134: East Forest on Infinite Existence and The Guru Within

Hi, this is Charles Michael Davis. Toyotathon is on, so stop by your.

Local Toyota dealer for incredible year end.

Deals on the cars, trucks and SUVs known for their legendary reliability like the stylish and efficient Camry, the Ready for anything RAV4 or check out a rough and rugged Tacoma or Tundra, all with great financing and lease options available to qualified customers. Visit buyatoyota.com to find out more. Toyota let's go places.

What's next? This is a question we're all having to ask and answer more frequently. I'm Jenny Blake, your host of the Pivot Podcast and author of the Only Move that Matters is your next one.

For show notes from this episode, visit pivotmethod.com podcast if Change is the only constant, then let's get better at it. Here we go.

I think you are going to love this conversation with East Forest, even with me at all my podcasting awkwardness. We get into amazing topics like infinite existence, the guru within, and even our tendency as humans to worship gurus and externalize our own innate soul, power and wisdom. After conducting the interview, I had the idea to ask East Forest's team if we could include an audio clip from this incredible, exquisite album that he just did in collaboration with Ram Dass. Some of you may remember the interview with Trevor hall where we released his track Karma in similar fashion and they actually share the same management team. Shout out to Tim and Isabel, two of my favorite people on the planet. So I wanted to do that again. And by the way, I'll throw the links to that episode and this one in the show notes@pivotmethod.com 134 that's pivotmethod.com 134 and if you want to jump straight to the episode with Trevor hall on Karma Healing, soul maps from the stars, and his fruitful Darkness song premiere, go to pivotmethod.com 85 now back to one of the big focuses of this episode and conversation Ram Dass, the subject of the titled album that East Forest just launched. Ram Dass is a well known American spiritual teacher, former academic and clinical psychologist, and the author of many books including the Game Changing Cornerstone book Be Here Now. If you don't own a copy, you must Eastforce and I talk about that in the conversation, but I thought it'd be cool to give you a preview of the music itself, the tracks that he did that he composed after interviewing Ram Dass at his home in Hawaii for a week. So actually, before I take you into our conversation. I'm going to play an excerpt from his album Ram Dass, available wherever you listen to music. This track is called Dark Thoughts. I hope you enjoy as much as I did and that you enjoy the conversation that follows. Thanks so much for listening everybody.

When you witness a dark thought.

A dark thought that isn't going to get you anywhere.

You witness it.

And love it.

You love your dark thought.

Remember, the witness is part of the soul. And the soul loves everything.

Everything.

Not every, but everything.

Loves the clouds and the trees and the fish.

The animals.

And that love.

Coalesces.

The universe.

The oneness of the universe is love.

The oneness of the universe is love.

Absolutely beautiful. Thank you so much East Forest and team for letting me share that before launching into our interview on Pivot Podcast. And now back to the regularly scheduled portion of the interview. I'll give a brief bio and then we'll get into it. I am thrilled to be here today with East Forest, who describes himself as a unique bird in the wild west, aviaries of electronic music and the field of wellness. I just love that description. His music has been dubbed as shamanic, ambient, electro, acoustic pop, and the fundamental mission of his project is to create sonic architecture for others to explore their inner space. As East Forest writes on his website, it's a process of opening doorways for the listener to walk through, whether through his music talk, music talks, retreats or other offerings which invites patience. Patience, while typically thought of as Kryptonite in the instant gratification, hyperspeed world of music and modern life, might just be the medicine we need. So beautifully said East Forest. Welcome to the show.

Thanks, really appreciate it.

I've just had the most delightful experience. I've been familiar with your music for a long time, which is exquisite, but I had never really done the deep dive into your bio and your background and your writing and more, so your thinking and speaking truly from the heart and from the soul, which are themes that come up often here on the Pivot podcast. And part of what we're here talking about today is your super exciting collaboration with Ram Dass. So East Forest has released an album in four four chapters. The fourth just came out and it's called Ram Dass. It's a full length album that he flew to Hawaii to meet with Ram Dass, who is an acclaimed spiritual teacher, just an incredible man in his own right and visionary and enlightened soul. And In June of 2018 he East Forest went to Maui to record these teach and returned to his studio to compose a soundtrack that supports each song subject. So topics include dark thoughts, nature, the soul, and I just think this is such an amazing project. And thank you, East Forest. Thank you for doing this. It's such a beautiful way to capture one of the foremost thinkers of our time.

