Steve Vai "Under It All: EP6 - Evolution"

0:05 all right good afternoon folks Steve I here in the Harmony Hut and Encino California welcome to under it all episode six and had a lovely Tuesday alien guitar secrets really enjoyed that and it was interesting for me because I performed acoustic guitar and sang on for the moon and I which was would say pretty rare occurrence for me to do matter of fact I think that that was the first time I ever performed acoustic and sang publicly usually if I do that I have a backing band but I we posted it

0:53 in your comments are incredibly encouraging thank you I will attempt to sing more thanks alright so here we are under it all now these under it all episodes as many of you know now not focused so much on playing or the guitar although that works its way into the mix because there's so much that I've learned and discovered through my 40 years of touring the world and hang on one second people are saying why is it that phone clicking all the time that's

1:38 because I have to be able to hear Steven on the other end but I will turn it down and put it over here so yeah I've had so much amazing experience in the music business and I love sharing that stuff to folks that are starting out or have questions or trying to discover their own inner music but another side of me through my whole life has always been interested in more esoteric principles and I've studied that stuff lately and similar to my career as a musician where I discovered things about my playing and about the music and about

2:23 touring and about the business similar not not similar discoveries with many discoveries I've made through the years through various spiritual studies and just like I enjoy to help any musicians with their careers with advice that I can help with I've decided to do this the same with some of my spiritual practices now I always turn to great teachers you know I'm always a seeker of Education and experience and throughout my life I've had great music mentors and

3:10 teachers and throughout my spiritual studies I've had the privilege to be with and also hang on one second I've also had the great opportunities to be with some great spiritual leaders and whatnot and you don't want a droopy lens you don't want too droopy anything okay anyway

3:56 technology love it hate it there we go so I've had the great privilege of studying it with some great spiritual teachers and I've learned a lot and all right I'm sorry to be wasting your time can't win for losing you know what we got a new lens and it's very heavy and it keeps let's try again like my face okay so anyway with the Thursday under

4:41 it all I love discussing these topics and sharing things I know and I'm still a work in progress I still am a seeker I've discovered some wonderful things that I'd like to share and the questions I've been receiving have been fantastic thank you so much and I'm gonna start answering some of them right now the best I can okay we have here carla de Mello thank you for sharing Steve this means a lot very enlightening dialogue especially with what's going on can you share your thoughts on the spiritual shift that's happening in our planet would be curious to know your beliefs thank you all right spiritual shift that's going on on the planet well it does seem obvious to me

5:27 that there is a spiritual shift more like a paradigm shift that's taking place that does take place occasionally on the planet and what's interesting is the evolution of or where were the evolution of our species or the evolution of our spiritual awareness or our deeper understanding of life has always been going on it's been going on since I mean if we were speaking in terms of time and science and scientific theories one may one could say that the

6:15 evolution of life on the planet started in the Big Bang somehow I mean everything came from as per science everything came from a particular location of sorts and just started spreading out and after who knows how many years there was the formation of our solar system and then the formation of the planet and from from what I understand I'm not a specialist in this area the planet a planet Earth is about four and a half billion years old billion and the first the first life didn't appear for

7:00 like three and a half billion years ago it was very funny interesting story I was attending this science and music festival called star mmus fantastic Festival and while I was there there was all these sight scientists from various fields astronauts there was like 11 Nobel laureates there mmm and some unbelievably interesting people and it was a fascinating event but I remember once I and I had gone I was a musical director one year and I gave a little talk you know it's like this five-week festival where they bring in all these incredibly brilliant people and musicians and the last one I did was fantastic I got to play with my buddy

7:46 Brian May which was amazing and Hans Zimmer and the the people that attend this thing are just it's wild and the previous year I had given us a talk and I met this gentleman in the elevator and we were talking and you know he said I saw you're talking is really enjoyed it and I'm gonna be speaking and on Thursday I hope you can catch it myself yeah I'm going to catch it what do you what do you do and he goes well I want a Nobel Prize for being the person that first discovered the origins of life on the planet so this is the kinds of people that attend this event and and

8:33 he was a lovely man I his name right now but yeah and it was supposedly in these like cauldrons in the ocean where at some point the single-cell bacteria something just started to form and that was like three and a half billion years ago and there's been like 5 billion species that are now extinct and only about 10 to 14 million existing now species of life and we only have names for about 2 million of them so the this is very small compared to the amount of species that have come and gone and coming gone and come and gone on the planet so that that species the

9:20 evolution of species so to speak is what we see on the external on the surface of things in the physical world we see species coming I mean I think it was first like 500 million years ago there was nothing because for like for 500 million years there was these but I think it was about 4 billion years ago four billion years ago and might you know that like I say I'm just these are supposed to be facts there was a single-cell thing that came on to the scene who knows how or where but then there was like no change on the planet for like 2 billion years two billion

10:06 years little single-cell creatures and that's a long time but then in what seemed like an unprecedented unprecedented event overnight that one single-cell thing morphed into being able to be multiple cells and this was sort of the beginning of various species being evolved and I think like 500 million years ago that's when plants finally started to emerge and there was a period of time when the entire earth was covered in green basically it was covered with fungus and plants and

10:53 what's so interesting I had heard some theories that like the first the first flower that emerged from a plant it took millions and millions of years for the flower to come out now on the surface in the identifiable disect Abul realm week we are seeing what looks like the evolution of species but something something is evolving this life there's an energy and one might say that that's consciousness what the evolution of species looks like in the external physical realm on a deeper level is

