[Music] Hey pilg and tears, those of us who like our spirituality with a twist. So we are doing our next little series. We like to do little series and we're doing this series on cults. In my notes, I have it with an exclamation point every time I typed it up. Cults. And um so we're going to be talking with people who have maybe broken away from their cult experiences. Yeah. Yeah. Got a couple people coming in and um we're also going to take some looks at things like the psychology of cults. But first, we want to do an intro episode just kind of talking about the wise of this. Yeah. Um I had kind of interesting conversation with someone where I, you know, I do ask other people about what we're doing, get some feedback. People have thoughts. you know, I I kind of uh you know, shoot out ideas and see what people have to say about it. And I was talking to just went like, "Well, why are you doing that?" Yeah. Because why? And I, you know, in all honesty, it had a lot to do with like our kind of way of trying to respond to what's sort of happening in the United States now. Yeah. And the fact that like been happening, Eric. Been been happening. been happening. I think the idea of we're like in like an educational podcast on some level. We [...] around, you know, we try to make it uh entertaining and lively, but you know, we're educating. And I thought, well, you know, as you and I were talking, Daniel, it got to be like, well, what can we add to the conversations that are out there, right? And seem to be our tech. Yeah. Yeah. And then for me uh and I'll I'll share and like uh our our own reasons on the very personal level too, but a little bit had to do with um conversations I had with some people where I was kind of shocked by the cultiness of it where I was like genuinely surprised. So I'll try to share that a little bit and maybe it will be something helpful to other people to go, "Oh yeah, I've been talking with people and they sound kind of culty, too." Yeah. in new and uh new and interesting and disturbing ways. Yes. But first, before we get totally into it, I I'll do the pitch at the beginning. And you get to do the one at the end, which is if you can do all the things that people always ask you to do, the likes and the subscribes and and you know, maybe write a review if you think it's good. You know, if you don't think it's good, maybe just help us out anyways. You know, you can help your friendly neighborhood spirituality podcast, Jin and Tantandra. uh rise up under the hegemonic thumb of the algorithm. That's right. To climb our way out. Yeah. Spider-Man pinned under a rock trying to pull himself out. I think it's a famous Spider-Man scene. He pulls himself out from under a rock. But any case, you know, if you can help us out, maybe do the things and we'll keep trying to do our things. Yeah. Out good material for people and especially at this time now, you know, I think we all have to share our voices. Yeah. I mean, it's a wild time. You know, the the the part of it is that like I mean I listen and I'm and I'm our audience is if you're consuming this podcast um then you're probably consuming other podcasts and other media in general. Human beings are generally curious creatures. We want to learn. We want to whatever. And just because somebody is famous or popular doesn't mean they know what the [...] they're talking about. Interesting way to start a conversation for sure. Correct. And so and just because someone isn't doesn't mean that they do. So I'm not correlating those two things together. I'm just putting this out there. And the hope, you know, one of the things that that is going to be that so there's two there's two tracks here. One is that we kind of go through these longer series and me as you know like I say like the you know editor of what we're doing the content kind of editor. I always try and take different angles to to relate to people in different ways. Not because I want to break our message up, but because I want to spread it around and and and hook people in and have them find things that would be interesting, but from a larger perspective, if we if we go over, Eric, and I'm talking to you now as, you know, a friend and podcast person, we've been doing this for years. The way that I get it now is that these are like semesters of of our own school that we're sort of creating for ourselves. Things that word in the text you sent me, you said semester. This is a new semester. This is a new semester. And and why I say that is because as we get inspired to do things then we do the deep dive on stuff and yeah I mean these are conversations that we're having in general but there's difference between having a conversation and then and then having a prepared conversation around a topic that you have researched that now we're presenting material in a like a informal educational conversational way that you know might be funny or not funny or whatever the case is. we're we're trying to present this material to kind of like raise the awareness around it. And as we do that within ourselves, it kind of helps us to be motivated to learn more deeply about it. And so that is just those are the kind of the things that I wanted to to share. And so with all of that as the background then uh we you know Eric and I had a conversation a couple month uh maybe a month and a half ago or so about something in particular about like kind of like in the zeitgeist of the you know kind of pop not pop culture but like political culture, pop culture sort of stuff and Eric really wanted to dive into kind of the psychology of it which is definitely part of our you know bandwagon here. Um, and but I wanted to take