Well, the honor was obviously all mine. Getting to go over there and sit with Ram Dass and be able to be a vehicle for these. These new recordings and new teachings that he wanted to put out there. And just. We did this is to clarification. We did release the record in four chapters. And it's true the last chapter has just arrived, but the last chapter is essentially the entire record in one form. So we kind of released it in. In parts to let each of these teachings sink in that he was, you know, putting out there in each song. Each song is a subject like death or the soul. And. But now it's all one record, just called Ram Dass. 14 songs all in one.

Amazing. I'm liking this strategy of releasing in chapters. What has been your experience? Have you done this before with earlier albums? And how was it for you releasing this way?

No, I haven't. But as you know, the music industry has. Is rapidly changing and has been since pretty much Napster. And with streaming music, it's really changed the way people ingest music. Right. I think they expect things a bit more often and it might actually be less in the album format, even though I'm still a big believer in albums. And I really like the idea of sitting with a piece of work, that each song speaks to one another and there's a flow that's always been my vibe with all of my records. And I just thought with Ram Dass too, that was important that he, you know, there was like a field of energy and something he's cultivating by the cumulative nature of multiple songs and how they fit together in a subject, sort of reference one another. Yet at the same time, we wanted to be smart about being good, you know, serving, serving him by playing the game well and using the tools that are out there now, these modern distribution tools like Spotify and Tidal and Apple and Amazon, all these things. So it kept the conversation going a bit longer by stretching it out over the year, which has been great too, because we can add in other content around that, whether it's videos or talks or remixes or podcasts and ways to just kind of get deeper into these subjects and hopefully just connect with one another and push forth these new ideas that he's putting out there.

Yeah, both of you have such a rich body of work. So it's incredible to see each of your individual histories and creations and then to have this collaboration is really special. How did you develop the relationship with him in the first place to make this happen?

I mean, really, his work is a lot deeper and longer than mine. And like a lot of people, he was a teacher of mine in the background. Just by me reading his books and listening to his talks especially, I resonated with those a lot. And so that just sort of existed in my life. And I just had the idea of putting it to music. And I was on Raghu Marcus. He's the executive director of the whole Love Serve Remember Foundation. And there's a suite of podcasts. So I think the kind of head of the ship is Ram Dass's Be Here now podcast, which some people might be familiar with. It's just talks of Ram Dass and he has lots and lots of wonderful talks from the past. And he also has these other podcasts around that. One of them is his own podcast called Mind Rolling that's more conversation and interview based. And I was on that podcast with him and so I just. We got to know each other and essentially I just pitched him the idea later. And it was just one of those right time, right places kind of thing, which I'm not going to say I was lucky because I don't believe it was luck. It was more like I was very fortunate that I followed my intuition. And. And Raku essentially said yes. And eventually I convinced him I needed to go over there to Maui, which is another little like mini battle. And then we got the recordings and then I started making the music and then we started getting all these other people to play on the record. And that was a little over a year ago, so it's really cool to see it come full circle.

What was your entry point into Ram Dass's work? Was it Be Here Now? The book?

Yeah.

It's unforgettable, that book. So if. If someone. If you're listening and you have not. If you don't own this book, do it. It's really something you can tell. It's just from another place and just the style and the drawings and the insights. Do you remember where you were or how old when you discovered that book?

I don't. And I've heard a lot of people's cool stories where they're in a bookstore and it fell off the shelf. I've heard that story more than once.

But I don't know if book does it justice because it's kind of Like a mixture of. It is a book. Yes, you can read it, but you can read it probably in about an hour or so. But it's all pictures and it is. And it's like this old school.

Collage type picture thing. I mean, it's still in print. I still send it to people and people who worked on this record, like the graphic designer or like a featured artist who's like, well, I'm pretty familiar with Ram Dass. I'm like, have you read Be Here Now? And they're like, I think so. And I would immediately go to Amazon and mail them one because I'm like, that's we gotta start there before we even start working on its record, you know, and it's just that book is a total doorway for a lot of folks. And I know it was for me when I first picked it up and I don't quite remember when it was, but I just remember it was early on. And it has sort of this universal message in it that you can interpret in. In sort of your own way. It's very approachable, but very profound. And how it kind of gets right to the source of the message of sort of like, you know, the big questions of why we're here.

Yes, absolutely.

With a sense of poetry. But it also does it in a sense of, I don't know, imagery too. It's just really cool.