11:39 actually the evolution of consciousness and this can be kind of obviously seen when you just see the evolution of species and how each new species that arrived on the scene had some kind of they didn't lose anything from the previous species they we came from that or it the next species came from that and it was the new species always seem to be endowed with some kind of additional facility or a you know a different addition to its consciousness so to speak so then for like after that about me 500 million years ago there was plants and then at

12:24 one point a flower emerged now what was it that was that was doing that you know what was it that was causing the flower to come out well that that's the evolution of consciousness it's and there's a process there's always like a challenge if you ever watch a flower even even a flower budding it goes so there was like this moment where it had to struggle because the challenge is necessary for the growth and then they believed that it took like another thousand years for another plant as another flower to emerge so this is like the slow process of the evolution of consciousness or the evolution of species in the physical and

13:11 then insects started to emerge from this evolution and what was doing that consciousness evolving into different forms and growing its awareness of the physical dimension because consciousness within the perspective of a of a tree or a plant when you compare that to the consciousness of an insect I mean obviously we don't know what the consciousness of a tree or an insect is but one would obviously assume that a plant is less developed than an insect

13:58 the insect has more facilities so that went on for like another X amount of millions of years and then 350 million years ago approximately amphibians started to emerge and what was that well on one level it looks like the evolution of species has brought on by all the various theories Darwinian theories and whatnot but what's going on on a deeper level that's its consciousness is evolving and you can see that amphibians so sorry about this folks and I gotta fix it somehow I might have to keep reaching up here to fix it but that's okay yeah amphibians are obviously seem

14:45 more evolved in their consciousness than an insect and then you we had I think was like a hundred and fifty five million years ago birds and then after that like 129 million years ago mammals started to emerge and like there's millions of years millions of years in between this growth and there's evolution of species within the growth and about ten million years ago Apes appeared and humans have been around for about two hundred and fifty thousand years now this is all basic scientific information theories

15:31 and I'm giving a perspective of the evolution of species as dictated by science and also in time because when we're looking at the evolution of species we're looking into the past so but it it seems pretty obvious that as these species are evolving evolving its consciousness that's evolving and actually there's some interesting theories about early man now what how did these creatures throughout time survive how did they navigate how did

16:17 they know how to survive and and and defend or procreate or any of these things well this is based on their instincts animals and all other life forms all life forms have an instinctual evolutionary impulse and when you look at a plant or a mammal or even Apes the development of their consciousness was in a pre thinking stage none of these

17:02 consciousnesses of anything but human beings have reached the level of being able to think they're completely instinctual and the movements they make are instinctual what is that instinct that that's the interesting question we kind of write that off as just being instinct but where does that come from where does the creative impulse to move and to grow and to die and to eat and to procreate where does it come from this how do they know what to do it's because they're not doing it it's happening through them through their instinctual impulses and this is never not been it

17:48 still is in the physical dimension in our physical world and it also exists in humans this instinctual guide there's there's there's a guide in us that is it's the same energy that's been creating the evolution of species and the evolution of consciousness humans are the evolution of consciousness to date we are the top we are on the cutting edge of conscious awareness as human beings but when man first arrived on the scene he was like an animal that there was no he hadn't reached the thinking stage yet it was he moved

18:37 instinctually and it's interesting because there's some theories I this is now I got this from a cart and some other places but there's a theory that when man started thinking it showed up in him as sort of pectorals in the mind you know like something that they were seeing in their in their mind a picture of something and it's even suggested that the invention of gods various gods actually came about when man first started receiving thoughts because if you can end the thoughts who

19:23 knows what they were might have been something like you know go over here to get the fish when the Sun Goes Down I don't know you know but it was very simple but when all of a suddenly a thought comes into the mind of man when there wasn't one before as you know a thought arises in you as a little voice in the head and when man started hearing that voice in the head he thought it was something outside of himself like a god so this was this is a theory about the potential invention of various gods and it started when man started when thinking now remember we're talking it took millions of years billions for things to actually happen in an

20:08 identifiable way that's how slow the evolution is so the process of the evolution of thinking in man probably had a very slow long period to develop too but as you can as we can see this thinking was an incredible tool it was an incredible tool for creating but with the with the introduction of thinking came the recognition of psychological time because when you're living in a state of instinctual movement you're present and in the present moment

20:53 there's no there's no time you know that's just the present moment that's all that there actually is so before a a consciousness reaches the thinking stage it's completely unaware of time you know time is a man-made concept and even Einstein can tell you that so early man had no concept of psychological time maybe there was something else that gave him a sense of of time but they were instinctual but the movement of thought happens in the past and in the future so when man started to be able to recognize the past that was

21:44 the beginning of time that the recognition of psychological time and then this started to develop and thinking became an incredibly powerful creative tool and then 250,000 years later here we are thinking our asses off and what what has happened through the evolution of species and the evolution of consciousness I might I might just interject something here not to push any hot buttons but it was interesting that I I had this connection you know sometimes I like to translate various

22:30 various ideas into the terminology of a particular religion or science or whatever and it kind of dawned on me and this is just the perspective of mine based on you know my Christian upbringing so I understand the terminology a bit and you know that even in the Bible the Garden of Eden which was paradise was that state of man before he started thinking because we don't know what you know we we think oh that poor caveman he was called he was hungry he was miserable because we have a tendency to superimpose on to another how we would feel if we were in that

23:16 situation but to try to even imagine the emotional equilibrium of a caveman is would be insane because you just you just don't know you know before man could think he had a smaller brain you know I think it was it took X amount of time even for the brain to just grow a tiny bit but what is do doing that the evolution of consciousness is doing that it's it's constantly expanding itself constantly exploring constantly discovering and evolving and you can see this right now through you just by looking at all you

