into what your body requires in certain moments.
[00:01:40] Is that right? Does that sound true?
[00:01:42] Guest: Absolutely. Yeah. And it's, it's, um, On the one hand, it felt very, you know, ego James knew what he wanted and had a conceptual map for this and knew what trajectory I was going in and could guide it. But the actual process was, was one of passivity of surrender of opening.
[00:01:59] Um, and so it's more of a, you know, kind of getting out of your own way. Um, yeah. So you have. And it's not just psychedelics, you know, I mean, so an interesting thing is, as I said, you can be completely have all this embodied stress feel fundamentally afraid, have faced and continue to face challenges. You know, me at the age of 13, and yet you can still connect with this fact of being you can get out of, of a mindset of doing and just exist in the present moment it's possible.
[00:02:31] Um, but again, it's not gonna be very integrated and sustained and, and your. Behavior is likely to, to come out in unconscious neurotic ways. You know, you see kind of abuse in like spiritual teachers and stuff like that. It's very possible to have these insights and be deeply unintegrated and to then act out in pathological ways.
[00:02:50] Um, and then for me, then there was a process of, okay, you've got, uh, you've got this kind of awakened perspective that then it keeps collapsing back into. An ego and it's not sustainable or it's not. Yeah. It's not sustained being in that one in the kind of awakened state. So then the process for me was how do I get this organism to be again like a, a doist kind of conception of a thing.
[00:03:18] That's just, just the unfolding with the flowing of the river, with no interference from the ego and from, with. This fair stuff. And so one thing is you physiologically start to open yourself up with psychedelics is one way that I yeah. Have done it. Um, even just massage, like I've had a, a Massou who would to massage my stomach in this way.
[00:03:39] That was really, I mean, it was, it was so deep and intense and confronting to be, to be prodded very deeply in your stomach is all this kind of soft muscle fascia where you carry. All of your emotional reactivity. And that was incredibly powerful that also allowed to drop down another level with this stuff, yoga.
[00:03:57] This is why yoga's a spiritual tradition. Cause it allows you to move into this, you know, yoga, meaning union into this state of mystical kind of nondual insight. Um, and so there are lots of different ways to do it, but for me, it's about bringing this organism into alignment with. With the unfolding of the world.
[00:04:14] And even when we are, you you're doing meditation or something, you conceptualize as mental. We know that there are new physiological changes going along the underpin different changes to consciousness, different changes in your habitual mental patterns. So the whole process is one of, of being a physical thing that is becoming into alignment with the bottom up kind of flowering in existence rather than this egoic interfering, um, which is often how we, we live our lives.
[00:04:42] Host: Yeah, I'm, I'm kind of curious what role kind of your sharings online and, and just even us having this conversation that plays in your life in terms of this process. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:04:53] Guest: That's a, yeah, that's a great question. I've not been asked before, but I it's definitely, um, part of, part of the process. So I I've always had a deep instinct to, uh, to try to help, I guess I think service is the kind of the ultimate.
[00:05:11] Good like to spend your life on. Um, and you could say that comes from a basic human instinct or a basic living thing. Instinct of empathy, of seeing other things like me that suffer and wanting to help relieve suffering. There could be an extent to which it comes from a neurotic place of projecting my own suffering of, you know, but I, I feel like that's, that's not so much part of it.
[00:05:36] It's I try to bring to awareness if that's an aspect of it. So I think it's, um, yeah, so that's why I do it, but then the actual project of it as well, another benefit I get from it is, um, it keeps me, it keeps me going on this path because. It can be confronting to, to put yourself out there in a public way, um, can bring up, you know, again, a social primates, interpersonal anxieties, a lot of people are terrified of public speaking have not been that work and been had that much of a problem with public speaking, but it can still, it can still bring up concerns of yeah.
[00:06:15] Ego concerns of, of how you're perceived and how you are, uh, what people think of you if you're making sense, you know? Um, and so I think. When I first started doing it, it was really helpful ways for me to, to feel what would come up when I would do these things. And almost just to challenge myself, put myself in a position that some people were just like, no way I'm not gonna do that.
