Transforming Grief Through Deep Knowing Of Your Self- with Ani Lodro Palmo EP 356

You know you need something, you're just not sure what. You've been listening, you're doing the work, but there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place, like you're waiting for the thing that finally moves you. Now maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back, the timing, the money, or you're just not sure you're ready yet. I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you. I built a resource for exactly this moment, guided meditations for when the waves hit and you just need to breathe. Workbooks to help you get out of your head and onto the page, ebooks on what near-death experiences tell us about the people we've lost, and whether they're really gone, a full course for widows and widowers who are ready to find their way back to living, and a full course for the evidence of the afterlife. And all of it is available for pay what you want. Nobody gets turned away because of money. I think these resources are valuable, but I don't want to hold them back because you don't have the money to pay for them. You don't have to wait until you're ready for coaching. The next step might be a lot smaller than you think. To find out, go to grief2growth.com/store. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/store. And check out the resources I've made for you. Close your eyes and imagine. What are the things in life that cause us the greatest pain? The things that bring us grief are challenges, challenges designed to help us grow, to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we've been buried. But what if, like a seed, we've been planted? And having been planted, we grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes. Open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is Grief to Growth. And I am your host, Brian D Smith. Hi there, this is Brian back with another episode of Grief to Growth. And if it's your first time joining us, welcome. If you're a returning listener, welcome back. For— again, if you're a first-time listener, I am your host, Brian D Smith. And today we're joined by a truly exceptional guest. Her name is Annie Lodro-Palmo. She's a Tibetan Buddhist nun. And she's the director of the Vajra Vidya Monastery in Crestone, California— or Colorado, not California. Annie's dedicated her life to helping others navigate their personal growth and their spiritual awakening. Through her profound teaching and unique insight, she guides us beyond the everyday surface of life and the deeper, more meaningful layers of existence. Her journey is marked by a lifelong engagement with celestial, celestial realms, clairvoyance, and past life remembrances, which uniquely position her to shed light on the unseen connections between our earthly experiences and otherworldly insights. Today we're going to explore a wide range of topics from understanding the filters of our conditioned mind that obscure our perceptions of life and death. We're going to demystify the abilities like clairvoyance and communication with those who have crossed over. And she'll share insights on the common messages from beyond, the nature of mind, and how grief can transform into a doorway for awakening. So I'm really excited about having this conversation with Annie today. And with that, I want to welcome Annie Lodro.

Thank you so much. It's an honor to be with you. And yeah, I'm so looking forward to this conversation myself.

Yeah, I definitely am. You know, I am a person— I can't remember who it was I heard say this— when it comes to spirit, I'm like Helen Keller. I'm definitely— it was Gary Schwartz. I work with Dr. Gary Schwartz. And he works with people that have this ability to connect beyond, and I don't have that at all. So I'm always fascinated by people that do, and I understand that you did from a very early age.

Yeah, I don't remember a time that I didn't have a sense that there was more going on here than just what was coming through our sense perceptions, you know. So most of us are, um, pretty much in the place of experiencing everything through our sight, hearing, um, taste, feeling, nature. And then our mind kind of processes all that and tells us what's going on and gives us judgments about that. This is good, this is bad, I like this, I don't like this. And that's how most of us kind of get through life. But there's some of us, and I think everyone has the potential for it, that have a sense there's something more going on. And that happened for me at a very early age. And I always seem to kind of be in communication with something more than, than what was just going on around me in the external, external kind of worldly way, earth-world way.

Yeah, I think, I know, I think that I'm hesitating to say all, but I think most children, babies, you know, up to a certain age, have that connection with the other side. And then something either our parents tell us that's not real, or teachers or whatever. But some people hold on to that.

Yeah, yeah. And I completely agree with that and have really contemplated this quite a bit because I have a lot of people that I do sessions with, and they want to cultivate that. And I tend to feel that you already have it because you had it when you came in, and somehow it got kind of conditioned out of you through through parents or peers or education and are kind of typical, particularly in the West, cynical environment. So yeah, I find that very fascinating myself to talk to people and see if when their mind kind of looks inward and starts to feel like, oh, maybe I do have that, just that confidence alone, just that inquiry of maybe this is something I do have, kind of you know, purify some of these filters we have that tell us that we can't do these things that are more on the spiritual level, spirit, have a spiritual basis.

So growing up, as I would imagine, as a young, as a teenager, as a young adult, etc., you still have this ability. Did you communicate to other people and say, I, I'm seeing things that you aren't seeing?

Um, not in, in that way. Uh, you know, in the beginning, I think we all have the same experience of coming into this Earth world, right? This Earth plane, which you really don't know what's going on. And the beginning of our life, we're trying to figure it out. And I, I remember very distinctly, um, at a very young age, I was kind of working with spirit in a lot of ways. I was speaking with spirit, um, and I I think when we were very young, we just assumed that whatever's happening for us is happening for everybody else.

Yeah.

So yeah, and then, you know, we find out that may not be true. And so for me also, I recognized, you know, at a pretty young age, preteen, that this wasn't happening for other people. This was just happening maybe for me. And at that time, I didn't know anybody else it was happening for, so I just kind of didn't talk about it because it seemed to either make people feel like they had to, um, maybe kind of discourage me from this, and I didn't want to be discouraged. So it kind of became like my private world in a certain way.

Yeah, yeah. From what I understand, that's a fairly common thing for people that have that, that ability. At some point And I've heard people say that it's like, well, I thought everybody saw these beings or talked to other— so what was it like for you? What, what types of beings were you seeing?

I had a very early connection with— I was grown— I grew up in a Catholic Christian environment. My lineage, you know, my ethnic background is, uh, Italian. Um, all my grandparents were Italian immigrants, so there was a very, you know, kind of passionate feeling around Jesus and Catholicism. And I had that early connection. I would be speaking to Jesus much of the time, and I felt like he was just right here with me. So I would wait for him, I'd ask him a question, and then I'd kind of wait for an answer. Um, and then also I had a lot of dreams of angels. I also had a sense that this whole experience, there was another realm of it, like a heavenly realm. And I often found myself to be— I couldn't explain it then, but in this state of kind of an unconditional love, almost like a bliss. And that changed over time. The more I became conditioned to kind of, you know, be compatible with our culture and the way it works, the more that seemed to kind of dissipate until I came onto the spiritual journey. And then there all of a sudden became all these avenues for that to develop and be cultivated even more. Stay with us. We'll be right back.

