From Mind to Mystery: The Journey to Soul Sovereignty

Welcome to Exit the Matrix Stories of Success with your host Jane Slack-Smith, where we celebrate the incredible journeys of individuals who've transcended their limitations and achieved extraordinary success.

Hello, it is Jane here, and it's week 31 of the Exit the Matrix with Me book research experiment. And as I say every week, I am excited about speaking to this person, but in particular, I am so excited about introducing you to Matteo because I've been coaching with Matteo for about 4 months now. I had the pleasure of meeting him in March. And you know when they say, when the student is ready, the master appears? Well, I don't know if I was quite ready. And these conversations that I've had with Matteo have taken me into places that I never expected to go. And my logical mind resists, I think, every single week with Matteo, and he gently takes me through. So I want to introduce you to Matteo. Matteo, welcome.

Thank you.

In the house, in the house. So let me just place this meeting with you. We were at Alana's I Am retreat in Bali in March. If you missed the discussion I had with her, it was like week 5 of this experiment. And she said to me, next week I'm doing a retreat in Bali. And I woke up on the Monday morning going, I have to be there. Checked in with my husband and son and said, I have to go. And they're like, go. And 2 days later, I was on a plane and I got to meet the incredible Matteo and so many other beautiful people. But here's the thing that I really remember about our time together. And that was, you know, there's all this searching and people go on these searching and these quests and we're looking outside of ourselves for things and we're trying to, you know, tap into presence and peace and calm and, you know, self-love. And, you know, there's all these courses and we go on these trips to Bali. And Matteo turned up for his beautiful day session and he just sat there very quietly and said, put your hands together and bow and let's come into presence. And I burst into tears. I was like, oh my God, this feels so right. How could it be so easy? I've been learning all these things. And Since then, Matteo, I think the journey with you, um, you know, I've never been actually able to vocalize what you do, but I saw something recently that said you're a soul architect, and that's what spoke to me. So I really appreciate, you know, you sharing your amazing knowledge, um, with me over the last few months, but also taking me to places I've never been before. And hopefully we can explore that today. Sure.

Sounds great, Jane.

So, Soul Architect, let's just go there. Let's just go straight into it. You know, your background started as an engineer, right? Do you wanna just take me through how do you become a Soul Architect?

Yeah, I love the energy, Jane. Thank you. Thank you for being you and for your presence. Yeah, so I was born in Denmark. My parents were immigrants from Iran and they escaped during the revolution and were like most immigrant families, materially focused, wanted to make it in the new country. They were working very hard. They went to university, got their educations. They were entrepreneurial. So they were doing a lot and my value system was pretty materialistic oriented. I mean, my parents, were not religious as such. They believed in God, but there wasn't really any explicit spirituality in our household. And yet I would, at age 6, 6 or 7 or so, I would sit and meditate spontaneously. I would, I would have these questions I would ask myself, and one of them was, what was here before Matteo was born?

Hmm.

And the other was, what would be here if there was no God? universe? And both of these questions would kind of put me in a, what we might call, an altered state of consciousness. And as a child, I didn't have that concept, of course. I just feel like, whoo, like my mind just expanded really wide. What does this mean? And I asked my mom about it because I was in my innocent child mind. I was expecting there must be a mental answer to this. I don't want this expansion. I just want the mental answer. And of course, you cannot find a mental answer through your mind to what was here before God, because your mind came after God. So it's kind of that Einstein thing. You can't solve the problem at the level which it was created.

Yeah, yeah.

So I went and asked my mom. I said, surely she's an adult, she must know. Mom, what was here before God and the universe? And she looked a little mortified and she said, don't ask questions like that, you might go insane.

Right. Yeah, I mean, you were 6.

Yes.

And she probably didn't know the answer. Let's face it, a lot of people don't know the answer. So how— what did that do to you? Like, at that age where you are asking these big questions and you're looking to the authority in your life for the answers, do you shut down or do you just like double down and go, well, I'll work it out myself?

No, I, I basically shut it down. I didn't feel like it was a big trauma or anything, but something in me just went, okay, and switched gears more into their value system, which was more material. And Yeah. Um, I spent the next— I mean, up to 18 years, I was working very hard. I was spending like— I was in an international private school, so my parents really had this wish for me to succeed and they had these ambitions on my behalf. And every summer I would work and save money and my goals were like, well, I'm gonna become super wealthy. I'm gonna drive a Lamborghini or whatever. I'm gonna have properties all over the world. And I didn't have really a scope beyond that. And then at around age 18, I entered engineering. I got into the university, moved across the country in Denmark, and I was just on that path of, you know, doing what's right. I didn't know what to do. Engineering degree, that's well respected, that can make you some money. So that was kind of my mindset, and maybe I'll figure out what I'm gonna do along the path, whether I like it or not.

Yeah.

And that's when I started having some really profound spontaneous spiritual experiences. So I was already interested in kind of like the Tony Robbins, the self-development, the motivation, because I was like, this is great, it's going to make me feel powerful, I'm going to be able to make more money, I'm going to succeed. Um, me and my friend, we lived together at the time, and we were those crazy guys walking around our neighborhood at 6 AM in the morning Yelling every day, I'm becoming stronger and better. And we were listening to this Tony Robbins.

Finally, you're like, let's turn it on board, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We were all in.

As opposed to me, and I would have my friend yell at the front of the bookshop, Jane, are you down in self-development again? And I'd be like tucking Tony Robbins away. At least you had like a person to do it with.

