Please note, this is an automated transcript so it is not 100% accurate.

Lawrence:
Doctors are saying, we think you have lymphosarcoma and you’re going to be dead in two months. I had just met this master the year before and I said, I don’t know who you are or what you are, but all I can do is surrender. And if I make it through this, my life is yours. Having this extraordinary experience of healing at this major university hospital in New York City, that was mind boggling. I gave my word and I left everything. I left my fiancé, I left my work, I left my career development. I said, you know what? This is real. That awakening is the return to me. We let go into freedom.

Lawrence:
We let go into expansiveness. Because it’s already there. The mind’s not going to create it. It has to let go of its limitations to experience the infinitude of what’s already fully present here and now.

Guy:
The episode you’re about to watch has been republished. My podcast channel reaches a lot more people now and there’s certain episodes that have slipped under the radar and I wanted to bring them up for your attention because I truly feel they are worth listening to. So please be sure let me know what you think of this episode in the comments below and of course let’s continue to connect. Let me know where you are in the world and where you’re listening and tuning in from. I love reading it. It’s amazing, isn’t it, that we can do this? And the other thing I want to say as well is find out where we are if you want to put your spiritual boots on and come and join us at one of our five-day retreats or one-day events around the world. Links are below as well if you want to find out more what we’re up to. Much love from me. Enjoy.

Guy:
Lawrence, welcome to the podcast.

Lawrence:
My pleasure to be with you, Guy.

Guy:
I mean, we’ve just been talking off air for 10 minutes, and I thought, wow, we’ve got to get this in the podcast. There’s too much good information already coming out from our conversation. And look, I think a great place to start, Lawrence, is, and I ask everyone this, but if you were at an intimate dinner party right now, and you sat next to a stranger, and they asked you, what do you do for a living? Or what’s your passion? What would you say?

Lawrence:
Well, my passion is transformation. And, you know, that has guided my life, both in terms of how I got into clinical work and PhD and studies in Jungian psychology, but on a deeper level, personal experiences that I had of, you know, really transcendent transpersonal phenomenon beginning as a child. And so that guided me also into Eastern traditions, studying with great masters in the Tibetan Buddhist tradition and the yoga tradition, spending time years in India, training as a monk in India. And that has all informed the work that I do, everything from creating a nonprofit meditation foundation to the clinical work, to the teachings and retreats that I offer.

Guy:
Incredible. What was the drive behind that? To go and live in India and become a monk and go through all these different teachings? Because there’s certainly a lifestyle adjustment to the regular Western.

Lawrence:
Oh, yes. Yes, it is. So it’s good. We’re going to dive right into the deep end here. Because what drew me was these transcendent experiences. I mean, what we think of as experiences of the divine. known by so many different names, whether it’s God, goddess, universal consciousness. But I had begun, I had actually had some experiences as a child like that, that many of the people around me had no understanding about, but they stayed with me. And then later, you know, as I, as I began university, I really got into the practices of yoga and meditation. And they really opened the doors to that, oh, we have direct access to the infinite. I mean, the whole purpose of yoga means union, and it means union with the infinite as the divine, as the truth of who we are. And I was having very powerful experiences of that. And so, so much so, I mean, I write about it in my book, The Soul’s Journey, Guidance from the Divine Within, but there was a critical point when I was, thought to be dying. I was in a hospital in New York City. They thought I was dying of lymphosarcoma. I was 24 years old. And I had one of these, again, transcendent experiences of this great master that I had studied with, Muktananda Swami, coming, and this divine figure from when I was a little kid that I used to call the Lady of Light. And then being with me in my bedside, and having this extraordinary experience of healing at, you know, this major university hospital in New York City, that was mind boggling. And in that moment, because it was such a profound experience of having to surrender, I mean, things were just, you know, when doctors are saying, we think you have lymphosarcoma and you’re going to be dead in two months. And that was a follow-up to an experience that I had when I was 12 in kind of a meditative state, where I was told, you’re not going to live until you get to 25. And here I am, 24, and two months was going to put it right before my 22th birthday.

Guy:
So did you have lymphosarcoma at the time?

