Beyond the Chaos: Finding Serenity and Power in Spiritual Awareness Part 2

Hello and welcome to Beyond Chaos: Finding Strength and Power in Spiritual Awareness. You know, amidst the turbulence of the COVID pandemic, It's understandable how the world's challenges may have impacted your spiritual well-being. That certainly happened for many, many people. The goal of this presentation is to empower you to embrace, revive, or awaken your spiritual awareness and energy. In a world besieged by soulless confrontations and wars, relentless commercial self-serving politicians, and deceptive crooks driven by greed, it's easy to lose touch with our true spiritual selves and the profound connection we share with each other and the world we inhabit, whether we're aware of it or not. But with a little thought, openness, and care, we can use these powerful mind tools to rise above these struggles and rediscover the magic that resides within us. Irrespective of your spiritual path or philosophical beliefs, you're invited to enjoy this experiential journey to explore the realms beyond the merely intellectual. Get ready to unlock the hidden potential of your higher being, tapping into its boundless power and wisdom through the art of awareness. Deep Meditation and Transformative Guided Imagery. This is Dr. Emmett Miller, and I'm happy to welcome you to this week's webinar, part of a series that I've been presenting for the last couple of years dealing with various aspects of life and healing, love and transformation that I've discovered in my work and in my research over the last 5 decades. Let me pause to say once again, thank you very much for your donations. They've been very useful, especially in terms of letting me know that you appreciate what I'm offering you and that it actually has some value to you. Your support serves as motivation for assembling these ideas and materials each week. Uh, I'd like to mention that within the next couple of weeks, so I'd say sometime by November of 2023, you'll see that we have a new website, drmiller.com. It's going to be a brand new website. It's exciting. It has a lot of new things in it, and it's really a step into a new future. So be sure to check back with that website in a few weeks. Now, since I had begun my studies of computers and programming in 1962, I found that when I got into medicine, you know, in the late 1960s, I recognized very quickly that there's an aspect of the human brain that functions very much like a computer. In that your human brain, rather than being programmed by a nerd sitting in a laboratory, your genetics provide part of the programming, the experiences you've had in your past, physical experiences, social experiences, emotional experiences especially, and you're programmed by your perception of the current state of affairs. Because the current state of affairs that you perceive may actually be inaccurate. And we've seen how our memories are inaccurate, so our immediate perceptions can be inaccurate. And this is really part 2 of our journey from chaos to spiritual awakening, and we're going to be very experiential. And so I'm going to ask you to open up to allow yourself to really experience the ideas, the images that I offer you, both the spoken ones and the ones you visualize in your mind, and the ones that appear on the screen. And I've tried to put together what I know about deep relaxation, self-guided imagery, deep mindfulness, together with ancient teachings, along with reverent perception, of that spirit that moves through all things. I want to remind you with— of what we've talked about before, is how the human system works. We have our behavior, what we do and what our body does, and our health or sickness is a kind of behavior. That behavior is very much conditioned by the emotions that we're having. They make a huge difference. And in general, the whole limbic system. And that's all under the control of the conscious mind, supposedly, because this is a holarchy. So there's a hierarchy here, and each level of system, from your simple reflex arc all the way up to your prefrontal cortex, uh, higher and higher abilities to think and to reason and to utilize the past. So there are qualities that emerge as you go up this hierarchy. Likewise, information, clear information should go from the lower levels to the upper levels, and guidance and control should come from the upper levels down to the lower levels. And you know how sometimes your body can take over. Sometimes your mind knows you shouldn't eat something, and your tongue or your stomach says, "Mm, I gotta eat it," and you eat it. Cookie, cookie.

Alright.