We were the crazy Tony Robbins people of our neighborhood. Um, and what— and one night I was out in a discotheque, like, you know, most 18, 19-year-olds, we were going out partying. I was having some beers. I wasn't in a spiritual mindset at all. And I had a big shift. So I'm standing there drinking my beers, and I feel like my heart just opens wide.

Mm.

And I feel like I'm— this light is radiating from me. And I go, ooh, like my brain goes, ooh, like I don't know what to think. I'm surprised. I'm shocked. This is exciting. It feels cool. And within like the, within 4 to 5 minutes, 3 to 4 or 5 people, strangers come up to me. They're just attracted to me for some reason. They come up to me, they want to talk with me, and I freak out. I don't have any reference point for what this is. I'm like, why are these people coming up to me? So I tell my friend, we need to leave. We go to the bus stop, and I see a man sitting there, and I spontaneously go up to him. I'm feeling all this love, all this compassion, and I say, what's wrong? Again, I don't know this man. I was a quite angry, driven guy. I wasn't a guy that's gonna go up to people and ask them, how are you? What's going on? And he looks at me like, uh, well, what are you on about? And he says, nothing. And I say, no, really, what's wrong? And he just opens up. He starts crying. He starts sharing how he's had this breakup, how life has been really tough. So something opened up there that not only had me expand, but it also connected me somehow to others. It gave me this attunement. to others. And people felt that they were attracted to it, they opened up to it. So that was the first kind of spontaneous opening I had. We, we took the bus back to our neighborhood, we slept. And over the next couple of days, it's kind of faded out. I didn't have any context for it. So I just called it, it must be a Tony Robbins peak state. That was the only mental model I had. put this in. And over the next couple of years, these openings continued, and they kept getting stronger and stronger and more expansive and lasting longer each time. And the last, the last one that really put me on the spiritual path, to come back to your question, how does an engineer go on this path suddenly? Yeah. Was I was in Turkey at the time. We have a villa in Turkey, beautiful location, beach on the front, mountain on the side. I was living there with my friend. We just needed some time to figure out our next path after our engineering had been done. And I had this profound opening, which I— which if I were to describe it for people who've never experienced something like this, It's almost like— it's exactly like when you have a dream and you wake up from a dream and you go, oh, that was all just a dream, and you feel relief. It was that kind of opening. I felt like I woke up from the dream of who I thought I was.

Hmm.

I thought I was this person moving along this timeline trajectory from A to B and gonna be successful at some point, and then finally we'll be happy. And it felt like suddenly I woke up and I had this felt experience that I am this deeper presence that's kind of always here, that's always been observing, that's always been witnessing everything. And it was such a relief physiologically, energetically, mentally, emotionally. It was like I felt like these chains were taken off my entire nervous system, and I was crying and laughing spontaneously. As you can imagine, it's, it's a powerful, uh, experience for the body to have. That lasted for a good 4, 5 hours at peak intensity. And after that, I was already quite successful financially. I had marketing companies, I had a coaching— big coaching companies. So I'd already had a lot of experience with success, but after that I said, I don't know what this was that lasted 4 or 5 hours, but none of the success I experienced ever came close to satisfy— to this level of contentment and satisfaction. So whatever that was, I'm going to dedicate my life to living in that state all the time.

Okay, so Is it a God moment? Like, was God part of that?

Yeah, in, in the period leading up to that, I had a lot of dreams about quote unquote God. I felt like God was like speaking to me, the universe was like sending these messages about my path. So there was a deepening connection to God. But I wouldn't say it felt like a God moment. It felt more like a soul moment, and we can get into those distinctions later on. It felt like I had awakened to my soul. I might not know exactly what God was yet, but it was like, okay, I am not these thoughts and emotions and this identity. I am something else.

The reason I ask is, and I haven't explored this because I think I've felt uncomfortable in you know, maybe polarizing people. But, you know, I'm 31 weeks into interviewing people around what's it to live a life of abundance, what is it to be true to your own true heart and, and soul, really. And what's come up regularly that I've just let slide because I'm like, oh, I don't want to become religious, is a number of people have gone It was God. And even, you know, we had the pleasure of talking to, you know, spending time with Lisa Thomas, who's gone, I'm not religious, but if I'm calling in protection, I always call in Jesus because it's got the highest power of resonance protection. And I'm like, really? Like, you don't believe in this, but this is it. And it's something I feel, you know, could alienate people if I go there. But the reality is There's too much of this coming up where people are saying, I had this moment. And even to the extent that I interviewed— there's been 3 people I've interviewed in the last, you know, 2 months who've all talked about near-death experiences, which is exactly this same experience that you just spoke to, which was they had this, this feeling that they've never felt before. And then they've spent the rest of their life working out how to get back to it. So it makes me wonder, you know, we talk about this, you know, you don't need to do more, you know, when we're having our sessions, but really we need to just cut through and remember.

Yeah.

Is there a— is this like going back to source? Is this, is this what it— our life kind of experiences are kind of this dropping of the facade and the illusion that says it has just been a construct, and really we go back to soul source, and that's what we're really here for, that experience.

Yeah, it's, it's a great question. Let's break it down also for the people who would get triggered maybe, or taken aback by that word. So anybody who studied NLP or representational psychology, etc., would easily follow this line of thought, and most others too, probably. We have to remember God is just a word, doesn't actually mean anything, and it's a word that we use to describe something that's beyond our comprehension, right? And of course, in some schools of thought, some religions, this word has gotten certain connotations. But even if you take like 1 million Muslim people or 1 million Christian people, They might have, even if they have the same conceptual understanding of what God is according to their Bible or the Quran, they're gonna have a different experience and representation internally of that. So the first thing we can do is just understand words don't refer to objective things, right? Everyone has a subjective experience of what this word God means. If we take an ant, and we try to explain what a smartphone is to an ant, it might say that's God because it's so beyond its comprehension. So when we— when I use the word God, I don't mean anything in particular as the mind would usually represent it. I use it to describe the entirety of the universe or existence. as far as I can comprehend, because that may not be— that's a model still in my mind, right?

