What is it that looks at the mind? What is it that is aware? What is awareness? I mean, it's a very simple thing if you actually look at it.
But because the mind is now programmed, it's super fine-tuned to look at outside and there's so many distractions outside, whether it is problems or whether it is the beauty. You're always distracted. I'm not saying that. Don't look at objects.
What I'm saying is to look at objects from its source. Because when you see everything from its source, you realize that everything is the source. Greetings, Future Fossils. This is Michael Darviel welcoming you to another episode of the podcast that explores our place in time.
In so far as you'll indulge me in the notion that time is a landscape, and the years arranged in helices, then three years behind us down the spiral staircase, I was the editor for a non-duality web magazine called Globalish that explored the theme of our prior and always already non-separation, the truth beneath our concepts of duality and unity, the undivided fabric of experience that we then carve up into self-another. Another two years down the spiral, I was editor for Soulpurpose.com, another web mag that explored the vanguard of visionary artists, triangulating our trans-cultural identity through clever remixes of the imagery of our vast inheritance of world wisdom traditions. And even though this show seems to have taken on the character of exploring the ethical issues that arise at our weirdering boundary with technology, and our increasingly magical and mystifying technological landscapes, all of these things converge together at the horizon, explored in this week's episode with Arshan Nayar, an absolutely awesome artist out of India, Arshan's an awesome artist, but the thing I think that he does best is how communicate the wonder and the mystery of everything at a time when it is all too easy to slump back into the laziness of fear, small-minded desperation, a comparably unimaginative response to the intensity and brilliance of our lives. If nothing else, I hope this episode infects you, as it infected me with a deeper appreciation for how ridiculously weird the world is, and how great that is, and how this is a kind of opening for opportunity for each of us, an invitation into fullness, luminosity, and presence that was always there and always will be there, regardless of the circumstances of our lives.
We don't talk much in this episode about Arshan's work itself, but it deserves to be said that his work portrays a kind of all-embracing, tantric attitude, a love for both the high technology and human body that combine as media through which he celebrates a riotous and ecstatic experience of the human being, even as it dissolves into the solvent hyper-modern substrate of our lives. Like a good psychedelic experience, Arshan's work combines and remixes the body and the landscape, the waking and the dreaming, stillness and motion, rupturing the planes and the perspectives of the modern painting. He's worked with a lot of celebrities, and he's got a huge social media following, but that's not why I find him interesting. Arshan nires an inspiration, to me anyway, and I hope to you as well.
But before we get into this episode, a few quick shout-outs to new Patreon supporters, Craig Tilly, Joe Perez, Laurie Walters, Joe Wain, and Rachel Foster, as well as Jacob Amman who upped his pledge this week. I am deeply appreciative to every single person who supports this show with any amount of money on Patreon. It helps me out immensely to maintain the time in my life necessary to produce each episode of this show on my own and to grind away on my book, How to Live in the Future, and to share a constant stream of interesting news in the Future Fossils Facebook group without any institutional funding or passive income. If I could supplement this podcast with more speaking gigs and more gigs doing live notes for meetings and presentations inside organizations, both of which I love to do and both of which I find contribute to the same project, the surfacing of insights and the facilitation of vital conversations.
Well, then I would do that, and if you have opportunities for that, please send them my way. But in the meantime, this is it, folks. This podcast is a labor of the heart and strangely my full-time job. So that is why I make such a point of giving so much back to every Patreon supporter, including exclusive and early-release episodes, original music like what you're hearing now, and more.
And for everyone who has been sharing this show with your friends, who's been rating and reviewing it on iTunes, I thank you also. It's making a difference. Future Fossils is slowly but surely making it into the ears and minds of the people who benefit and for that. I am, again, hugely grateful to you.
So that's enough of that. Buckle up and enjoy this lovely conversation with visionary artist and digital weirdo, Archon Nair. So this is unreal because I have been listening to your podcast in between, so like speaking to your life is like a strange thing. Because I'm always listening to you speaking to other people.
So now you speak to me. I don't think my guests ordinarily have been listening to the show. So that's cool. That's a new thing.
I appreciate that. Thanks. So I got hooked on to your podcast through Hannah, and then I listened to a few more episodes and now I use the overcast app. So you are in my favorite place.
So I'm talking, walking, just moving around. I'm listening. Thanks, man. Yeah, I was just actually, I'll return the back scratching.
I was just watching your neural learning, creativity and consciousness photoshop session on YouTube. I was just watching you talk about going through the whole process and moving stuff in and out. Fantastic. Yeah, it was wonderful.
Because I just picked up an iPad and I am finally, like, after years of having a dust gathering waycom tablet and just not connecting with it. You know, I'm finally like, okay, it's time to get over my thing and just like jump into this space where everyone is waiting. And I feel like that, I mean, maybe that's a good place to start with you. I feel like for me, adopting new technology and adapting to that learning curve, like getting the upgrade is, it feels like, I don't know, there's two ways you can talk about like the psychedelic experience or like dying where you have to let go of the familiar thing.
And everyone's waiting for you on the other side. Like, come on, it's fine. It's totally safe. This is fun.
And I think that there's that part of it, that emotional part of it, of like the give and take. But you just seem to absolutely like relish in and embrace the new opportunities and I'm curious what your relationship is with all of that. Man, I think you know what happened was this started when during my teenage years, I mean, as a kid, I was never so much into art. I mean, my school especially was really focused into art and crafts.
They were like really, really heavy with drama, acting, arts, craft, music. And they were not much into like studies and stuff. Like, studies were apart because of the government policies and stuff. And I mean, they were really focusing to extract or get to design.
I found them really boring because the teachers were like teaching in such traditional ways in the sense that they were like, oh, you need to do it like this, this, this, this, this, this. And with me, I feel like my brain has never been wired in a way where it has to be in a particular way. I mean, for me, it has to be explorative. I need to experiment with things.
You know, since I always wanted to just venture out and try new things and just explore. And I was never inclined towards art because of that. But I used to participate in all these competitions. My parents used to send me to art competitions and I did fairly well.