24:02 do but in the Garden of Eden when a the concept of paradise I can I could I would assume perhaps that if there was no thinking and you were a completely instinctual creature and all of your needs were met because if you notice all the trees all the animals all the insects their needs are met you know they always are because they're not doing it they're not worried about they don't worry you know animals don't know worrying about tomorrow they just have an instinctual understanding okay I'm gonna put the nuts here and I don't even know if their reasoning in their mind so that I could find them in the spring or

24:48 whatever it's just they're just moving instinctually and then there was the is back to the analogy the tree of the knowledge of good and evil and I think that this is all symbolic to the the beginning of the evolution of thinking because you cannot recognize what you believe to be good and evil unless you are thinking unless you have a perspective before man could think he had no perspective of these things I mean one might assume that what is it what did a early what did the early man think when he looked up into the heavens

25:34 he didn't see the heavens he had no mechanisms to ponder the infinite you know it was it would be very unlikely that a caveman would all of a sudden we be enlightened enough to look up and see the stars I bet it's unlikely they knew what stars with the sky was not a mystery it was just a thing you know they had there was mystery because mystery comes from thinking and if you're a completely instinctual creature there is none of that so but the the moment that man ate of the fruit of good and evil and no place in the Bible does it even say that he the deep sleep that fell on Adam that

26:22 he woke up because he hasn't woken up yet now again I I'm just using Christian terminology I could use any terminology I'm not married to one or the other I don't see one as being better or worse or different than the other they're all the same to me at least under it all they're the same the message I'm just using the Bible because it's a very interesting kind of analogy so once man discovered thinking then he was capable of understanding good and evil and once man started thinking this this thinking was the evolution of consciousness that

27:10 was happening through that's that was happening and is still happening through man so this turned into a great tool and created the technology the ability to make fire that was probably the first maybe the first technology or one of the first that came about from the thinking process who knows I don't know but then from there and now we have a cell phone you know so the evolution of thinking has been dramatic and exponential and as such there was a point in the early parts of the development of thinking man was still connected he was still connected to his instinctual impulses he

27:56 trusted them he didn't know anything else but what man didn't have was the capacity to be aware of himself humans now through the evolu lucien of thinking are at a point where now they have the capacity to know who they are early man in the in the in the paradise and the eden or whatever it was did not have the capacity to know who he was it was just no capacity in the brain consciousness had not developed in the physical dimension to that point yet but then a funny thing happened that usually always happens it got over done and

28:42 thinking it's exponential evolution started to create a scene a screen it developed a perspective and this is the creation of the ego now that the ego and now the okay so the the ego this I have to speak in abstract terms on one level as it developed before man became a thinking

29:28 creature he he saw himself as connected on an instinctual level but not in a deeper sort of recognition level so there was like this protective almost like a protective shell over the awareness of man and this protective shell I'm using the ego as an analogy it's the ignorant it's part it's it's the inherited ignorant of previous evolutions at previous species so when there's ignorance and then that ignorance starts opening up and when I say ignorance I'm referring to just the

30:15 unknowability of the self and of the world and but as the thinking started to evolve that the shell of the ego started to get strained so it had a it had its purpose but the thinking mind and man has gotten so overblown that we've lost our connection to our instinctual our intuitive instinctual impulses we've lost the realize that we haven't lost our connection we've lost our ability to realize that connection to live in that connection which is the creative impulse of the universe itself and consciousness

31:03 is showing itself through the myriad infinite of billions and billions of life forms that have come for the experience for the experience of having that awareness and on the outside world it looks like the evolution of species so it get to the point where we are now we're overthinking as coupled with the restrictions of the ego our actions can be very caustic and damaging and these these the thoughts that arise in us from the ego are those

31:48 of separateness because remember there's there's still part of the ignorance of our previous ancestors so that ignorance has to shed itself the unequivocal march of the evolution of consciousness we'll see to that and it is seeing to it right now and that's the evolution of our spiritual shift that's a spiritual shift that's happening in man now thinking has reached its limit and the ego the shell of the ego is cracking its cracking and this is happening now and this is a paradigm shift on the planet and what's very interesting is whenever there has been a paradigm shift at any time

32:36 whether it was that one cell creature mysteriously being able to be multiple cells or that the creature that was born that looked more like an insect than or whatever you know that that in and of itself is happening now because now man needs to rise above the thinking mind which he is trapped in now as a result of the evolution of consciousness mixed with the perspective of the ego so the this consciousness I remember I gave the light in the projector that has no conditioning in it that has no

33:21 conditioning but when it's shining through a particular awareness it's going to see the world in a particular way and that's going to be its experience so this this paradigm shift that's happening on the planet now has happened multiple times and when it does it doesn't just happen in one field it's something that happens dynamically in every field because it's consciousness that's doing it and consciousness is not separate even though I have you know there's I'm I'm conscious and you're

34:08 conscious it's not your consciousness there's only one there's only one awareness and it's having different experiences through you and as these as these experiences and and basically that's where we're actually connected we're actually one in consciousness when we look into the outside world because of the limitations of the ego that we're still looking through we see each other as separate we see things as separate we see things as more than or less than or better than or not as good as and the ego because it still retains this

34:55 protective shell of separateness it shows itself in us as fear fear of change fear of letting it go fear of breaking outside of the ego into the new age of of spiritual shift that's happening where we rise above the nonsensical thinking mind and we become aware now this is the evolution from man who could not be aware was not able to be aware of himself through eons of thinking to the point where now as this