You know, one of the hardest things about grief, most of the people in your life just don't get it. They want you to be further along than you are. They get uncomfortable when you bring it up, so you stop bringing it up. And that's why I started writing. My Substack is where I go deeper. Thoughts I don't always get to on the podcast. Essays on consciousness, on continuing bonds, on what it actually means to carry a loss and still build a life. The stuff that used to keep me up at night, written out in a way that I hope meets you in the morning. But here's what I didn't expect when I started it. The community that showed up. People who are doing exactly what you're doing. Listening, learning, trying to find their footing. Readers who comment, who share their own stories, who remind each other that none of us are as alone in this as we feel. And that's what the Substack has become— a place to go deeper with me and to find your people. It's free to subscribe. Find me at grief2growth.com/substack. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/substack. Or just go to Substack and search for Grief to Growth. I hope to see you there. So, um, what did you do? I understand you didn't enter the, the monastic life and for, for quite a while, or a little bit of time anyway, like in your mid-30s. So what were you doing prior to that in terms of career or whatever?

I had a pretty normal— I mean, I don't know what normal is these days, but I had, I guess, what we would call a pretty normal upbringing, you know, public high school. I went to— I got a BA I was very interested in art because art was one of the ways that I could kind of create images that I was experiencing in these heavenly realms. So I went, I got a BA in, in art, um, then I did graduate work, um, in philosophy and ethics and some religious study. And then I went out and I was working. I also had a computer. I, I did a— I was very interested in academics, academia, for a while, so I kind of pursued that. I thought You know, this was kind of— I wanted knowledge. What I didn't realize was I was really seeking knowledge about a spiritual journey, but I just didn't have— you know, in the '70s, those avenues weren't really open like they are today. So I found that, you know, maybe college would— I would take these courses on philosophy or existentialism, and I would find out what this is, that this longing I have inside to know What's really going on here? So I pursued a lot of different college courses. I lived in New Jersey, so I eventually got a job in Manhattan and I kind of had a, you know, I moved into that corporate world.

Sure.

There was a lot of peer pressure at that time in the '80s, and I fell into that. And so there was a point after all that, after all the college and graduate work, and I was working in New York and I was doing programming, doing all different kinds of consulting work and technology. And I just felt unfulfilled. I felt like there's something so missing here. And I was so much wanting to find, you know, because I kind of bought into, well, if you have this house and you have this job and you have this money and all these things, you're going to be happy. And I got all those things. And I wasn't happy. So I was trying to like figure out, well, why am I not happy? Because a lot of people around me were kind of giving me the reflection that this is what you want, this is the way it goes. And I just felt like, okay, then there's something missing. And I, I just— it— there was this burning desire to kind of find out what was missing. Um, and by kind of, you know, with by the time I finished all the college and graduate work and started getting into the career, you know, years went by. And by my mid-30s, um, it was just such a strong feeling. I just could not keep going in the direction I was going. I actually hit a place where I started feeling very depressed, like, okay, there's nothing here I'm interested in. And I was just kind of on autopilot to a certain degree, kind of going through the motions but not having any real life force inside of me that was really compelling me to do what I was doing. And at that point, I walked out of my life. Um, a couple of incidents happened, a couple of spiritual experiences happened in my early 30s, um, and in my 20s also. There continued to be this understanding that something else was going on. And an interesting happen— an interesting thing happened in my 20s, where people that had died and were now in spirit somehow knew, like, I could hear them or talk to them. So they started speaking with me. And often it was because they had messages to give to a loved one. So I would be with someone that was a relative or a friend, and somebody in their life had died. And that person, that being, that spirit now, what knew that I could communicate with them and would say, please tell this person, you know, they, they, the way they communicate is in such a different way than we communicate. It almost is like this deep feeling inside your heart, um, of their presence and they're kind of wanting you to express their love and compassion and care for whatever the loved— whoever the loved one is that happened to be my present. So that started going on in my 20s, and so that continued to happen. And there seemed to be— by the time I was 30, there seemed to be people that were coming to me just for this, wanting to know, um, you know, this person has passed and I want to understand more why it happened in the way it happened. So I was kind of being a little bit of that channel, which also I think exasperated, um, that feeling inside of me that I wanted to really more invest my time and energy into finding out more about what is going on. I can talk to these beings, other people can't. Where are they? And so all of that started really kind of burning inside of me. Um, yeah, yeah.

So you were basically— it was not basically, you were a medium. So you had— it sounds like you had people from the other side coming to you and asking you to communicate to their loved ones, and also people from this side asking you to communicate.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It kind of happened organically. I, you know, I never put a shingle outside my door that said psychic medium, you know. And I was kind of hesitant to even doing it because, you know, now after over 30 years on the spiritual journey, you just— and I'm sure you have too— you meet all of people at all different levels, um, you know, with all different modalities and methods of healing and spiritual work that they're doing. And, you know, you do see some people that are— I think although their intention is good, they kind of, um, are not authentically getting messages. Um, and I was concerned about that. I knew that.

Yeah.

Yeah, we're conditioned. We have conditioned minds, we have conditioned lives. And there's filters. And I was concerned that I wasn't giving people proper messages. Because what if my personal biases kind of were getting in the way in some way? So I was concerned about that also.

And how did your Catholic upbringing come into play with that? Because a lot of Catholics believe that mediums are bad, that we shouldn't communicate with the dead.

Yeah, I think it's a really very beautiful and interesting aspect of Catholicism. I was very interested earlier on in my early 20s in Christian mystics, and that kind of breaks away from the dogma of Catholicism, right? So, you know, I fell in love with Saint Teresa of Avila, uh, Saint Francis. Um, their lives spoke about other spirit, other beings, other saints that they were in touch with. And I was— and had direct experience of Jesus. Um, so I felt like we, as kind of a culture and as like Catholic or, you know, Christian organizations out there, maybe— and I say this with a little hesitation also— kind of missed the mark a little bit. Because Jesus said in the New Testament knock on my door and I will answer. He was really clear about that. And I think he said that in a lot of different ways. And, and I believed that, and nothing ever changed my belief around that. So I've stayed connected, um, with, uh, you know, teachings that come through Christianity, and I honor those teachings very much.