[00:06:36] It's too scary. But instead to put myself in those positions and then be like, okay, what do I need to do to feel, um, to feel that I can navigate this well, and actually that's the other point I should have said when I was talking about how you in an embodied way can come more into alignment with this absolute perspective.
[00:06:54] A big part of it is it's not just about passively opening yourself and surrendering and, um, and that stuff, you know, as I indicated before, that happens in parallel with the process of empowerment where you're actually, you know, as well as being this kind of, uh, this kind of flowering at the universe, you also do have the capacity to make decisions.
[00:07:17] You are an agent. And so you. You learn to develop skills and to resource yourself and become aware of your, of what's going on in your world. And through that process, you learn to trust yourself, not just trust yourself again, like, uh, blindly, but to really think like, okay, I I've really got my own back here.
[00:07:39] I know how to look after myself. Self- self care is another, another part of this, you know, deprogramming yourself from, from societal narratives that prevent you from doing that. And. So that's, that's another kind of important part of this process. Uh, That may have taken a spell
[00:07:54] Host: topic from your question off.
[00:07:56] Topic's fine. I'm kind of a little bit more curious in this direction. So when, when we're talking about this kind of these things that come up for you in terms of the sharings, like certain vulnerabilities and, and, um, you know, emotional, not that, you know, still kind of arise maybe through the process of, of that participation or that, that service.
[00:08:16] Um, yeah, this is kind of, kind of matching to what we were talking about earlier around the masks. And I've, I've thought about this and it seems like, yeah, something that has made me personally feel quite, quite reluctant in certain, um, arenas to be sharing more is the idea of like layering more masks on rather than removing them.
[00:08:35] Interest. I was wondering, yeah. What you see about that and if you see that that happening or, or you just feel like the, um, yeah, just the dance back and forth allows you to kind of, um, you know, somehow halt that process. I'm not
[00:08:49] Guest: sure. That's really interesting. I, I'm not sure if this is what you meant by it, but what it brings up to me is, is the, um, there are certain things of like, you know, when I point to emotional challenge, like challenges in youth that led to the, to these.
[00:09:05] Uh, so my needing to engage in kind of trauma healing work. I, I often hold back from going into details there because I feel like by being truthful, sometimes what that might serve to do is actually to put on a mask. So if I, if I emphasize that I come from a, a kind of working class background and had it, you know, hard in that way then is that coming from a place of truth?
[00:09:32] Because when I say it, actually, what it feels like is I'm almost trying to be like, so you should think of me in this, what you should like. Yeah. I dunno.
[00:09:40] Host: Uh, it's like transparency. That's not quite transparent or
[00:09:43] Guest: something. Exactly. It's like a manipulative. It's almost like I want you to think of me. Oh, isn't he impressive for like having transcended like a difficult circumstance.
[00:09:51] So that's interesting. I've not had someone's I dunno if that's what you meant by it, but that, yeah. When you said that it feels like you're layering on masks. Um, yeah, I notice, uh, who knows that as well, but then in that way, I guess we, this is kind of what I meant before with truthness. Isn't just a, um, uh, isn't just about the statements you make, because like, while that's a literally true statement, you know, I was saying in your posturing, the way you present yourself, the effects you wanna have on people, that's where we're really talking about transparency.
[00:10:20] And, and I mean, again, maybe connection really is the ultimate thing we're talking about here, because if I, if I say something that's technically true, but it's because I want to achieve a certain. uh, mind state and you with regards to me, then there's an attempt to control. There's an attempt to make you different somehow to what you are, or to stop this, this process from being as authentic and as connected and as, as transparent as it is.
[00:10:45] Um, so I think, yeah, connection is perhaps a deeper principle than even truth. Um, Yeah,
[00:10:54] Host: and yeah, no, I'm watching kind of what we're doing and why we're doing it. It seems like there's, there's a light that's being shown on the motions in your life. And I've thought about this recently, just probably conducting some kind of a possibly conducting some kind of experiment where I just kind of name kind of reasons I'm doing every single thing for a whole day or something, or maybe even just for an hour.