a slightly different approach, one that would be encompassing of a little bit more than just this particular ideology because I feel like that we what we do and what we've been always trying to do and I know we continue to say what we're trying to do and we also are doing it but what we try and do is take um a slightly more holistic approach to problems right and we present the kind of Buddhist tantric perspective we present the psy psychological perspective and maybe even I could say the anthropological perspective from this uh and the kind of like shamanic energetic perspective of this as well and we kind of weave all these things together in presentation dowist Chinese medical stuff Chinese medicine the spiritual take the including the shamanic and these other traditions and then psychological stuff yeah yeah and so we're we're trying to do all of that and then but as we are aware that we exist within a society so we are not separate from the society that we exist we you know we and I'm still Feder's still going to be coming on and Katie will still be coming on and Rory will still be coming and so we're going to have still nuance discussions about this but eventually we're going to weave more into this subject here and the reason being is that we do not exist separate from our society we know this Eric and I know this we are not naive in any kind of way and up until now I would say that like we have been on we have been presenting things that have been important to us and everything we present is important in people's lives. Relationships, femininity, patriarchy, um structures and and powers around you and your own health and your own mental well-being, everything else because that is your reality. Simultaneously, there is an external reality that is definitely out there and whether it's projected by our mind or not, it exists. And so, we wanted to and Eric and I'll let you speak. We wanted to provide people with a different way of seeing their surroundings and interacting with them in uh in as as much of a unified way as we possibly could. And so, you know, through Eric and my conversation, I just had the kind of idea whether it's genius or it's stupid. We'll find out here in the next, you know, months or whatever, however long we do this for. But this is the way that I saw this kind of mind virus if you will the the pandemic of thinking that has in infected many many many people probably even us in some fashion and I wanted to discuss it with you know you and me and then everybody else who was involved and with our audience if people have you know questions comments concerns think ideas they want to share hit us up in the comments section jynantragmail.com or the at the jinnantra podcast on the gram you know this is the live conversation that we are having with each other, that we're having with our loved ones, and that we're wrestling with in order to help to understand our surroundings in our society. So, we're bringing that to people. This is the preamble to a longer kind of conversation that's going to unfold and we are more than happy to engage people in their thoughts as we do with our own. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think well said. And I think like Okay, so you know, we were kicking these ideas around and I think you threw out the word I can't remember who threw out the word first. I think it's probably you though the word cult and I went yeah that's that's the idea and then once we kind of hit on that it was like okay that is sort of our take into this what we maybe can add to the conversation because there's lots of people making political commentaries and talking about the news of the week which is worse every day. Yeah. But um we thought maybe this is the one thing that a different angle that we can take that we could add that could be something constructive to the conversation. Yeah. And authentic to us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I guess what that is a note I like we like to go personal so I'll share my personal experience with this it grabs some strange conversations you know there was a whole thing about political cults that happened over the last 10 years or something like the QAnon experience you know all of a sudden you're talking with your uncle or you know some family member and you're like what are they talking about you know and you're completely thrown you don't know the language what they're using and you're like what what is this perspective I've never heard this before like what is this up and I had a similar kind of a thing with this but it was I think it's the other like it it's weird it's the other major cult maybe that's happening maybe we can debate it right but I was talking with some people and it was really around like Elon Musk and in general we don't do news of the week and we're not going to like do it here either no but it was based on like this strange conversations where I started to realize like wow this is being talked about in this very like kind of cultish way around this person. And I'm not a follower of Elon Musk. I don't care about him. I've never cared about him. Don't give a [...] you know? So, I was just going in like as a kind of a tabularasa. I was a blank slate for this, right? And going, what is what's being said here? So, I wrote this down for myself just to kind of straighten out because I wanted to do as fair as I could about this. I was talking with people and they started talking about him in this almost like messianic way. Yeah. Where he was going to be this savior figure for humanity. And I'm and I'm listening and I'm like I literally like in my mind I'm like what the [...] is this? Like