And, um, that source of creation kind of thing, that essence.

Yeah, we can, but even that is another representation. It assumes that there is a creation, and it assumes that it's a human projection. It assumes that creation must have a creator. So we're projecting a lot of our own human limitations onto this. So yeah, I would throw that out, you know, whoever gets triggered by the word God, just maybe add that and then see what does God represent to you. Because many people who are like angry at God, what they really mean is they have anger at their parents. And because we experience our parents as gods when we're children, it's like, God, that idiot, he really screwed me up. He's never there for me. Or God is so good. What we mean is my mom, like, held me and kissed me. And so these words don't mean anything. That's important to understand. And they can point to certain direct experiences of profound connection, profound love, profound unity. That is true too, but the map is not the territory.

The map is not the territory. Tell me more.

Yeah, it's— I can describe, you know, I can describe the taste of durian, the taste and smell of durian to your viewers for the next hour. And if someone hasn't tasted or smelled durian, they won't get what I'm saying. So the map is not the territory points to this very simple and common sense thing that the, the word on the menu is not the food that you get served, right?

Yeah.

And in spirituality, that is more true than any other dimension, in a sense, in the sense that spirituality is all about getting to the direct experience. True spirituality is not about adding a a bunch of new dogmatic beliefs. It's about cutting through and getting to the root of the matter. It's a phenomenological kind of investigation of your own experience. So you use a kind of scientific approach, we can say, in the sense that you very systematically inquire into your experience, and at some point you have to even transcend the limitations of science and that, because science is still—

Limited.

Yeah, it's the highest stage of rational thinking that we've been able to come up with thus far, and it's beautiful and amazing, but we transcend even that. And doesn't mean that we become idiots who are like, just believe in anything, whatever, and disregard science. It means We include the levels deeper than science. We recognize there are more than science can quantify because even the smartest scientists are still dependent when they form hypotheses. They're still dependent. They can only form hypotheses within the framework of understanding they have. They cannot think outside of that, right?

Mm-hmm.

So we go deeper than that, and we use science to our advantage. Of course, it's— that's the smart thing.

It's interesting. You've said to me in the past, when I have been struggling with a concept or an experience, that the mind can't understand the soul because the mind is of the soul, which is kind of reflective of what you said before, which is, you know, you can't solve a problem from where the problem's created. So is the soul the destination of, of our experience?

The soul is a word to describe what we are and ultimately, in a sense, what life is. So we have to understand, nobody knows what life is.

Hmm.

So, you know, we can get into all kinds of political debates, scientific debates, spiritual debates. But the heart of the matter is nobody knows, can give an answer to what life is. We can break it down in terms of, well, there's, there's all these laws of physics, there's all these things we've discovered about the universe, etc. But that doesn't explain what the substance of existence itself is. And even when we get down to the lowest quantum levels, it still doesn't explain, well, what is it? We've just added more concepts. Well, it's this, it's that, but the map is not the territory. So if we start with that understanding, then we can see that everything we say is just an approximation, trying to get a little bit closer to what is it really? And a soul could be a good approximation. But if nobody knows what life is, which is my hypothesis, then how can we know what the goal of life is? It seems there are just different hypotheses from different spiritual traditions, from different religions, from business people. Everybody has their own hypothesis, right? And so there is this great openness and It seems to me that when I found that great openness, right, in Zen they would call it beginner's mind. And in the Asian traditions, they usually don't experience the mind and the heart differently. So when they say beginner's mind, they really mean beginner's heart-mind. The heart and the mind is open in this state of wonder, inspiration, and awe to whoa, like, like, who— we don't even know what a bird is, right? If you, if you don't add the labels, the concept, when you hear that sound, you're just, whoa, like thunder, rain, all this magnificent expressions of this simulation, if you want to call it, of this creation. So we come into this state of openness. And what I've discovered for myself and the people that I guide into this state This brings profound contentment, profound peace, and profound empowerment in terms of living a very satisfactory life full of impact, full of love. We can put a label on that and say that is the goal of life. It's still a story, but it seems we're most satisfied when we do that.

It's interesting, you know, you talk about the beauty of science and the highest level of thinking really and logic. And then if you think about it and you think of an atom, and if an atom is 99% space, but all we see is matter, like we are kind of living in this construct, for want of another word, of we are constructing the reality that we see, the microphone and the desk and the clothes, etc. But in reality, all of the matter is made up of space, and we are creating all this in our mind for us to feel comfortable in our existence. And so it's been a real journey for me in, you know, having worked with you and, and, you know, having gone through a long coaching period of trying to understand intuition and understanding there's something more and there's subconscious beliefs. But this next level of understanding, which is we're making it all up. And, you know, I, I mean, some of the things that I've shared with you, and, you know, we start most of the coaching sessions and you go every week, you know, what's going on? I'm like, I've got no idea what I'm going to talk to Matteo about this week, you know. And I'll be going, oh, I had this situation, I had this something that made me angry, or there's something that came up and I don't really know where it's coming from. And your persistent kind of questions take me from the mind and how I'm processing things somehow to, I don't know, the energy of it, and then to my body, my nervous system, and the processing. Is that, you know, for people who are sitting there and going, you know, I want to create a life that I love, this wholeness and contentment that Matteo says that he's got, is his life of joy. He had this opening. I want it. Is that like just my path, or is that like a path that you need to go through? Is it like that awareness of the space outside, your emotions, your body? Like, is that, is that a way to access this, you know, deep contentment and wholeness that you're talking about?