So I realized I was good, but I was never really into it. Man, like, I want my studies and like, whenever I like my classes or like studying at home, my dad was like really straight about like, you know, like getting good grades and stuff. So I used to act like I used to be studying on my table and I used to like act as if I'm studying, but I used to be doing. So whatever pen up pencil you have, I used to do in all my books and all my sketchbooks, all my notebooks, like they were just filled with doodles.
And I was just randomly making all these abstract forms and shapes and it was all just coming out. Like, I was not even like aware about, you know, what am I doing? Do they have any meanings? Nothing?
Nothing? It was just going out. But like, and obviously, like when you grow up, you're so conditioned to do things in a certain way, there was a large break in between like after my high school and before I started doing this again full time. I was really not, you know, being creative at that moment and I was just stuck in this world pool of people wanting me to do certain things in a certain way, the condition of the society going through this form of struggle and you know, going through a very low phase in life.
But now when I look back into all of that and when I see it, I realize that all of that was really happening. Like it was like probably a stepping stone of, you know, what I wanted to do later in life. But technology was something which really blew my mind the first time when, you know, I encountered it. I remember I had a 486, I don't know if you remember this, the 486 computer because before any Intel, any Intel, it was 64 megahertz computer.
And it was speaking expensive, I remember it was about a $3,000 computer without any CD-ROM and we used to have these floppy disks, the 3.5 inch ones. And we had this Windows 3.1 and I was blown away, I was like, holy shit, this is amazing. And you know what happened? We got a free game of Doom.
There was this famous game at that in Doom. And I installed that into the computer and I launched it from Windows 3.1 and it was getting stuck on the front page, you know, like the logic. And I was like, what the fuck? I mean, how do I sound this?
How do I sound this? I went back into MS-DOS because it was a dual-op I just figured this out. And of course it was just a fluke. But I mean, I think you got hooked in my school.
I mean, I was one of the rare kids who had a computer. So everyone used to come to my house and we used to explore and I used to show them how everything is. And it was fascinating. And then my neighbor, he got inspired by me and he got his first Pentium computer.
And that was insanely fast. I was like, holy shit, how can it be so fast? And then I got a Pentium 2 and then how everything started increasing. And then I realized that I started exploring tools because of this.
Because of technology I started exploring. Before even Photoshop, there was the Pinchop Pro. I used to design websites and I used to make graphics out of that. And I mean, I started learning my basics from there.
And I was always fascinated with all these tools, all these softwares. I used to install them, download them, whatever. The internet came by, blew my mind again. And I was like, man, this is insane.
Like, every time you just keep, people just keep creating these new different tools for themselves. I mean, consciousness through people creates different tools and consciousness itself absorbs it and creates something new out of it. So it's this cycle which is going on where the spirit manifests into intelligence. Intelligence creates new intelligence through tools.
And other intelligence absorbs those tools to create new forms of art or new experiences or new tools. Which in turn, absorbs new tools to create new tools. And that is the effect which has been happening. If you look at from the hardware perspective as technology improved and evolved.
If you look at software tools for perspective where people are using those tools to create something amazing. So, you know, there has always been fascinating and there's always like fascinated me in terms of how can we use these tools to create something new. And that is why I love exploring whether it is virtual reality or whether it is creating on the iPad. And like how you said it, like I have this into us four, where I got it back in 2009.
And I've been doing all my work on that since then. And since it's just when the iPad Pro, the new one came out, I got the iPad Pro and I've been hooked on to it. And it just shows that, you know, I have a beast of computer writing in front of me where I can do all these 3D modeling and stuff. And now we have this small compact display which is absolutely fantastic, which has an incredible speed which handles all these big huge canvases.
And you can just do anything like exactly what you can do on the computer. So how everything has just shrunk into this tiny space and you can create infinite manifestations out of it. I like the way that your creative vision is embedded in the clearly like the tone or flavor of that Hindu cosmology. You know, like the emanations from the cosmic mind, you know, that all of this stuff.
And of course, we're just going to come up with ever richer and more complex manifestations of Maya. And in listening to you talk about all this, there's this sense of how our environments shape us, right? And we shape, you know, we shape the tools, the tools shape us. So as our instruments and the content that we create with them becomes richer than it seems to require from us a boost of intelligence and like a boost of our language and our perception kind of go together.
And so I'm curious what you think about the way that these new forms of art might be changing us. Or like, you know, how the evolution of the human being is trending along with all of this, you know, this just extraordinary creative power that each of us has now. And it's just, I feel like, it's just been like expanding as if like, you know, there was a point in source when everything just spun up, right? And it just keeps expanding.
And everything keeps remixing with each other and keeps creating new things. Similarly, if you see like now, like if you actually see like in a short way, how everything was very traditional before any, before the modern technological era, which happened in the recent years, before everything, people created people doing everything by hand, whether it was music or dance or, you know, even cooking and even painting. And there were all like these traditional tools which were there and people were using it for a very long time. And suddenly the computer comes in and you know, and technology comes in and people start creating stuff on the computer.
And you know, people start coding and people start looking at recipes online and you're taking experiences from like other recipes and other cultures and bringing it into their own. And it's insane, like how everything is just like, it's clearly a fractal effect, right? Like everything just, it's never ending. Like it's just self-replicating.
Like how consciousness, because it doesn't have any form in the physical dimension, also creates so many different layers that it doesn't have any into it. Like it's just going on and on. The most amazing part for me is not just like how, say for example, I have a particular tool and I create that as a tool because someone has created, but how I can collaborate with someone using the internet, sitting in like the opposite part of the planet and using their skills to bring with my skills. So for example, I've been doing a lot of VR projects.
So I just create the visuals, but the coding is done by someone else. And they don't have any idea about the visuals part, like how to create the visuals, but they're using technology, right? So how their knowledge of technology, which they gained throughout their years using other people's work or their interests are gathering knowledge from the internet, has helped them create their own skillset and then using my skillset, we mix them together to bring out an idea which just came inside our consciousness like that, and we create something new out of it. And how insane is that?
You couldn't even conceive this, like say five or ten years back, that we would be sitting here doing this. We basically take all the memories and all the stories which we have gathered through our past and our journey, and we create our future at Cottindi. Like we think, oh, this might happen because this has happened, but man, we have no clue about anything. I mean, you and me are sitting here right now talking, but tomorrow you might be doing something, I mean, you might be in space or in a plane, in an A bus, in a car, doing a podcast with some crazy, emirates designer.