[00:11:16] Or a week possibly who knows, but this kind of, um, naming and ritualizing, I guess every single action I thought would be an interesting experiment.
[00:11:26] Guest: Mm yeah. In a way to yourself to be transparent with what's happening.
[00:11:31] Host: Yeah. To kind of be able to kind of, um, see and, and direct in a, in, in a different way and to see what would come out of that.
[00:11:39] If, if there would be any noticings, I. Yeah,
[00:11:43] Guest: that's interesting. Yeah. It's FA I, um, the way that I tend to think about, uh, this kind of non-dual insight stuff is the, the world itself is, is not conceptual. And the reason you'd point that out is cuz we te we typically see through our concepts, we use language and you know, I think this is a cup that I'm drinking from.
[00:12:07] but then actually, if I, if I were to interrogate, well, what is cupness or what is it for someone to be a cup? What you realize is there is no essence of cup in it. It's, it's a, it's a kind of relational descriptor for something I can drink from it's it's a cup. When I, when I say it's a cup, basically. And everything's like that really it's yeah, nothing intrinsically is anything.
[00:12:26] It's language is a way of signifying, um, and, and chunking things into concept and discriminating. And when you get rid of that, that discriminating. Then that's when you fall into this, this mindset of just awe and everything existing, in this, in this like, well, it's actually not split into different things, you know, I'm interdependent on everything else.
[00:12:47] It's a whole, uh, unnamable thing. And so, um, I remember as a teenager, you know, is very into nature, still am and. I wanted to learn about all the different flowers, but I, I really didn't want to learn the names cuz I felt quite vividly that I liked behold things just as they were. And if I could say, oh yeah, that's a whatever.
[00:13:11] Um, silver mallow or something like take that away. Uh, then you've just yeah, ticked it off. And I can just kind of move on with my day. And it even just at a subtle level, even if I'm there, I'm trying to engage with that. I feel like concepts take us away from direct experience. Um, Yeah. So then I, I have a slight aversion to using language like, um, in, in any kind of practice around, uh, what you might call spiritual stuff.
[00:13:37] So when people do like noting, um, you know, or counting the breath, any, anything that's conceptual, I, I feels to me like it's moving in the wrong direction. Um, I quite like something people can play around with is to get into the state of non-dual awareness. Of just being, which is what it is, is one way is kind of awareness of awareness.
[00:14:02] I would say that's not a way to describe the end goal, but it's a way you can try to like bootstrap yourself into this state of just getting out or, and just, and just being, and then one way you can become aware of the kind of spacious awareness in which everything arises in your experience. Is to use a mantra that's intentionally a nonsense sound.
[00:14:24] So bla would be a kind of, you know, uh, conventional one. But even that has, I guess, has a sense of, of meaning, but just saying something like that. And again, it's nice because it doesn't have a conceptual meaning. Um um, and then just hearing, just thinking it in your mind, hearing it as a sound and then noticing the space in which it arises.
[00:14:46] that's a great practice to just kind of, to suddenly go wait a minute. I'm not the thing that's saying the word, blah I'm I'm, there's just space. There's a spaciousness and the word blah is arising and everything's just arising. And this spacious awareness, just, just here now, and then the, the end goal, you know, these are, again, these are still concepts.
[00:15:04] The end goal is just to be, and just truly let, go into a state of what you might call non-meditation where you're just being, just sitting like this in your own. Um, Yeah, that's, that's the main kind of practice. I mean, not the mantra thing, but just getting to that state of just being to me is my main practice.
[00:15:20] Host: Yeah. Yeah. It's I, I kind of have a similar thing. I thank you for sharing that, that, that, that idea kind of, I think I can alter that experiment a little bit around that which might be a bit of fun. Um, I also have the same. Kind of, um, yeah, I move in the same direction. I've got all these kind of playlists that are based on vibes.