And so this is kind of how it works. We have our thoughts, the thoughts in our mind produce images. Those images give rise to emotions and the emotions produce certain kinds of movement and change in the body below. When we're having happy, positive thoughts, we can produce positive emotions and create healthy states within the body. When we're having negative thoughts, resentment, anger, vengeance, suspicion, all those kinds of things, fury. Those thoughts produce other kinds of images, emotions, and eventually a different state of the body, and one that is indeed less healthy. And you might ask then, well, what decides what the series of thoughts are that's in the mind? And that comes from a higher level because it comes from our beliefs. What we believe about things in the world and how the world works has an enormous effect on the thoughts that we can have and will find coming into our mind. You know, we're flooded with thoughts all the time, you know, thousands of thoughts every hour. Who chooses the thoughts? Well, the thoughts come from are beliefs. And where do those beliefs come from? Well, where do they live? We know the thoughts are there in your cortex, in your prefrontal cortex, your executive system in your mind. But there's a higher level which some would call the spiritual level. Yeah, or others might call the philosophical level, where your deepest beliefs are. Is whether you're going to help that hungry person in the gutter get a meal, or if you're going to kick them into the gutter. All depends on what your beliefs are about the world and about hungry people on the sidewalk. So when we talk about the spiritual level, or what we might call a philosophical level, um, wisdom is what's important. That's what I found in my work, is that people who live their lives with wisdom were healthier, did better, felt better, and were more successful. So to be wise, to be wise is to have the presence of mind and the power of imagination to create a mental representation of your desired future, and from that perspective, evaluate and compare your present choices, and then choose the one most likely to bring about that desired future. In other words, to be wise is to make the choice to do and say today what you are going to be happy that you said and did when you look back next week or next month, right? So it always involves being able to see clearly into the future. And as we know, strong negative feelings create a fight-or-flight state within the mind, and they inhibit higher thinking of the prefrontal cortex. And that's when we make our worst choices at all— of all— is when we're under the influence of emotions. Having emotions is good, but allowing them to influence us willy-nilly, um, usually doesn't work out well. Knowledge comes Wisdom lingers. We get knowledge by taking in, and we gain wisdom by letting go of what's not useful to us. And let's remember that the future is not just someplace we're going, it's a place that we're creating at this moment with every thought, with every word, and with every action that we take. A most decisive event in your life comes when you discover you are not your thoughts or emotions. Instead, you can be present as an awareness, the awareness behind those thoughts and emotions. And that's what our goal is today. So we want to start with some deep relaxation and guided imagery to do exactly that, to begin to touch into that spiritual part of ourselves, to be open to it, to receive from it. So just allow yourself to be in a comfortable position, sitting or lying down.

Giving yourself permission to be present.

Gradually bring your awareness into the present moment as you allow your body to relax comfortably. There's no other place right now that you have to go. There's nothing else you have to do, no problem that needs to be solved at this moment in time. Come into this moment.

The past doesn't exist. Not even a second of the past can exist again. Focus on that point in the distance, and when your eyelids feel like they prefer to be closed, just allow them to close, or else stay focused on that point in the distance and be aware that the future does not exist. Just as the past no longer exists.

Everything, in fact, that exists, exists now, right here, in this room, inside your body. This is the world to you right now.

As you take a deep breath in and let it out, allow yourself to come into the center of this moment.

There may be raging seas outside, But as you bring your awareness inside, you understand that patience is a very powerful action because it begins to take you to another level.

And behind your closed eyelids, picture the word relax there on the back of your forehead, or just imagine that you're picturing it there.

And when your eyelids are relaxed all the way down to the point they don't want to open at all, gently test them.

And as you test them, let that feeling of relaxation from your eyelids flow throughout all the rest of your body, feeling your forehead and your scalp relax. Your muscles around your mouth relax. Your neck and your shoulders relax. Swallowing to relax your throat. Relaxation flowing down through your arms and wrists and hands, all the way down to the tips of your fingers. And as that relaxation reaches your fingertips, take a deep breath in. Draw it from your fingertips up through your arms and into your chest. Then let it go and sink into that little pause after you've breathed out and before you breathe in again. Feel that little spark that starts each new breath and let it fill you with relaxation, as if you're breathing in pure white light, and with each breath out, emptying your tension, emptying your stress. See that little spark of light as a golden glow that brightens with each breath in, a golden stream of life and love and healing and pure spirit flowing through you, through every cell of your body. Good.

You're safe now.

And as you let that relaxation flow into your abdomen and your lower back, down through your pelvis and thighs and your knees and legs and ankles and feet, all the way down to the tips of your toes, releasing and letting go. And allow yourself to be in touch at this moment in time that you are exactly where you're supposed to be. Everything is precisely the way it's supposed to be at this moment in time. Things are capable of changing in the future, and no doubt will, but right now you're in the only place you can be at this moment in time, and it's the right place. And as you allow your body to grow heavier and heavier, as if it's sinking down deeper into the surface beneath you. You may allow yourself to become aware of the possibility of a higher place within you, a higher place that you can reach, a place of deep peace and serenity, a place where you can touch the beautiful wisdom you have acquired in this life and perhaps make contact with spirit. Your spirit, or the Great Spirit that moves through all things. And if you wish, you may give yourself permission to allow yourself to ascend to that higher spirit above, that higher self, that higher power, whatever name you might choose to give it, that place of divine wisdom. Allow yourself to begin to envision how you wish to ascend your elevator.

It doesn't have to be a mechanical elevator that elevates you.