Yeah, I, I want to say something here because I've, I've talked to a lot of people who are, are former Catholics, and this, this is is no reflection on you, but I interviewed someone who had a near-death experience and we were talking about Catholicism, and I get a lot of pushback because people say, stop bashing the Catholic Church. And I want to say, I don't bash any religion. This is, again, speaking for myself. But all churches, there's dogma, and especially in Christianity, which is what I grew up in. And I'm a, I'm a big follower of Jesus. I consider myself to be a disciple of Jesus, but I don't call myself Christian anymore because of some of that baggage that, that they put around it. And I, and I, I love talking to someone like yourself who had this gift— or not gift, but this talent kind of developed naturally. I have another friend, he's, he's a medium, he's a Catholic. And when his, when his talents were revealed to him, and I think he was in his 30s, he was kind of scared. He's like, this is, this isn't, this isn't part of the church. So, but Jesus, as you said, Jesus is coming to all kinds of people.

Yeah, yeah, I have, um, Jesus is still one of the deepest relationships that I have with beings, you know, in other realms. And I've done, you know, because you have, you can have that direct personal experience with Jesus, and once that happens, it opens you up to understanding Jesus in a way that I could not understand Jesus just by going to church.

Mm-hmm.

Yeah, yeah. Um, although I, I have friends, good friends, that are priests and Catholic nuns, and I respect and honor them very much too because they have a life of service also.

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah.

So you, when you decided to, to really switch and, and change your life and go into the, the spiritual life more, uh, as a profession, I guess, for lack of a better word, You chose Buddhism as opposed to Catholicism. Why was that?

Um, you know, I think in our journeys, there's not kind of like this linear direction. I think we kind of go through this, you know, we're kind of like a little bit on a roller coaster, and there's ups and downs. And there were times I was very disenchanted with my church, and kind of the messages I was getting from kind of the, you know, for lack of a better word, the hierarchies in the church. Um, so I did have a problem with that, and I wanted to find out, well, Christianity isn't the only religion, right? So what is— what are other religions saying, and, and can I learn something? So I was more in a place of wanting to find more information out. What do other cultures believe? You know, I understood, and I think we all did growing up Catholic, at some point that we have. We're Catholic because our families are Catholic, right? Right. And so we're all kind of put into this framework of, okay, this is what your family believes, so this is what you believe it. And I wanted to break out of that. I said, I thought to myself, what if I wasn't born in this family? What if I was born in a Hindu family, you know, or a Buddhist family? What would have the relationships been, and what would be my experience? So I started studying Hindu, study Hindu for many years. Christian mysticism was very, very compelling to me. Saint John of the Cross is still one of my biggest heroes, um, and all these like saints and mystics, um, Nanni Maima was a Hindu saint who lived in the 1900s, died in— I can't remember— 1986. Might be wrong on that. Um, she was, you know, what she said I thought paralleled what Jesus was saying so closely. And I was just, I fell in love with these different saints and, you know, mystics and masters, and developed like real, a real sense of devotion. And I just felt like they were all on the same level. There, there wasn't like Jesus is right and these other beings are wrong. It seems like they were all saying the same thing. Eventually, I'd say in the last 10 to 15 years, I became interested in Buddhism because Buddhism is also called a science. And there's, you know, I studied Hindu for quite a long time in the past, in Hindu, uh, the stages of Hinduism and Hindu as a path. But when I started looking at Buddhism, particularly Tibetan Buddhism, Tibetan Buddhism has broken down the path to enlightenment to the nth degree in a way that I have not seen in any other religion or tradition. And you can, you can look at Tibetan Buddhism and explore it. One of the beautiful things I think that is very much true about Buddhism is Shakyamuni Buddha, who lived 2,500 years ago, while he was alive, he said, don't, you know, climb on to Tibetan Buddhism or Buddhism— well, at that time it wasn't even called Buddhism— don't believe what I say, find out yourself. And that intrigued me. I was very interested in direct experience, and that's what I wanted to explore. And in Buddhism, that is truly encouraged. Don't really believe all these things that you're reading. There's a million books out there, a thousand, you know, sacred texts, but come to your own conclusions. And I felt Buddhism does give you the steps— excuse me— to break through that worldly experience of just the earth plane and come into— link yourself into more sublime realities so that those realities become a part of your life. And then you have— I mean, a New Age, I think they call it ascending, but it is truly a passageway in Tibetan Buddhism. They call it enlightenment eventually, but even in the earlier stages, you do find as you study, contemplate, go into meditative absorption, that you start having a different experience of this world, a different reality, and you become a little bit transformed by that and more and more transformed as you continue on the path. So that— those are some things that really intrigued me about Buddhism. Buddhism.

Yeah, I, I've studied Buddhism a little bit myself and just a little bit of Hinduism. And my understanding is the Buddha was Hindu, just like, you know, Jesus was Jewish. So the Buddha was Hindu, and he just kind of took it to another level. So there's, there's a lot of overlap between Hinduism and Buddhism. But Buddhism is, um, I, I'd say more of a philosophy or more of a science, um, as not some— I mean, there is some religion in it, but it's, it's really about experience. It's about having your own direct experience and, and looking at things differently. And I've always been, you know, fascinated with Buddhism myself.

Yeah. Do you consider yourself, you know, do you consider yourself kind of more committed to any one tradition, or do you feel you're kind of just experiencing?