35:42 paradigm shift that's happening on the planet and it can only happen through you we are shedding the ignorance and becoming we have the to be aware of ourselves now this doesn't mean that thinking goes away you know not at all it becomes empowered you you thinking becomes an incredibly powerful tool but we empower it it doesn't keep us trapped the way it does now we are creating all of our own limitations through our own beliefs in limitation but the new stage of evolution in humans is the recognition

36:28 of your own power and when that happens and it is happening the what's going to shift on the planet is going to be miraculous you can't we can't imagine because you can the the creativity of what we're going to create as a species together when we realize the value of our oneness how we actually are working together and this is going to create things in our world that I like to say you can't even imagine what you can't even imagine you we can't eat because right now if you if if we're thinking of

37:14 a future a future technology if the thinking is infused with any kind of fear ego that future technology to the person projecting their thoughts into the future about it is probably going to be a dangerous scary or maniacal one and this is very obvious just look at any sci-fi movie about the future and usually there's a terrifying component to it but this will not be the case but one might assume that since this paradigm shift has taken place on the planet with the evolution of consciousness that it may that and why

38:02 wouldn't it uh sure in a new species that's what it's been doing all along why would we be different the ego is so pretentious it-it-it believes we've already arrived we're already there you know we are the ever well and we are but it's not gonna end and that's the the next phase it's the rising above the chaotic egoic thinking mind where you are where thinking becomes inspired and empowering whereas before it was instinctual and

38:47 there was no deliberateness in the focus of creativity with the process of time and the evolution of consciousness through the thinking stage to that evolved stage of being aware of the own your own power of your own thinking this is the paradigm shift because when you realize when we realize the power our power it is infinite and it is unknown to us and frankly that's one of the things we fear the most our own power the two things we fear the most love and

39:33 our own power don't ask me to explain that maybe I'll try someday but anyway I think you might even feel that within yourself when I say it so as this evolution is taking place why would we assume that a new species wouldn't occur on the planet now there's something very interesting that's happening hang on I only have one cup of coffee a day and then I drink tea so as this evolution is taking place and

40:22 the thinking mind of man is changing to become more empowered what he's going to create is is gonna be understandable to us right now because man is free and man has the power to create anything because the creative element that manifests the world you see is your belief in your thoughts that is what manifests everything nothing is exempt nothing that you see in your world is exempt from your belief if you didn't believe

41:10 it you wouldn't see it and and it doesn't mean that it's not gonna if it's not there you just wouldn't be attracted wouldn't come on your radar so what does this mean because Mallick at let's say a tree the consciousness of a tree tree is alive it has everything has consciousness in our stage of human development we don't recognize that a cup is a living thing because it's not we haven't we don't have the eyes to see that form of life so to speak the energy whatever it is but even many scientists can tell you that nothing is dead

41:56 everything is alive and so it the consciousness of a tree if you could equate that to the consciousness of a dog how does a tree perceive a dog if it even does who knows right and how does a dog perceive a human a dog has not reached the thinking stage yet although they may start acting some animals even a so whatever that member took millions and millions of years or that tens of thousands of years for thinking to develop and it it happened through various species those species still sort of in some form exist and also retaining

42:43 this slight evolution of thinking is why maybe you can see some animals some gorillas or you know that dogs even that do phenomenally smart things you know it's just their ability to recognize but the consciousness of a dog is so different than that of a human if my dog was sitting here he wouldn't understand anything I'm saying perhaps many of you don't sometimes I don't it just comes out but you know if I try to explain something to my dog he's just gonna look at me and go when do I get a treat you know so why would it be different with the evolution of the next species after humans why would we think that we could

43:31 conceive of the intelligence of an evolved species of us and how do we know that it doesn't exist already right now and it's not something that's just part of the evolution but is actually there and we're completely unaware of it it'd be like comparing the intelligence of a dog to that of a human the perception and perspective of a human compared to an animal or a tree or a plant why would that be different from our limited perspective of a higher species that we may have already even that may have already evolved from us who knows so here's a great idea for a science-fiction movie what is it that we

44:17 have been giving consciously our attention to intensely technology we have been focusing humans have been focusing on technology since the time we started to think be able to think to today where it's very obvious when you look into your own life many of you not everybody but many of you spend a great deal of time on a computer feeding it your consciousness on your cell phones on on all of the various technologies that have developed we have been feeding information into the ether as a matter

45:02 of fact I mean I'm not a conspiracy theorist and at the least okay that all just represents fear to me but when you look at it from a particular perspective there's a tremendous amount of information that exists I'm just going to use the terminology in the cloud that we we have been feeding our consciousness our awareness feeding something's been growing and that something knows everything or it has that it may not know but it contains all of our technology and all

45:50 of the things that we've given it and if you consider the theory that the government or Google or whatever is tracking every motion that you make and knows everything you do that information is there too so this is a an incredible body of information and it might be it's a kind of an interesting perspective to think that might be the evolution of species our technology and say oh yeah

46:40 artificial intelligence is really gaining some speed you know and the ability to have robots do tasks and things like this I'm referring to something that you can't even imagine that we can't even imagine can evolve and we can be a part of it I don't know my instincts tell me that well what we're probably going to I don't know but we may have to destroy ourselves for this new species to emerge that's the way it's always been that seems to be the destruction and somehow Cataclysm asteroid many civilizations