You could choose to rise upward on a balloon, or in a carriage, or on a magic carpet, or it could be a cloud of love or an auric glow of infinite possibilities. Whatever. It could be a flower. Let the creativity of love and art and beauty select or design your mode of traveling up, up to that higher level. And picture it in your mind's eye as you arrive, the shape and colors of this place. And as I count from 1 to 10, float upward. 1, letting all stress and tension drain away, sink into the earth beneath you. 2, as I count, feeling yourself grow lighter and lighter, leaving unnecessary thoughts behind. 3, 4, rising up to your special place of safety, clarity. 5. Until you can really begin to hear the sounds around you. 6. The sound of energy. 7. Or maybe the sound of silent liquid energy flowing. 8. Lighter and lighter into your special place. A place of beauty that you may have visited before or dreamed of. 9. A place in nature, or a castle in the clouds, or a central control room where you can design and control, or the memory of a holy moment of spiritual awareness you have had, a time when you had a sense of connection with that higher spirit. Perhaps an epiphany, a holy moment, a time of being deeply loved and deeply loving. 10. Allow yourself to emerge in this place of peace, peace and tranquility, completely centered, in touch with a deep wisdom a deep knowing, and very present. Open yourself fully to this positive experience, breathing out any unnecessary thoughts that may linger or come along. Allow yourself the experience of love, the experience of joy, of total wellness. The deepest levels of yourself, and feel those feelings and passions within you. Feel that spark of life coming with each breath, its river of golden light energy flowing through your heart and flowing through your entire body with each breath. A river of light and love And the spirit that flows through all things flowing through you, cleansing you of all tension, fear, anger, and despair, flowing out of your body, emptying into the universe to find some place or some being that can use its energy for some positive purpose, setting it free and setting yourself free. As you let go.

Good.

And now feel this vital golden energy flowing to those places within you that need revitalization or healing, feeling whole, complete, a sweet feeling of that spirit, that light that takes you beyond all thinking, beyond all mind. Entering the other realm now of pure love and spirit, and receiving, receiving the healing into those parts of your body and of your mind and of your emotions and of your relationships where healing is needed.

Here we—

here we are now in just this moment as you absorb all that knowing, that guidance, all that wisdom, a deep knowing that you can trust, that you can believe, and feel gratitude for this miracle and all the other miracles at once. And all the miracles that you're yet to receive. Feeling deep gratitude for the patience you have to receive and accept each miracle as it comes to you, connecting it to that love deep within you that you believe in. And you listen, and you will listen. Even if it takes a little time, you have all the time you need trusting in that love, which is the teacher of wholeness. And you can remain here as long as you wish, and yet aware that when you're ready, you can just gradually allow your awareness to return to your special elevator and float down those 10 levels, floating down. 10, 9, as, as you gently float down in your elevator. 8, 7, coming back to where your body is resting comfortably. 6, 5, bringing the spirit and the love, the knowing, the patience, the wisdom, the power, and the willingness to create sincere, open, compassionate relationships with the world and the people and other beings in it. To 1, all the way down to zero. All the way down, zero. Allowing yourself to be present, awake and aware of the space around you. Good.

I'd like to share with you some of the experiences that I've had that have served to awaken me. Perhaps they can help awaken you or reawaken you or remind you of similar experiences in your own life. As a scientist, I was very fascinated by the, the mere existence of life. How amazing on Earth! And also the questions about spirituality which brought up a lot of difficult questions for me, you know, because there were so, so many religions out there. Every religion claimed to be the correct religion, and most of them claimed that all the other religions were wrong.

So you You know, how could that, how could that be?

Well, as I've shared with you before, well, as I look for the center of life, I found it to be something that I call the urge to merge. And again, this may not be the best name for it, and I also call it love. However, and as you, as you remember, I talked about the fact that instead of being bipolar polarized ionic bonds between carbon cells, they turn out to be covalent bonds, which means carbon atoms don't become positive and negative and therefore get into a highly polarized situation. But they share with each other, which is phenomenal. And from the depths of the carbon atom, therefore, comes this message of wholeness, of sharing, because soon it made it possible for, um, molecules of various proteins to form large proteins Proteins large enough and exquisitely designed enough to create the double helix of the DNA spiral, which gave rise to the wholeness of the cell, full of all different kinds of molecules, but they're all working together to keep that cell alive. And then the individual cells collected together to form multicellular organisms, and And some force held them together. And so they went on to form bigger and more complex creatures. But they're all composed of various different kinds of cells working together to create beautiful things and deep loving things. And in fact, that feeling of love that draws us together with a lover or with a child It's a powerful force. That's the same force that holds the carbon atoms together. We feel it as human beings. Animals feel it as well. And animals gather together in groups, in herds, because you can do a lot better in this world if you're not trying to do it all by yourself. So what is this that pulls us together in this remarkable way. Just think of it as somehow an urge to merge. Maybe it's a mystical concept, but you get the feeling if you've ever been in love. And that urge to merge, I see— I also call it love, but love with a capital L, because it represents shared values. Integration, inclusiveness, a both-and way of looking at the world. And in fact, um, I can think of some countries in the world that could really, really use a both-and way of looking at things. It's caring, love, it's about intimacy, balance, vulnerability, harmony. Empathy and compassion, wellness, collective intelligence and coherence. Life exists and repairs itself because love causes wounds to heal and pull us back together again. So life and love and healing are somehow three representations of the same quality. The secret to life then, and to balance and to healing, is balance, harmony, and coherency. All parts smoothly working together. But if they're not working smoothly, there's conflict, dysfunction, stress, and the stress chemicals that destroy health, produce disease, block wise thinking, block healing, and impair performance. But human beings learn, just as their animal forebears had learned, that when they gather together in groups, they're far safer. Look at it. We don't, we don't have hair, we don't have really sharp teeth, we don't have claws, we can't run fast, we're strong— we're weaker than the— not as strong as the weakest gorilla. But we figured out that we could get together and by celebrating in certain ways we could awaken powers within us that were just amazing. That lovely experience of being in Bali where it's, I think, every day, just about, there's a ceremony. I mean, every morning this is what happens. You have these parades of people coming with offerings that go to the temple and bring it back. It's incredible, and it's very inspiring. Then we have that in Mecca. We have the Hajj that Muslims go on, and mobs and mobs of people come. You're supposed to go there at least once in your lifetime and walk around and around this. Great power and cohesiveness can come from that. So the goal of relationships is stay, stay connected. When it's broken, it has to be repaired, and that's healing at the collective level, something that needs to happen a great deal in the world right now. The secret to life. On the other hand, there's another force And if we think of that force of the urge to merge, love, the love force, which is kind of— think of it a white light or golden light. Then there's a dark force which looks at life in a different way, and it approaches situations and relationships in an analytical way.