[00:15:38] And I don't know the name of any of the songs and I do the same thing with tea actually. So I know what the tea, the essence of the tea is, but I wouldn't know what's in the specific blend. Um, so I can definitely kind of relate to that. I was there's something came up around, uh, the idea of moving through, uh, our own versions of reality.
[00:16:01] Or the unified one and the sense of, um, doing it without our traditional senses. And I know you, you you've done, I'm sure you've done quite a bit of study in terms of perception. And, uh, just wondering what comes up for you when I share this, I've got, um, I've got a little sun and, and we went for a walk on the beach recently and I was walking to meet him and his mother.
[00:16:24] And as I was walking to meet him, I thought I'd just try closing my eyes and, and walking. With my eyes closed and just kind of, um, cuz it was quite a wide, wide amount of, of, of beach area and um, yeah, I found the, the journey to be, you know, quite incredible just in that, that kind of short space in that short period.
[00:16:46] And then I, uh, held his hand in what we walked back with our eyes closed and it was quite nice to see. Kind of that process unfold and, and to feel into that and then to see how far we had come. And I was thinking maybe, or feeling into this rather idea of maybe that's, that's the way to move through life for me anyways.
[00:17:07] And you know, this idea of not using traditional senses and finding ways to, um, you know, close, close my eyes, so to speak and, and walk, um, Walk in a different way. And yeah, because, because it seems like the, the census have become compromised to a large extent, especially with everything that's happening in, in the way that that it's happening.
[00:17:35] Um, yeah. Does anything come up for you in that share? Yeah, that's interesting.
[00:17:39] Guest: Yeah. I would say the, it makes me think of the, um, the learning to trust yourself thing I spoke about before that, like you in the moment before you close your eyes, You know that you're not, you're not walking towards the beach, uh, towards the ocean.
[00:17:55] And you know, you're not walking towards a cliff or, you know, um, there's a, that's preparing yourself for that. There's a self-care and a kind of, um, yeah, a process of, of self love there at, at play. That's that's looking out for your best interests and to me, that's, that's, uh, an important. Hugely important process, but it's also, it's interesting what you said about the way our sensors are compromised with, you know, the way I interpret that is our current kind of propagandized media landscape, where very little is in terms of sense, making is it's very difficult to kind of, uh, find reliable narratives.
[00:18:39] And if you are walking along the beach and you can't see very well. And then you actually, you, you go and you buy glasses and you, there are things we can do to improve our, our, seeing to be good enough that we feel safe. And I think that's the, um, Again, in this analogy, the goal isn't to see everything clearly the goal isn't to have a microscope and to be able to, to see the shape of every single grain of sand on the beach, you don't need a perfect 100% picture of everything.
[00:19:08] You just need to know that you're broadly safe, cause existence isn't safe. It's not fundamentally safe. You know, like we. We will die harm will come to, to us what people we love and, and that's just kind of part of the game. And so you have to, we have to learn to be okay with that uncertainty and to, to, to see well enough that we, we know that we're, we can be safe.
[00:19:32] And then ultimately we spoke about the fear of death and how it can be overcome with this nondual perspective. You that's important as well, because. That allows you to really get into this level of non-attachment where you're like, I'm gonna walk along the beach with my eyes closed. If it turns out there's a, a, you know, miraculously, there's a man open manhole in front of me, even though it's on a beach, which is highly unlikely.
[00:19:55] But if it turns out that's the case and I fall down it and that's how I died. Okay. That's how I died. Like I'm gonna die at some point. It's like that it just happens. Like, you know, it could happen any point. So being okay with that in a, in a deep way where you, you're not just bypassing your, your fear of death, but you are contextualizing it.
[00:20:13] Getting out of this egoic rum evolved psychology that obsessed with our own survival, um, is to me is a really helpful way forward.
[00:20:24] Host: Would you be able to, uh, speak to me around the living mirror of consciousness theory that you, that you kind of developed and, and maybe, yeah, maybe it would be nice to just explore that with you and, and see if I'm wrapping my head around it in the way that
[00:20:39] Guest: yeah.