I mean, it's really interesting for me because I did— I consider converting to Judaism at one time, um, And like, it's so— but then, like, when you talk to the Jews, they're like, you know, the rabbis will discourage you from converting. They're like, just stay in the path that you're on. And so I didn't do that. Of course, I have studied Buddhism. I'm enamored by Buddhism, but I see it as more of a philosophy. So I haven't taken the vows or anything like that. But I do, I do incorporate parts of that into what I do. I find I'm attracted to Hinduism. I jokingly tell people I practice Brianism, um, because I think that everyone has to have their own spiritual path. Um, I'm, I'm a, I'm a big devotee of Jesus. Jesus is fascinating to me because I was taught as a child that Jesus was the literal Son of God. It was the only way to, you know, and all the stuff that we were taught. And so I kind of moved away from that. And some people move away, will say, well, Jesus was just, just a guy, you know, it was just a guy. But I talked to so many people and said, well, I have a personal relationship with Jesus, or near-death experiences is like, oh yeah, I saw Jesus. I'm like, well, Jesus is the busiest guy in the afterlife because he's all over the place. So I'm, I'm really fascinated, you know, with Jesus and what that, what, what that means, what the relationship is.

Yeah, yeah. I'm kind of curious because what you're doing is so beautiful. And it is a little bit unique in that You know, I find in our culture we have a lot of stigmatism around death and a lot of avoidance of talking about death. And, you know, there's a lot of work that I, I do with people as well in the grief process because death of our loved ones is extremely traumatic for us, and it also brings up our own mortality. So I'm kind of curious, just You know, with what you're doing right now, it is such a service. And do you find that you're kind of someone that's doing something that other people aren't doing? Like, you're kind of paving a way for a new understanding to be brought in around what death is?

And yes, yeah, absolutely. You know, it's, it's something that I think we, we all fear naturally because we fear what we don't understand. My work came out of an extreme fear of death. I, I'd say as bad as thanatophobia. I used to lay awake at night worrying about dying when I was a child, um, worried about going to hell, then worried about what if there is no— what if there's nothing. So all those fears that other people— that I think we all have, that we pushed aside and we don't want to think about— those are the things that I try to get people to understand. Because I've also realized the more that we understand things, the less that we fear them. So I'm the kind of person, I'm very analytical. So I was like, let's figure this out. Sounds like similar for you, like, like, let's figure out what's, what's really going on here. So I do want to remove the fear of death. And I want to, I want to remove the trauma that we have, you know, people will, the way we look at it as being tragic, So when I was, you know, looking at your information to think about having you on the show, and I heard you talk about, you know, the Pure Lands, that we think of that as somewhere else, we think of heaven as somewhere else. And I have a really good friend who's a medium, and I love what she said. She says, heaven is 3 feet off the floor. Our loved ones are right here with us. And so I love talking to people that have that perception. I don't have that experience myself. I don't see spirit or hear spirit or anything like that, but I absolutely know that that's the case.

Yeah. Can I ask you also, because I know your personal experience was with the tragedy of your daughter passing on, and that was really what started to inspire you to do what you're doing now and how it's grown. Do you feel like there's been kind of almost Um, you know, uh, that your trajectory has been almost like a destiny. Like, some of these things might be that your daughter had this agreement with you, um, for you to be able to provide what you're doing for people in this way. So your relationship with your daughters is something that is very deep and a very deep soul agreement as well. Have you— I'd like to do too.

Yeah, I absolutely believe that with all my heart. And, you know, it's really interesting. It's— it'll be 9 years in a couple of months since Shayna passed. And like everybody else that's lost someone that close to them, when it first happened, I thought, this is a tragedy, this is terrible, this is the worst thing could possibly happen, nothing good could ever come from this. Um, now when people ask me and they even refer to it as tragic, I don't I don't see it as tragic anymore. It doesn't mean that I don't miss her or anything like that, not at all. I do. But I, I, I've come to know about soul planning. I've come to know about past lives now. I've had several experiences with people who are mediums who have told me the same story, that Shayna said this had to happen, that this was a plan. My grandfather was a minister. His grandparents were, were ministers. I think this is something that's in our family. It's in our legacy. For me, it took until I was in my mid-50s— actually, my late 50s— before I started doing the work that I'm doing now, for it to seem to come to full fruition. Like, this is what you're supposed to do.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I could talk to you about this for hours because I'm always fascinated by people that have used their life experience to grow and to awaken. And I find, like, when I was going through some of your videos, you have that kind of presence of a more awakened being, someone that has awakened through your own personal experience, and it's very authentic. And I think that's why you're able to help so many people also, because people feel your authenticity. And your sincerity, and you actually started doing this because of a deep love and honoring of what had happened to you. I think that, you know, there's no more wonderful thing that can happen to us than what you're doing, that, you know, something that propels us into looking at our own experience, growing from it, and then being able to really help people that are suffering. I mean, that's what Buddhism is all about.

Right.

Yeah, the ending of suffering. And that's exactly what you're doing. So I have been very, really interested in your work. Yeah, I'm kind of a fan of your work.

I appreciate that very much. And I'm fascinated by— we're all on our own journeys. And so I love talking to people about their journeys. And I do find that most of my guests, there's something traumatic that really kind of push them into what they're doing. But sometimes it might just be a drip, drip, drip thing, where it sounds like it was maybe more that way with you, was just like, swirl's just not right. There's just something— there's got to be something more. There's some— there's something wrong. And so I need to really turn inward and even embrace the monastic life to really become who I'm supposed to be. So given your, your connection to the other side and your background, and I believe you have past life memories as well. What is— why do we play this game? Why do we do this? Why are we here on Earth kind of going through, stumbling around, trying to figure it out?

Yeah, I think, you know, there's— I think a lot of people that have kind of been answering these questions through books and traditions and religious understandings, I kind of try to answer this question through my own personal experience. I find that the more I'm growing as a person, the more I'm breaking out of this kind of collective consciousness that has this understanding of this is how the world works, and this is how science works, and this is how the cosmos works. My own, my own direct experience is quite different, that This is a continuum. It's not a lifetime. It's real— really, what's more true is that there is no such thing as death, right? What there is is the experience of a much bigger universe, a much bigger consciousness or space or oneness. And we're here on this kind of Earth planet at least I've had this, um, really contemplative time and cycles with this very question where I've kind of ended up feeling that we're much bigger beings. And, you know, in the— if you look at the cosmology as it's explained in Buddhism, we're in a world system, you know, We tend to be here on this Earth plane, Earth-centric. We kind of think we're here on Earth and everything around us— we don't know if there's other life, but we're like the center of the universe. I, I almost feel like we're kind of like Earth-centric in the same way we're kind of egocentric.

Sure.