Yeah, the imagery is what's so surprising about it. And sometimes, you know, there's so much self help became this huge in the years since the book came out. But especially thinking about it at the time it was released in 1971, people were not really talking about these concepts in these ways. And then you see the imagery, and the imagery it is. Because it's kind of posters. They almost remind me of like 1969 or 1970, when it came out, 71 posters. And the imagery sort of cuts through the mind and thinking and goes straight to another place. Within. Within. I'll speak for myself within me. Where you look at an image and the image conveys so much more than just words on a page can do.

That's true. Yeah. It's kind of multi level like that. For sure. Those words are very profound. And then the imagery just. It sort of adds this whole other layer. Yeah, exactly.

What was important to you about recording these interviews with him in person?

Well, the biggest thing was I really felt intuitively that I wanted to hear what Ram Dass had to say about now now. Like I wanted it to be relevant to today and not something he said 40 years ago. And I also think we don't always honor wisdom or know how to really cultivate it or use it in today's culture. And this was a great opportunity. You know, he's 88 years old, and he's sort of locked behind this aphasia where it's challenging for him to connect the thought he's having to words, but his thoughts are all there. But the result when you're listening to him is maybe like, oh, he's not all there. But through this technology of just being able to record him and put him into music, the pauses now become an asset. They're no longer a distraction because he has a phrase and then there's a musical riff and then he has another phrase. You don't think about them. And so he comes alive all of a sudden inside these songs, and you're hearing him as he is today. But you might be used to this sort of stilted speech, but now it's just like he's just talking. And not only is he talking, but he's talking with, like, unbelievable mastery and poetry and humor. And it's like an awakening almost. And so it really takes someone's wisdom that's locked a bit behind a certain firewall and just brings it to life. And he really has something to say. And he really has an incredible amount of talent, obviously, and experience. And I just felt this would be a great opportunity to lean into that. And I feel like that's kind of the whole story of the record, is that it's Ram Dass today at 88, talking about a crisis that we're in as a civilization and these sort of universal teachings and themes as a way of navigating that, to me, seems critical. Otherwise, it's. It's. To me, I don't want to make a record that's sort of like a puff piece or a fluff thing.

No, that's not. That's never been who you are. I don't see that. I don't think even if you tried, that would happen. But what I love is that you have such a commitment to collective.

You.

You say in the video on your website, it's easy to tune out, but I'm asking people to tune in. We're all co conspirators in Waking up. And there's a song, Please Pass the Bliss, and you quote Ram Dass, and this is just one example of one line. But he says the soul takes birth, takes incarnation. To learn our perception of the soul is love of everyone by inhabiting the soul.

And, yes, in our times, as you mentioned, like, this message is so lost, you know, where there's a real challenge at the moment. And this is something I really believe in as well, that our souls are here to live and learn and love, ultimately to love. And we see so much division and conflict and chaos, and.

It'S challenging. I'm curious to hear your perspective on it. It's so easy to get sucked into all that, then create more hate and criticism and negativity. And so it's really interesting to try to be love in an environment that.

Where we just see so many examples of division. And.

I wonder if what shifted for you? So after that week with Ram Dass, I'd love to hear what shifted for you. Anything that you weren't expecting. And then also your process around composing to these such powerful.

I can't really call them lyrics, but statements from the interviews and just how you tapped into something deep within you to even compose the tracks that go around this beautiful soul, beautiful mind of our time.

Sure. I think what made it work the best for me is the more I could kind of trust in the larger process and not try to manhandle every detail in the process. So even. I guess another reason I wanted to go over there and record him was so I wasn't just digging through archives and choosing what phrase when you know, what to put on the record. I felt like I wanted to hand that over to something larger than myself a bit. So whatever I'm sort of given in that conversation is what I have to use. Those are the colors I have to paint with as a composer, so to speak. And that felt right. But the thing that was surprising to me was.

You know, I think I. Before I went into it, when I had the idea and I was all the way up until I sat down with him, I think there was a bit of confidence on my part that I'm like, oh, I'm the guy to do this, and this is how I'm gonna do it. And I'm gonna use this mic and then I'm blah, blah, blah, and like, sort of. Like just sort of sheer will. And I know I can do that. And when I got there, I suddenly realized that, like, all these stories I'd heard about Maharaj, his guru, or I should say the idea of a guru itself, the idea that I'm a guru, we're all a guru, or the guru is love. You can get into this whole metaphysical, philosophical conversation about what a guru is, but nonetheless, I realized that all those stories about his relationship to Maharaj.