[00:20:39] You know, so there's, there are a few different ways you could describe it. Um, to me, maybe one way you could describe it is to say that, um,
[00:20:55] What consciousness is, is not. I mentioned earlier how it's, it's not separate from what we are as physical embodied living things. Um, so what you can understand it to be is an, an interfacing process. It's like an activity it's not really a, it's not like a substance or a material or something like that.
[00:21:17] It's a, it's not, it's a process more than the thing. It's a, um, , which is why it seems to be I material. It doesn't seem to be like a substance. So it's a way of, of interfacing with the rest of the world. And in, when you look at, at, um, when you look at our universe, life living systems are the kinds of things that need to do that.
[00:21:42] Their little islands of order. That keep themselves together against all of the kind of destructive forces in the universe for a period of time. And to do that, you need to interface with the world around you. So on a, in a big picture level, you could say consciousness is it's like this relational thing.
[00:22:02] You, the universe becomes living things. And then the universe knows itself through living things through it, through interfacing with itself. Um, so. That's a kind of big picture view of it. You can also flush it out as I've done in, in the kind of academic work in, in as like a rigorous scientific theory of like here's the biophysics thumb dynamics of life.
[00:22:28] And here's why it necessarily entails a process that we model with something called basic inference, where it's like, This relates to kind of the predictive purchasing model of the brain, where to be, to be a living system, you need to be predicting what's going to happen in the next moment. So if I'm, if I'm walking down the street and then there's a bus, uh, you know, moving towards me and one moment, it's a certain size of my retina.
[00:22:55] The next moment, it's bigger than bigger than bigger. If I, if my brain and if my, if as a whole organism, I interpret that as just moment by moment. Okay. That now it's bigger. Now it's bigger. Now it's bigger. I need to be predicting into the future. Cuz I'm time is always flowing. I'm I'm I need to navigate through the world.
[00:23:14] That's what it is to be a living thing. I need to predict that because it's getting bigger, it's going, it's going to get even bigger. And that means it's getting closer to me and it's gonna hit me. So. To live. You need to do that process of prediction. You're Al we're always, we're always feeling slightly into the future to feel what happens next.
[00:23:32] Um, because the world fundamentally, isn't, isn't a hundred percent safe, like I said earlier. Um, so yeah, you can think of in these different ways, in a kind of technical, like how the thermodynamics of life necessitates this predictive process of, of knowing the word around you or in this more poetic. You know, life is the way the universe comes to know itself.
[00:23:54] And that process of knowing is, is consciousness.
[00:23:58] Host: Mm. So, yeah. So where did just curious in terms of, um, the footsteps through the sand and, and the presence in each footstep and, um, the non predictive nature of that walk, I guess. because there's a deep presence in the Mo moment of each step. Maybe there is prediction going on on some level, um, in the background.
[00:24:23] Um, but I just, yeah, that kind of comes up for me. And I'm wondering how that, that theory kind of informs the way that you may live your life or you may go through, you know, your steps.
[00:24:34] Guest: Yeah. It's so one on one level, it makes. It makes it feel, I mean, I'm putting the car before the horse a bit here. Cause I already had a certain world view when I came to this theory, but it reifies this, this world view for me of over the universe, we are an unfolding of it, our conscious experiences of the universe knowing itself through us.
[00:25:00] Um, so we're not these little isolated, lonely, uh, Machines that, you know, are irrelevant. We're, we're part of this, this process and consciousness is a fundamentally natural, like part of the world kind of waking up to itself. Uh, and so I think that's a, a great vision of, of existence. And the most consequential thing I would say is that it's really made me confront issues of suffering and harm causing in the world because.
[00:25:35] I, you know, the traditional way of thinking is don't don't hurt a cat or a dog, cuz they're almost certainly conscious or their philosophers disagree. Um, you know, we all, we all tend to think someone who like kicks a cat for no reason is not behaving wisely or, or nicely because we think the cat can suffer.