what is this thing? You know, having never heard this before. Maybe like the first time you heard a QAnon. You're like what are they talking about? Right. So, it was that and it had to do with him like like on the one hand getting the human species out into the cosmos to save it by having it like travel to space first to Mars. Mhm. Then out seeding other planets to save human consciousness. Like literally, this is like verbatim when I'm listening to it. I'm like, "Okay, okay. You mean these rockets that keep exploding? Okay." Mhm. And then it got to be like, uh, why is this? And it's almost like because the planet's doomed, so we're going to give up on the global warming question. That's it. We're giving up on it. And so it almost had like again the cultiness began to build because I thought, okay, we're going to abandon the planet in a way. Okay, got it. And so it's a little bit doomsday. Okay, got it. It has that undercurrent. And then it was the continuation was there's going to be the perfection of like human consciousness and intelligence through the uber AI like data from Star Trek AI that will know everything if you can remember that old show right the this kind of sci-fi vibe and I was like okay and the AI like literally is going to solve all the problems it's going to like solve cancer it's going to solve cold fusion and and Elon's going to do that for us And I was like, "All right." And as the conversation continued, I mean, I wasn't in person, so I couldn't slowly back away, but I was like mentally backing away. And it got to the point like also, we'll perfect human consciousness by some kind of like neurolink and we'll have some kind of brain computer interface that will all protect like to perfect our consciousness. And I was like, okay. And as I was kind of going, are you sure about this? One of the things I heard was that he also doesn't care about money, our messianic person. His only goals are to save the human and save and perfect the human species, especially I guess sort of like save it from itself somehow maybe. And uh uh and that was his mission. And then he said something like he doesn't even own his own house. And I went, "Okay." And so I looked into it and like again, not knowing anything about this guy, like having no particular thoughts or interests in him whatsoever, I was like, "Okay, so there's these claims that he was living in this $50,000 house near like the SpaceX launch sites or something." But then as I again I don't claim any expertise in this guy, but when I was looking at Business Insider, it was like no, it seemed like the same time he was probably lying and living in some other multi-million dollar estate that he owned. And I was like, okay. That was post research. Now, I think as I looked this up, you know, prepping these notes, I think he just bought a $35 million estate somewhere or something. So I was like, okay. Right. And I by the end of the whole thing I couldn't help thinking uh you know being shocked and thinking cult exclamation point because you know again it was it had you know we're familiar with these other kind of political kind of cults I suppose. Um but it was sort of like okay I guess the idea is that there's a charismatic kind of messianic figure. Mhm. There is an overriding transcendent mission of like uber importance. Right. Right. Transcendence importance which justifies everything in its wake. So because the mission is so transcendently important, whatever that figure does to accomplish the mission is obviously totally warranted. How many rockets blow up in the sky or how many I think you and I were talking. I think he gets $8 million of government funding a day. Yeah. Roughly. So, whatever he gets a day, that's all whatever. And if he has to topple everything in his path, uh there's obviously a kind of an ideology in this Mhm. that's at work, right? Like there would be it has its own kind of bizarre terminology because I was listening and I was like, there was this words like, well, he's an accelerationist and other people are decelerationists. And I was like, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm not in these circles. I have no idea what you're saying. And you know, the acceleration is that he's going to push the technological windows forward and their naysayers have to be overcome because they're going to be drags and albatross around the neck of the accelerationists. So it was sort of like okay there's kind of a group think maybe at work and kind of like a group speak which I mean if you know the terms you know them but if you don't know them you're like what is this person even talking right right you know and uh and then there was sort of these other by the end I was like so this is some kind of tech bro sci-fi thing right and I was like okay so that's what it is and you would get the idea the person would eventually say yeah and then it had to do with like other elements of this because I was Okay, so this involves a lot of like evolutionary psychology stuff then too, right? Save and perfect the species or something. And that kind of explains again not knowing anything about Elon Musk going in, but like all these kids he has everywhere, you know, is like him saving his genome that's superior and passing it on or something like that. And I was like, okay, you know, and then the underlying kind of like fascination about the quasi genius tech CEO leader who will messianically save everything. And I was like, okay, put the phone down, clink, and just went, okay, I think this is like a new kind of cult I never heard of before. Mhm. And so again for me when you brought the I mean I was like kind of processing this and