Yeah, it is. It is the way, I would say. So if we look at it from like an engineering perspective. The yogis and the seers of the Eastern traditions, they mapped out 5,000, 10,000, the time period is kind of unclear, but they started mapping out the, what they would call the spiritual anatomy of the human being. So where we focused, I'm also a psychologist. So in the West, we focused on the mapping out the psyche, the yogis and seers, they were mapping out some deeper levels of the energy and of the soul, if you want to use that word.

Hmm.

And so they identified different koshas or different bodies, the mental body, the emotional body, the energy body. And as you go down through these bodies, quote unquote, which of course are just representations trying to point to some experience, experience gets more and more subtle. And some of the deepest layers is the— they call it the Anandamaya Kosha, if I'm remembering right. Ananda means bliss. So it's the bliss body. So as you start going really more subtle in your experience, then suddenly there's this profound sense of bliss, this profound sense of expansion of energy, which I know you've experienced as we work together. Energies start moving and the mind goes, oh. What's this, right?

Yeah.

But that's, that's the experience of your attention or your consciousness going into more subtlety. And then in the, in the most subtle, you transcend even that. And that's the great void or the absolute, right? That's the state of enlightenment that yogis strive to live in every moment of their life. So they have mapped out the anatomy that every human being has. In my experience, I'm limited to the sample size of the people I've worked with, which is thousands by now. Everybody has the same anatomy. And once you— a soul architect or a soul engineer is someone who has traversed that territory within themselves. It's not something you can learn like in a school or in a book.

Hmm.

You have to traverse the path. You have to go up the mountain by yourself. And then many soul architects, they just stay up on the mountain because they're like, oh, that's their path, right?

Yeah.

Some people like me, they come back down the mountain again, and I also traverse all the obstacles on the way back. I learn, I trip, I fall, I learn all the obstacles, which gives you the ability to then guide others through. You, you know exactly where they are on the mountain. Are they stuck on the top? They need help coming down. Are they stuck on the bottom? Are they in the middle? And now how you do that is different for each person. Each person's path is going to look different because if we have someone who has arthritis in their knees, they might get stuck. I can't take them down up the most steep path. We have to take the roundabout path, or we need certain tools to do that. So each soul is going to traverse that ascent and descent back into the world, which again, many of the spiritual traditions have described in their own way. The ascent is realizing your true nature. That's the ascent. You go on this quest, the hero's journey. You're like, oh my God, I've become super successful and I'm not happy. That's one example. There is something I'm missing, or, oh my God, life has just been pure suffering for me. Nothing has worked. I've been traumatized. I've been beaten. I've been battered. I'm done. There must be some other way, and anything between that spectrum. So then you go on this hero's journey of ascent. Who am I? What is the meaning of life? What am I even doing? Or you get cancer, you get sick, and that sends a lot of people into this questioning process, right?

Yeah.

And once you get a sense of who you are directly, either through life experience or a spiritual path, then the second question often becomes, what do I do with it? Now, what do I do? Okay, I know this, and I'm sure you've had other people say this, especially in near-death experiences. Now, what do I do? How do I live this? How do I impact the people? in my surroundings.

Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, that, um, we've discussed this around, you know, the self-development world and how people cling to one modality and that's it. Like, there's like, this is the way of doing things. And what I guess, has been revealed to me in working with you and, and listening to you has been that there's a season for everything, right? Everyone's individual, and it— there's not one size fits all. You have to try things on. And sometimes, as you said, there's this journey. Like, you know, a lot of people are still at this awareness stage, and, and the bodily awareness, and, and the, you know, emotional and the energetic. And others get deeper, and some people start at this stage and, and, you know, have another experience. And what I love about that is like there's no right or wrong, but there, there does seem to be a lot of people who want to die by a modality. Like, you know, they're gonna, they're gonna stand for it and die for it because they believe it's the thing, because it's provided some type of answers for them. But at the same time, by wanting to be so defined by that, it's limiting them from other things. And I guess this kind of leads me into some of the conversations that we've had around non-duality. Because when I speak to people who I consider, like yourself, spiritual teachers and people who have a sense of making the unknown known in their lives and introducing gently to the rest of us what that is, there's this like concept of when you can get to non-duality where there isn't a right or wrong. And I think the Kybalion talks about, you know, there's like this measure and we're on, you know, you know, love or hate is actually just on the same, um, line of emotion. And it's, you know, it's the same thing. And by non-duality, just accepting you can hold these 2 things at once. And we had a conversation last week where I was saying that I believe that when people get too above themselves or too successful, or, you know, they put their head up too high, or people no longer can relate to you, I find that scary because I'm thinking that that means that I'll be excluded and I won't belong. And what you offered to me at, at, in that point, that that conversation was that if you're— if your end goal is, you know, connection and wholeness and that whole sense of, you know, being yourself and your authentic self, then you're actually abandoning yourself in the instance now with the fear of the future that you'll be abandoned by others in the future, which I haven't explained very well. But I wanna just go into that because I think it's, you know, there's— that was my thing and everyone else has their thing. But it seems to me that whatever the thing is, that there is some type of in the now abandoning what you really want.

Yes.

And you're creating situations that are going to create that thing that you don't want.