Was the same about my relationship to Maharaj was. I thought I didn't have one. I was like, I'm just a guy who reads stories about this stuff. Or, like. But all of a sudden, I was looking at Ram Dass in his eyes. I'm like, how the hell did I get here? Sitting across from him like, this is crazy. And then I saw the picture of Maharaj next to him, laughing over his shoulder. And it sort of all hit me in that moment. That's like, me. I'm not in, like, control of this. This isn't my. I'm not some person who's just like, oh, I just, you know, I did this and I did that, and here I am, and now I'm going to manhandle this thing. And no, no, no. It's like I am, by the grace of the universe, I'm in this thing, this flow, and I'm just a part of it. And we're all part of that. We're all part of this tapestry and weaving. And Ram Dass was kind of looking at me, sort of nodding and smiling, and I felt like he was just echoing what I was feeling. And. And it really allowed me to let go and to be more of service. And so my job being. Trying to trust my own intuition and listen to those voices of excitement as sort of signposts to say, yes, go that way now, you need to. Yes, you need to. You do this thing. As opposed to me feeling like the isolated sense of myself from my brain and my ego is making every decision and quote, unquote, controlling this process. And that was a real. It's a challenging thing to do sometimes to give yourself over to a sense of trust or faith. But I also found a liberation in that. So that was probably the biggest surprise that came from the process.

I love strikes me like, for you, music in general is. That is like surrendering to something bigger than yourself. But especially in this collabor. I just love the picturing you looking over and seeing Maharishi, like, laughing. And there's this Thomas Merton quote that. It's from his very famous memoir, the Many. I think it's the many storied mountain off to look it up. And I'm just going to paraphrase the quote, but I never forgot the concept which he got this message. He was a monk, got this message that his soul, he would transcend time, he would transcend his. His physical form in this lifetime. And Thomas Merton was not this, like, household name at the time that he became a monk. And he Just sort of simply lived and wrote about his life. And he died early. He died in a trip to Thailand. But it's true, like, that sort of prophecy came true, which was his being continued to live on, transcend the time that he actually lived on the earth, to go on to sell millions of copies of the. That book. So that message he got really was a prophecy. And it just strikes me as very similar with the teachings that you described and we're talking about and these influential figures that. That are present somehow and that you can have a relationship with him as well, even here and now.

Yeah. And I don't know, it gets even deeper. It's like there's. There's no difference between what that being or guru represents and yourself. Like, you are that thing too. And it just starts to break down more and more walls. Maharaj is really had two to three major teachings, and I mean major teachings period. And they were love everyone, tell the truth, serve everyone. And they're very simple, not easy. Right. And each one of those is. Is a doorway into larger conversations about what, you know, sort of like, what does it really mean to tell the truth? On a simple level, we know what that means, but what does it mean maybe internally to myself, or is there even a truth? And then you get into all these ideas, but, you know, that was it. And the record discusses that as sort of like, well, that's the. That's the methodology, in a sense. But then it talks about all these other, like, things that might come up. Like, well, how do we do that? Okay, there's the. He has this mantra, the I am loving awareness meditation mantra. And that's another song. And it's like, well, this is how he does it. This is how he gets into that space of soul and love. What about I'm afraid of dying, you know, and what about this boundary condition of death? Well, there's a song where we talk about that. How do we approach death? And then, you know, there's things that are more sort of celebratory or jubilant where he talks about.

You know, some other, like his first experience with psilocybin and. And how that opened the spiritual doorway for him and put him on this path. So it's a celebration of his life for sure, and his own path, but also full of. Through kind of those marks of his own life were hopefully.

Seen kind of picking up pathways for ourself that might work for us.

Yeah, I love how, you know, you've talked about music as medicine, and this certainly would. Would fit that as path of paths to pick up. I love how succinctly you put Maharishi's teachings of love everyone, tell the truth, serve everyone.

Yeah. By the way, I think Maharishi and Maharaja are two different. They're different words for different people. But actually Maharaj.

I think it's like the name of like a king guru. His name was Neem Karoli Baba, but I think like the colloquial term that Ram Dass would say was Maharaji. And I think the Maharishi I'm not an expert in this is like, is like the Beatles guru. But he's the similar. It's another name for the same type of thing. A guy who's like a spiritual guru or something like that.