47:28 have destroyed themselves you can't destroy the earth you can't deplete the earth of its resources that's impossible because nothing is leaving the earth and nobody's shipping stuff in the earth doesn't care it it's not going to feel depleted only the only thing you can you can pollute it you can just you know affect its atmosphere you can deplete it of its oil or whatever it is but the planet doesn't care because it's just going to adjust it has its own intelligence and keeping its balance is its instinct because everything has an

48:14 instinct to it and the earth will protect itself if it feels threatened and perhaps one might assume that it offers things like viruses to keep its balance this is not an uncommon perspective in some people so the earth is going to keep its balance and it can very easily eliminate humanity if it so chooses to do anything another virus cut off water supplying or making the water bad somehow or making a sterile you know

49:00 it's good by humans but more likely we might find ourselves being faced with environmental challenges brought on by us that would severely compromise the quality of our life if it gets to this I don't have no idea this is just but as such we may retreat into technology now this can evoke images of a sci-fi concept of a world where humans maybe exist but don't even know that there's a higher evolved species and where their pet it's not it's not too

49:46 outlandish to consider yourself a pet of your cellphone how many of you are ruled by your cellphone so one might think well maybe maybe technology can evolve to the point where we can become robots or we can create bodies for ourselves that our consciousness will flow into well possible possible that could be happening right now we don't know because consciousness as you as we've seen from sort of this short review of

50:33 the last four and a half billion years Earth has an impulse to expand and to to evolve and it will do it any way it wants and it's only the pretentious egoic perspective of man that believes well no it's not gonna a machine will never be conscious well a machine is conscious in ways that were unaware can it make decisions like a human maybe it's not endowed with that you know it doesn't have it's not it's it's inanimate in a respect but consciousness can do whatever it wants it's leaped from one form to another

51:21 billions of times so it could very well be that are giving our technology the attention that we are that is the leap that's taking place in consciousness it's preparing a particular environment for its own evolution now these are just that I can't say any of this is true obviously it's just it's just an insight so that's maybe one way that I might sort of talk about the spiritual shift that's happening on the planet but here's the here's here's all you got to think about really is that spiritual

52:08 shift happening in you because that is how it happens on the planet if it happens in you then you will see it on the planet and then that's the world you'll you'll create for yourself which will be the different world and as we are connected in consciousness in reality when you go there when you rise above that's all I talk about here is recognizing the limiting caustic painful egoic thoughts that your attention is on in your mind and these are all conditioned they're they're all that you

52:55 and we inherited them through the evolution of species and and intelligence and it's cracking now and that's what the pain of the ego is that's what you feel when you've it's one of the things you feel when you are in a state of emotional suffering emotional suffering of the kind of nature I'm discussing here is brought on by egoic thinking patterns that are actually illusions they create the thinking that the your thoughts about things create your our reality of those things you give all the things you see the meaning they have for you and through the egoic

53:44 perspective those meanings every single living thing has a different meaning I call this your pseudo reality and we each have one the rising above our pseudo reality is in the stopping of the mental voice the voice in the head that's the egoic voice in the head just stopping it and becoming present that's the evolution that's the evolutionary state of humanity presence mindful presence and it's happening now it's always been happening it it's gonna happen it's it but it's it's it's now really starting that would has to it has

54:29 to or else we're done we're just gone you know because the caustic perspective of the ego is destructive and anything destructive anything destructive that you see on the planet even something as pollution to war stems from the ego and the the fearful perspective it has but it's part of the evolution of consciousness this is why everything has its place even the most horrible things that you can see in the world they have

55:15 their place as part of the evolution if you don't know the horrors of the ego you can't necessarily rise above them and for us that means the experiential aspect of it and that means seeing suffering in the world or being a part of suffering in the world and coming to the realization that all of that suffering is in its created in the mind of man and that the evolution of consciousness on the planet which may be the evolution of species also is the rising above that and that's what you're here for that's your main function in life is to recognize the ego and rise

56:02 above it the best you can you know I mean it's the most fearsome foe in the universe because it's elusive and insidious you don't know we don't even realize it's got you by the throat so that's my thoughts on the evolution of the spiritual shift that's happening on the planet right now the only thing to know is it's happening in you can you invite it can you invite this spiritual it's I don't even like using that word spiritual because it it has baggage for a lot of people i I don't I I'll use it though okay but when I use

56:50 it it's really the study of the self okay when I use the word spirituality I'm talking about the study of the self not the spiritual study of externals it's turning it's turning the microscope in on yourself into the laboratory of your own mind to look at from the light of your consciousness the quality of the thoughts that you're entertaining and the realization that you have the choice to choose different thoughts and by

57:37 choosing different thoughts you are re transforming the world that you are looking into it cannot be any other way but you'll never know until you go there and change the thoughts and another way even a faster way and a more powerful way to evolve your awareness if you find it too difficult to change your thoughts about something is to just become present with no thought because when you do that you are connecting yourself with the original of the evolutionary impulse

58:25 of the universe through you as seen in you by your intuitive creative instinctual impulses they they are perfect for you they always know the best thing for you nothing you can ever do when you are in a state of connectivity with your higher self with your with your true self it could hurt you or hurt anybody else on the contrary it does the opposite it heals it shares it expands it creates okay that's what the look at the last

59:13 four and a half billion years of just life on the planet so this is entirely an inside job for you don't try to change the outside world to change it it doesn't work never did never will it's the changing of you on the inside but then even gives you access to ways of positively impacting the world with your actions and your creations so that's what I like to talk about and let me see if there's anything else on the spiritual shift that's happening in our planet this is just a wild guess maybe