Yes, yes. Yeah, so we're in the age of AI and huge technological advancements, and people— I've heard some people worrying about like, yeah, we're all going to be living in these goggled-up worlds, right? We're going to be wearing our VR sets and that, and we're never going to leave home. And yes, and I think that misses that we're already actually embodying the greatest representational simulation machine ever created, that as far as we're aware. So in each moment, we're creating this wide array of representations, right? Just worlds we're anticipating, we're expecting, we're hoping, we are making so many assumptions in each moment that the world is going to continue as it did, etc. And so if we understand that, that the body— and with that I don't mean just the physical body, but all the levels of the body— is this incredible representational machine, and that the representations it makes are based on previous data, just like any representational, it has some information it goes on. That's what the yogis would call karma. So there are these loops that keep recreating themselves in the present moment. So if I had a bad experience, I burned my finger on the stove several times, that becomes a karmic imprint from a spiritual perspective. You could call it a trauma from a psychological perspective. But the point is, it creates a loop in which I'm now anticipating when I want to go to a restaurant, I'm going to anticipate, oh my God, is there going to be a stove there? Do I need to bring gloves? Are the waiters going to take me to the kitchen? And so I'm representing in the present moment based on my karma, based on my past experience. So once we understand this, along with the common sense idea that nobody knows what the future holds, we just don't. We realize, oh my God, the future is this blank canvas, and I'm vomiting or beautifully expressing onto it based on my karma, depending on which mind state we're in in the moment, right? Um, then it becomes obvious, at least logically to begin with, Yeah. that all these fears I have about the future are something I already feel. I must already feel this somewhere. Like, if I fear being abandoned, if I fear being alone, if I fear being disappointed or heartbroken, that must already exist in me right now. Otherwise, why the hell would I fear it in the future?

Because you can't fear something you don't know.

Exactly, exactly.

Hello, just a quick message. I hope you're enjoying this podcast bonus session. Now, if you have heard this interview, then you're probably sitting in there going, what is this all about? Well, this is all about my Exit the Matrix experiment. Now, I decided to write a book because I'm really interested in how do we go from the existence that we have now to exiting the matrix and living with intention from our hearts, following our heart's desires, but also creating abundance in all areas of our lives. And hence, whilst I've been researching this book, I thought, this is a really solitary journey. I want people to come on this journey with me. And hence, I've got this very special group. Now come and join me. The first month for founders is free. And if you decide Today, fantastic. So what I'm doing is I'm interviewing incredible people. I'm getting insights about what's this awakening that people are getting, you know, what is the exit the matrix kind of sliding door moment for them. Now, I've obviously run this podcast for over a year now, and I have more than 30 stories, but I'm also interested in those people who are in this transformational space who are actually not just awakening themselves, And they're awakening others. What is the mechanism? As Bashar talks about it, it's the permission slip. Are they going through astrology or meditation or yoga or breathwork? Are they just going within and getting a sense of what's really going on? So that's what all the Exit the Matrix experience is about. I'm going to let you get back to the interview, but if you want to join me, go to exitthematrix.today. /ETMwithme, which stands for Exit the Matrix with Me. So that's exitthematrix.today/ETMwithme. Sign up. I'd love for you to come along. I'm creating courses. There's currently courses in there around 4D gratitude. There's more courses to come. I'm creating custom GPTs on how you can exit the matrix and helping you uncover what lies beneath your subconscious and holding you back. And also other custom GPTs that I'm sure you're going to love. And most of the speakers are actually really motivating me. So I'm creating courses, I'm creating ebooks, I'm creating experiments you can try, I'm creating tools that you can use, and I'm also writing a book. So at some stage I'll get to writing the book. At this moment, it's just all about the research, and I hope you choose to join me because I'm really excited about this experiment. So I'll get back to the interview now. Enjoy yourself. And, uh, as always, here's to your success.

And, and some people say, well, you, you, you fear the unknown, but even that has certain representations about past experiences of something being unknown. Then you got shocked, or then you got scared, or then you got excited. Some people are excited about the unknown. So Okay, philosophical. How the hell can we use it? What's the value of this, right? Let's boil it down. So once you understand that, then you can work the only place where it makes sense to work, which is in the present moment. If you liberate the present moment, you liberate your future, which is a projection based on the data of the present moment. And this is also why you can change the past, because the past as such only exists as representations. in your psyche right now. So as you change those representations, oh, suddenly my past feels different.

Yeah.

So, so we go— it's, it's this understanding that if I fear something, I'm already in that state. I have some vibration with that already. Otherwise, I wouldn't project it into the future and fear it. That helps us liberate ourselves now, which liberates our future.

So you really, in the present, you're creating the past.

Yes.

In the next instant. So you're creating a new experience of what that is. So by identifying what you fear in the future, be it, you know, we're sitting there going, oh my gosh, I'm going to die poor, I'm not going to die unloved, I'm going to not, you know, I'm going to be lonely, whatever that is. By experiencing that In the now, knowing that you're loved now and you're safe now and you are connected now, is that non-duality? Is that having the fear of not belonging and the fear of— and the knowledge that you do belong in the moment? Does that collapse the fear, or does that just create the construct to go, it's okay, I can go into the future? with a clean slate.