Either or.

It's either you or me, not both of us. Black or white. It's a zero-sum game. as recent leaders have been speaking of— differentiating, fragmenting, good versus bad. It's exclusive, like an exclusive club. Critical judgment, contemptuousness, rejecting, debating, attacking. It's a quality of violence. And that's the paradigm that has unfortunately also been present in the world and is destroying us as individuals and as communities. It is really threatening our world. We can see that dark force, how it's affected us, how it's created those wars, how it's created hatred instead of the ability to work together. I mean, even in our own world, in our own country. So as I've talked about before, what we need to do is to shift our paradigm to one that includes the love paradigm. There's a little bit of it up there, but we need a lot more. A paradigm— I'm talking about the worldview that underlies the theories, strategies, and method— methodology of a particular scientific subject or process, a way of looking at the world. And just as we've had to change our way of looking at the world from being hunter-gatherers to being agricultural people, we changed our view of astronomy from Ptolemy's model to Copernicus's model, from Newton's model of physics to Einstein's, and then even classical mechanics is giving way to quantum mechanics. Very different ways of looking at the world. And what we're talking about now is a way of looking at the world that involves having faith. To have faith is to believe in what you do not see. The reward of faith is to see that in which you have believed.

That's from Saint Augustine.

When I heard that, I had to stop and think. I said, what is something about that I thought, that is very interesting, and I wanted to, I wanted to study it. I also was finding in my practice that the people who got well the quickest and that who improved the most in what they were doing were people who had some sort of faith in something beyond themselves, you know, rather than the sort of ego, egoistic ways that we tend to look at the world and where we live here. So I began to study the different religions and to see what I could learn. And I had a wonderful opportunity because I was in Monterey at the time, and I was working with a physician who was a hypnotherapist who taught me some amazing things and opened my eyes to the fact that there are altered states of consciousness, and that different states of consciousness have different potentials to do either good or evil to us, to heal or to destroy. And I started going down to Esselen and teaching with him But more than teaching, I got to learn, because I got to learn about these wonderful Eastern religions that, you know, nobody ever talked to me about in the world, uh, these, these kind of, of religions. But, you know, for some of these religions, uh, and in each one I could see as I looked from one to another how, how they all reflected each other, that their— that our religions actually had more in common with each other than the differences, although most people seem to look so much more at their differences. So I started paying attention to the various kinds of wisdom that came from other places, you know. And here in this world where, as I said, everything is ego-based, you know, you want to be the biggest, you want to be the best, and, and, and, uh, how do they say it, winning Winning isn't everything. Winning is the only thing. Yeah. So, but I found it was difficult for me to accept the stories that were told in the Christian religions. Um, the virgin birth was something I had trouble with. Yeah, the notion that there's somebody up in the sky looking down on me, that was tough. And the resurrection after 3 days. As a scientist, well, how do you— how can you put those together? And yet there were some beautiful things, such as the Golden Rule. And as I said, that Golden Rule, which has to do— has to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, or in an expanded form, love thy neighbor as thyself, do unto others as you would have others do unto you. It turns out that that same rule appears in all these other religions. In Hinduism, in the Mahabharata, this is the sum of duty: do not unto others which would cause you pain if done to you. And in Buddhism, there's the Udana Varga: hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful. And then in Confucianism, surely it is the maxim of loving kindness: do not unto others that you would not have them do unto you. Islam says, no one of you is a believer unless he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself. And that's from the Sunnah, sayings of Muhammad. And finally, in Judaism, "What is hateful to you, do not to your fellow men. This is the entire law. All the rest is just commentary." That's from the Talmud. Hmm. So what is being expressed here in all of these places, in all of these religions that grew up separate