maybe searching for a word and I maybe I can't remember even you probably came up with that word before I did and you just it was just like yes cult exclamation point. Mhm. I was like okay so that's what this is right and again as someone who doesn't know anything about Elon I had to look back and go like what is this? And then again, I don't want to argue about him so much, but I was like, "Okay, it looks like, you know, you watch kind of things that videos of him speaking and there's always the miraculous technological solution that's like right there. Just wait till the fall." And then the magical pipeline that's going to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles will be blasting you there. Mhm. Or, you know, the magical self-driving vehicle where you'll be able to earn $30,000 in your sleep as it magically drives around the street doing your tasks and uh and uh you know, and I I I again not knowing anything about the dude like and not giving a [...] but I was just like, "Okay, the we're going to be on Mars like next week. You we're always supposed we're already supposed to be there based on the timelines." I like I just it's happened on people talking through these things and you're like okay so uh so this is the thing you know where for me it would look like like uh okay he's just like just another corporate dbag semicon artist I don't know don't care on some level but to the extent I had to like pay attention to this and I was like wow this is like really kind of amazing You know, and no matter what you think about it, like that's a lot of TLC to lay on some person. Yes. I mean, it's like it's pretty intense to have all of that. I don't talk about like the Daly Lama that way. I don't talk about any spiritual figure I ever studied with that way. And we maybe get to like the spirituality cult stuff as we go through it. But anyways, that was my experience. And I was just like, okay. And then I realized like well this is just it can't be just a few people I was talking to or something. This is like a widespread point of view and then the realization that like okay it seems like what's happening in this place where we happen to live which I don't care about too much either you know to be honest but in general I was like wow there's like just like there's a cult takeover. Sure. Anyway, so that was my experience to share with you all. And uh again, I'm not even here really to argue about this person. You know, I claim no magical expertise about this guy. Don't really care about him. But by the end of the conversation, I was like, "Wow, charismatic leader like a transcendent mission which justifies all goals, all all means." Um yeah. Yeah. Whatever you have to do, there's obviously an underlying ideology. It has its own terminology. It has kind of a again a group think and a group speak. And I was like, "Okay." And you know, again, it's like conversations with people that you know. It's not like, you know, people that you don't know and you're like, "Wow." Okay. So, anyways, that was my experience with this. I don't know how this was for you, Daniel, and of things, but have you had these kind of conversations with people? I mean, I was kind of stunned because I just wasn't familiar with this thing. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. I mean in different ways right around different things but ultimately it's the same the the the structure of the of the cult mentality right which is the ends justify the means regard almost regardless what the means are um the sort of messianic quality of the leader with the charisma such that they are able to um motivate people that would might not normally be motivated. in this particular kind of way, you know? Yeah. I mean, so they turn on a fire in somebody that they wouldn't normally have. So, they almost they're almost infusing them with their own purpose. They're merging themselves with that person and saying, "Oh, now their ideas, their ideals are mine." Yeah. Right. And so there's a void, I believe, that's being filled if you want to look at it that way. I mean, like you do feel that way, right? There must be some psychological space that's being filled by this when you get to the psychology of it and we'll try to explore as best we can when we get there after we do our intro stuff through this episode. Yeah. And then simultaneously when you are able to take on that mindset, you'll find others who have the same mindset and that then makes you feel included that uh as you know our boy Marcel would say you are not uniquely cursed. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You brought that phrase up. Yeah. Right. And and so your misery or this you know transcendence from your misery is shared by others and therefore they are now your you can say that you might recognize them as your kin because when we when society's lines have been crossed in the way that they have and that there is not particularly a monoculture which we will I'm going to dunk on this in later episodes. So if you know what that word means congratulations. If not, don't worry, Uncle D got you. Um, but because of the fact that we don't share um anything other than language really. I mean, a lot more than that way of life where we shop. I mean, we're proximity, but the ideas are different, right? When you have when you're from the same culture, a similar culture, you're assimilated in the ways of thinking. You might not agree with it, but there's not going to be a whole ton of variation within a culture versus a melding of cultures where we are as we are here. And then with the isolation of people simultaneously, you have to reorganize who it is that you