I mean, just think that out. And you know, we just keep thinking that we might be doing this because we're doing it in this particular pattern, but man, things are happening on their own. You just can't imagine the future because the future has been designed by the spirit which has designed everything which is in everything. And it's beyond conceivable.
That is what is so exciting, right? That we have an idea about how things are evolving and how things are going in a particular pattern, but man, we just can't conceive it. We just can't bring them into a particular vision. You know?
Yeah. So you remind me of how excited I am when I'm not like unhealthily preoccupied with my personal problems, right? Like there's this, there's like a baseline enthusiasm for how fucking amazing and awesome the world is, and I pave over that all the time with worry about, you know, the daily stuff. So I'm curious because, you know, I've heard from people that, like, you know, David Pierce, who talks about engineering hedonics, meaning like, if you could genetically alter your kid to be 5% happier than you are, you know, don't you have an ethical responsibility to do so.
So he talks about people have the hedonics at point. And that's like, some people are just born happier. They're just, they got more of the juice. I'm hoping that that's not the case with you and that you have some insight for me, an ordinarily melancholic and introspective dude, how you say that you have something to do with your own.
How you say clear-eyed about your excitement for all of this stuff and like how you allow it to continue to like propel and motivate you. Man, like, that's such a beautiful question. And I mean, it's something which is so deep and so intimate to all of us. And especially like in my journey, I'm sure like this is quite similar in everyone's journey, which you touched upon.
I feel that, you know, like, it's so important and especially these two aspects of where we find content and happiness and, you know, positivity and where we have all these troubles with life, relationships and answers, whatever, like, they come in different forms and how they affect us. And I feel that there's such two integral parts going side by side together, which are needed as well. And I think I feel in my journey, the part which we don't like that much where we are troubled or we are sad has been a major role. I mean, naturally I've been a very positive person throughout my life.
Like, I've always been very happy, I've always thought about things very deeply. Since again, I've been a very spiritual person as well, but not like godly spiritual, but like always introspective and contaminated by what I have been here and what I have been here. And that was one side by side by the happenings or you know, the events in my journey. Like, for example, it's all started when I lost my dad.
I mean, I had an amazing life. He passed away when I was 14. I was very close to him. And that really shook me up.
You know, like, that really disturbed me in a very deep way. Like, I really went into a really sad state for about one and a half, two years and I was not able to come out of it. Finally, I did because obviously life takes you out and you know, it starts showing you the way and gives you all these distractions and you start flowing. But the next 10 years, which came after that, were the most important times of my journey where I started content because I started seeing a pattern where like, even certain events happening at certain points or somehow coinciding with each other.
Like, you could, I could clearly see a link between them, you know, like all these events happening. They just not happening randomly. They just seem to have some form of pattern. And that is what started exciting me that man, like, things are not happening randomly for sure.
They seem chaotic and random, but they're super intelligently placed. Even though like on a macro on a micro scale, we all seem like bacteria is floating around and you know, like, we probably don't have much importance. But man, everything has its place, you know, like, that is the reason it's all there. It's been designed and manifested in a very beautiful way.
And I started looking into things deeply. Like, that is why my journey started. But because of the pain is the reason I started looking at things. You know, if I was like extremely happy all the time and if I was not affected and I was not affected, I probably wouldn't be looking at it deeply.
It was because I was being affected by my thoughts by this mental construct which I developed over these years and the conditioning. And because I was listening to this voice inside me, which everyone has very seriously, in the sense that this is me, I was taking this as an identity very seriously. That was the reason I was being affected. But because of this journey, the next 10 years and then obviously the past 5, 6 years as well, as everything keeps polishing and as you keep refining into your own being.
And as you keep contemplating, I think it polishes more. Like, you come out more and you understand that there are two parts of this entire thing which I was able to figure out. One was the theoretical part where we come across knowledge outside of us, like through knowledge, through meeting people, through the internet, what videos, articles, books. And we take it as an intellectual understanding, right?
For example, everything is consciousness. The universe is conscious and everything is consciousness and the other universe. So, okay, that comes as an intellectual understanding. But on a day to day life, it does not come as a practical, you know, solution.
I mean, you understand that, oh, I am conscious and another universe, oh, I feel love. But when you have a problem, when you have an argument happening with your family, you know, like a trouble happening in your house or financial crisis, you don't think about, oh, I am the universe and everything is beautiful. You're like, fuck, I need to take care of this, you know. How am I going to solve this?
This is an issue. Oh man, your mind comes, oh, what if that wasn't this, what if this happens tomorrow? In a practical level, it does not work. So, I was disturbed.
I was like, man, this is not helping. I am the universe, which is right. But how does this work? I mean, it's bullshit.
I mean, I need to really get into it. I need to see, there must be something deeper behind all of this. So, if this is coming up again in the game, my mind is torturing me again and again, if my psychological self is really unstable, that means that there is something much more deep, I need to go deeper. And that is where I kept my search going.
I kept my search going. And I finally found, I mean, for me to give you a basis, I follow Edweta Vedanta. I mean, that has been, I mean, which I have been really rooted to. Because it gives you, it gives me the most, the biggest clarity.
And the understanding became the true self-realization, you know, and that is what I was looking at. Not exterior intellectual knowledge, but how do you make it a part of your self-understanding self-realization, where your mind basically understands what it is, where it's true. So, what it is, where it's true source is, and it's quite, it becomes much more peaceful and, you know, it comes down. Now, the nature of the mind, the mind which is not just the brain, but, you know, the thoughts, feelings, sensations, which are all club together, which we call the mind, because we don't know where the mind is biologically also.
But a mixture of all of this, the nature of the mind is object oriented, right? Like, it's always looking outside. Because that is how nature has designed this. Because if we are in a physical plane trying to survive, it's always looking at all these sensations happening outside.
So, sight, sound, smell and all the activities which are happening outside. So, all these activities which are happening outside are being used by the mind to, to absorb information. To, to absorb information, process that information and give signals by the brain to the body to do certain actions. So, we are so used to this programming since again, so as soon as you're born, you have no idea about language, right?