from each other in totally different parts of the world with people people speaking different languages, etc., etc., is what's clearly a fundamental systemic healing principle. The startling truth that when we accept ourselves the way we are, we will allow others more freedom to be as they are. And then some of the teachings that have come through Christianity have been very valuable to me, and I realized that This quote by Lincoln was a very important one: "Do I not destroy my enemies when I make them my friends?" Then there's that wonderful story of the wisdom of Solomon, when two women were arguing over which one was the true mother of this baby, and Solomon ordered the swordsman to cut the baby exactly in half and give each woman half of it. and then that would be fair. And one woman said, "Go ahead, do it. That's okay. That's fair." And the other one says, "No, don't do it. I'd much rather she have the baby than that you harm it." And Solomon says, "Guess what? I just discovered who the True Mother is." I worked with Mitsaoki, who is a who's a teacher, met him at University of Hawaii, was the head of the religion department and just spectacular. Everybody loved him. He was wonderful. And we got to talking. It turns out that he was a Christian and he taught Christian beliefs, and he actually was an ordained Zen monk. Well, how can you go from Buddhism, in which everything is just a thought or an idea, you know, to the notion of Christianity? And he said, he said, well, he says, I don't find a contradiction, but all my studies in Buddhism, when I studied Christianity, I found something that really wasn't there. From me. And he said that something is love. And I had great respect for him, and I said, that's another thing I've got to keep an eye out. What is this love that comes through somehow in Christianity better for Mitsuoki? Um, Darryl Davis was a musician, interesting guy, a Black man.

He was a—

and he, you know, of course the Ku Klux Klan is running wild, and we're talking about what, maybe 15, 20 years ago, I think, is when he got started, maybe a little more than that. But he couldn't figure out how people in the Ku Klux Klan could hate him if they didn't know him. So he got on the phone and called one of the heads of the Ku Klux Klan. He said, "I'd like to meet with you." And the guy said, "Okay." And so he shows up. I guess the Klansman was pretty startled to see it's a Black guy. But they get to talking and they get to know each other and they become good friends. They go out to the bar and have a few drinks together. And the Klansman decided to remove his robe and gave it to Naro as a present. And he left the order at that point. And then Naro went ahead and started calling other Klansmen, heads of other orders. And as he would talk to people and they'd stop hating Black people as they got to know him, and they gave him their robes. He has a whole closet full of Klansman robes. I mean, how can that be? Yeah, he didn't have fear, he had love, and he couldn't understand how someone could not love him. And Carl Jung said, until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate. 'Oh, look at what happened to me now.' Whatever is rejected from your sense of self, it appears to you as though it exists in the world, and you think of it as an event. So just to touch on what I was able to receive from other realms of study of spirituality is the Tao. The essence of the universe is the Tao. It's the middle way. It's that with which we, we must harmonize. It is the eternally nameless. It's represented by the yin yang. So you have the black which is the yin, and you have the white, which is the yang. The yang is the masculine, driving, forceful, and the yin is the accepting and the deep and the mysterious. And there's a continual change because everything is— has both yin and yang, and they change. And that's why there's a white dot in the middle of the black and a black dot in the middle of the white. That's to indicate that in everything is the seed of its apparent opposite. I think that's something that Darrell might have understood. And there's a reading in the Tao Te Ching which is: 30 spokes share the wheel's hub. It is the center hole that makes it useful. Shape clay into a vessel. It is the space within it that makes it useful. Cut doors and windows for a room. It is the holes which make the room useful. Therefore, benefit or profit comes from what's there, but usefulness comes from what's not there. And one of the products I have made, it's called the Serenity Prayer. It's based on the Serenity Prayer, but what I did was I went into each of the aspects of the Serenity Prayer to go in really, really deeply. Most people have never understood it like you will understand and have to listen and work with that, um, but it's a very, very very, very profound way to look at things.

And then I spent some time in India and studying the Hindu approach.