Lawrence:
Well, they thought I had it. So they had done X-rays. I had these huge hyaluronid lymph nodes in my chest. And then they did a biopsy and everything. But in that, before they got to the final diagnosis, I had this experience with this presence in the form of both the teacher and this feminine face of the divine there. And it was like, Don’t worry, it’s all gonna be fine. It’s all good. And I had offered a prayer, honestly. Listen, I don’t know what’s going on. I had just met this master the year before, and I said, you know, I don’t know who you are or what you are, and including this lady of light, but all I can do is surrender. And if I make it through, my life is yours. And I went into this extraordinary state, was just bathed in light. And hours came out later. We’re still in the hospital. They did more tests. They did biopsies. They had to open up my chest to a surgery here to do a biopsy on the lymph nodes. And they said, oh, you have this other disease, sarcoidosis. It probably won’t kill you right away. It’ll kill you later. And I crashed doctors, and I went No, this is done. And within months, it all disappeared. Everything was gone. The hyalolymph nodes, the sarcoid, everything gone. And so that was, now I was in training to become a Jungian analyst. I was engaged, but I gave my word. I am a man of my word. And I left. I left everything. I left my fiance, I left my work, I left my career development. I said, you know what, this is real. And I went to India and it was the first time I’d seen that teacher other than a brief meeting that I’d had a year before. And I told him what was happening. He says, oh, you don’t have to leave. He says, the divine is with you wherever you are. It encompasses your entire life. Now you need to do the practices to really know that. Um, and so that was the whole shift, uh, that wound up then taking me deeper and deeper into those practices. Um, and, and actually then later on, I did spend some time there training to be a sinister, my poor, my poor fiance. Um, she later married me, uh, not long after. And then I left again to become a monk because I had this strong call. that I just have to serve the divine. I don’t know what that means, but if this is the way to be 100% focused, dedicated on doing that, I’ll do that. And again, my teacher was very wise and said, you know, he wasn’t into collecting disciples or swamis or anything. He says, no, you know, you have the inner sannyas. That’s what you need. So live your life and live this into the world. Teach this into the world. And that’s what I’ve been doing ever since the last 40 plus, 50 years. So, that’s in a nutshell.

Guy:
Laura, I feel like we could talk for hours. That’s incredible. I did not expect you to say that. So, between when you were born and 24, before you ended up in hospital and that profound experience, you mentioned you had many other experiences along the way. And obviously, you remembered them and kept them with you, because I remember having experiences as a small child. But I suppressed them. I never really did anything with it. And did at any stage before that happened, you think you’re just going mad, or like something’s happening? Or did it just feel very normal?