You have no idea about who your mother is, who your father is. There's just this feeling which is there. You're experiencing life as it is. You're just being.
There's no thoughts inside you because there's no idea or those, no learning of language at that time. And then after a few years, you start learning language because everyone is teaching you things. Oh, you are this, you are this, this is that, this is that. And so, language which is a concept which is an idea created by the human being through its limited mind, is fitted inside you.
And you start looking at your world around your environment and all your activities, including your thought process through this thing called language. And you create this information system and look at everything through language and interpret everything through language itself, which is created as an, as an limited module of working by the human machine, by the human system. And so, it's limited, it's limited, you're learning limited language and conceiving an infinite, incredible, universe world through this finite language. And because your mind is finite, obviously you, and because it's looking at objects, you look at all of this and then you start learning knowledge and knowledge.
And you start learning knowledge and everything accordingly. Now, what happens is that the basis of everything, which is you, your identity, because you feel this body, this limited perception through which you look at everything, and you feel the sensations of the body, whether it's pain, joy, happiness, excitement, whether you're high on ASD, you look everything through this body. So, you, you're so connected to the body, your thoughts which is non-stop going on inside you in your waking life. So, you feel this is you, the thoughts which are coming inside you, is you, right?
Like because you've listened to it since, since like you aware of language and you know the conceptual world. So, the mind, the thoughts are you, the sensations are inside you because everything is so close. It's all binded. So, how consciousness basically manifests into body and mind and thoughts.
And it's all so closely linked that there is no difference. It's a very subtle difference. But what really started happening was, I started seeing that, I mean, I started looking at dreams. I was really fascinated by dreams, you know, like, I was like, man, I'm lying down on this bed and I'm in deep sleep, before deep sleep, I go into this dream world.
And the dream world, I'm somewhere else. And I'm having exactly the sensations. I'm talking to people, I'm eating, I'm smelling, I'm looking at the world. Everything feels real.
I'm jumping. You know, I'm moving around, I'm flying, whatever. And how is it that my body is lying in this bed? But my conscious experience is exactly the same.
I'm having another experience in some other space, in some other time, which is created by the mind itself. So that, that was something which all of these things started aligning, you know, like the identity part, where I'm taking my identity so seriously. And then this parting of the way of the body in the dream state and the mind in the dream state and the mind creating different worlds in the dream state. I was like, man, there's something not correct, you know, there's something which we are thinking about life about identity, which is not right.
I have to look at this deeper and I started realizing, I started realizing and obviously through the help of Guru's, like Ramana Maharishi, I follow him very, closely and I just have to take the Maharaj. I mean, they opened it up and I was like, man, this is it. This is exactly it. I mean, we are not that identity.
We are not this body in mind. We think it is. This is something which has been conditioned inside us. This is something which has been programmed inside us through language, through unlimited perception and senses.
And we believe this is us because it's so closely connected to us. Not saying that, you know, when you feel pain, this is not you feeling pain. This is the body in which you, through which you are experiencing life, is experiencing pain. But you are the purer awareness, which looks at the body, which looks at the mind, which looks at the no mind and the no body, which is in the dream state.
And when in deep sleep, there's nothing happening. When you have no, there's no experience of time, there's no experience of body and mind. When everything is absolutely blank. But the awareness is still there.
You're still conscious. So the primary source is that you are pure consciousness and there is no objective to it. Like if you actually look at, if I ask you, hey, Michael, are you aware of this sound coming to you? Yes, you are aware of the visuals coming to you.
Yes, you are aware of the room you're sitting in. Yes, you're aware of your body. You're aware of your body. You're aware of the thoughts going in.
But what is this awareness? This awareness which we're looking at. You're even aware of this awareness, right? But what is the objective quality of this awareness?
There's no quality. It's just a feeling. But this awareness is constant and stable throughout all forms, throughout all your activities, throughout all waking states, deep sleep state and dream state. It's the only constant thing which is always there.
But everything else is happening. It's constantly changing. Our bodies are changing, our cells are changing, our organs are changing, our thoughts are changing, our country of the new information we perceive. Our environment is constantly changing, the sky is changing, the water is changing, everything is fucking changing man.
But this awareness is always there. You're always aware. And that was it, man. That it took me about 10 years to figure this out.
Because obviously it does not happen overnight. You learn so much. You learn all these intellectual knowledge. We learn all of this taking 20, 30, 40, 50 years.
And it's not easy to get rid of it in a night's time. And then all these distractions which are always bombarded to you, which sink us down. Like how you said. I mean, it's so human.
It's so natural. But I feel like it's an intelligent design. The mind is designed to be like this. The thoughts are designed to be like this to say out crap, but at the same time to also say out some of the most beautiful ideas which could ever come across.
But since the mind is designed to perceive time as in the past and future, which does not even exist. I mean, our only experience right now is that we are present. If I ask you, hey, Michael, what did you have yesterday for lunch? And you know, can you experience that again?
You only have to experience it, right? Like how can you experience that again? It's just in your memory. It's just a figment of imagination or thought right now.
But as an experience, the only thing which you'll experience is right now. And you just can't even go to the future and experience it. Because everything is right now. Nothing is happening in the future.
Nothing can happen in the past. Because how the mind is structured. They're all stories and memories. Because how we can perceive things and how we can store memories.
Really be flexible as plus of information through visuals or through text or other with the brain is designed. Okay, so you're touching on something that I think about a lot. Okay. I notice myself thinking about it a lot, right?
Which is, and this is great because I don't think we've really gotten into the advent of Adanta stuff on the show yet. And I'm quite fond of the entire tradition of non-dual philosophy. It's very cool. At any rate, the way that noticing memory, like, and you know, the Buddha talks about this.
Noticing the pattern of memory of expectation. You start to see this. You disclose this matrix of relationships and your experience of time becomes a sort of networked landscape of possibility and conditioning that exists within now. It's an object.
It's a subset of the present moment. So I feel like something like that is happening for us because of our embeddedness in the world. Because we live in this networked media environment, the human consciousness is having to, that there is actually a sort of incentive toward awakening in the design of the infrastructure. Like, not intentional necessarily.