[00:25:54] Um, People when it comes to kind of setting rap traps or something, they'll they'll, most people probably still feel like there's an issue there of like, it probably feels pain and, um, but then other people would deny it. Then you get down to insects or say fish, you know, a lot of people say fishing is fine cause they can't feel pain, but in this picture they would, they would, you know, feel pain and they get down to kind of killing insects.
[00:26:19] And again, it get, gets a lot more fuzzy here. It'd be interesting to know the statistics and how many people think it. An insect suffers if you, you know, SWAT it or something, but then you go even further. And now in this picture, all of those things can suffer and single cell bacteria can as well. So if you take an antibiotic that kills, you know, uh, all these little single cells, things in your, in your system, or even if you wash your hands, You are killing a lot of living things that, that will suffer in those, those moments.
[00:26:49] Uh, can you
[00:26:51] Host: show me how that links with the theory, James? I'm just kind of,
[00:26:54] Guest: yeah. So if you could help me with that. And the idea with the theory is that part of the problem with the main, the kind of the dominant way of thinking in the neuroscience consciousness is a focus on the brain as a kind of causal as the causal mechanism behind generating consciousness, a kind of machine way of, of think.
[00:27:13] Um, whereas I'm, I think the correlation between brain activity and consciousness in us is actually consciousness exists as an interface in a loop between us and the environment. But in us, it does run through the brain that this process. So there are correlations, but there are also correlations. Um, you know, I taste coffee.
[00:27:31] I tend to taste coffee when I'm drinking coffee. So there's, there's correlations with. Other physical things in the world as well. Um, so I I'm saying brains aren't strictly necessary for consciousness. They are in us, uh, for us to kind of, uh, just the way we're structured. But in other living systems, you don't need a brain when they need is to be in a embodied living system.
[00:27:52] That's the relevant thing to be in conscious. Now the first form of life, the simplest form of life is a single cell organism. Uh, like an ameba like a bacteria. Uh bacteri and. They evolve, multicellular things that have operate by the same principles. But I'm saying if it, if life is the important thing, then, then feeling should exist in single cell organisms as well in bacteria.
[00:28:14] So when, I mean, when you wash your hands, you are or say you put, you know, antibacterial. Gel on your hands, as we've all been doing with COVID, the idea is to create an environment that's inhospitable for life. And so anything living, living cells, living, um, single cell organisms on your hands will find themselves in a, an environment they need to escape from.
[00:28:38] And. The feeling of negativity, pain, suffering is, is the drive to escape. So if, if the room I'm in, suddenly caughts on fire, I would feel that to be negative. And that feeling is synonymous with me trying to escape, um, from it. And if Don feels nice, it's a signal to kind of stay with it. And, you know, eating feels good, cuz it's synonymous with something.
[00:29:02] We wanna be what be doing. Um, generally. So in this picture, there's. There's a lot of suffering going on and suffering with her inherent part of existence for, for living things. Um, and that's quite a thing if you think that's true, that's quite a thing to reckon with. And even if you, I mean, if you take the hand washing thing at first, when I thought that I thought that doesn't seem plausible, cause that's so much suffering we're causing, maybe suffering is not the right word.
[00:29:32] Maybe I should say pain or negativity or, um, I would say negatively balanced experience would be the technical way to say. Um, but then actually, if you think about the vast majority of human history, we weren't brushing our hands. We didn't have the, we didn't have chemicals to do that. So it makes sense that these living things would live on our hands.
[00:29:50] And then now we've come up with a way to kind of exterminate them, um, in this routine way. And so even if you think this, if you, if you', if you're not willing to accept that this is plausible for me, at least it started to open my eyes to. so the way, how existing negatively causes harm to other things.
[00:30:11] So, you know, I'm broadly vegetarian in my diet, but then I started thinking about, well, you know, I, I have a, a farm in Portugal where I am now where building a retreat center and we have to till the ground. And then after that I was thinking, well, how many. You know, there moles in the ground, who's nest been disturbed.