Lawrence:
Oh, it was so completely… Well, I knew… I thought it was normal, because I thought everybody had that. Um, so I didn’t think I was unusual, but then as I talked to people, they would go, what? I mean, including, um, this lady of light. So, so here I am three or four years old, laying in my, still in my crib in my room with my brother and sister and in New York and the raging thunderstorm going on outside. I wake up, I love thunderstorms as a little kid. And this little lightning flashing and the thunder booming and the rain going down the gutter, and I’m laying in bed, and I open my eyes, and there’s this woman, this beautiful, benevolent woman, standing next to my crib, looking over me. And, you know, you’re three, who’s gonna be standing there in the middle of the night other than your mother? And I go, Ma? And she just stands there, and just looking, just so sweet, so loving. And I say, Ma? And she’s just looking nice, loving, And then I noticed when the lightning flashes, she disappears. When it’s dark, I could see it. She’s made of pure light. So in the brightness of a flash of lightning, she doesn’t stand out. She stands out in the dark because she’s made of light. And now I go, hmm, my little brain, that’s not like Ma. So I go, Ma? And she just stands there. And then I let out a scream. And my mother comes, I hear her door open from across the hall, open the door into our room. As soon as she walks in, the Lady of Light disappears. And I start telling my mom, there’s a Lady of Light. She’s going, yeah, yeah, yeah. No kid, just your imagination. I said, no, no, no. This was a Lady of Light. And for years, I talked about the Lady of Light. My brothers remember, my sisters remember. I said, no, this is a Lady of Light. And I didn’t know then she was going to come back. I saw her again when I was about 18 or 19. But experiences like that and then just the feeling of presence, I often felt just like protected, like there was kind of a hand of grace on my shoulder. And another unusual experience happened when I was in kindergarten in Sunday school. you know, little kid going to Sunday school, you know, parents drop you off, you go down, you go into the basement where it’s, you know, they painted all the cement block walls and it’s a little Sunday school and a little church. And, and I’m getting there and you know, I’m like five and they see every boy and girl, you know, they separate just because the boys are always going to play with each other. Um, and I’m sitting there and the teacher’s talking about Christ and I actually had a, I had a real profound feeling for Christ. I just, I felt like a real, love as a little kid. I didn’t know why. I never thought about why. But I’m sitting there and the teachers, you know, just like nice middle-aged lady talking about Jesus. And I look over and I see Jesus standing there. Like where the wall is. And it seemed all right to me. I mean, I just started elementary school and the principal used to come and stand in the hall, you know, stand in the doorway and look in. I thought, oh, wait, he’s like in charge of this. He must be like, he must come and visit and just like look and make sure everything’s cool. And so I see Jesus standing there, but the lady, the teacher is talking about Jesus in the past tense. And that just didn’t make sense to me. And so a little kid, I go, Why are you talking to him about him like that? He’s standing right there. And the teacher again, oh Lawrence, yeah, you have a good imagination. And I was like, and I looked over and Jesus started to fade away. And all that was left was the cement block wall. And I felt like I had been robbed in some way. As a little kid, I couldn’t have put words to it, but I was like, But later on in life, when I thought about it, I thought that was my problem with the church. God was dead in God. Jesus was dead in God. And that’s not the truth. The truth is the living presence is here and now. Christ’s consciousness is here and now. And we can call it by any number of different names. As I pursued the studies in Eastern and Western traditions, and so the many names that we can call the one, but it’s still, It’s always the one wearing all these different faces to try and reach to us, to try and make itself known. So that was part of what informed my process of discovery and especially getting into Jungian psychology and studying that. training in the work of the great mythologist Joseph Campbell, so that we could see, you know, what he wrote about in a series called The Masks of the Gods, the different faces, the Hero of the Thousand Faces that he wrote about, so that we can see that these are archetypal forms that inform our life. And they’re within each and every one of us. So when I really got into the Eastern tradition around Kundalini, which just makes it very explicit, Kundalini is the power of the infinite to know itself as the infinite. That’s what it is. And it’s inherent to every one of us. We’re so used to the restricted kind of consciousness that lets us know our individuality, our I’m a man, I’m a woman, I have this role, I have that, I’m a father, I’m a son, I’m a husband, I’m a wife, whatever those things are. That’s ordinary consciousness and allows us to know that. But the boundless consciousness, that lets us know the infinite, the divine as ourself and everyone and everything. That’s what I want

Guy:
Wow. Listening to you speak and share that journey, and especially as you described that at the end, the old me would have had to hear that a hundred times and think, what is Lawrence? And I’d confuse myself. And then until I had my own boundless experience and then bring that wisdom back in, you go, ah. Wow, I like I’m sitting here just nodding my head going wow, you know, yes. And that’s the difference. I guess the burning question that was just coming to me all the time when listening is, why is it that as a child and growing up, you were able to just witness and connect with the divine consciousness like that, where others, we’re not even aware that it’s even possible. We’re so caught up on paying the bills and the stress of daily life.

Lawrence:
Right, right. Well, I think two things. One is we begin to have experiences that let us know why. But the Eastern traditions, unlike the Western, and especially, you know, scientific materialism, that sort of really pervades as the dominant paradigm for understanding our existence. But the Eastern traditions of yoga, meditation, Hinduism, Buddhism, they’re based on the experience and for them, the reality that once we begin to experience ourself, that we have multiple lifetimes. We are evolving across lifetimes. And so all that it means is, you know, even when somebody has a spontaneous awakening, because I get consulted by people all over the world, I had a spontaneous awakening. Well, spontaneous is what the ordinary mind calls it because it didn’t know the lifetimes of practices you did to cultivate the field for that to blossom in this lifetime. So what we see when people are coming in with different orders of already sort of knowing or experiencing or opening to that. These are the fruits of past lifetimes. In the yoga tradition, they’re called yogi brushtas. So yoga realized that you’re not necessarily going to get finished in one life, but the good karmas, the good impacts, the good consequences of your practices are going to continue to support your evolution across lifetimes. So the next lifetime, you’re going to pick up from there. You’re not conscious of it necessarily. And in most instances, not. But at some point it starts to progress and you start to be able to get sort of those conscious experiences, even of past lives, if they inform your practice in the moment.

Guy:
Got it. Okay. I got to ask a big question then. What is the soul and the soul’s purpose?