But Doug Rushkoff talks about it in present shock that your whole past is on Facebook. Google knows what you are going to ask it before you even ask it. And so our past and our futures in the digital space have all collapsed into this moment, this one present moment. So in that way, the systems that we've designed are reflecting this sort of cosmic truth about time, or like a new, a more complex and sort of comprehensive and probably more accurate way of thinking about time as this fractal that is all sort of simultaneous.
But anyway, the point is you talked about seeing the patterns of synchronicity and that that being a key part of this. And I remember Richard Doyle talking to a web seminar class about in the writings of Philip K. Dick. He was talking about how paranoia is where you start to see that everything is connected, but you still are attached to the identity of your, like you said, that inner sheath of everything that's been so close to you the whole time.
It's, you know, you've never known what it sounds like with that hum off, you know, with a refrigerator is unplugged. And so I'm curious, what do you see in this nexus of, on the one hand, like a really potentially beautiful transcendent opportunity here for the human species, almost as a matter of necessity to move into this new space, this new understanding. But then also the fact that like there's a good chance for a lot of burnout, paranoia, like madness, the change is coming really fast these days. And so, you know, what is the image of how we could, like what can we do for people who are struggling with this like fluidity and being able to like surf and embrace all of this.
I don't know, there's just so much to go from there, but I'll take it wherever, whichever way you want. And you know, like, I mean, okay, so this is how I feel the universe is. I mean, of course, I know nothing and I mean, I probably, I'm just, you know, creating some kind of another idea or concept. But to me, it feels like the universe, which is a conscious universe is a spirit, a spirit which is without form or dimension and is super intelligent, obviously, because of how it's created and creating everything.
Now, what the spirit does is because it does not have form, it creates these calculations and elements such as the DNA and forms of nature, different DNAs, which have basically include information to create the basis of life. And then it springs out in the form. So all these different billions of forms, which we see, I'm just talking about this planet, data alone, other planets. And you know, all these forms which spring out, they start evolving, it creates new information from its environment, a greater self, creates new information, including human beings.
So how I see it is that I feel that this spirit basically manifests into form, which basically manifests itself into form so that it can experience life, so it can evolve and become more complex. I'm not sure if it has a purpose or no, not because I mean, obviously, it's in its own intelligence, which it must be having a purpose. I mean, I know when to say if it has a purpose, but to me, it feels this, just looking at everything around, that it comes out into form and then it complifies itself into forms. But now when it comes into form, it does not know, the most amazing part which I feel over here is, it forgets that itself is the spirit.
It creates bodies, it entangles itself into the bodies, so that it creates a separate identity. So everyone who feels not just humans, but animals, or plants, which themselves feel that they are a separate self, have to have that feeling of a separate self so that they can function. For example, if you are the spirit and you manifest into a form and you know that in the form that I am the spirit and I am the spirit and I am everything, it is equivalent to not having any form because then it would not function, it would just be still and it would just be there. It would be like everything is absolutely fine.
There's nothing to do because I am everything, right? So I just imagine like if I become into everything and if I know that I am everything and if I'm not the separate self, I would just be standing. Nothing would move. And so I feel that having the sense of identity is such a crucial part, but it was as two ways.
One, obviously to function to evolve to grow and to create extremely complex worlds through nature through technology and however it proceeds further, but also to grow deeper into the understanding and to go back to its source. So this contrast, I call it the contrast basically. So the contrast is so important and vital for everyone, including me, everyone has this, that this identity which we think we are, which we think so seriously. Oh, I am this body and I am a male, I am a man, I am a rat, I am this is this, this I am, which we mistakenly think is the body and the mind and the thoughts and all the stories which we have gathered throughout our journey, which we call it the past and you know, are already there.
And you know, our relationships and everything which we think are us, we derive a sense of identity from relationships as well. We take them so seriously and then we are so entangled with all the stories that anything which happens, anything which touches them, which disturbs its flow, we get disturbed by it. Right. And that is what really happens.
So for example, in a small day to day basis, if I am expecting a particular result out of say I find a domain paper or a relationship like my sister is not happening, particularly fine. And there is some kind of argument or whatever. It disturbs me because I sense, I derive a sense of identity from not just this body, but the activities it's doing through relationships or through other activities. It needs to perform to do certain things, to do certain actions in the future.
So we take this so seriously because we've been conditioned, it's all programmed. Everything is a freaking programming and we are taking and it's so embedded inside us. It's so freaking rooted inside us, especially because I feel the education system has been, has played a major part into this, not just a parent or a family, but the education system which does not focus on learning, but focuses on objects outside. So when you start asking as a kid, because when you're like four or five years old, you have no sense of like, oh, what will happen to me?
How's my body image? How's my social media likes? Nothing. You're just like flowing.
You're just being. And you start, and this exam system comes into your mind and you're like, you have to perform and you have to outbeat other kids and you have to do, you can't ask questions. Like if you start asking questions like, why does the world understand in an electrical form, how can it be a vortex because, you know, every season doesn't seem to the same. They keep changing.
Every winter is not the same. Is it maybe happening in some other form? No, you can't ask such questions. You have to study according to the books and you have to answer it according to the books or stay history.
What happened in 1778 during this? What happened in this? So we're constantly bombarded in education system to look outside, to look outside outside. Everything is happening outside outside outside.
And we never ask to look inside. We never ask to inquire inside. What is happening inside? What is it that looks at the mind?
What is it that is aware? What is awareness? I mean, it's a very simple thing if you actually look at it. But because the mind is now programmed, it's super fine tuned to look outside and there's so many distractions outside.
Whether it is problems or whether it is the beauty or whether it is the internet or the technology that you're always distracted. So you're constantly like looking at objects outside instead of looking inside. I'm not saying that don't look at objects. What I'm saying is to look at objects from the real place.
To look at objects from its source. Because when you see everything from its source, you realize that everything is the source. There's no separation. The separation is the only seeming separation of the form of the body.
But even if you look at the physical scale, bro, I'm not just talking about vu or spiritual stuff. I'm talking about experiences and real scientific study as well. If you look at the scientific study, everything is atomic or on a plank scale. There's no separation between anything.
The entire universe is one. It's all space which all these forms are all forms coming in space. For example, this building is sitting in before this building came into being. It was space, right?