But actually, my experience is more that there's a very big cosmos with a billion worlds, all kinds of realms, and this is one. Of many. And really what this is all revolving around is this beautiful oneness consciousness. You can call it Christ consciousness, this real feeling of understanding we're universal beings, not just Earth beings, but we belong to something much bigger. I think a lot of us— I think you, and I think Shayna is your daughter's name?

Yes, Shayna.

Yes. Yeah. So I think Shayna also, because I don't see her as not here, right? So I think both you and Shayna came to this earth plane from a higher realm, from a different realm, to do a specific amount of work with beings here that fell into a lot of confusion. And, um, in Buddhism, we, you know, it's talked about that we're just deceived, we're confused, we think there's something called death. We think that this life ends when it really doesn't at all. We are spirit, and we're confused because we think this body is who we are, and that's not who we are at all. So we're more just confused and deceived than supposed— than, you know, we're supposed to be here because we're being punished, or so many of the other kind of belief systems I think that we have really don't apply at all, are inaccurate. And they don't support us or benefit us. I think for, you know, people like yourself, you're more on that what we call bodhisattva level, more like a Jesus level. Jesus was what we can call a great bodhisattva. He's existed, he's existing as a much higher being, but he heard the call of suffering from Earth, him and other masters and beings that he's working with. And he came to Earth to help, to kind of what we call turn the wheel of dharma, give teachings, help humanity evolve and come out of confusion so that they, all of humanity, can become, can evolve into a universal consciousness instead of just this kind of thinking we're so independent and we're on our own. We're certainly not. Does that even, I don't know, does that even answer your question, Brian D Smith?

Yeah, well, you know, it's funny because I think about, you know, some people have a problem with the problem of evil. That's, that's the question. Why does evil exist? That's, that's not my question. I don't, I don't have that issue at this point. But, you know, one of my clients asked me the other day, she said, well, Brian, if we're, if we're perfect beings anyway, why do we choose to come here to grow and, and get better? And I said, well, this is a, you know, this is a very deep question. This is a long one. So, you know, I know like A Course in Miracles calls this like a dream, like we fell into a dream. And I heard you use the word confusion. So it— but I've also heard that we, we very intentionally come here.

Yeah.

And there's a guy named Christian Sundberg who talks about— he has pre-birth memories and between-life memories, and he says he remembers like putting on the veil as a spirit. And he described it like almost these technicians are putting the veil on, and that's, that's what gives us this feeling that we have of being separated and all the, all those things. So I think it's I think we come here voluntarily. It's not like we're not sent here. We're not being punished. And we do, we want to, we want to break out of it. It's kind of like I see it as a cycle. It's like, let's go in, let's be confused. And let's try to figure it out. So I kind of smile because I think it's kind of like a game.

Yes. Yeah. I mean, I think there's a lot of ways to look at it and a lot of ways to have experience. Around that question. So it's not just one thing. I also think our minds are very limited, kind of the human mind. And there— yeah, so we almost have to transcend the human mind with all of its belief systems and, um, way— process— the way the mind processes is actually quite primitive, really. When you start, I think, transcending and you start getting into these other realms, the, the process is really more called wisdom than a mind. Do you know, like, you really move from this kind of personal mind, which is so, um, you know, linear and, and time-based and identified and attached and clinging to all these things. You really kind of transcend all that as I think we move more into awakened states, where there's just much more wisdom that comes in to connect us with a completely different perspective. Of reality. Yeah. Which I think is all, is all available for us here. Yeah.

It's funny because earlier you mentioned collective consciousness, and we are in this collectively confused state here. But ironically, I think as we move up to other levels, we actually become more collective in our consciousness. We're not so individuated. It's my understanding is that, you know, when, when these higher beings— and let me know if your experience is the same— but some of these these entities we call higher beings are actually collectives because they're so closely integrated with each other. They kind of— we never lose our individuality, is my understanding, but we become more connected. Does that make sense?

That's exactly how I would explain it also. We don't, you know, we're not just blobs kind of floating through the cosmos at some point. I think we retain our mind stream or somewhat of an individual aspect merged with this more universal. I think Jesus really had a very good way of teaching and explaining what exactly is going on, on a bigger picture. And I think some of it kind of got lost in the translation. Absolutely. Yeah, I'm always very compelled to, you know, find out if there's more things we can find out about what Jesus actually taught. You know, because I think, yeah, this—

yeah, well, you know, like when Jesus said, you know, my, I am my Father are one, people said, well, then Jesus is God. And so they took that all out of, out of, I think, out of proportion. But he was saying that we're all, I mean, so we're all one. And I think it's funny, because people forget, he said that he and his Father are one, but he also said he was one with us, which means that we are you know, co-equals.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, there's so many aspects of the New Testament where he's really pointing to our own enlightenment, you know. He's like saying, you know, people are amazed at his miracles, and he's saying, well, you'll do greater things than this, you know. So I think those are very telling and very profound statements, um, that really do point to the answer to that question— what we are doing here. I think, yeah, for that.

So I want to talk to you about— I look at some questions that I had to ask you. I want to ask you about purification of ego, because ego is a really interesting kind. There's a lot of misperceptions about ego. So what are your views on ego and purifying our ego?