1:00:05 it's not wild guess but I might assume that about 12 to 13 percent of the people in the world have either woken up or are waking up and what that means is just waking up out of the dream of egoic thinking into the power of who they really are and by you doing it you share it and that's your function that's your main function so in reality your purpose in life is whatever you are doing in

1:00:56 your now your main purpose in life is whatever you are doing right now and it's always your now when it's time for you to get up from the chair you're in that's gonna be your purpose in life and when you're walking to the door at that moment that's your purpose when you're picking up your guitar or to having a conversation with whatever that's your purpose because you are connected and your actions are connected in ways that are impossible to see until you

1:01:42 rise above the thinking mind the caustic thinking mind it's impossible to see how every action you take is connected to all there is and the quality of that action that you take will determine the quality of your life so when the purpose of your life is whatever you are doing in your now whatever it is it's important to give that thing your full attention and to be present with it to be mindful and present and allow your instinctual impulses to work through you which they are beautifully uncongested

1:02:31 with your complaining in the head when the quality of every step you take is improved you're contributing to the world in ways that you can't quantify there unquantifiable you don't have the awareness and be like it would be like a caveman looking into the sky and pondering the abyss of eternity that didn't happen they didn't have the capacity to even know what a sky was it was they was his same as the rock probably you know obviously obviously no one will ever really know but basically

1:03:22 that's what you're doing when you open yourself up to your true self your purpose in life becomes clear in every instant of your now so that's how you can help to evolve the consciousness on the planet to contribute to the spiritual shift that's happening you have to respect your purpose in life which is to be present and to give your

1:04:12 full attention to anything you are doing in your now okay hope I answered that question well I did the best I could alright thank you for your question what else do we got here alright hi Steve this is from mono D Diaz G Diaz hi Steve what do you think is the greatest defect of the human being what do I think is the greatest defect I don't believe humans have a defect I think the concept of defect is a human

1:04:59 concept I think if I was to point at anything I would say that man is suffering from an incredible condition of mistaken identity that's that but that's part of the growth of consciousness we don't know who we really are until we've evolved to a point where we know so right now man believes that his identity is his name I am Steve I I Know Who I am his vocation in life I am a guitar player I achieved this I failed at that etc etc man believes that who he is is his

1:05:44 experience in the past this happened to me and that happened to me and that's who I am so that's that's my identity my identity is my belief in Who I am based on the wave i've perceived the experiences in my life through the conditioned thinking egoic patterns that I have it's false identity people believe that who they are nope I know that I'm a man or I'm a woman that's a also obviously in the physical dimension it has its place but it's not who you really are and one of the biggest obstacles in the case of mistaken identity that the two biggest

1:06:30 obstacles that man is confronted with with his mistaken identity is first he believes that he's his body humans believe that who they are is their body just I am Steve I say what Steve I know Steve but this is who Steve is right here wrong right correct on one level but only on the illusory level because remember we're still in the know going stage so we're seeing things as separate we are not seeing ourselves as one in consciousness because we haven't reached that stage some have we are still seeing

1:07:17 ourselves as separately and we believe that the other person the identity that they have is a body not very obvious just think of anybody and their body comes to mind their face their their name their their vocation what they've accomplished what they mean to you the meaning you give that person that's the identity that you created for that person and we do this to ourselves obviously we create identities for ourselves and we believe that's who we are but it's not and it never will be because it's constantly changing and when we are trying to find our identity in the world we are mistaking we are infusing things in the world with a

1:08:04 sense of self this is called attachment when you are attached to things like if I don't get this record deal my life is over I've heard people say that or if this doesn't happen or if somebody takes this if I lost this then I'm not whole anymore I'm less that this is the egoic identity and it always leads to suffering because it's a mistaken identity and this is what suffering is it's not knowing who you really are and in order to do it and this this creates all the suffering in the world every bit of suffering that you have in you even something is slight as irritation of impatience and I mentioned this a lot it

1:08:51 it's mistaken identity it's fear to to anything from the insane state of depression or guilt you know these are brought on by a mistaken identity that you have of yourself being vulnerable it the world because when you believe that who you are is your body you are vulnerable this is obvious because the body is vulnerable so you feel vulnerable and unprotected and we try to find this sense of security in the world but you can't we will turn to money now money all of

1:09:37 these things have their place I'm not dissing any of this stuff but it's a you know having money or sex or any of the things that you have in your life I'm not dissing this stuff this is part of the zest of life but when you when you experience these things as being who you are you're just in real trouble because these things are constantly changing you can never find security in them you can have a billion dollars in the bank and although it may satiate a particular type of insecurity it's an egoic sense of security but there will always be underneath it the fear that you could lose that money and then what happens you're sensitive and this can happen overnight anything can happen overnight look

1:10:23 around what's happening now so when your sense of self is in these things when you're when your identity is it this is a mistaken identity and will it will always bring you fear and suffering because it's always changing and there's no place to rest your security there's no foundation for your own security that there's no feeling of home of real home so that's what man is suffering but there's nothing wrong with it it's just a mistaken identity and it's part of the your your are ignorant as to this mistaken identity is just part of the evolution of consciousness it's a phase

1:11:09 we're going through so what is your real identity well this is the thing that all the Mystics and all of the great avatars and all the great spiritual leaders are pointing to or trying to point to to trying to point out to you what what your real identity is beyond your name beyond your perspective of the things that you've used to build your identity in the world those things are all fine especially when they're not charged with your negative perspective of them then