feel a kinship to, which does not include your family. It does not it's not that separate as adults, even as kids, you know. Um, I mean, I have clients who are very liberal-minded and their kids are conservative. How I mean, children 12, 13, 14 years old. How does that happen? No. I It's very strange. Yeah, it's right. It's weird. So, they're being influenced by who knows, right? Oh, yeah. Yeah. You're talking about things outside of even like their peer group. You're talking about the wider. Yes. Yes. be as a more interconnected society and I mean that via the internet and you know everybody smartphones and what whatever that you can naturally or maybe unnaturally navigate away from the localized conditioning which we could say is maybe a good thing in a sense but just because you're navigating away from the local conditioning doesn't mean you're breaking free. you're slipping into another conditioning, one that is just counter to the one that you are in now. So, you're shift you're leaving one paradigm to get into another one. And this um I guess I I don't I don't want to call it realization, but I could say observation from my perspective is the driver behind what it is that we're talking about is because I believe it is quite prevalent. And then when you have sort of a a you know we could say like a transcendental uh cultural icon if you will maybe we'll say that's a better that's a better thing. I don't think there's anything transcendental about uh Ellen Musk you know um but you have a cultural icon that then sort of transcends all of the boundaries that people would normally see and sort of rises to the zeitgeist of you know ubiquitous awareness on a sense. And so that then gets idolized on a on a mass scale. And then they develop followings, you know, and then this then just it just the funnel keeps getting wider and wider and wider as their, you know, influence grows and grows and grows and before you know it, you're having conversations with people about things that you're like, "What are we talking about again?" You know what? Wait, what? Yeah. was weird as like talking with my like you know my more extended family relatives who would like speak in Fox News or something and you'd be like I don't know what you're talking about like I I can't follow your reality. It doesn't make any sense to me. I don't watch what you're consuming. But it was like, you know, I I tried to write all this down and I guess obviously I said it in somewhat of an ironic way from my perspective, but I really tried to write down almost in my little notes for this like almost exactly what the person said or what people have said. And I was like, okay, you know, to like just do it full justice because again, I didn't know there was a full ideology behind this in this way. And it actually goes a long way to explaining like a lot of support and a lot of like or a certain percentage of support and a certain percentage of actions that people are taking or what people think are okay you know like I haven't gone back to ask because I don't want to have the conversations but it would be like okay so I guess you think this is all okay because it justifies the greater means of like spreading human consciousness through our messianic person throughout the cosmos or something. Yeah. On dying planet. Yeah. bother to save. Okay. And that has a little bit of a ring of like a doomsday call to it or something. There's a extended kind of a way. It's kind of a drawn out doomsday call really. Yeah. There's there's layers to it. And then, you know, but then for our, you know, our audience that has been, you know, with us for years or whether how long you've been here for, it doesn't really matter. one week this your first time listening or your thousandth time listening you know it doesn't whatever the the foundation to these observation from my perspective and Eric you could say for you comes from years of cultivated detachment from my perspective cultivated cultural detachment now when I say that what I mean specifically is that like yes we are discussing things that are occurring ing currently, right? But I intentionally take the road less traveled as best that I can so I can have so I can see things a little bit differently. Again, I'm I'm also biased because I'm myself, right? But I want to try and see trends as they occur, whether they pull me in one direction or the other. This is kind of a binary thing and okay, fine, we can talk about overcoming dualism and and whatever. But I also just notice the flow of things as they I try to as a as kind of like a a viewer of anthropology or a sociological experiment, right? From call myself a baby sociologist. You know what I'm saying? So like watching these trends as society grows in a way that is probably accelerated due to our connectivity at this point. And when I feel like I see something, then I'm going to kind of zero in on that, but I'm going to take the meditative approach and observe first, you know, before I come to a diagnosis. I want to wait and see what it is and then apply different theories to it to find what works. Again, just like how I would do when I'm seeing a patient or just like how I would do in a meditative space if I'm, you know, focusing on myself or whatever some problem I'm working on to not be um moved to action or reaction instantaneously and allow it to open up a little bit more to give me some more information to make a more informed decision. You know, then we extrapolate that and put it put that same gaze, that same like intense focus on society as we're existing in it. Not to try and isolate ourselves from it, but to be engaged with it in a conscious way and