Yeah, you could say that. So there are many, many, you know, it gets more advanced. This is the problem, as you know, I'm sure from things that you've really mastered. When you have a lot of data and reference points, there are so many subtleties. There are many types of non-duality. There isn't just one type of non-duality. But in the Indian scriptures, there is a beautiful quote that always struck my struck my heart and mind, and it's, surely all fear must be born from duality. That's the quote, right? Because I need the fearful one and I need the object that's feared. So surely all fear must be born from duality. And there is a process of allowing these karmas, these fears, this sense of self and other that I fear, to collapse gradually or suddenly for some people. And for some people, unfortunately, it's suddenly. You know, a lot of people say, oh, I just want it all at once and I can take it. And this is a quite shocking and can be disorganizing process if it's not done gradually and with proper support, which it is for a lot of people. But there can be this collapses, and what's collapsing is just mental frameworks that have limited our perception of reality. That's the only thing that collapses. And as that collapses, suddenly the world opens up to you in a new way. Now, this is no different than any other arena of life because things are non-dual and holographic. The, the same truths can be applied across everything. So I might look at us. I was watching on YouTube this dance move yesterday someone was doing on the street, and it looked so advanced. And then he broke it down into steps, right? He broke it down into 7, 8 steps. And now I wasn't just seeing this, whoa, this beautiful dance move simulation that I have no idea. When I saw the steps, I was like, oh, okay, that makes sense. So as you're practicing the steps, you're in a kind of duality. You can say there is you, and then there is the awkwardness of learning the step.

And it's kind of like where you are now and where you want to be. So there's that duality.

Exactly. When we say duality, that's one level of the duality. And then there's the, the duality of I am the one trying and there is something to get. There is the, the level that do a distance between me and it. There are many levels of it.

And the novice and the expert comparison.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly, exactly. All of that, all of that is part of the duality game. But as I learn the move, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, at some point there I can move into unconscious competence, and there is just this release. Now, a good mechanic, a good dancer, a good chef, a good lover, all have this. They, they release into this. So non-duality, one way to describe it is to be able— so where most people learn that in one area of life or 2 areas of life, the yogi or the spiritual practitioner says, wait a minute, that makes sense. I could go and like practice gymnastics and then I can learn that flow and release through my body movement. Wait a minute. What if I deconstruct the entire simulation machine and I learn to liberate flow fundamentally on a global scale within my psychology? That's what enlightenment process is about, the soul realization process, to liberate flow on a global scale. There are still things you haven't mastered. There are many things you, you don't know how to flow in, but that lack of flow is also seen as the flow. So it's this profound freedom, profound ease.

This is just the acceptance. So, you know, my investigation in this, in context of the book, is that there's often something that stops people in that last step in accepting the flow or accepting abundance or that last constraint that is between them and the life that they truly want. How do we get past that?

Yeah. Yeah. So this is the question that any good teacher, of course, Ponders a lot. How do I help people? Because that is the paradox of all of this. Let me see if I can find a good metaphor. It's almost like if, in a sense, the police is dependent. on criminals, right? Because if there was no crime, if— then we wouldn't need the police. So the issue is that the very mind that's trying to free itself is what's obscuring the freedom, is what's in the way of the freedom. So it's like you hire someone that has a vested interest in keeping the show going to end the show. And this is what we all struggle with, right? Because the mind says, let's stop thinking and let's get out of the mind.

Hmm.

So this, this is really where the spiritual process begins, this profound question of how can I free myself from this impossible puzzle, conundrum, without adding more of myself?

Hmm.

And really, spirituality, how I hold it, is about that. And in, in the Zen traditions, they had what they call koans, which are these impossible questions. Like, one of the famous ones is— and the setup is you'll go to your teacher, to your Zen master, and he'll give you a koan. And then he says, go and think about this for the next month, or sometimes for the next 2 years, sit with this question 8 hours a day, 12 hours a day, and then come back and give me the answer. An example could be, what is the sound of one hand clapping? And you go and sit with it, and you're scratching, and you try to make up all kinds of explanations with your mind, right? And then you might come back after 2 years and you say, well, You might give some smart answer. Sound of one hand clapping, it means that the universe is holographic and God is the greatest. And the Zen master might give you a good slap and say, that's wrong, go another 2 years. But the point of these koans is to frustrate the mind to such a degree that it just snaps, it gives up, and it realizes I cannot find the answer to this. I give up.

Boom.

Yeah.

And then that's when the truth prevails.

That's right. That's just like, just like any other dimension of life. You know, I know there's probably some people in the property business or entrepreneurs watching this. You've all had that experience of struggling with something. You try all your knowledge. How can I? And then you just let go and then the answer comes, or you think of a creative solution you couldn't even consider.

It's like when you're at the end of the tether. It's interesting because often you challenge me. And one experience comes to mind where we were talking about what's the worst thing that could happen, and I had some dilemma. And it got to that frustration point. I'm like, well, I guess if this goes wrong and this goes wrong and this goes wrong and this goes wrong, then I'm nothing. I'm absolutely nothing. I'm like, I, I'm not seen. I can't make an impact. I can't, I can't influence. I can't teach. I can't, you know, do all this. I'm just nothing. And you're like, oh, that's fabulous. I'm like, why is that fabulous? You And he's like, oh, in Tao, the end of enlightenment is nothing. So you've got to enlightenment because you're nothing. And I'm sitting there going, my worst fear is unpacking it like I'm nothing. But in actual fact, that's the— based on this dogma, is the spiritual enlightenment. And so once again, it's this perception that we have or the labels that we have And the biggest thing that a lot of us fear, that we are trying to push away or we're trying to overcome, is actually something that serves us.

That's right. That's right. It is our great liberation. I started thinking about this at some point in my spiritual process, and I was thinking, why is it that, you know, one of the worst kind of criticisms, or yeah, criticisms we can give of someone is like, you're nothing, you're nobody. And we have a lot of like spins off of that. But it all boils down to you're nobody, you're nothing. Who do you think you are?