And what, what really impressed me really a lot about the Hindu approach to things is that when the Vedic people came down from the north and moved through India, finding one culture after another. And each one had their own local gods, but they didn't come in and reject the gods that were there, you know. Some of them, some of them had very angry gods and, and warlike gods and The Hindus said, "Oh no, those are just representatives of Shiva, the destroyer." And other place, people were very creative, and they had a creative god, and they said, "Oh, it just represents Brahma." So that's why every god in the Hindu pantheon has many, many different forms, and each form sort of corresponds to a different community. And there we have the most numerous country on the planet. And that's how they solved the problem. That was one of the beautiful things about it. Um, for me, it was when I went traveling through Nepal, and you would walk on these roads as we were trekking, and people far away from any machines, little old ladies with 100 pounds of firewood on their back, and they walk for half a day to carry it back to burn in their fireplace. But they still had the energy to say namaste. And so you put your hands together and say namaste, and you know, it's sort of like slapping them five or something. But then pretty soon you say, wait a minute, there's something else that's going on here. And you feel there's something special. And that has to do with the fact of what it means. The namaste means that there is a place of beauty and light and goodness within me, a God place. And there's a place of beauty and light and goodness in you, a God place. And when you're in that place in you and I'm in that place with me, There's only one of us. And you think about every time you say namaste to someone, and you keep feeling more and more connection to people. The other thing that's interesting is that in practicing yoga, yoga, which has to do with wholeness and coming together, and oneness. Yoga comes from the same root as the word yoke, as when you yoke two oxen together. And that, um, and that yoga is not just one way of doing things but many ways of doing things. And so what you have is, in addition to hatha yoga that we're all familiar with, you also have raja yoga. It's about— it's the yoga of the king, and it's about being in control of your thoughts. There's karma yoga, and that's one in which you do a lot of work and you stay with the moment. You don't think about the end, you just operate purely in the moment with. And that's— and again, you're becoming one with all things. There's the bhakti, and that's about devotion and prayer. Hatha is about moving, about moving, moving your body. There's jnana yoga, which, which is the intellectual form of yoga. And of course there's Tantra yoga, which is about becoming one with the sensations in your body. And yes, that does— they do have certain very specialized ceremonies that have to do with sexuality, but that's just another sense, and so it's, it's well dealt with. So different yogas, different strokes for different folks, I guess you'd say. Um, and that of course was the spiritual leaning of Gandhi, who created so many things. I didn't know about Gandhi really until someplace in the 1970s when I read this book, Gandhi the Man, and I literally shed tears all the way through it because he was saying things that I knew and believed at a deep level. But never had the words for. But as I read his quotes in this book, it opened me up in a phenomenal way. It's one of those deep spiritual moments for me, a breakthrough, a kensho, an epiphany. I recommend it highly. So Gandhi taught nonviolence and managed to get England out of India. And he said, "Do not identify with the actor. Do not identify with the fruits of the action. Full effort is full victory." He said, "The ally you must always seek is the part of your adversary that knows what is right." And basically that happened with the British.

He just—

they let the British beat on them and beat on them until they said, oh man, why are we beating on these people? Let's go home. And another student of Hinduism and Buddhism that was important in my life was Ram Dass, Baba Ram Dass, who wrote the book Be Here Now. I read the book in the late '60s. I didn't quite understand it, but be here now fascinated me as a concept. So I worked with that, and, you know, within a decade or so, Ram Dass had come together. Not, you know, not with him as my guru, but we were buddies. We saw the world and we loved and were intellectually very attuned with each other, and we conducted workshops in Hawaii and at Lama Foundation. And I learned a great deal from him, and I suspect he may have learned something from me as well. And this is us much more recently before he passed on. Be here now. A page from his book was, I am without form, without limit, beyond space, beyond time. I am in everything, everything is in me. I am the bliss of the universe. Everything am I. That was from Ram Tiratha, but it's one of the ones that Ram Dass put in his book. He also said, as you dissolve into love, your ego fades. You're not thinking about loving, you're just being love, radiating like the sun. Wonderful teachings. As we grow in our consciousness, there will be more compassion and more love, and then the barriers between people and nations will begin to fall. He said, treat everyone you meet as if it's actually God in disguise. Or as Ram Dass originally said, treat everyone you meet like it's God in drag. Think of that. Think of that as you meet people. Hmm. Let's imagine that this is God in drag. I mean, and at the end of your interaction with this person, God's going to step out and say, "Okay, here's what I think of you after how you treated me," or "This is how I'm going to take care of you." In most of our human relationships, we spend much of our time reassuring one another that our costumes of identity are on straight. The quieter you become, the more you can hear. The resistance to unpleasant situations is the root of all suffering. That is, you get around that by being accepting. He said, the freer I get, the higher I go. The higher I go, the more I see. The more I see, the less I know. The less I know, the more I'm free. And then there's special studies that— special things I've learned from Buddhism. The story of this samurai who went to the Zen monk and said, you know, you are the wisest man in the kingdom, and it's said that you are the only one who can answer my question because no Nobody else can. He said, well, what's your question, young man? He said, I want to know the difference between heaven and hell. So the old man looks at him and he starts to chuckle. Pretty soon he starts to laugh quite derisively and points at him and says, you, somebody who goes around and kills people for money, you want to know the difference between heaven and hell? Well, as you can imagine, the samurai becomes furious. He draws his sword back and he says, "Prepare to die, monk!" And at that, the old man stopped laughing and said, "That is hell." And the samurai got it. He'd been studying long enough. He was ripe and he got it. And he lowered his sword, and he had this look on his face of understanding. And the old man said, "And that is heaven." That's a— those instant knowings that you get from Zen. And what they're saying is that we have the power to choose heaven or hell.