then say, okay, what's happening? Why do I believe it's happening? use my ability to like research and then but then ultimately run it through the final filter which is you know my understanding and feeling and all the combination of of meanness around what's going on and try to put together some kind of theory around things and then have conversations around it and read and educate myself. So I take the same approach to my personal practice and development as I am doing with this. They are one and the same, but they but it's born out of where it is that I, you know, believe myself to be from a, you know, a meditative practitioner. And that doesn't mean that like if if you're listening to this and you don't have like a strong meditative practice or a meditative practice at all, you can take those same um detective type approaches, right? Or researcher type approach and and use it and apply it to this, which is what we're doing. And so I just wanted to say that for those who are people who are looking for the kind of the path, you know what I'm saying? The the meditative path, the Buddhist path, the dowist path or whatever, you know, amidst all of this, which is what I'm trying to do, which is what you're trying to do. Um, but just in a in a more uh societal, a more community kind of a way. Yeah. Know, this is a hard one for me. So I agree with what you're saying. Maybe I'll go back and I'll double through because I almost had to write my thoughts about this because it's such a weird subject matter for me. But I agree with what you're saying. Yeah. You know, maybe before I totally respond, I'll like try to walk my way through this because for me, the next thing was sort of like, okay, you know, uh I wanted to think about narrow and broad definitions of a cult. So, I did kind of what you're talking about. I I reached out to our uh resident uh anthropologist on retainer. Ah, yes, that's right. One Ryan K. Davenport and I said, "Well, what do you think about this?" You know, and we had kind of a conversation about, you know, from an anthropological perspective, this notion of cult, which was sort of like the narrow definition and maybe the more broad definition was the way I walked away from it, the conversation with he made kind of a point from an anthological perspective, which was, well, the first thing to say is I did the psych research on this, maybe I should say this first, and I was like, you know, there's no strict definition for what a cult is. It was like sure there's like like not one agreed upon thing that I could determine and and listening to people talk about it was sort of this repeated thing like well there's no set definition but here's a definition and people would sort of throw out their own things. We did it too you know around you know this these conversations I was having go ah um but a lot of those things would apply I I think those are things that other people would agree with. Right. Right. Um, and uh, you know, kind of Ryan's thing was sort of about from an anthropological perspective, if you make the definition too big, well, then you sort of lose the meaning of it as an anthropological thing. So, you tend to talk more narrow. Okay. For me, I kind of realized, you know, um, I'm not interested in cults per se, you know, like I'll listen, I did some research on this stuff. I'll listen to it. It's not a personal fascination. You know, even when they had the Osho cult thing on Netflix, I kind of watched a few episodes and then kind of petered out with it. Did you watch that whole thing? Okay. Did you even know it existed? Yes. Okay. Okay. I watched a little bit. that had some drama in it, but event and it was interesting to hear the people talk about some of their experiences, but I'm not intrinsically interested in maybe cults in that more narrow sense. But I did kind of find myself like being more interested like this and maybe like sort of in a more broad sense even in the way we're talking about here. Does this meet the formal definition of a cult in the way Ryan was talking about? I don't know. But to the extent that it shows these features, that kind of interests me, right? And that I think it interests me also for our project here in the sense that I you know it really brings home the idea to me that there this is a kind of a vulnerability in human beings. It's a of like spiritual vulnerability psychological or psychosspiritual vulnerability to get imshed in these things. Yeah. Right. And so I guess that was like part of why I found this to be like you we'll go through people's specific experiences, right? And things that might be more cultish in the more narrow sense, right? But it also was like I I realized what interested me was that there's a human tendency to be this way that I think you can look around the world and say, "Wow, this is really dangerous in a big picture sense." Right. Right. and the way it affects like societies and cultures. It's dangerous. It's like really [...] dangerous. And there's a lot of that like in-group outgroup aspect of this. We're the in-group people. You're the outgroup people. Therefore, we have to eliminate you. You're objects of like derision and potential destruction, you know, and that's dangerous [...] [...] Mhm. But it also made me think about this on an individual level too that from a a more like personal level, whatever there is inside of each of us that has that thing going on. I definitely see that's a spiritual obstacle too that we all have to work over for ourselves in order to make more more psychosspiritual project on a pro progress on a personal level. Right. Right. like I think that's true and you were kind of hinting