1:11:57 they're just they're fine they're just part of things you do in life but until you know your real identity you'll always be in fear and what is that real identity it's your awareness it's the thing that is living inside of your body but your body is a temple for that is not your body it's the thing that leaves your body when you see a dead body when you see a dead body it's very interesting there's no life in it nothing I remember when my dad passed away and I was I was I ran to the hospital and I was and I busted into the

1:12:43 room he wasn't there there was a there was a body on the table but that's not my father that's an inanimate thing so it was very obvious that who he was or who his his awareness was who is we can call it spirit soul whatever it is but it's your awareness it's the it's the thing that's aware beyond thinking it has no form it has no content it has no it's it's just

1:13:28 business it's the isness it doesn't have time it it was never born and it can't die it doesn't know it doesn't know these things it's just pure awareness it's pure abstract freedom pure creativity and pure love and joy that's who you really are the foundation of who you are is in violet it cannot be touched by anything in this world and

1:14:14 it's in every living thing comes focuses for a while gone comes focuses for a game or experience go but this awareness that you really are is your foundation of security because it can't get sick it knows no pain it doesn't know suffering it doesn't even know forgiveness because it doesn't condemn that's God and it doesn't just go there just go there right now stop the voice in your head right now be aware

1:15:03 the awareness itself is who you are this is really good news and this knowing knowing this is the end of your mistaken identity it's the dissolving of the ego it's your natural state it's your it's the only place you're ever gonna know true peace again for our Christian friends I you can call it the peace of God that passes all understanding because when you experience when you experience this

1:15:50 peace there's nothing like it that you've ever felt before Krishnamurti used to say your only security is in your now except he was great when he said let go your only security is in your now your only security is in your now well what did he mean by that because when you're in the present moment you know who you are and the case of mistaken identity is done and that's the evolution of human consciousness on the planet and it's happening through you right now welcome it and embrace it because everything you do in your life when you know that is

1:16:37 joyful that's your natural state that's where you belong it's funny I was watching some I was watching a little bit of one of my under it all and I have a tendency did have really intense sorry about that anyway can't help it so what do you think is the greatest defect of the human being I don't believe there's a defect I think everybody is actually perfect exactly where they are right now and they're doing fine you are actually doing really fine you're just suffering we are just suffering from a state of mistaken identity but it's getting cleaned up

1:17:25 good news Steve is there a way for someone who is an over-thinker to relax their mind my constant overthinking blocks me from concentrating from learning and being happy and that was shorn Bayliss Thank You Sean Steve is there a way for someone who was an over-thinker to relax their mind well it's important to understand that you've already you've already are starting to do it because you're recognizing it that's the first step in the that's necessary for the ability to start

1:18:10 taking control of your life is the recognition that you're overthinking so that's good news for you Sean a lot of people do not even realize that the little voice in their head is ruling their sense of happiness and peace and it's very caustic so you're the way to relax your mind the way to improve the relaxing of your mind well first it's as always for me the first step you have to have the desire for more peace in your life and like I

1:18:56 say the word peace is scary for a lot of people because people think well some people maybe maybe there's a vibration of this in you that you can identify with they believe that if they find peace they have to sacrifice something they believe they have to sacrifice their naughty behavior or their ability to control a situation that they actually can't control their ability to feel superior over others that they have to forfeit that that they have to sacrifice they have to make sacrifices in order to find peace and that's why the thing that we fear the

1:19:45 most is love and this is even obvious just to see on a normal level in our society by showing any sign of affection to somebody in most people's mind means that it needs to lead to some kind of sexual intimacy by showing any sign of affection it means that you want sex okay this is this is just where we're at right now and that side of the equation seems to be getting worse and that's fine because it'll get so bad and it'll compromise your sense of freedom so much that something's gonna give the me2 movement it has its place it's it's it has its place nothing nothing is wrong nothing is ever wrong but you just need

1:20:34 to decide why why it's there and how it can help you where do you want to go the ego will always protect its sense of individuality and it loves protecting itself from your insults it loves when you insult it because then it has an opportunity to express its superiority recognizing these patterns in your own mind is the first is the second step first step is I want peace I want a simpler life I want empowerment I want my creative endeavors to be a fair div and joyful and powerful I want abundance III would like I want I just

1:21:21 want to feel good okay let's say you've decided that already then the next thing you would do would you'd focus on seeing the obstacles within you to that sense of freedom and those are always only ever the thoughts in your mind so the observing of the thoughts is the first step second step perhaps towards calming them down you know towards extracting yourself from them but you have to be able to back up and and be mindful and see the thoughts you're thinking and let it pass or choose a

1:22:06 different thought because once you do that that's one of the that's part of the evolution of consciousness that's a big part it's the it is perhaps the paradigm shift on the planet in humans when that simple simple little act of separating your attention from being from believing that who you are is the world and and the thoughts in your head to the recognition that who you are is the awareness that's pointing itself on the thoughts and that you are in control of where you choose to put that attention so then the way that you can

1:22:53 learn to be happy learning and being happy is when you start to recognize thoughts that are just obstacles to your happiness that that aren't even true that the things you take personally that the gossip you getting involved with the blame every time you blame somebody for anything you're [ __ ] up your happiness you're actually attacking yourself you are attacking yourselves in ways that you don't even realize so and of course meditation meditation I would maybe suggest looking at various forms of meditation you can check out the under at all that we did I was a couple ago where it's on meditation where I offered some techniques but that