The Buddha says—

Gautama the Buddha— the source of all suffering is wanting things to be different from the way they are right now. But as you and I know, things can't be different from how they are now. They were different and they will be different, but they can't be different now. And so all the work that you do to resist accepting this moment simply produces suffering, and it feeds into the future because it leads you to make even more mistakes in the future. They say pain in life is inevitable, but suffering is not. Finally, let me share you this one story I learned because I was reading something in a journal of an Irish fellow who was traveling through and had stopped to visit a friend of mine.

This is in the late '70s, and I read this story and I went, who is this?

I've got to find this guy. And it was basically a poem that was written by Thích Nhất Hạnh. And Thích Nhất Hạnh was a Zen monk from Vietnam, and he escaped from Vietnam at the, you know, at the end of the war. And from there he went to Hong Kong, and while he was in Hong Kong He worked to try to get Hong Kong to admit the boat people who were coming over. Remember those hordes of people that were coming over on boats to Hong Kong? And Hong Kong often didn't want to let them in. His poem is "Do not say I'll depart tomorrow, because even today I still arrive." Look deeply. I arrive in every second to be a bud on a spring branch, to be a tiny bird with wings still fragile, learning to sing in my new nest, to be a caterpillar in the heart of a flower, to be a jewel hiding itself in a stone. I still arrive. In order to laugh and to cry, in order to fear and to hope. The rhythm of my heart is the birth and death of all that are alive. I'm the mayfly metamorphosing on the surface of a river, and I am the bird that arrives in the spring in time to eat the mayfly. I am the frog swimming happily in the clear water of a pond, and I am also the grass snake who, approaching in silence, feeds itself on the frog. I am the child in Uganda, all skin and bones, my legs as thin as bamboo sticks, and I am the arms merchant selling deadly weapons to Uganda. I am the 12-year-old girl, refugee on a small boat, who throws herself into the ocean and drowns after being raped by a sea pirate. And I am the pirate, my heart not yet capable of seeing.

And loving.

My joy is like spring, so warm it makes flowers bloom in all walks of life.

My pain is like a river of tears, so full it fills up the four oceans.

Please call me by my true names so I can hear all my cries and all my laughs at once. So I can see that my joy and pain are one.

Please call me by my true names so I can wake up and so the door of my heart can be left open, the door of compassion.

He wrote that poem after talking to people on one of those boats where that girl had So empathy and compassion. Let's do our closing imagery for today, and you may simply allow yourself to be in a comfortable position, then prepare to bring your awareness into this present moment.

Focus on your breathing. Each breath out, emptying your body of unnecessary tension. Each breath in, breathing in relaxation. Start at the top of your head, relaxing your forehead and your scalp. And relax your eyelids to the point they fall closed. And as you test them, find they just don't even want to open. And as you test them, let those ripples of relaxation flow throughout your face, all your facial muscles relaxing, your neck and your shoulders, relaxation flowing down through your arms, through your wrists and your hands, all the way down to the tips of your fingers. And feel that relaxation in your fingertips and take a deep breath in. Draw it from your fingertips up through your arms into the center of your chest. Then release and let go completely and let the air do the breathing for you. Good. The air breathes in, and then there's a letting go of all stress and tension, relaxing your back, relaxing. Feel the rising and falling of your abdomen with each breath. As the breath enters, relaxing all your internal organs. Flowing out, releasing all internal tension. Relaxing your lower back, all your pelvic organs relaxing. Relaxation flowing down through your thighs and your knees and your legs, your ankles and your feet. More and more calm, more and more comfortable with each breath. And after each breath out, each letting go, feel that little pause before the next breath comes in, and let yourself sink deeply into that pause and feel that little spark of energy that starts each new breath in. Feel it like that spark of golden liquid light, a liquid river of spirit flowing into you. With each breath as you effortlessly allow Spirit to open in and flow throughout your body, healing all parts of you. And as this is happening, let yourself float upward on your elevator. 1, letting any unnecessary thoughts that come along flow out. 2, erasing them from your memory. And from your mind by gently testing your eyelids. 3. 4. Deleting unnecessary thoughts. 5. And there's more and more spaces between your thoughts. 6. Let yourself sink into those spaces between your thoughts as you float up. 7. Lighter and lighter 8, 9, allowing yourself to become aware of the blessings in your life, 10, the gifts, the safety of now. And let yourself be here in your special place. And again, thinking about the source of all these gifts, the source of this magnificent body you possess, with all of its highly developed senses, your beautiful mind, the source of all the love you've experienced in your life. And allow yourself to feel appreciation for all this and a deep gratitude to wherever is the source of these gifts, whether or not you are aware of its exact identity. Just feel the gratitude. And the presence of this amazing being's presence in each breath and in every gift, the love, feel it deeply. That's right. Think of those who love you and what that love means. And think of those that you love and allow yourself to feel grateful really grateful, deeply appreciative, deeply within, filled with gratitude for all these miracles. And let yourself remember the source of all these gifts. And as you're aware of that little pause after each breath, and that little spark that starts each new breath, allowing it to continue to heal you and to open you more and more to your wisdom within and to your spirit guides. And no matter what happens on the outside world, you can always come into this place, but only when you choose to. And of course, only after you've trained yourself to find it, because it's always there between the out-breath and the next breath that comes in by itself.