[00:30:33] Are there insects that got killed in the, in that process? Um, and they think, well, if I'm buying vegetables from a supermarket, how many animals are being harmed in, in that process? And yet most vegetarians who are doing, if ethical reasons like to think, okay, I've done it. I've extracted myself from the harping of animals and my food production.
[00:30:51] But then I, it was because of my theory, I suddenly was like, wait a minute, that's an illusion. That's. I mean, it's still an improvement on directly, you know, factory farming, but like, so there's, it, it allowed me, it's allowed me to confront the complexity here ethically and to feel that to exist as a living thing is to cause to cause harm inevitably, but that the wise way forward is to learn, to be emotionally grounded in a peace enough to be okay with that in a way where you can.
[00:31:24] You can know that you are trying to never get the world as best as you can. Um, so one, the pathological thing to do would be to go screw it. I, I no longer care about human suffering because there's so much suffering happening all the time. Anyway, and I no longer, I'm just gonna eat from factory farmed animals cuz they're, you know, I'm now desensitized to, because I think there's so much suffering in the, in the world.
[00:31:47] Um, that would be a way of, of creating a block or like trying to suppress. The negative feelings by just kind of dismissing them, um, for me, the ultimate way forward or the end point with, with living a good life is to live in a state of, of staying with one's anxieties, with one's challenges and difficulties in a way where you can integrate them and you can stay with them.
[00:32:16] Um, that process to me is what it is to be a person is, is to. we, we, we don't find ourselves in a utopia or a hell. We find ourselves in this mixed middle ground. And so we just have to navigate our way through and use our feelings to, to navigate. So I would say in essence is navigation problem and that's fine.
[00:32:37] Most of us, or a lot of people, especially when emotional stress gets too high, they want nice need solutions. They wanna say. You know, I can live this lifestyle and I can call myself a, a perfectly ethical person. And then if you bring up how the, the, you know, the minerals and the microchips were, were got through slave labor and minds in Africa and stuff like that, they don't wanna hear it.
[00:32:59] And so that's not a white, that's a neurotics, you know, disconnected way. It's being in my, in my view. And it's, it's a challenge, but, but I think people feel like if they're, sometimes they feel like if they're. That living with ambiguity is not a satisfactory endpoint. They want certainty. But again, that typically comes from when there's, why would, why would you need certainty?
[00:33:22] Why would you need to aggressively reify beliefs and to hold onto them strongly usually because you've you feel unsafe or you've faced challenges. Um, and I mean, this is, this is ultimately what leads to extremism in politics as well. When it comes to things like fascism, where people just want nice, simple narrative.
[00:33:41] Where they can say that outgroup is to blame project, all of the problems on that group. And if we persecute them, then we'll feel like we're in we're, we're moving into a positive place because we we've just consolidated all of our anxieties into one place and we're dealing with it. And that's a kind of delusional danger, highly dangerous, um, way to be.
[00:34:00] And so what I'm advocating is the inverse of that is a state of, instead of coming up with quick fixes that are delusional, you stay with the open. um, uncertainty of being, which is just the, the state we find ourselves in.
[00:34:16] Host: Yeah. It sounds like a, a kind of similar thing to the walking on the beach and a similar thing to these psycho, right.
[00:34:22] Uh, psychotherapeutic kind of, um, emotions that you go through working through emotional
[00:34:27] Guest: trauma. And exactly I'd say emotional health is, is one of the most important things that, you know, if one of the best things I think we could do for our culture would be to have a norm where. They talk about emotional health and we make it a kind of centerpiece at the culture where we don't celebrate toxic individuals and, and reify their egos.
[00:34:48] Instead we have a, a, a nuanced understanding of what it means to be emotionally grounded and healthy. And, um, yeah.
[00:34:56] Host: Can you tell me a little bit more about the retreat center? I I'm I'm conscious of time and I don't wanna take up. More than, um, you may have available. Um, so just feel free to, yeah, let me know.