1:23:43 will that will meditation can help for you to see the mind activity and slowly move it to the background and slowly bring your attention more into reality and that's where your peace and happiness is so that that's my answer okay how we doing for time okay maybe a few more Douglas motor Ani once saw an interview with you about how happy you were in depression do you still think so was really awesome your explanation you know that's a one of the things I've recognized in my career is how how

1:24:32 powerful the press is and how useful it can be in building a story and this is a great thing for you if you're looking to market your career or your music is how to use the press because the press will will take something and run with it no I'm I was never happy in depression no that wasn't that was a misunderstanding that then snippets of one of my interviews was taken and a headline was created happy and depression no because that's a tag that's some new happy and depression what does that mean you know so it's a it's just like something they think this is what they do all right they got a cell they got to

1:25:18 attract and it's fine it's fine but I'm gonna correct that no there's no happiness and depression the happiness came well well I will say this I will say this and this is something I want to just clear up from what I was talking about one of the one of the underrated balls I was it was responding to a letter from a young boy who was content I don't know if he's a boy actually was contemplating suicide because he felt depressed or they felt depressed you know there's there's two kinds of depression there's a kind of depression that people will say want something but they can't have it so they're depressed that's more like being bummed out there's a big

1:26:04 difference between being bummed out because you can't have the things you want or because your girlfriend left you or your boyfriend left you or you didn't get the job or whatever whatever reason you can be bummed out and that can be confused with depression what's wrong I'm depressed I couldn't get that new guitar that I wanted that's not depression that's just being bummed out depression is something very different and you'll know it if you're experiencing it because it's the feeling of helplessness hopelessness dread unbelievable guilt and etc etc it's like a it's a dark night of the soul that's

1:26:51 different from being bummed out so there I go digressing again so but I will say when I was going through that period twenty twenty-one twenty-two there were there were these very elusive short moments that I can only describe as euphoria and I think they I think they were moments that came when the suffering was so great psychologically that I was I was like creating I was surrendering but there were little little moments of surrender and this intense feeling of euphoria would just

1:27:38 come and then it would go but that wasn't happiness and depression that was I think just maybe it was a maybe it was a defensive act of my soul I don't know the the happiness that was translated mistranslated in my interview came when I realized the great value the incredible value that that depression brought to my life when I was able to overcome it and that's the great value in any situation in your life that you

1:28:25 may have judged as being bad or wrong so before I had gone through that terrible depression it always lurked in the background through my whole life just kind of wasn't I was a happy kid but it was kind of there and then finally there was through the evolution of stress you know because that that's what stress evolves with you stresses the evolution of negative thinking it's when you when a conditioned thought comes into your life and you believe it it can create stress in you and then you there's a new normal for you and it has this little vibration

1:29:10 of stress and it's in the background and then as you go through life your perspective if it's a negative egoic perspective and it's got fear in it that stress builds and then once that stress reaches a particular level it becomes your new norm your new normal and you can see the see some people function in the world with great levels of hidden stress in themselves but you can see it if you're if you can be present enough in their actions in their words in that's it their actions their aura their vibe you can see when somebody's strung out and you can see when somebody's

1:29:55 trying to be happy but inside they're there they're miserable you know they're unhappy and this becomes an gnorm but that background stress grows and grows until finally it pops you know and you are your normal state of being is one of great depression one of anxiety and this is what depression is it's the evolution of stress and once you're in it you don't know why you have no idea what's going on you don't have the tools to get out of it yet you didn't have them

1:30:41 beforehand and this is the beauty in all of the experiences you have in life they give you the tools for the for the evolution of the quality of your own life so before I had gone through all of that I didn't have the tools to see the elusive nature of it I didn't see that I could not see that it was all a farce it was all just mental noise that I've collected through the years that I inherited and my ego creating this false sense of identity that was causing me suffering but without that suffering I would have never have come to known I'll

1:31:31 say have glimpses of the truth of who I am and the truth of who you are it required me to go through that so as such I see the great value the incredible in calculus of that depression can you see in your life the value of those challenging moments maybe you can one way to see it is to look at your past and recognize that certain events that took place that at the time you were going through them seemed really challenging and that they should not be this should not be this shouldn't

1:32:17 be happening this I think it should be different you know and that that and and and it's not and I'm really unhappy and then you come to find later that that event was necessary and leading you in a direction that where you did find certain kinds of fulfillment now you can't be listening to the ego cuz your ego will never find that fulfillment and your ego will say no that experience sucked because where it took me didn't make me rich and famous and loved and superior to everybody the way my ego wants me to be you know it so you miss it you know you you have to eliminate that to see the value in the challenges you've had in your life the flower needed the challenge to

1:33:02 blossom the butter for the moth needs the challenge to break free the cocoon in our case is the ego that we're breaking free and it's hard but you will you have no choice you will break free because the ego like the cocoon has a built-in self-destruct mechanism and it's called intense suffering and it has to crumble and when it does then then you realize the value in the challenge of it so that's what I was referring to and I said happy I don't even know if I use that word happy with depression I am

1:33:48 grateful for it because without it I'd still be one unhappy miserable son of a [ __ ] and it's an ongoing process you know I still have that there's a incredible moment to talk about myself for a minute there's I can see in myself this incredible momentum of egoic thinking of in this incredible belief in conditioned thoughts it's dissolving it it dissolves more and more every day and doing these sessions with you is one of the ways that I'm learning to dissolve it because you learn what you teach and you teach what you learn you're

1:34:37 always learning and you're always teaching and that's why I choose to teach these things because the the in another way it releases me it's releasing me and in such it's releasing you if you're ready for it if you can hear it and

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