And when it came into being, it's just sitting in that space. It's just that there's another form there. But there's no separation from the space. You wouldn't say there's buildings in other space and that would take space as separate.
It's still sharing that space. So we're not sharing the same space, which is the conscious space, which is the conscious spirit. Yeah, yeah. So in looking at this into the deep future and deep past, I had this thought that we have been in virtual reality this whole time.
Because like you said earlier, it's just all conceptual representations, like layers and layers of interpretation being presented in this highly abstracted, super-intricate estimation. Like all this stuff about how your brain interposes. It's got the texture brush. If you're looking at the area in front of you or around your focal area and your brain just interposes that pattern over and over.
I'm sure that's what's going on. And then you can look at somebody's in their blind spot and their face disappears. So we're inhabiting this virtual reality already in that sense. And we're just building an extra virtual reality inside the one that we've already got.
But it's funny you talking about the way that coming up into school, this new social awareness reinforces that social identity, reinforces that bounded envelope itself. And I've heard from people who, I knew a guy who was a student of Ramesh Balsakars actually. So Balsakar is the student of Anisadh Gautamaraj. So this guy, Alan Shelton, who lives in San Diego, and I used to work with him on an Instagram account, and he was telling me that he tried for six weeks to go through his entire life without using the word I.
He never spoke in the first person. And he said it worked. Without constantly referencing the identity through language, he was able to draw his attention away from it. And so it's interesting in this sense that you're talking about, there's no inside, no outside.
I think people get tripped up on that. It's like you can actually go deeper into yourself by turning the attention away from what you ordinarily think of as inside of you, which is the social construct. But then again, we're getting into these massive demographic migration. So everyone's living in the city now.
It's only going to be more of everyone living in the city. And so the question of how do you find that solitude, how do you turn the attention away from that constant reinforcement of a social identity when we're living in such a density of social interactions? Is it really a bizarre teasing question, I think? I feel like this has to do with something which you asked the last time, which I did not address as well.
About how there's so much amazingness and awe everywhere. But at the same time, there's this space where we get stuck into, especially like if you look at, for example, if you look at the world of the internet, where everyone's hooked on to. And all these different social media platforms, whether it's Snapchat, Facebook, Instagram. And they do kinds of things which are happening here.
A set of people who are wired a particular way, there are obviously a sense of identity from that. For example, kids who are hooked on to Snapchat, they look at different speed, they look at these amazing filters. And instead of accepting who they truly are, they put on new masks on them to look more beautiful. They try different angles and they take like a gazillion photos every day.
Instead of them looking at mirrors right now and appreciating the way they are truly feel, they try, they rely on an app which creates a fake image, creates infinite angles, which is not really the true face, to create an image of themselves which psychologically they believe they are. And then they feel happy about it. But in return, they're actually not happy. They're actually trying to seek and they're designing something which is far more superior.
And then that leads to other things which, where they go in for surgeries and everything later on their life. And then there's certain people who derive their sense of honest, say technology, say from news, what Elon Musk is doing right now. It looks absolutely fantastic for the future. Or when you look at astrophysic videos, or when you look at like anything, look at tools.
Or when you start, even let's leave the internet, let's go out for a walk in nature. And you come across a species of mushrooms which are like, holy shit, how can this be so tiny and growing up in the back of a tree inside this hole? I mean, how is this possible? I mean, it's just happening everywhere.
I mean, this is insane. So, I mean, it's crazy that these billion neurons functioning inside us are just firing on their own. I mean, of course, not on their own randomly, but obviously an intelligence set is at place which we can't describe or comprehend. But I feel that there's certain people who are deriving this sense of awe because of one, how they're wired.
And also two because of the contrast they've gone through in their life. And they've probably completely realized that man, it's all beautiful, it's all in the flow. There's no control over anything. And it's just, you know, surrender to what is and just be.
And there's certain people who are trying to control their life because the mind is like, oh, I'm the supreme controller of everything. I control my life and I will do how things have to be. And so I need to be in this particular image, say selfie and I look a certain way. That's my control.
So I feel like both of them are absolutely beautiful because if this one was not there, the contrast, you wouldn't be at mine in the awe. The reason you've reached the awe is because maybe in a very subtle way, you went through pain or you went through strollers. Or maybe you were just genuinely gifted by the spirit to be manifested in this beautiful brain-mind combination. And yeah, I mean, it's bizarre.
At the same time, it's a mind-fuck to even think about how there are infinite patterns of each of us as well. Like, there's no one of us which is exactly the same. Like, I was having this conversation the other day with a very close relative of mine, a friend of mine actually. And they've had body issues all their life.
And I was like, man, I mean, look at a tree. Let's go to a mango. Yeah, you know, we're like a farmer is cultivating all these mango trees. Can you pick up one tree which is exactly the same?
You'll find all our mango trees, all of the same species, creating the same fruit, not one will have the same, not one fruit will have the same mango taste, not one mango tree. We'll have the same kind of shape of fruit, the skin texture or the size. They will all sprout in different times, different sizes. Not each tree will have the same size shape.
You can't pick up one tree and say they're the same exact pattern. They're all different patterns. Even if you find two trees which are short and bulky and you take out one to it, you'll obviously find a difference in them. You take everything in life, in every species, even an end on a micro scale.
When we look from a human perspective, they all look the same. But you're actually zooming with a magnifying glass or a microscope. They'll have different parts. Yeah, they all have a different bark out.
Yeah, exactly. And they're all doing different things. They're all are wired also differently. They're all moving at different speeds.
And that's fascinating. So I told them that, you know, like, look at the trees. I mean, because trees are the, I mean, they're not moving supposedly because they are moving. Obviously, they're very slow speed.
We can't see. But, but if you actually see trees, they're all different shapes sizes. Even if it's a mango tree. So why can't humans be different shapes sizes?
Forms, activities, actions with different mindsets and brain activities. And that is what makes everything so freaking amazing. Because if you're all tuned in to perceive the world in so much beauty and so much awe and so much, so much incredible lessness which it has. I mean, life would be so boring, right?
Life would be so boring. Like if anyone was like, oh, I'm so positive, I'm full of love and everything is so amazing, man, it would become stagnant. It's because of the contrast that we keep moving ahead. That's how energy keeps moving ahead.