Lawrence:
Well, the soul, if we think of it as a spark of the infinite, a ray of the infinite, it’s an emanation of the infinite. And the infinite, in order to know what it is to be finite, has to take a different form. The infinite knows infinitude, all-encompassing, unity consciousness, eternally, continuously. That’s the ground of our being. That was what we would call Buddha mind. That’s what we would call Christ consciousness. That’s what we call unity consciousness. Um, but to know what it is to be finite. So the infinite isn’t bound, which means it can know what it is to be finite. How does it do that? It needs a vehicle for taking on limitations. That vehicle is the limiting form of consciousness. So it creates the vehicle necessary to know and explore all the richness of what it is to be finding. You are the eyes, the ears, the nose, the body, the sense of the infinite knowing what it is to be Guy. The divine one to know, oh, what it is to be Guy, to have your life, your children, your relationships, took your form to do that. It takes each person’s form, each being’s form, to be able to experience that. So all sentient beings are the sensory apparatus of the infinite operating in a finite universe.

Guy:
Wow. Yeah.

Guy:
So then, by becoming from the infinite to the finite into that point, like you say, and this experience is. I always kind of look at myself now like a nerve-ending two-consciousness, that I’m just having an experience and there’s a massive data bank of information. Are we having these experiences, whether they’re painful or joyful, or there’s a whole spectrum of emotions that we can experience, for the divine to be able to expand upon itself to continue growth and learning? Is that why we go through these challenges?

Lawrence:
The growth and learning is the evolution of that finite piece of consciousness. The infinite includes everything. Everything. Already. If there’s no growth possible, the infinite can’t become more infinite. Infinite is already boundless. Deposit that it was going to grow would mean it was finite. It’s the finite consciousness it created for exploring you that is transformed over time and evolves, explores all the different parameters of what it is to be finite, all the different beings that it can inhabit, all the different forms of pain, suffering, everything that exists in a finite world. until it gets to that point where it’s time where it goes, you know, I’ve exhausted this. I’ve exhausted this domain. I had somewhere in me remembers there was something much bigger. That’s the point of awakening. So in the yoga tradition, they sort of take the whole evolution of consciousness across lifetimes you can put it in sort of two phases. One is called sovereignty and one is called nivritti. Sovereignty means with form. So that’s the whole exploratory, I’m growing, I’m learning, I’m exploring, I’m taking on experience. Oh, I had horrible, I’ve been the victim, I’ve been the perpetrator, I’ve been the, you know, everything there is to be, I’ve been, that’s sovereignty. Nivritti is going, Okay, I’ve got all that, but there’s intuition, there’s a knowing, there’s an innate knowing, because consciousness is always a part of the infinite consciousness. There’s never any separation. There can’t be. And that part starts to, we start to tune into it and go, oh, that’s what I want. I’m done with all this exploration. What was that? I got a vague sort of feeling for it or longing for it. I may not even be able to put it in words, says the young soul. But I know there’s something more, more meaning, more purpose, something. That’s that point that shifts from sovereignty to niverity. And it’s marked by the awakening of kundalini. So in the yogic system, that awakening is the return, begins the return journey. Niverity means shedding forms, letting go, letting go. Because all through the taking on forms, we’re identifying. I’m a this, I’m a that, I’m a not this, I’m a not that, I am also this, I want to be that, I’d like to be this, I think I’ll explore being that. It’s all taking on form. Niverity is letting go, letting go, letting go. We let go into freedom. We let go into expansiveness, because it’s already there. The mind’s not going to create it. It has to let go of its limitations to experience the infinitude of what’s already fully present here and now.

Guy:
Wow. And it’s the letting go that can terrify us half the time.

Lawrence:
Oh yeah, because our identity is really tied up in limitations. We may chafe against them, we may feel the pain of it, we may wish we could get free of it, but when we start to get free, the poor you don’t want to go, oh wait a minute, I’m not sure I wanted that.

Guy:
Yeah, we’ve mentioned Kundalini a few times through the conversation. How would you describe that? to somebody, because I remember hearing that word many years ago. My wife, my girlfriend at the time, wanted to take me to a Kundalini class, and I was like, what are they going to do to me there, kind of thing.