That's why I'm getting confused. I'm so sorry. Everyone listening. Part of my error, Mahar. Not because I was just got to listen to James Altucher interviewing Mike Love, who was the lead singer of the Beach Boys. And this was just two days ago and he was talk. Talking about learning meditation from Mahadishi. And so I just. My brain in this moment while interviewing you, I'm like, the word keeps swapping itself out.

It's like different people, but actually not different people. If you want to go that way.

Right, right.

It's the same thing.

We got really metaphysical. So those Indian mystics, you know, I know, so horrible. Like I should be getting it right. But it was so recent that I heard him talking about his meditation teacher, Maharishi. And so thank you for correcting me.

And like, well, hey, I. I didn't know any of this stuff over a year ago. I was like, who? Yeah. So, yeah.

You also have a podcast which is really exciting. It's called the 10 laws. Or do you call it 10 laws?

That's a good question. Yeah. 10 laws podcast with these forest. And it's kind of like sort of like this. It's conversation based. But I also have. I put out some guided meditations from time to time and some music cuts from time to time.

Yeah. It's such a great. You all have to know that before we started hitting record. This is the perk of interviewing a musician that esports. He was giving me feedback like, the gain's a little high. You might need to turn the gain down on your mic. These are things I just don't hear and don't really know how to fix as much as I've self taught and sort of bootstrapped this podcast. And even if you pass off a file to an audio Editor. If it doesn't get captured cleanly, it's still no good. So I'm so grateful.

That's so true.

And it's a cool pivot as well. From doing music to creating a podcast and combining your love of music people, these topics of conversation, meditation, and then music cuts like, you're the perfect person to have a podcast.

Well, I mean, like you, I can, I can tell you enjoy this, right? I mean, it's fun. I like talking to people and I like talking about things. And I kind of think that I'm interested in the different ways that people can sort of go internally. And I believe that when we go inside, ultimately most of our answers are waiting for us there by peeling away the onion. And that the change we're looking to see in ourselves and in the world in particular, only comes from an inside out out approach. You know, it comes from the individual out, not from the top down. And so I. I'm just looking for giving people different opportunities for what maybe works for them. For some, it might be the music. For some it might be talking and through a podcast. And for some it might be a retreat in person. So I'm just looking for different types of offerings because I enjoy all these things, but I also want to build sort of a. A diversity of doorways for folks to walk in.

And so many of us probably combine all those methods that you described. You mentioned something that I wanted to come back to, which is the idea of a guru. And I'm with you. I really strongly. And I had to make this transition myself from constantly seeking answers and wisdom outside of me. I've read hundreds of books in the that seeker's journey. And then there came a point where I realized it's here now, it's already within. I. And as you put it so well just now, that the wisdom comes from the inside out. And yet I've seen it in myself and others. It can be so tempting to want to have a guru and find a guru. And there are many people today who will say, my guru is so and so. And. And I'm curious where you find that balance and where you have found it and how you've navigated even along that spectrum. Because sometimes we get into it tips into guru worship, where we externalize our own wisdom onto another person and we project and we lift them up and we think they have something we don't, and they have wisdom we don't. And then that embodying love and soul and wisdom doesn't happen because we continue looking for that wisdom on the outside. And yet at the same time, we know that there are enlightened masters walking this earth like Ram Dass, who. Who are so powerful to listen to and take guidance from. So I just love to hear your journey around that conversation. And even. What came up with Ram Dass around the idea of a guru?

Yeah, that's. That's a deep one. It's. It's so nuanced. I mean, to be honest, my edge with this is one that I think about a lot, and I think a lot of times I'm getting wrapped up and stuck on words and semantics for myself, because the idea of guru, I think what that word, if you break it down, it sort of means like one who brings light or sort of revelation or uncovering. So in that sense, it's just another being who is sort of taking the veil off for you or helping you. So we could. The word is very loaded for us in the west, naturally. So especially for the American mindset, where we don't want to give, we don't want to be hoodwinked, and we don't want the snake oil coming our way, and we certainly have plenty of that because there are a lot of charlatans out there and there are people putting out a lot of garbage. But they say they know. Right. And especially in the wellness world. So I think it's right for people to be skeptical. That being said, we're at a time where I don't believe we need gurus anymore. We have infinite information in our pocket, typically with her, and we can learn what we need to learn, and if anything, there's too much information. But our job is to sort of decipher that and decide what we want to do with it. Now, when I say, sort of cavalierly, that we don't need gurus, I also will say that.