Good.

Feel the spirit within, sensing the soul at the core of your being. And though you may play many different roles in your life, It is this deeper soul that senses the spirit at the center, the source of love and beauty. And feel a reverence within yourself and the willingness to surrender. Good. Great. Think to yourself the words: I have emotions, but I am not my emotions. I have a mind, but I am not my mind. I am a child of Spirit. I have confusion sometimes, but I am not my confusion. I am a child of Spirit. This is a perspective from which you can look at anything in your life that allows you to feel so full of love that you have the ability to let go of whatever relationships, attachments, addictions, and urges that you may have when you know that you don't need to keep them with you anymore. Good. And now, aware of that power within you, let it spread throughout your entire being. Imagine that it radiates from your fingertips. Imagine that it's in your voice, that the love that you know of, the oneness that brings us all together. The namaste, that sense of connection that you feel when you hold in your arms a baby that you love, a big person that you love. Imagine it flows out in your words. It flows out through your fingertips, in your touch, in your hug. In everything that you do and is doing its part to heal this world. Give yourself permission to do that if you're willing to. And then in your own time, in your own speed, bring yourself back to the place where your body is resting comfortably. Knowing that you can come back in here anytime that you wish. Good. And if you can, as much as possible, cultivate that quality of human warmth, wanting genuinely for other people to be happy. That's the best way to fulfill your own happiness. This is also the most gratifying state of mind.

Those guys who believe in selfishness and say, "You do that because you feel good about it"—

this is so stupid.

Because if you help others, you don't care a damn, then you won't feel anything.

Wanting to separately do something for others feels good to you. But to do it without the feeling is like trying to make a flame that burns with light but no warmth. You must have that warmth. Try humbly with some happiness to enhance benevolence. It's the best way to have a good life.

Good. So as we wrap up, let me share with you some of the products that I've prepared that relate with what we've talked about. They're present there at shop.drmiller.com. When the new site arrives, you won't even have to go to some other place to purchase. First one is the love meditation, which is similar to the one we just did, simpler, however. Second one is— there are two meditations on this rainbow butterfly with the beautiful harp improvisations of Georgia Kelly, and each of these is quite long. I think, you know, perhaps 30 minutes or so, maybe more.

Beautiful.

And very spiritual. Inspired Imagery is for those who've been doing imagery and would like to kick it up a level so that there's more spirit in their imagery. A lot of people are doing imagery, visualizing wealth and visualizing power, and there's higher levels that I've found. Inspired Imagery, there's a Serenity Prayer: Have the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference. It's one of the most powerful statements that can exist, and this looks deeply into it. There's a video, The Power of Your Mind to Nurture Your Spirit, and there is my book I wrote after my first 30 years of developing the field of mind-body medicine. It's called "Deep Healing: The Essence of Mind-Body Medicine." And then about 10 years later, desperate to try to get word out about what we need to do to save our planet— seemed ridiculous in 2009, but doesn't anymore— "Our Culture on the Couch." did a psychoanalysis of our culture. It's called Our Culture on the Couch: 7 Steps to Global Healing. It's a deep book, takes you a while to get through. It's very rich in information, knowledge, and wisdom, and has probably 10 or 12 different imagery scripts for you to do. So you could read it or You can get it as an ebook or you can get it as a physical book. I may even have a verbal read. I may have read it and performed it. You can see when you get to shop.drmiller.com, search for it. Healing Our Planet is focusing healing on what we can do spiritually. Spiritually to be healing our planet within ourselves.

Right.

And of course, once again, shop.drmiller.com and drmiller.com is, is great website for you to take a look at, and soon you'll be able to— it's going to grow even more. So enjoy, and I look forward to being with you again. Take care, and namaste.