Lawrence:
Right, right. Well, so Kundalini is a Sanskrit term for this energy of consciousness, potential that is present in every human being, all beings, really. It’s really seen as the foundation of our existence. And you could substitute Holy Spirit. You could substitute Shekinah. You could say chi. It’s the conscious energy that resides and gives us literally life, all life. So in the yogic texts and traditions that have really explored it and given more definition to it, more description, like they’ve explored a foreign country and come up with a map and a description of the territory. Then you can see that, well, kundalini in a sense, it’s residing in everyone and it has sort of two aspects. One is already awake. It’s kundalini that just allowed you to touch your eye or shake your head. It’s the basic functioning of the entire mind-body system is the creation of kundalini. What’s referred to more classically as kundalini is the potential, what’s often metaphorically spoken of as the aspect of kundalini that is asleep and is going to awaken. And it’s a metaphor based on our experience. You know, when we’re asleep, we could be in a dream. We could just be in a sleep. We wake up in the morning and open our eyes. Well, we become aware of a reality that’s already there. You can create that reality. It’s already there. You just woke up to it. Kundalini is the power of the infinite, innate within each one of us, innate within you, to let you experience the reality of your infinite divine nature as everything, everybody, everything about yourself. That power of consciousness, also known as the power of grace, also known as the grace-bestowing power of the infinite, the grace that reveals and transforms. So it’s also known as the power of transformation, and revelation. And all of yoga, all of yoga was based on it. All the classical forms of yoga. Hatha yoga, mantra yoga, laya yoga, raja yoga, the four classic forms of yoga, all have as their basis kundalini and all had as their esoteric goal, the awakening of that. What’s often called kundalini yoga as a brand name is different. I mean, that was more based on of yoga practices for moving prana, the energy related to breath and making use of asanas and different breathing techniques and things. But the ancient classic kundalini is about the awakening of this profound consciousness and the spontaneous yoga that evolves over it. Because it was recognized, the ancient yogis saw that, oh, once something wakes up in a person, they start doing spontaneous asanas. They start doing spontaneous breath pranayama things. Mantras can just be emerging in their consciousness. So all the forms of yoga start to emerge spontaneously because the root power of yoga is kundalini.

Guy:
Wow. I think I’ve said wow about 10 times on this podcast. I just caught myself again. Should we, Should we fear it? And I ask this question because looking back on my journey, there was a part of me just constantly getting pulled to, I don’t know why I’ve got to do this or go in this direction. I can’t make sense of it. And at one point, it felt so relieving. But on another part, it felt so terrifying. And I was in this constant battle.

Lawrence:
Right, right, right, right.

Guy:
And then I had that experience of my own Kundalini awakening. And again, there was everything all at once. But I had a foundation that I’d been working on to be able to navigate that without, you know.

Lawrence:
Right. So really, it’s not Kundalini to be feared. Kundalini is the grace-bestowing power of the infinite. Its only intent is to allow us to experience the infinite love, the boundless rapture, the extraordinary compassion. It’s what Buddhists refer to as the four immeasurables. Boundless wisdom, boundless loving compassion, boundless joy, this boundless unshakable equanimity. That’s our true nature. So Kundalini only wants to bestow that upon us and clean up this instrument so we can know it and walk it into the world. The mind is the instrument that gets afraid because it’s a shift from our ordinary identity into adding the infinite to it. Now for the little mind, it fears annihilation. It fears getting lost. It’s, so it’s driven by fear and the two sort of emotional states that most distort or most sort of obstruct in a way, the unfolding, the graceful unfolding of Kundalini Shakti, Shakti is the power of consciousness, are fear and anger. So people’s samskaras, people’s old patterns of fear and anger, will both get triggered to get cleared out, but they’ll also get in the way. And people start having, it’s almost like a feedback loop, like if your mic was too close to a speaker and all of a sudden it starts screaming. Well, that’s the mind screaming in its own negative feedback loop, getting freaked out by what’s going on. And it’s partly why the awakening of Kundalini and that process was always held as an esoteric one. because it was meant to be in the context with a teacher who really genuinely understood it and was selfless. They had no hidden agenda themselves. They didn’t want anything. They’ve been through that process. They’re there to selflessly serve. And so there’s not going to be any exploitation. There’s not going to be any weirdness that we see too much of in this age. So the context that helped a person navigate this was a deeply and profoundly trusting and loving relationship with a teacher who was saying, you know, this is going to be the unfolding of your divine self. You come to know that in its fullness. Now here, let me guide, let me point out some, you know, here are some tar pits. We don’t want to get stuck there. Here’s a cliff. Don’t go off of that. So we needed that kind of guidance, just a very caring, skillful guide. to walk with us, as we would if we walked into the wilderness somewhere. Well, you wouldn’t walk in if you had any discrimination, unless you had a guide. Now, here’s the interesting thing about that, what I mentioned before about the yoga tradition, talking about yogi brahstras, people who had started the yoga process, you know, lifetimes ago, and the practices have continued to benefit them. That means in some life, they’re gonna wake up Kundalini is going to start to happen and it’s going to happen more frequently because the numbers of people doing yoga over lifetimes has increased So we’re seeing more spontaneous awakenings meaning again people Reaping the fruits of their past the sadhana the spiritual practices they’ve done in past life But they might be in a life now where they look around and there’s not a context for understanding that Or there’s a context that makes it look pathological, or it’s a context that they’re going to get judged for. And so people need, you know, good information, support, guidance around that.