You know, I look at ego as not like a negative thing or bad thing or something we have to destroy about ourselves or feel bad about ourselves. I look at ego as our personal mind. So, you know, we, we come in very pure, I think, without a lot of understanding about how anything works. We don't have language, right, when we first come in. Um, and so I think we're much more open, and our consciousness is much more of this kind of collective consciousness, and we have some wisdom even as babies and children. And then the more that we're adapting and being educated, being trained, we start bringing in thought forms. We learn language, we start labeling things, right? We label everything around us, and then we begin to have assessments of what we label. I think largely because as children and as people, I think innately people are very good and they want to please the people around them. So you take on the opinions and the assessments and the judgments that others have around you because you want to fit in with them and you want love and you want to be loved and love. And so that's one way for the personality self to do that, is to fit into the culture so that we can be connected to each other. I think that's what ego is. It's the development of how we think, not so much our sense perceptions, in terms of, you know, smelling and seeing, um, hearing, touching— those are pretty pure. They come in, and as children we have those, but we don't have language for them. Later, we again label it all, name it all, and then all of a sudden we start having all these assessments about everything. And those assessments are more the egoic issue that we have that causes suffering because those assessments are telling us this is good, this is bad. You know, I want this, I want this car, I want this house, I want this relationship. And then because we're saying we want something, the way our mind is processing is that it is telling us how to go about and getting those things, right? We tend to live particularly in the West. We're a material culture. So we tend to be on this kind of hamster wheel of constantly going after things that we want and pushing away the things that we don't want. I don't like this kind of food. I don't want to live in this type of house. I don't like— so there's actually both constantly going on, things we're trying to pull to us and things we're trying to push away from us. I think that is ego. I think the breaking through of that is the breaking through of seeing these are just personal assessments on their own. This car is not good or bad. This house is not good or bad. This relationship is not good or bad. It's me that's putting assessments on all of this, that's constantly pursuing or pushing away. And we spend our entire lifetime doing that And because of all the impermanence of things, particularly ourselves, we're going to die and all our loved ones are going to die. We're in a continuous state of suffering. Um, and I think that's where the ego comes into play as something that we want to understand and have a deep compassion for, for ourselves and for other people, and hopefully be able to work with our minds and understand how the mind works, how it processes, and the nature of mind. So that we can stop being on autopilot in terms of reacting to what our mind is telling us. Have some sense of, I can retrain my mind and I don't really need to judge anything. But there's a path to that. And as I think we move along that path and we become more open, less judgmental, more compassionate, the ego more and more starts to dematerialize, where we're not so much grasping and clinging at things, but we're just accepting things around us. And rather than try to have this kind of, uh, self-absorbed— I'm going after this, I'm going after that, I want these things— you know, instead of trying to accumulate material or relationships for ourselves, we're much more able to live with the way things are and thinking about what other people need instead of what we want. I think that's the pivotal point for our— the relationship we have with our ego, because for a large extent, I think our culture is encouraging us to be egocentric, to be self-absorbed, to be self-interested. But when we come into, like, what you're doing with people, it all of a sudden there's a transformation there. We become more interested in helping other people because there's such a deep compassion in us and we feel the suffering of other, of other people instead of just our own self-suffering. And that, I think, really starts to dissipate that personal ego, um, and move us into this, you know, where we start touching into these other realities. Because I think higher beings are already there. That's already where they are.

Yeah. Well, that was a really great explanation of not only ego but also of attachment. Because we all— we hear from Buddhism that, you know, we're supposed to let go of attachments. And people, you know, we don't understand what that means. And, and not judging things as good or bad, you know, I think we can all kind of relate to that. And something I try to teach people. But then I work with people in grief. And so when it comes to people say, why can't I go in my car? I can let go of my house, I can let go of my job, but I lost my daughter. How does this relate to, to grief?

I think because, you know, there's the material world where we're kind of grasping after inanimate objects, you know, objects that don't have life in them, um, non-animated objects. And then there's the things that we're grasping that are relationships. We want to be connected to other living beings. We are already connected and we want to explore those connections and feel more of that connection, I believe, so that when somebody in our perception— we're perceiving somebody has died— that is cut off from us, that connection is cut off from us. And I think there's enormous amount of suffering in our understanding of what has just happened. And I think the grief process— and I think you'd be you know, you much more masterful at talking about this than me. But I think the grief process is such that we have this belief system that our relationship with someone has ended, we're not going to see them again, and it creates in us a deep missing and longing and yearning, um, for that person. And I think the flip side of that is that deeping deep missing, longing, and yearning is reminding us of a much vaster relationship we have with other beings, with spiritual beings, with other beings that we've known. And whatever our definition of God is, that oneness consciousness where you're— you were saying before that, you know, the person you were speaking about had the experience of just kind of pulling the veil over to create separateness. I think there's a part of us that remembers what it was like to not have that separateness. Want that back. We want that conscious connection again. We want to find out who we really are. And death of other people reminds us of that, which is one of the reasons it's so painful. Um, so I think in the grief process, if we start looking, you know, I think it becomes a very inward journey. Um, and the way that we transform grief is through literally breaking through these misperceptions that we're alone here and actually having direct experience of something much greater, of who we are, of ourselves as universal beings rather than just planetary beings. And then when people move over to the other side, we're just still connected with them. They're still here, um, and we will be that also. We will move over to the other side ourselves, um, so in that way, we will again see all these people that have moved, that have transitioned. We will be with them again. And that creates a very different perception of when we think someone has died and that's it, you know, our relationship with them is now over. I don't think that's the case at all. But we don't, we don't have that comprehension. Just without having moved a little bit more into a spiritual journey, I think.

Yeah, I think that's very well said. Thank you. And I completely agree with everything that you just said. It's a matter of, it's a matter of that perception and understanding what's really going on here and moving beyond those five senses. So for, for us people who haven't had this direct experience, is there something that we can be doing to to start having these direct experiences of some of the experiences that you've had?

Yeah, I think what you're— again, I think you're much more masterful at talking to people about this than me.

How—

but I would say that for the people that I have been working with that are in some level of a grief cycle, and I think in a way we can all put ourselves in that category. Because we all will have, if we haven't already, had loved ones, friends, deep beloved people in our lives that either have passed over or will pass over. And we're also part of that as well, our own mortality. So I think some people, it's, you know, I think when a child passes, it's more traumatic because we don't expect that. It's unexpected, rather than someone elderly, which you're kind of preparing yourself for. So I think in the more traumatic, you know, experience of life, um, deaths and transitions, what I do is ask people to look— start looking inward. Because if someone dies, we're still kind of outwardly looking. This is something that's happening outside of ourselves, right? So that person is now not here, and we're still wanting something on the outside. Ultimately, the spiritual journey is finding everything you need from the inside, but there's a gap there, you know, and we have to be able to maneuver and step through that gap to look inside and say, what am I really grieving? And start understanding again nature of mind, what it's telling us. How much we're listening to it. Um, the more I think we understand how our mind works, because the mind is kind of propelling us to have certain feelings as well, because we have opinions. We have opinions about people dying, and so those opinions are bringing up a lot of emotion. Is that even true, what we're thinking, what we're believing? So I think it's really important for all of us to look at really what is our mind telling us about this person that has died? And is it true? And what are these feelings that are arising around them? And are these feelings truly accurate? Because if the belief system is inaccurate, then these feelings are not accurate either. So I, I do think it's more of something that I would always encourage people to start a spiritual journey. Yeah.