You are a guru, and the idea of guru is sort of a universal thing. And at the same time, there are gurus, and it's like, what the hell does all that mean? It's like, I don't know. It's. It's the mystery. It's poetry. And I think that, you know, these things also come to shape and form inside cultural context. And so inside India, that was part of a spiritual lineage, and it was part and still is part of how things go over there. Maybe it's different for us. If that resonates for you, you know, take what works for you. I have pictures of Neem Karoli Baba all over the house here. And I have this, you know, a Giant painting that we had done. For the record, it's the first thing I see in the morning on the wall, and the last thing I see going to bed at night. And I feel like that painting communicates with me, and I can ask it questions. I feel like the eyes look at me in different ways and all that stuff. Some people would be like, what the hell are you talking about? You know, that's just crazy talk. But what is actually happening for me, you know.

I kind of sense it as like me is sort of like meditation, your intuition. I'm sort of communicating with myself, but also something larger than myself. But that's me, too. It's just a way to get in touch. And what I like about Neem Karoli Baba is that he was a man. And he's just someone who apparently, you know from all the. If you read a book like Love Everyone, which is just stories about people with Maharaj, like their own stories, and it's just miracle story after miracle story. And those stories are kind of cheating in a way, because they're so tasty. They're like, oh, my God, it's great. That's proof. He did a miracle. He read this guy's mind, or he did that over and over and over again. We just read their minds, and he just knew everything about you. Or that there's a song on the record called A Miracle about Ram Dass meeting Maharaj for the first time. And it's sort of going through what I'm saying, like he heard about this guy. Someone was going to take him is actually.

Bhagavan Das. They just met. And he's like, I'm gonna go see my guru. Bhagavan Das said up in the hills. You want to come? And Ram Dass is like, sure, why the hell no, not. I don't believe in gurus, but I'll check this out. And they went up there, and Ram Dass, you know, just been fired from Harvard, but He's a Harvard PhD. He's got a. He's a psychologist and his PhDs, and he knows all about this stuff. And he sees a white. A guy in a field with a blanket over his shoulder and a group of 20 or so people all dressed in white sitting around him. And he immediately said, that's a cult. I want nothing to do with that. This before he'd even walked up to the group.

And before he had arrived. A couple nights before, on their way to see the guru, they had stopped at a house up in the. In the mountains. And in the middle of the night, Ram Dass had gone out just to pee outside. And he was outside looking up the stars. And he had this really beautiful moment where he's thinking about his mother. His mother had died recently. And he was just having this touched moment thinking about his mother. And it was really powerful moment for him. Him, his mother had died of spleen cancer, I believe, or something like that. And so anyway, going back to the field with the guru sitting there, he was standing there thinking of these things, and the guru points to him and he just says, you. You were thinking about your mother last night. And Ram Das is like, what? And then he says, she died of her spleen.

And he's like, excuse me? And then he's like, is this a trick? And then the next thing, this is what really hit him. He said that he was looking at him in such a way that he had never been looked at before. That was just unconditional love from this total stranger. And he says, I've never experienced unconditional love before. And then he said, wait a minute. This guy can read my mind. Well, I don't want him to read my mind. I mean, there's all this junk in my mind that I'm thinking right now and that I did think. I just thought he was. Was a fake. And I'm embarrassed that he. He knows everything about me now. I. I can feel it. I can tell. But he's loving me unconditionally.

What? And then that just broke his heart open. And then he said, if he can do that, I can do that. And then he suddenly said, and through that, I all of a sudden realized how I am loving. I can love everyone too. And then the next level and the final level was he said, I realized I can love myself. He said, from then on, my whole life was just love, love, love, love, love, love, love. That doesn't mean he didn't fall out of that. Of course he did, over and over again. But that the power of meeting a being that was so open, they would say there was nothing there. And they'd sing songs and they'd just chill and ask questions. But his only teachings.

Tell the truth, serve everyone. That was it. And it was this universality of it. So the fact that that guy existed not too long ago, he died in the early 70s. And then I can meet people like Ram Dass or Krishna Das or Raghu or all these other people who I've met in the Sangha of Ram Dass world. They all knew him firsthand and have their own stories. It feels very real to me, and it feels very firsthand. And that to me is just something kind of exciting and salient and something that I can lean into a little bit more. And I said, you know, what the hell, I'll give it a shot, too. Not to give my power over, but just to say.

Love me too. If that. If you. And I just want to. I just want to be in a relationship to myself in that way. So the guru, in a sense, is a mirror.