No value.

No value. And of course, this is because this is the deepest fear of the ego is to be nothing. Why does it fear that? Coming back to what we talked about before, we only fear what we already are experiencing. Because the ego, which I don't view as a thing, but as an activity, as a process, already knows that there is nothing there. And in order to keep up that facade, it needs to keep spinning its wheels constantly. And even one moment of break is going to reveal the great nothing. And so we've bought into this mass delusion as, as humanity. that it's really, really scary. We've collectively agreed it's really scary to let that happen. So let's all just keep spinning and never stop because, oh my God, what's going to happen if we stop? But the spiritual process is about, is about being bold. You know, it's not about actually sitting and pretending to be peaceful or whatever. The spiritual process is for the bold and the rebellious. It's like, wait a minute, they told me— they being my own ego in this moment and the collective agreements— that I should keep going and something really dangerous is going to happen if I don't. I want to challenge that. I want to discover for myself. So the spiritual practitioner stops And then feels, oh my God, everything in me is trembling, and my mind is telling me, what are you doing? We're gonna be rejected. We're not gonna be the tribe. And then you go, well, let's check it out.

Mm-hmm.

And, and once you do that challenge again and again, the brain starts relaxing. It says, oh, I didn't die. Ah, oh, I'm okay.

Ah.

I expressed my power and nothing happened. Or something happened. 100 people turned against me. They hate me now, and I'm still here. That is the great process of profound relaxation and seeing that, realizing that you're nobody. It just means that you realize you're not your ego is actually what opens you up to what we could call God or the big somebody, we could say, the somebody that is inhabiting everything, the consciousness that's presence and witnessing and alive and intelligent.

So is meditation then the path to deactivating the ego, or a path?

It's a path. It's an approximation. It's trying to approximate a natural developmental process. What we're describing here is not something exotic. It's not something esoteric. Just like a child is part of a developmental trajectory to learn to walk, to learn to speak, communicate, develop certain brain centers, on a spiritual level, we are also on such a developmental arc. The issue is we get stuck in all kinds of beliefs and dogma that blocks that path. So that's why it's a process of undoing. Meditation, what it attempts to do— there are many kinds of meditation, but a lot of meditations, what they attempt to do is poke some holes momentarily in all this noise that's blocking so that hopefully there can be space for that natural, organic developmental process. That's why so many entrepreneurs, when it's time for a shift, I have many friends, they go on vacation, they get away from— for 2 weeks, they leave everything. They're creating the space so that the natural intelligence can show them their next path, their next idea.

I like the idea of not having the brain break, but actually accessing it through the quietness of a meditation instead, because it seems a lot less traumatic. Than going, oh my God, I just can't work it out.

That the mind snaps. The mind is not the brain, how I use it, right? The brain will thrive when the mind starts snapping. The brain thrives. It goes, oh my God, that iron grip that physiologically is also there. When— because when we're stressed, we feel that, right? The head tightens. But there is a baseline of constant physiological tension on the brain and the body because the mind is in fear. It's spinning. As that starts snapping or melting, if we take a different approach or different words, the body and the brain and the lungs and the organs go, ah, oh my God, space.

Still seems that meditation is an easier way. The one of the things that, um, I think that my thought processes have always been around spiritual practices and self-development is it's, it's the hustle, it's the bustle, it's the learning, it's the you know, it's the achievement around knowledge or integration or embodiment and whatever it is, if it's physical or if it's mental or if it's spiritual or energetic. You know, there seems to be a perception that I had had about an accumulation of something that would get me somewhere. And I think where, you know, talking to you and working with you and at the end of some of the sessions that we have, it all just seems Um, humorous and stupid and like not even worth— like I'm embarrassed that I've actually thought of these things as being a big deal. And then an hour and a half later, I stand up going, how could that even have been something that, that I was fixated on? And, and sometimes, you know, it has a purpose and we discuss that. But is that, is that like a normal— type of progression? Like, is it a cosmic joke? Is it like if you start looking at life in the present moment and not projecting onto the future and not bringing in whatever those fears and doubts are and just living in the moment, is it, you know, that type of lightness to it? Is that what embodiment is or the end goal?

Yeah, it's a— I would Cosmic joke is a good word. I, in this moment, I would call it, it's a developmental joke, right? Just like the 10-year-old looks back on the 7-year-olds and thinks, this is so easy, and forgets how much they were struggling with it, right?

Yeah, yeah.

So it's a developmental joke as you transcend more and more and become free and expand these traumas, thoughts, emotions, which I acknowledge are very painful. when we're at the level where we're believing. We don't want to minimize that. People are really in a lot of pain, you know, sometimes. But as you start transcending them, you look back on it and you can't take it serious anymore. And that's one of the gifts of a spiritual teacher. Hopefully, when you come to a spiritual teacher and you share your problems, whereas, you know, a typical therapist often is in the same boat, actually. They also believe to a certain degree that there is something wrong here. And okay, don't worry, I'm a therapist, I have the expertise, I'm gonna fix— let's just fix it together. It actually can, can still be helpful, but it can strengthen the belief that, yeah, there is something wrong, and now we have a game plan, we're working on it, don't worry, it's all under control. But a spiritual teacher, hopefully through their transmission, through their presence, they're just embodying that state that all is well. Relax, nothing is under control, right? That they hopefully should embody. Relax, nothing is under control. And then your system through osmosis goes, huh, he seems relaxed with nothing beyond under control. I wonder if I can do that too.