Guy:
Does it only happen when you’re ready or the soul’s ready? Because I see people chasing it as well, and I want to have this, you know, and it might be in the intellect of mind. They’ve read every book, they’ve listened to every podcast, but it’s all, you know, just information at that point for the mind.

Lawrence:
Right, right. Yeah, well, the longing to know is grace itself. The longing. to know who we are beyond this, that attracts us to looking, is already the flowering of grace, that power of saying, it’s time, now you’re gonna start looking. But now we have to develop, key to spiritual practice, sadhana, what it’s called in Eastern traditions, is what’s called viveka. Viveka means discrimination. It’s the ability to discriminate between the real and the unreal, between the pleasant and the good, between what’s going to lead us towards the truth and what are we just chasing after the mind. So discrimination is something that we have to and do develop through trial and error and through working with teachers and studying and practice. So to begin with, a person’s seeking may look really indiscriminate. Let me try everything. Let me try shamanic rituals. Let me try shamanic drugs. Let me try this. Let me try that. Let me do anything. How do I get out of this box? I know I’m in a box, but I don’t know how to get out. So I understand people’s longing to get out of the box. But there is going to be ways that genuinely get us free, and there’s other ways that are going to damage us. So we have to have that discernment and that discrimination and understand. But yes, the real awakening only happens when it’s ready. You can’t, kundalini is literally the power of the infinite to create everything. The ego mind can’t order kundalini around. Some of these old sort of patriarchal overlays that came later, if you study sort of the evolution of some of the systems that came from the goddess traditions, and kundalini is one, Then as the patriarchal traditions sort of put their spin on it, they became much more controlling and much more authoritarian. And that’s where you see that shift in some of the ancient literature as those patriarchal traditions get it. And they’re going to try and force the awakening of Kundalini in this literally ancient yoga text. You have to beat on the door and wake her up. And then you have to be careful because all horrible things can happen. Well, yeah, if you try and beat somebody up, what do you expect? You don’t get the perfect experience. My teacher was like, approach her with love, with reverence, with awe. She’s the goddess of the universe. She’s the grace bestowing power of the infinite. you’re going to try and come in and order her around and pound this thing into with, you know, umpteen pranayamas and this and force and that. It’s just, it’s, it’s just an extension of the, the ego minds attempts of how it tries to dominate and control things. It’s not going to work. It’s not going to be pretty.

Guy:
What do you, I guess the question I could ask you is, what did you do with that once you have those experiences? And looking at my life, once I had an experience like that, I remember checking my emails a couple of days later and thinking, oh my god, the world is still moving. I still had all my problems. The world outside me didn’t change, but the world inside me changed dramatically. And then it’s like, navigating that terrain back into your life to then, you know, I ended up selling my company, I’m recording this podcast. But before that, I would have been terrified of all the idea of any of this. But, you know, so I guess the question is, what do you do with that once you have it? How did it impact your life as well?