It's like a base which is not just one pushes itself to the stratosphere. It's like a rocket boosting phenomenon. It needs to inject all this fire and heat and then it launches itself into the air. So that is how I see contrast.
Like the contrast is so vital that duality is so important in this non-duality. The dualities are an integral part of the non-duality. Like it's so important for us to have these different aspects, this infinite amount of diversity. That is how we repropale ahead.
That is how I think the spirit moves ahead. You know, it creates so much more newness. And it's mind-doing growing. It just never ends.
It just never ends. If you see everything which has happened from childhood to childhood, then now, every experience, it's all been so diverse. And everything which will happen to you, which will be all diverse. The kind of people you meet, the kind of experiences you'll have, the kind of music you'll create, the kind of art you'll create.
I mean, no one brushstroke is the same. You'll never be able to get the exact same color. You'll never be able to do the exact same line or have the same stroke in the same plane with the same depth. It's always unique.
Everything is unique, which is insane. You were unique yesterday and today you're on the unique Michael Gaffey, which is... So I feel like, I mean, it's an integral part of the design of not just this dimension, but I feel like the dimensions as well. They're all constantly changing.
It's like a movie. It's like a play going on. And for the movie to go on, I mean, you need to have different characters and different stories and different music or different mysteries to solve. So, yeah, otherwise it would just be stuck in one frame.
Yeah, it's related to that question of, you know, if you could go back to that moment, you wouldn't know because you would be the same organization of matter as you were in that moment. Therefore, you wouldn't know that you had gone back into that moment. And it's just one of those wonky, wanky armchair philosophy kind of stoner nonsense you get into when you explore that particular issue. But yeah, the whole thing of the time being a map of form, I think, in that sense of everything un-repeating and the play of it, the flow of time, is along this metabolic gradient.
You know, like you're talking about like this, like every possible variation, every possible little rivulet and tributary as water explores every imaginable avenue down the side of the mountain. And that that gravity, that particular energy gradient from the top to the bottom of the mountain is that contrast that you're talking about. So there's like a water cycle of like evolution, evolution that there's a circulation of things emerging from and returning to. Anyway, I don't know.
This isn't really funny right now. So maybe I don't get it because I'm like too serious talking about the cosmic water cycle. I mean, no, bro, can you tune with what I mean? An example I would like to say is the ocean.
So if you see the ocean, if you dive inside the ocean, there are billions of species, plants, fishes, animals, rocks. So the ocean is obviously this water body, but all these creatures and elements inside it is, including the waves and the world pools. Also, the rocks inside the ocean are the ocean, the fish inside the ocean are the ocean. But there is no contrast inside the ocean.
As in, there are no predators like the sharks eating other fishes. Or the fishes eating plants, then it will just be filled with forms, you know, it will just keep reproducing. So the contrast is important there. And this ocean is basically what I'm referring to the ocean is the spirit, the cosmic spirit.
And every one of us is inside this cosmic spirit manifested as different forms of the spirit. But the contrast is important for the spirit to move on. Otherwise, it will just be filled with everything. And there won't be any dynamic depth between each of it.
It will just be filled with forms. And everyone is standing like the fishes won't even move man. They'll just be there because they're all moving here and there just to save themselves. Or the rocks are moving and changing form because of the pressure of the water.
And things are just everything is small, everything is changing. In fact, what I didn't want to say here was something which came up to me like now was, by Nisadh Dattamaaraj, he said something very amazing. He said, everything is thought. Everything we can see is thought.
The eye which is a thought. Everything which we, even this conversation is a thought. It's all conceptual. It's all an idea.
So just throw out the thought and just look everything from as it is. Because when you see everything as is, you see the magic which everything is man. Like everything is magical. For me, everything is magical.
Like if you don't, if you don't put your entire connection into everything and you just see everything without thought, without as it is. People walking, please moving, bird shopping, you know the clouds flowing. Man, it's so magical. How does it happen?
It's crazy. What is it? How does it even happen? Like we've been designed to give everything a label and thought because of education.
But man, this is to move everything. Like a baby. Let's go back to being a baby. You know when we had no knowledge about anything we were just experiencing life as it is.
It's a pure conscious experience. You see everything is absolutely fantastical. It's the biggest magic ever. I mean, how incredible could it be?
It's a mind blowing, mind not doing madness play drama set is going on. Just full of magic. I mean, if we look at this bro, like we wake up in the morning, we don't have to see all house my level, all house my lumps at the end of the place, how's my stomach, how's my cells doing nothing. We just go into the washroom, get dressed up, whatever and we just functioning.
Everything else inside has been taken care of by an intelligence. Yeah, I think about them a lot. You know, the blood cells and all the like team Michael, you know, it's massive. There's like billions and billions of them.
It's crazy. Thanks guys. Seriously, man. I mean, like, yeah, and they're all doing their own thing and we don't even have to look at interact with one cell and say, hey, how you doing?
Are you okay? We're just like taking food as form of energy and they're doing the rest. They're they're conditioning it down into like whatever, like energy forms they need and they're processing it. I mean, everything is so designed in the most mind.
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know.
I'm out of words, man. Like every time I try to describe what reality is or what the nature of the RTS is. You just go out of words because the human made concept of language cannot describe this. You don't describe this phenomenon.
You know, like all this phenomenon which is happening is indescribable. It's beyond our capacity to comprehend, understand and evaluate even. Yeah, I remember I wrote a quote down from Adi Daa. You know, because Adi Daa is amazing with names.
I have to say that. You know, Adi Daa is like, he's a guru figure, but he's also a painter. He was like, you know, a big abstract painter in the Venice Biennial. And, you know, his work is fascinating because he's really trying to get at it from this place of there being no perspective.
Wow. He's taking him out. Oh my God, really? Like, you know, Bob of Free John was one of his aliases.
But yeah, this guy, Adi Daa, very much a part of this sort of contemporary non-dual tradition. And he said about one of these abstract paintings. He said, you know, words can refer to it. They cannot describe this, but they can refer to it.
And so I think that that's a great way to talk about, you know, bring it back around to your art and like why you do what you do. And, you know, like, even like things which we can describe, Adi truly, what we are describing them. For example, this desk on which the computer is there. You know, I would say because of my, because of the knowledge I've gained, I would say, oh, this is a rectangular desk with three or four planks of wood and give it the shape and this color.