[00:35:07] Maybe if you thank you, if you, if you wanna shut things down soon, that's fine. Um, but yeah, I'm curious to know more about this, this place, this, this place in Portugal. Yeah. Where the, um, the internet goes out from time to time and, and, and yeah. You know, it seems like the wild winds are blowing quite, quite, quite strongly.
[00:35:23] Guest: Yeah. The Internet's now stable, thankfully. Uh, we've upgraded. So, um, But yeah. Thank you. Uh, for having me here, I should, I should wrap up soon, but, um, yeah. So the, uh, it's called the surrender homestead. That's the, the title, like Instagram's the main place with yeah. Fits in nicely posting. Yeah. Yeah. It's uh, was my wife's coining the name and it's this concept of surrender is really important to both of us.
[00:35:49] Um, I've, I've discovered that some people. I was gonna say some people have an, have a negative associations with it, but what I probably should say is some people, some egos have a negative association with surrender. They, they, uh, but that's precisely why it's so important. I mean, I guess people can have a conception of domination and that kind of surrender to, but, um, but to us, it's this, this surrendering to, and trusting existence to hold you and just, you know, surrender into that unfolding.
[00:36:17] Um, so yeah, we're. Hopefully 20, 23, we may be able to start having some retreats. It's gonna be very small and intimate, maybe eight people at a time. Um, and yeah, the kind of themes that I spoke about here a lot, I feel like the I'm gonna see how it kind of evolves naturally and take feedback from people and see what people need, what people want.
[00:36:40] But the overarching framework that I kind of work in is this one of non-dual insight. Ideally you can. You may come having had one of these experiences of kind of medical experience, unity and lighting and awakening, whatever you call it. And, or you may try to access it through these tech meditation techniques, like I mentioned before.
[00:37:00] Um, and then this process of integrating it. So that could be through somatic body work, but it could just be through meditation, uh, spending time in nature here. Um, potentially plant medicine. Uh, so yeah, there's, there's a few, a few things we're, we're referring to the mix. Um, and it's been a, it's been a long project.
[00:37:22] It's been a few years now. We've been trying to build it, but it's getting there and, uh, could be, could be as early as 2023, that will Simon retreats.
[00:37:31] Host: My friend, I'm sending you, uh, plenty of supportive vibes on that, on that journey. And, and, um, thank you. Yeah. Looking forward to kind of, um, hearing about that flourishing, and it seems like it's, it's quite a beautiful thing to be, um, you know, birthing into this, into the sphere at this time.
[00:37:50] Guest: Yeah. So it's, we're in a beautiful place in the mountains and Southern Portugal. The weather's great. Um, so fruit farm. Yeah. It's wonderful.
[00:37:59] Host: Um, would you just, you know, I'll, I'll definitely put some links and everything in, in the chat. And, um, yeah. Did you wanna share a little bit about how people might be able to check out your stuff?
[00:38:10] You know, the YouTube channel or living mirrors, uh, podcast.
[00:38:16] Guest: Yeah. Thank you. So, um, the easiest place to find everything I'm up to is if you go to Dr. James Cook dot. Uh, cook Kane on the end, and that will have articles I've written linked to the podcast, living Marys with Dr. James Cook, which you can get video version on YouTube, audio, Spotify, usual places, um, where I interview people on these kinds of topics.
[00:38:37] Uh, yeah, I'd say that's the main place to look. Um, yeah.
[00:38:43] Host: Wonderful. Thank you so much. Thanks for taking this space and time. To listen deeply and yeah. Engage with this conversational space. I really appreciate your presence. And yeah, if you want to get more information around Dr. James and his work. You can head over today, dreamer.com or check out the show notes section.
[00:39:12] If you'd like to get in touch with me personally, to deepen your connection with this family that I'm forming this community around the show, then please feel free to email me Michael today. dreamer.com. And if you visit today dreamer.com. Most possibly be most probably be some offerings available to help you cultivate that practice of presence more fully.
[00:39:36] So yeah. Hope you're well out there sending my love and appreciation and until next time be well.