And yeah, and so we talked, you know, we talked earlier about you know, your early experiences, and that I think a lot of us have— most of us have forgotten— with, with this, with spirit. And you said you think we all still have that. Is there a way that we can get, get back to that? Or is that even desirable?

I think it's, it's one of the most desirable things. If we're going to have desires and cravings and attachments, let's have attachments to finding out who we really are, and what's going on beyond these kinds of worldly concerns that we're so invested in and obsessed with that our whole lives go by and we still haven't moved very far along the continuum. Yeah, so I would, you know, a lot of people, of course, I'm sure a lot of people talk to you about this as well, ask that question, well, how can I find out who I am or find out about this cosmos or find out about, you know, what this direct experience potential is for me to connect with other beings? I think the easiest way to— one of the quickest and easiest ways to answer that question is to just believe that you can. Because so many people have been told that they can't, so that becomes part of their own— they don't inquire because they already think that it's not possible for them. And it's possible for anyone. And I think if we just understand, no, this is possible for me, and, and don't allow doubt to come in to tell us it's not possible, it starts opening doors for us, and we can start exploring that. And I think having some type of tradition where you have other people that are doing the same thing is very helpful there, because then you can get feedback, because a lot of people are having similar experiences when it comes to NDEs, um, connecting, having recollections of past lifetimes. I think what you're doing is a very good way to support people in those connections because people are watching your podcast and your blog, reading your blogs, and they're saying, well, I think maybe this is possible for me. I think it starts there where you open up the inquiry.

Yeah. As I was thinking that, as we're having this conversation, I have a meditation teacher friend that I work with. And, you know, so he, uh, he's been meditating for I don't even know how long, 50 years probably. And, you know, when he first started meditating, he was having these like really wild experiences, and he went to his meditation teacher saying, you know, I had this experience, and his meditation is like, don't get attached to the experience. So, you know, it's funny as I'm asking you this question because I don't have big experiences. I haven't been— I haven't had any out-of-body experiences. I haven't seen spirit or stuff like that. But I do have a deep knowing. And I do meditate daily. So I think when people hear, you know, I think we all want to have that, that mountaintop experience, right? We want to have that, that, that, that really exciting thing. So what would you say about, you know, trying to chase those experiences?

Yeah, I think it's good to chase experiences. I mean, you read about Christian mystics or, or someone like a Hindu master like Ramakrishna. Ramakrishna would get down on his knees and cry his heart out to encounter Mother Kali, and that invoked a lot of divine intervention, as does for all— anyone that is really wanting to meet Jesus in the depth of their heart and is literally experiencing or, or contemplating that in a prayerful way, you know, you're really wanting that so much, and you have a devotion towards that and a passion towards that. I think that's actually all you need to have that kind of mountaintop, mountain peak experience. You have to have your attention on what you really want. And I think even Jesus said, and all teachers really say this, that we manifest what we want. If we want something, we will get it. Um, so we want that, we want that connection. If we want to meet a teacher or a master or Jesus, have an encounter with Jesus, all we have to really do, I believe, as Jesus said, you know, knock on my door and I will answer, is knock on his door, like in a very, very sincere and authentic way. I'll say one more thing about that because I think it is really helpful. In Buddhism, this is also an understanding. You know, Buddhism is sometimes thought to be very dry, but actually there's a huge devotional piece in Buddhism, in Tibetan Buddhism, in Vajrayana, um, in all of it really. And one of the things that is encouraged is to start getting more information about these other realities, about whoever it is you're wanting to meet or encounter. So if you want to encounter Jesus, maybe read the Dead Sea Scrolls or read the New Testament, you know, in a discerning way, of course.

Yeah.

Um, and as you get this more, as you get information you haven't had before, that is accurate information about who these beings are, where they are, and what their realities are like. In Buddhism, you're told if you start contemplating this new information it becomes kind of your, your attention keeps on going there, keeps on going there, and you kind of be get— you start to get absorbed in the, this new information with a new understanding of it, which transforms your current perception of what is going on in reality. It's called meditative absorption. So you actually start getting absorbed in thinking about this, these other realities and these amazing beings, and through that, they're able to connect with you.

Yeah, that's great advice. Yeah, it's really interesting. And again, we're back on Jesus, but, you know, you were talking about reading about Jesus, um, the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Gospel of Thomas. I would recommend to people if you want to get it, um, and there's actually been some, some pretty good current authors or modern authors have written about Jesus, um, I think it was— was it Philip Yancey that wrote the book Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time? You know, something like that. You know, reading about Jesus with fresh eyes and, and understanding that the little Sunday school thing we were— things we were taught about Jesus, maybe not really who he, who he is. And, you know, I think we were taught so much about his divinity, about being God, and not much about his humanity. And so I always try to help people understand, you know, the, the whole picture of Jesus. The fact that Jesus cried, for example, you know, um, because a lot of times people in grief will say, well, if I'm, if I'm a really good Christian, I should, I shouldn't experience grief. I shouldn't ever feel sad. And that's not, that was not his experience.

Yeah, yeah, I completely agree. I mean, there's so many beautiful books. Um, Thomas Merton is someone that I've read. Yeah, yeah. And, um, Thomas Keaton, also, uh, that have extraordinary things to share, um, about their relation— their own relationship with Christ Consciousness, um, and Jesus. And I think what you're saying touches on that quite a bit. I think our relationship with Jesus is going to be very different from what we've learned about Jesus through our studies of Catholicism.. And I think to have the faith and confidence even to, um, trust that, to trust our direct experience. Because so often I hear people say, well, I have this experience, but then other people told me, you know, it wasn't— it's not possible. And I think that's such a disservice to people's spiritual journey. If you have a direct experience, that is a real experience. It's more real than what's going on here. Yeah. And to really honor that and be grateful for it and pursue it. Yeah.