Lawrence:
Well, there’s, it’s a, it’s a great question. And there’s two components to it. One is the ego mind. is the organ of doing for our ordinary existence. So its first way of orienting towards anything is, what do I do with it? I have experience, what do I do? People come with experience. I think I should do this. You know, I should be a healer. I’m sure I’m gonna be a healer now. Oh, I think I should do this. I think I should run away. I think I should do this. I should go live in a cave. I should grow an ashram. I should do, do, do. The ordinary mind gets lost immediately by having to try and figure out what to do, when primarily the first thing is, who are you? How do you know your true nature as a being, not a doer? What’s the infinitude of being? This instrument is here to serve that, but we have to know that so that then our actions can be guided gracefully in the service of that, in the service of both, how is it gonna transform my life, my experience, my sense of who I am? Meaning how am I gonna bring these extraordinary experiences of boundless love, compassion, wisdom, serenity, peace into a world so afflicted? And so that in the Eastern traditions, We they help to give us an orienting map towards this because the mind on its own doesn’t have a map It has just old patterns of doing I have an experience. What do I do with it? That’s the human Uh, because it’s it’s both trying to do and it’s trying to figure out well on on on some levels How do I make use of it? Um, how do I even exploit it if people go? The quintessential ordinary ego mind is about domination and control, prediction and control. When it loses its ability to predict and control, it gets very freaked out. It’s one of the things that freaks the mind out originally when Kundalini first going up, because this is not predictable and it’s not under the ego mind’s control. And that’s one of the most fundamentally frightening things about it. until we know, oh, finally, my divine self is going to be in control. My job is to let go and be in harmony. So that in the Eastern traditions, the great purpose of a human life is to know and to serve, to know the infinite, the divine as your own self and all that is, and then to serve that with every breath. No matter where your life is, because there’s no a place that’s more divine than where you are right here, right now. So bring that consciousness in to whatever that might be. Yes, it can transform us. I started doing volunteering. I was doing programs in prisons, working with inmates serving life sentences for murder and seeing them get transformed when they have an awakening experience. Having one inmate that I was teaching just as a volunteer in a federal penitentiary, say, my gosh, my whole life, my whole life. This is a man who was 31 years old. He had already spent 17 years of his life in prison and was serving life sentence without parole for murder. His whole life was the worst kind of conditioned mind you can think of because he was conditioned to think he was a piece of crap. And he’d been told his whole life and he acted like it So he said to me after a program one night He said I used to go in on sunday nights He said, you know my whole life. I’ve been told what a I don’t want to use the swear words, but it was full of You know colorful language, uh, and he said and I live like that because I deserve to be in here He said but you You you brought in a message. You said you’re divine as you are And you came in with these practices of mantra, alive, awakened mantra, that began to give me, he says, my cell feels like a monk’s cell. And he started telling me these beautiful experiences of him in his cell being bathed in light and transformed, right? In a cell, steel and concrete cell of a federal penitentiary, and this man was having those kinds of experiences. And he said, you know, I don’t spend my whole life in here. I know that. And I know I deserve it. He says, but I’m freer now than I’ve ever been. He said, now, yeah, the guards are still going to tell me what a piece of crap I am and insult me and everything. But inside, now I know. I know the truth. And I can see the truth in them as well. That is a magnitude of transformation that everyone is capable of because of this innate power of the living presence that in the yoga tradition we call kundalini.

Guy:
Where do you feel or think the world is heading? Because I think exactly what you just said, wow, what if we could all just touch, have that experience for one moment? and then start to see it in, because if there’s one thing it did for me is have compassion for other people and where they’re at, without the judgment, without the, you know, I mean, I still get angry or I get caught in my head, but it’s fleeting compared to the old self and seeing that, and I think, wow.

Lawrence:
Yeah, yeah, and that’s part of what Kundalini invites us, this shift from being so identified with this vehicle that we’ve spent lifetimes identified with. And so I’d say, no, the real locus, the real center of your identity is the divine, the infinite. And now we’re going to clean up this instrument so it serves better and better, becomes more and more transparent to the truth of who you are, so you can live that into the world. then we can create change in this world. In Eastern traditions, this is known as a dark age, Kali Yuga, the fourth of four ages that cycles over and over. But it’s a dark age, meaning ignorance, the absence of Dharma. It’s called a Dharma. Dharma means righteous living, living in accord with the highest nature and respecting that and seeing that in everyone. Well, we don’t see that. We see fascists trying to take over and control things. We see people acting out hate and violence as if they’re entitled to do that. So it is a very dark age, which makes it much more incumbent upon us to do something. There’s a beautiful metaphor or symbol in Eastern traditions, and it’s around what’s called the cow of dharma. We think of the sacred cow in India. Dharma being righteous living so the sacred cow of Dharma in these four ages and the first age is called Sakya Yuga the age of truth the cow of Dharma stands at all full all four legs and gives the milk of you know wisdom to all but each successive age Things get worse and Symbolically, she loses a leg in the fourth yuga The poor cow of Dharma is on the ground and so deeply afflicted. The metaphor is she can no longer stand on her own. We have to stand for Dharma. That’s what we’re called to in this world. We are the legs. that move that dharma, that power of compassion, of love, of kindness, of wisdom, of truth into the world, nonviolently, the living presence walking it into the halls of government, walking it into corporate headquarters, taking it wherever we go, into prisons. So I’ve been invited to give programs in everything from corporations to hospitals to prisons to hospices, any place we can offer this whole other view of what’s the truth of who we are that can set us free. Everybody who’s inflicting suffering on others is in deeper suffering themselves and the suffering from not knowing the fullness of their own being and scrambling after thinking they have to have what somebody else already has.