And I am the first one to say I don't want to give my power over to something. I've done that all my life. I grew up sort of an atheist and agnostic, and I tried Christianity and I tried Buddhism. I tried all sorts of different things. Plant and plant medicines for me, is what woke me up the most, because suddenly it was a felt experience of my own where there was nothing I could argue with. There was no one saying anything. It was just like, oh, my God, I'm being. I'm literally. It was like the plant medicine. And was the guru sort of opening things up for me where I could just see and I could feel. I have my own revelation, and I come. You come back, and it's sort of like now I'm realizing that all of these things are just words and symbols painting around the mystery. And it's a mystery for a reason. Like, that's. It's sort of like the design.

Of the opera or incarnation so that we can do the work that we're here to do. And there is no answer. There's no me saying so. It's just this or it's just that. It's the mystery. It's beyond that boundary condition. And that's why it's so frustrating. And that's why there are infinite forms of answers and people and approaches, because they're all just singing around the center, in a sense. But the mystery has no edge.

Oh, so good. But thank you for sharing that story and recounting it for us. And I love that line, the mystery has no edge.

Yeah, that came up from a conversation with Eric Davis the other day, who's a sort of a techno philosopher, when we were on my podcast, and I. I've just been thinking a lot about that phrase.

Well, it's interesting, too, because in your about about video on the website, you say you want to feel inspired. You want to feel infinite. So that concept of infinite and being infinite also relates to mystery has no edge. And I can relate to your background because I also kind of grew up in my. Definitely in my 20s, like, staunch atheist, just didn't believe in anything. When you die, you're dead. This was my mindset. Very like Silicon Valley, Tech3D world. And I know plant medicine has played a big role for you. And you even have an album that is for that journey, which is incredible.

And I just love the way you kind of described it. And this is even in Pivot, which I wrote as a career in business book. But I kind of snuck in the spirituality underneath. And there were. Every chapter had pivot paradoxes. Because I was fascinated by this idea that you just can't even give advice on some level because everything is a paradox and the same now. I forgot who said the quote. Yeah, I forget there's a really powerful quote. I'll have to look it up and put it in the show notes. But that it's like. Like the ability. Being human means able to hold a paradox. And yes, it's true with guruship as well, that we can develop these relationships. We can learn from others and at the same time not give our power away and hold both at the same time.

To be human is a paradox. Yes. And that's. That's again the same thing. It's like, yeah, we. It. And that's.

I think.

I think what makes us unique is that we hold all these things at once. Like, we hold what it means to be physical form like a rock and reacting to the environment like a plant. And we hold all the consciousness of an animal. And we are animals, right? And so our base forms, our sexuality and needs and desires and eating and all this stuff. But then you keep going up in the octaves of consciousness. And we hold the ability to be creative and to create. And we do art and we have this sense of humor. And then next up from there, we have this ability for like brotherly love and union. And it's like we have all of that in one system. I mean, that's. That to me, that sounds like a tough gig. That's like, wow, that's. That's complex. And you're like, hell, yeah, it's complex. Like, that's a lot to hold at once. But that's what makes us special. I think that's, you know, if you look around, I don't think we're the pinnacle or something like that. But that's what makes this sort of spaceship that we're in spacesuit unique.

Yes. I've been thinking of it as the soul is infinite. And almost, for me, I don't really have a fear of death because I just Feel that my soul will go on and when I die, that's my time. But of course, I'm happy to be living every day that I am here. So not inviting it, but at the same time, I feel we're here to play the human game. That it's a game and we do have to take it seriously, like feed ourselves and have a roof over our head. But we're also meant to have fun with it. We're meant to learn to. It's not meant to be.

I don't know. I don't know how to put it without making light of also the terrible things that happen to humanity and that we do to each other. But I do think that that's the human game is managing the day to day realities of living. And even money. Money is a story. Money is energy. Money is very abstract. How much you have or how much you don't. It's like we such a. Has powerful grip on our attachments, but at the same time. So it's almost like, yes, we do need a certain amount of money as currency to live in the world. And then how do we detach from an obsession with it? And especially in American culture.

Yeah, I sometimes try to wrap my head around this stuff, which is futile. But then I think like, okay, if I were to design, you know, know, okay, we're gonna, we're gonna do this thing, create souls so that, you know, if God was everything it needed to know what it was, not so it could know what it is as a way of just experiencing itself. How would you do that? Well, you'd create a. You have to create a world, the universe. And what's it gonna be like? Well, why wouldn't it be? I mean, could you think of anything richer than the way it is? And I mean, as horrible as things are, are and as amazing as things can be, everything in between, I can't think of anything more profound or intense than that. And why wouldn't it be that way? Because it would be everything. It would be every color and nuance of possible experience. And then we look out into the universe and there's like.