But is it truly what it is? Is it truly that? Or is it something which we are deriving or we are trying to process as information? Are things truly the way they truly are like the way we describe them?
Even if you look at that from a surface level, it does not make sense, like for things how they truly are. And you know, something which I didn't want you to refer back to our previous conversation as well. I mean, something which really blows our mind. Man, we keep changing as well, not just like on a biological level, but on a surface level, like as a person, Michael, two years back was absolutely different person than who he is right now.
And actually, who was even the six months back was completely different from who I am right now. I am probably a collection of obviously my stories and memories, but also the knowledge which I've been gaining through, through itself, you know, through its own discovery. And aren't we constantly changing? So if we are changing, that means we are not, we are not who we are.
Like it's not a permanent identity. It's not something which is stable. If you're changing, you're unstable. But something which is always there, which is always stable is pure conscious spirit, which is always there, which is always conscious.
The conscious spirit is always there in each of us, conscious of every activity happening. And that is what is the most incredible thing about God, not the figurative God, but the spirit. That it has manifested into everything and it is looking to everything, to everything, through itself and experiencing itself through everything. And it's just conscious and it's untouched.
Even if the body dies, the mind dies, the consciousness does not die. It's always there. It will manifest into another form and then it will create another identity. You know, but I mean, it's incredible how it's implanted into every form.
Because as a human we see that the structure of God's spirit has to be a certain way, that there has to be a creator and there has to be a creation. But why it's not so naive that it will create itself, it's a form of intelligent that it's created itself inside itself and it's created itself to itself. Definitely agree with you on this point. Dude, we're right at an hour.
Before we wrap this up, I want to give you an opportunity to indulge me in a ridiculous intellectual exercise. Because here we are quite clearly inhabiting the boundary or horizon, I guess it better to be to say the horizon of this rolling now, right? That's constantly devouring and giving birth to itself. That's so beautiful.
They're rolling now. Yeah, exactly. It's always rolling, right? So on one end of this rolling moment is a, you know, a horizon we'll call the future and on the other end of the rolling moment, you know, like East and West is the past.
So we know that by discussing sending messages to the future of past, we're talking spatially rather than temporally and that the temporal part of this is just a communication convenience. But all that said, what do you want to say to the people that you imagine will hear this one day after you have died, the people that were born after you died? What could you possibly commit to those people, you know, transmit to them right now? Man, like I feel that by the time someone is listening to this say 120, 120 years from now, I'm sure as a species we would definitely be very much more evolved.
Either we would not be there, one, or we would be a very evolved species. And by evolved, I would say not just technologically, but consciously as well. And right now how I feel that how everything is a matter only model, science would have come to us based on the consciousness only model, like that everything stems out of consciousness. And then it was was not made because of matter and that matter made consciousness, but that consciousness made matter.
And that everything, every matter, every universe, every galaxy, whatever, every experience is basically experienced in a conscious experience. So I'm sure that people who are listening to in the future would definitely be, you know, the fundamental science would be based around that everything is consciousness. So for them, this conversation would be like, oh wow, you know, like, our primitives used to think like this and they would discover themselves. This is so fascinating, why it's too class?
This is crazy. I mean, how are they even thinking that everything is matter? This is insane. This is amazing.
We need to think how primitive are, we need to look into this. We need to look into how our primitive minds work. But I mean, I'm sure they would be conscious at that point as well, new problems with new societies and new civilizations, when you feature organizations would definitely bring on new problems as well. But I just want to say that the core would be because there would be like so many people.
I would just want to say that people should just keep discovering who they truly are, keep contemplating, keep self-inquiring and be in awe of this majestic reality existence to be blessed with and to be part of, you know, and to just to just express themselves in every, in whatever way they want to, you know, whether it is through a conversation, whether it is through this through a beautiful podcast or through, you know, through painting or through working out or any way they would like to. But I think contemplating existence is the most incredible, the biggest discovery we can do, you know. I mean, that is what excites you, Michael, right? I mean, I can feel it every time you know, I listen to you or I speak to you.
And I mean, that is what excites me. Because you just can't ignore the fact that existence is the most bizarre, the most mysterious, but the same than the most incredible, magical experience everyone is having. And I feel like doing something you enjoy doing and through which you're passionate about really brings that to the surface that makes you go deeper. I mean, art for me is just not a tool.
I'm sure for you as well. It's just not a tool to show, share with the world. Of course, that's an integral part of it. But I think through art, we come in, we have so in tune with the present moment that we, we're not really thinking about the past and the future.
We are really present and that makes us go deeper. What is this, what are these states of minds where we can really tune in and ask ourselves who we truly are? And it always comes back to the fundamental question of who we truly are. And you would never get to go there.
And that comes out like different aspects of reality, of virtual reality, of science, of biology, of macro and micro relationships, of everything. And yeah, that's where it all stands out from. And I feel that, no, I mean, I'm sure in the future there will be so many more distractions, but the way this factor is expanding. But I think it's so important to come back to your source and to be centered and to be just still for a moment, you know, and to just reflect back upon from where is everything coming out from.
Because distractions will not lead you anywhere. They're just this loop which keeps infinitely going on. But it's so important to look at everything. I mean, accept everything for what it is, but look at everything from the source that the spirit is manifesting into everything.
And I feel that that is what I want to share. I mean, I mean, you know, I noticed a lot of people being, you know, you know, like being hammered by their psychological self, which is only a product of their own journey and nothing else. And I think it is very important to really look into it and really inquire what it truly is. What is its true nature is the psychological self truly there.
What is the just a pigment of stories and imagination and language and who we truly are is is this spirit manifested into this. If pain comes accepted, if joy comes accepted, nothing is permanent, but this consciousness which is experiencing all these activities is always permanent. It's never going. It's always that it's never fluctuating.
So, yeah, I mean, it's amazing. I mean, it's been such an incredible conversation. I woke up. I was so excited to have a conversation with you because I knew it's going to go deep and I'm fired up for the day.
I mean, it's early morning here at 9 o'clock and I'm super fired up for the day. I'm so glad. Yeah, I over here. It's almost 10 p.m.