Guy:
For anybody listening to this, they’re just nodding their head going you know there’s that knowing and and getting drawn to the conversation and everything that’s been spoken about where would one start what would be a simple practice or something to go you know try this today yeah and yeah well uh i mean i had so

Lawrence:
I make free practices readily available. So the soulsjourney.com has it, the nonprofit, the anamkarameditation.org. We have a YouTube channel with all free videos, with all kinds of practices freely given, the mantra freely given. But mantra is key in the kundalini tradition. Sacred sound is key in all traditions. And mantra is one expression of that. Because mantra is seen as literally a throb of the infinite in sound form. It’s known as the sound form of the divine. Mantra, the word mantra means that which protects. What does it protect us from? The ignorance of not knowing the truth of who we are. So when we take refuge, when we become absorbed in mantra, we’re becoming absorbed in the throb of the truth of who we are, the infinitude of our being. And it’s a very simple mantra that goes on all day long, all night long with the breath already. We’re tuning into it by learning to repeat it with the breath. And it’s two syllables. Ah hum. Ah hum. The breath comes in. It’s silently in the mind as the breath is going ah as it comes in. And hum as it goes out. Ah hum. That mantra means simply, I am. I am. It’s the awareness of pure being. Everything that contracts us, that gives us pain, gives us the illusion of pleasure, as ephemeral as it might be, comes after. I am this, that, this other thing. I am a man, I am a woman, I am the role I play. All the stuff that comes after that is an overlay on the pure presence of being. I am. So, you know, the Old Testament, when God spoke to Moses saying, when Moses asked, who are you? I am that I am. That I am consciousness is the divine, is the infinite, is the root of our being. We can come home to that and add that because yoga was additive. There’s times when we’re just going into those states because we need to separate out. Our consciousness has gotten fused with the mind and body. You have a mind. You’re not your mind. You have a body. You’re not limited by your body. Consciousness free of those containers can re-expand to know its infinitude. Coming home to that awareness. I am. Oh, that’s unshakable. That’s what Buddha talked about. as this boundless, unshakable equanimity. I am. It resounds with wisdom. It resounds with compassion. It resounds with fullness. You’re not lacking anything. I am is the fullness of being. You’re not going to be driven by this or that, seeking this or that. No, you’re in the fullness. Now you have a fullness to give to the universe. That’s what we come home to.

Guy:
Wow, incredible, incredible. Thank you for sharing. Are you able to say your website out loud one more time? I’ll make sure it’s in the show notes as well, Lawrence.

Lawrence:
Sure, so thesoulsjourney.com. So The Soul’s Journey, it’s also the name of my first book was The Soul’s Journey, Guidance from the Divine Within. So it was all about Kundalini, but also looking at it from an archetypal view and kind of a Jungian view, but The Soul’s Journey, no apostrophe, thesoulsjourney.com. And that also has links to the Anamkara, all the free resources, you know, that I’m always putting out there, all available through that.

Guy:
Yeah, I’m on your emailing list and I see you’re a busy man with things coming through all the time, which is fantastic. Last question for you, Lawrence, before we tie things up is that with everything we’ve covered today, is there anything you would like to leave the listeners to ponder on?

Lawrence:
Yes. No, there’s never a time. There’s never a place. when you’re not in the divine’s embrace. You live being held by the divine, or you would have no life at all. The breath wouldn’t even come in. That’s the root of your existence. Come home to that. Let go of the mind and what you’re identified. because it is divine.

Guy:
Thank you. Lawrence, I can’t thank you. You’re the reason why I podcast. Like having conversations like today, it’s just been an absolute honor, mate. And wow, incredible. It’s deeply appreciated. And I have no doubt everyone listening today would have got a huge amount out of that. And we’ll definitely be checking out your work for sure.

Lawrence:
Well, thank you. Just here to serve.

Guy:
Amazing. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Lawrence:
Thank you. Thank you for having me, Guy. Great to meet you.