Yeah, that's, that's another very good point. Because we are taught to— we were taught direct experience in our Western culture that, you know, if I— if it can't be replicated, if it can't be done in the lab, if it's just, if it's just direct experience, then it's just, it's anecdotal, doesn't mean anything. And there's nothing more important than your own direct experience. And again, I try to help people. I, I'm always trying to correct things with people. It's like everything we do, everything that we know is based on direct experience. You know, scientists in a lab, they're having a direct experience of reading their instruments. They're having a direct experience of observing an experiment. We, we take their word for it because they're scientists, but there's still people having direct experiences. So if you have an experience, and this is what I'm saying to the audience, don't run to somebody else and ask them, was your dream real? Or was your experience real? You know that in your heart, and don't let someone take that away from you.

I completely support that. I, I feel very, very strongly about encouraging people to have some confidence, to cultivate confidence within themselves about what they themselves are experiencing. I think it's so important, and validates, um, who we really are in a much higher way than, um, kind of saying, well, this is really what's going on, and you can only kind of believe in this, and anything else is, you know, not proven. You know, it's not proven that there's a God. It's not all these things. But, you know, I think Buddhism is also interesting because there's a book called Myriad Worlds, and it actually explains the cosmology of this kind of world system, this cosmos, this universal system, was written in the 1800s by a Buddhist master. And scientists are now kind of just catching up with what's being said in this book. So obviously direct experience means a lot.

Yes. I have a friend who's Hindu, and I've had him on the program a couple of times. And as he's explaining Hinduism to me, I'm like, Okay, these guys knew 10,000 years ago, literally, what scientists are starting to figure out, you know, now. And Buddhists and, and some Christian mystics, etc. And some of the cosmologies that they came up with are just— it's fascinating. And it's, it's starting to be— finally scientists are kind of coming back, coming around to it. So yeah, we can't dismiss that.

Yeah, yeah, I feel very encouraged by that. By hearing things like that, um, I think people need support to be on a spiritual path. But I think also spiritual path— to hear, oh, I don't want to be on a spiritual path, it's— it can be a little daunting to hear that. So maybe there's other ways for us to present, you know, getting in touch with our own hearts, getting in touch with our own compassion. Getting in touch with what we already know. I mean, in Buddhism also, and I think Jesus spoke of this too, we already have all this inside of us. It's just kind of reconnecting with it. And all that wisdom is inside of us too. And how to get there is important.

Yeah. And not to belittle Christianity or stereotype, but a lot of traditional Christianity, what I was taught was that don't— literally don't trust yourself. Don't trust your own heart, don't lean on your understanding, don't trust your mind. And that's one of the things that I've learned as I've kind of broken out of that and looked at other religions. And it was funny because I remember being a kid, we were taught these stereotypes about Buddhism. They're like, oh, it's all— it's so selfish, it's all turning inwards, it's all about yourself. Well, that is— that's where we find the answers. I, you know, and I, and I feel still to this day almost uncomfortable telling people that everything you need is inside of you. But I know now that that's true. That's something we have to break from what we've been taught here in the West.

Yeah, I think that's so important. Everything you just expressed is so fundamental to understand, really understand it, really contemplate it. Because when we look at these kind of dictates that tell us, well, don't trust your mind and all this stuff, Well, yeah, I can understand that if we, if we kind of break it down to see that now it's probably not a good idea to feel hate and anxiety and stress and depression. Those are called negative qualities. So maybe we need to cultivate some discernment and support people to have discernment on what things to feel that we can further explore. In a, in a passionate way, in a loving way, because love and compassion, caring about other people, those all come from inside. Nobody tells us to care about, you know, this homeless person that we may give a blanket to. We feel that inside. So it is inward that it's coming out. So there is, I think, a lot of, uh, very good and beneficial information that can be given about discerning what inward things we can rely on and continue to grow in ourselves, and what things to dismiss.

Yeah, that's a, that's an excellent point. I haven't actually heard put that way before, um, because we do have things going on inside of us that we shouldn't trust. We have voices inside of ourselves that we need to, we need to, you know, dismiss. There are— so there's that, that part of our— some people call it the ego, you know, some of the things about our ego where it's like we can't take that at face value. But also that innate wisdom is also within us, and that's where we need to turn to find all the answers that we're looking for. So it's, it's, it's, it's interesting because we have to again tease out this, this makes sense, this is beneficial, this is true, this doesn't make sense, this isn't beneficial, this isn't true, and it's all going on in here.

Yeah, yeah. I think that kind of, you know, understanding Um, again, I think it comes back down to the nature of mind. Our mind works in a certain way, and if we understand how it works, then we can help retrain it or dismiss, as you're saying, the parts that are not helpful to us and help grow what is really the most beneficial for us to become happy. Because I think that's what every single, every single sentient being, every single human being, every single being on this planet is really just wanting to be happy and not to suffer. I think it really comes down to that.

Yeah, absolutely. Well, Annie, um, we're coming to the end of our time. I know that you do retreats and you offer guided meditations, etc. So tell people what you offer and where they can find you.

Sure. Um, so if anybody wants to meet with me or have a one-on-one session or find out more about me or just connect with me personally, they can go to annielodroretreats.com. And put an inquiry in or let us— let me know what you're interested in. I'm happy to meet people on a one-on-one sessions. I offer sliding scale, so financial limitations or not, I don't ever want that to be an issue for people. We are doing— I do a Zoom pretty much every Wednesday night, and people can get on our mailing list through emailing us through anilodro.com, and then we can let them know when that Zoom is happening. Um, next month, from May 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th, I am doing retreat here in southern Colorado in Crestone at our monastery, which talks about a lot of the things we've talked about here, specifically becoming more sublime in our experience of reality so that we can start entering into these doorways of higher realities and higher ways of being and find happiness. And that retreat is also Zoom. So all these things can be found out about through just contacting us on our— on my website.

All right. Sounds great. Well, thanks for— thanks for being here. Thanks for having this conversation with me and enjoy the rest of your day.

Thank you so much. It's been such a pleasure to meet you. I really will continue to follow your podcast and watch what you're doing. I'd love to, you know, if I ever come to Ohio, would love to see you. Um, so yeah, if there's anything I— we can do, or I can do to support what you're doing, please let me know.

I will. Thanks. Have a rest— great rest of your day.

Thank you. Bye.

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