You know, you know, over trillions of stars and planets out there.

I know. And maybe even trillions of universes if we live in a multiverse.

And it's like, yeah, that's the way it would be.

I know, it's crazy. I'm happy we've reached this point in our conversation of now going into the multiverse and expanding. And we shot our awareness, the awareness on the skull, all the Way out to the farthest reaches.

This is great. That's all true. I mean, that's just crazy. That's not even like an idea. It's like we can just look with optical telescopes. Like, okay, there's. Wow, there's trillions of other things going on out there, and we have no clue what's going on out there.

It's practically incomprehensible. And I love the Neil Degrasse Tyson quote and sentiment that it's like he either said brilliance or innovation lies at the edge of our ignorance. And I love that because it's like whatever ideas we have about ourself and the things work and how things are, and even the obsession that we have in American culture about science and what can be proven, and if it can't be proven, it's illegitimate somehow. But it's like that's. Those are the edges of our ignorance as well. And innovation has always been one step beyond that. One step beyond that.

Yeah, there's. There's sort of a concrescence coming together of science and creativity in a way. And I would say there's fault on both the edges of both where, yes, absolutely, the New Age movement is full of it. But it doesn't mean that we have to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

There's a middle ground there that I think is really interesting and really beautiful and that I feel like seems to be the edge of some of our future. Not just on this in the scientific paradigm, but politically and culturally. It's sort of like. It's sort of coming together from these polarities and extremes of finding that common ground. And that's something I've always wanted to do with music too, is that. I mean, no doubt I'm on the edges of just explicitly talking about some of these things that might be branded as New Age, but it's like, God damn, I want to make music that's better than most New Age Age. You know, I'm not trying to make, quote, New Age music, but just because I. But just because I. You know, where there's songs that talk about literally in this album, like the soul, I guess it is. That's the category now it's gonna be in. But it doesn't mean it can't live in a broader world where it touches people in a way that's still sophisticated, or the music is interesting on its own. You know what I'm saying? It's not.

We can do better. And I think that's something that people could fight for harder. It's like the ideas could be smarter and the approaches could be smarter and we can do things in a cooler way because we can. We don't have to settle for like the easy, wide brush with some of our ideas and comments in these realms in the new age and wellness world.

Absolutely. And I've always thought of you as someone who's pushing those boundaries and doing this with incredible thought and sophistication and soulfulness and.

A connection to something greater than yourself. So if anyone is getting this balance right, it's you. And thank you so much, East Forest, for being here and for this conversation and, and for this album Ram Dass that you've put together. It's so incredible. I encourage everybody to go check it out. It's on Spotify. And maybe you can just tell us where else people can find Ram Dass beyond Spotify and where they can find and connect with you as well.

Yeah, well, thanks for saying those sweet things. That's very nice. The album is available wherever you listen to music digitally, so it should be on Spotify and Apple and all the other services. It's, it's just called Ram Dass and you can find it on the East Forest page or Ram Dass's profiles as well. And then we also have a double vinyl of the record with all the lyrics. It's really beautiful. And of course we have a CD. Those are available@eastforest.org there's a store there where you can purchase those and those help support the Love Server Member foundation as well. And Eastforest.org you know, that's, that's kind of obviously the place you can get all the information about tour dates and retreats and podcasts and all that stuff. But you can find these things anywhere else you like to find them. Social media, Instagram, Facebook.

Whatever your thing is, it's not too hard to find. You do a great job.

Yeah.

Yes. And I encourage you as well. Check out his awesome podcast, 10 Laws with East Force.

Thanks. Yeah, appreciate.

Thank you so much. It's been a real joy. Thank you.

Thanks so much for listening to this episode of the Pivot podcast. Make sure you don't miss an episode or my insider tips and templates by signing up for Pivot List, a curated twice monthly newsletter where I share the inside scoop on what I'm reading, watching, listening to and the latest tools I'm geeking out on. Sign up@pivotmethod.com pivotlist get show notes from this episode@pivotmethod.com podcast and connect with me on Twitter Jennyblake.

Remember, build first, then your courage will follow.

Hasn't it always.

Sam?