Hmm.

Model it. Yes.

So this, um, the mysteries of the heart, you know, the, the, the soul quest, the connection between the heart and the soul is— are we going from, you know, releasing the, the mind to activating the brain and the body and bringing the heart into it? Is that the path the soul. How's the heart and the soul connected?

Yeah, so again, these are all models. These are hypotheses I'm making up based on my own experience and a small sample size. Um, the soul— that the heart is the bridge to the soul, right? In the sense that— let me see if I can explain a little bit that dynamics of it. When the heart is soft, and this is both a metaphor but also literal, when the heart is soft, flow is more available. When flow is more available, natural intelligence and intuition is more available. When I'm spinning in my mind, spinning in my mind is a Symptom of a hard heart.

Hmm.

So when the heart is soft and open, everybody's experienced this. You go a beautiful place, you're with great friends, your heart and physiology naturally softens and you feel safe. All is well. So I don't need to spin around in my head. When the heart gets hard, when the physiology tightens because it's in fight-flight, Freeze. The mind, it says, it gets this bottom-up message, something is wrong, otherwise why would we be tight? Fix it. And it starts spinning. And this is how trauma kind of messes us up, because our physiology gets stuck in fight, flight, freeze, and the mind is trying to solve problems that aren't here anymore in this moment.

Mm-hmm.

So as we start resolving those traumas slowly, the heart starts softening, and then the soul, quote unquote, can flow more easily into the nervous system, into the brain, into the physiology. The energy is flowing better. If you want to use a purely biological model, you can also. There's more blood, more oxygen moving into your brain. You think more clearly. You can get more downloads easily. You know, it doesn't matter how we explain it, which model we use, but there is a process of liberation that can happen.

Okay. Just in the final moments here, you know, the, this kind of living from your heart and, and I've got a better, better understanding of that now and creating a life of abundance. Yeah. If I say to you and, you know, you've worked with You know, people around the world and incredible people and from all walks of life. What is this? What is abundance? What is this quest for, you know, this desire of having, I guess, more than what is a limited life?

Yeah. I think it's a, it's a, it's a life, it's an impetus of life itself to desire expansion, to desire discovery of new ways of unfolding, of new ways of manifesting. I mean, even the universe is constantly expanding. So as we are part of the universe, it would make sense that we would have this desire towards constant expansion. And constant expansion doesn't mean Just having more money. It might mean that in one phase of life. In another phase of life, expansion might mean to allow myself to die in peace, to get ready for the death process and start shedding. That's a different kind of expansion. So there are many ways of the universe kind of discovering itself through us. In terms of abundance, let's break it down just in terms of wealth. We can, like money. I used to believe that it's more Tony Robbins mindset. Anyone can do anything and you just have to push yourself. I don't believe that anymore. As I've seen through the illusion of the separate self more and more and more, there seems to me, and I could be wrong, this could be a limited way of thinking. Doesn't feel like it to me. It feels expansive. It seems to me that there is a kind of arc that each soul has decided it wants to experience. And some souls want to experience poverty, some souls want to experience mega wealth, and anything in between in order to learn certain lessons. And you can work within that arc to be more on board with it or be more in resistance with it. But there seems to be an arc. And even if that isn't true, that gives me such a state of freedom and peace because there's a relaxation from needing to push against the universe and make things happen into I can co-create with the universe. Now, because there is an arc, if you have in your heart the desire, as an example, to be a deca-millionaire or have a certain kind of net worth, and it's a true desire, it's not just coming from a sense of lack I want to fill because something else, I don't believe that that desire can even be there if it wasn't part of your soul arc. Right? So it works both ways. It's not a kind of Oh, I'm a victim of the universe. It's more like, no, the— I am a vessel of the universe, and my job is to clear my superficial desires that come from lack so I can make space for what's really the universe has planned for me.

And so that kind of links back to our previous conversation, which is if you shed the ego and the need for validation and all these things that we feel will complete us, if we shed that and we have just this flow and in our soft hearts and connected to our soul, then if we truly want to be a millionaire and there is, you know, a higher purpose to that rather than from I just don't want to be poor, then you've already experienced it. You have that. already. So you, you can't have, you can't experience in the now a desire for something that doesn't exist in what you're saying is on in your soul already or in your future.

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Beautifully put.

So all we have to do is be aware of where we're coming from and then be aware of what we want.

Yeah. I, yeah, I would say to everyone, Relax, chill out. And that doesn't mean sit around and do nothing. It means let your heart, let your psyche relax and chill out. The world isn't going to end if you chill out for a few hours per day. And maybe it will even open you to ideas, creativity, and power you had no idea is possible.

Well, I think that is a perfect place to end it. Um, if people want to reach out to you, arianmateo.com. arianmateo.com. I'll put all the links below. But Matteo, as always, I, I stand up a different person. I feel it in my DNA every time I speak with you. So I really appreciate you. And, and, um, yeah, really acknowledge, you know, what you've, you've introduced me to and that next level of awareness, but also, you know, the The grace and the ease and the humor and the non-attachment to the way that you present these incredible things. And I appreciate you've come back down the mountain to share that with us so that we can climb our own mountain. So thank you so much for your time.

My pleasure, Jane. Such a such a pleasure.

And as always, to everyone who's listening, here's to your success. Bye for now.

Bye bye. Bye bye. Bye bye.

Bye bye.

Thank you for listening to Exit the Matrix Stories of Success. Make sure you subscribe to future episodes at www.exitthematrix.io. Until next time, here's to your success.