at it and I kind of wrote it in my own way to get to this point and then of course I'm interested what you think about it but as I was talking with Ryan about it I was like well you know then you end up with this whole problem of like on a certain level whole societies or cultures can have this kind of cultlike aspect to them and you can be within the thrral of the the cult of your society or something and that gets us to one of like I know one of the subjects by like really close to my heart which is sort of the dowist point of view which is you have to get away from those things. Right. Right. And it is in Zen and Dowoism and the tantras and so on that there has to be this distancing from these things. Right. And almost sort of like a purging purge it out like you just drank the medicine. Purge it. You can make space for new stuff to come in. Right. Mhm. In the Dow in the in the tantric literature, there's this idea if you're a dirty cup, even if you try to pour some wisdom in, your [...] in the cup is just going to [...] the stuff that's coming in. You know, the nectar will try to come in, but it's just going to mix with the crap you already have there, and you won't get the nectar, right? It's one of their metaphors, right? Closed, not allow new stuff to come in. Right? The cup is closed. I think you could be that rigid. I'm just going to block everything that might be information. That could be called like two. Not going to listen to any other alternative perspective. No, I'm blocked. Right. And then the other one is like if you have a bunch of your own crap in there, even if you open the cup, it'll just be contaminated with your own stuff. Right. So anyway, so I mean that's a big deal for me. And it was interesting because when I was doing my research on this, one of the things that came up is one of the things that you brought up a number of times too, which is this problem of like human conformity. Yeah. you know, all of a sudden, you know, whether the reasons are, we did this whole thing on attachment theory because you feel like your attachment needs aren't being met and you need someone to bond with and hold you together. And you were alluding to that, right? The attachment theory aspect of this. I feel afraid to be alone. I feel like I need the support of others. I need connection. I'm lonely. I'm anxious. Whatever. Okay. I I glom on to others who then fill that gap for me or something like that, right? and you were talking that way and I was like, "Yeah, I hear that too in this." Right. So, uh, we're some padico on that or would have other reasons there are with that. I think one of the things that one of the people brought up was this feeling of the need to be right or something. You sure? I'm assuming this position of I'm I'm correct, I'm right, you know, and I have the right attitude and other people are wrong. Well, also the other the other one is um you we got to do all the all the emotions. The other one is that I'm angry. Yeah. Yeah. True. And when other people are angered about the same things that I'm angered about, there's a kinship there. We we we must share some thoughts because we're pissed off about the same thing. Um but you know, anger anger makes strange bedfellows. You could see it right around you now. These are very strange bedfellows. You know, to the extent that there's a coup going on, it's a coup that's like very internally incoherent, right? Those people don't it doesn't fit. And yet, you know, we're all angry at those people. We're all angry at these people. We're all angry at these people. And that's bonds the people together. That's right. But those bonds are those bonds are formed out of anger. Yeah. you know, and that that is just not that's there's there's not substance in this, you know, because that anger has to be directed somewhere. And when you when you use someone else as a as a as a microscope to direct that anger or as a as a funnel, you know, to kind of channel that anger toward you forget that like you might be wrong where you're putting that anger, where you're moving that energy towards. You might be incorrect, but your ability to critical think about that is impaired inherently by the anger. Anger in inherently impairs your ability to critical think. That's why being reactive is the worst place to be when you're trying to have a normal civil conversation about anything that's of of importance. When you move to that place of reactivity, anger gets in the way and you stop thinking. You stop seeing things clearly. We see red, right? or you feel heightened. Your emotions are heightened. You start to and then you work back. Then you work backwards and then you have to go through all the emotional states that you've inherited or that you've been, you know, conditioned to do. And now you're you're moving from a place that is below where you would normally like to be number one. And then when the relationship that you are in now is is in or feels like it's in jeopardy because of your anger or their anger or whatever, you know, whatever dynamic is happening. I'm just using anger at the moment. Then those attachment styles come up and you'll see people be anxious or avoidant or a mixture of the two which then you know because like a cult is is a culmination of of of a bunch of individuals right and they're all going to have relationships and so all the series that we did on relationships all the various dynamics that that has comes into play because it's it's about you like the cult is you and the cult is you and you and you and you the cult is always selfcentered You know what I'm saying? It's your relationship with the the quoteunquote. I suppose even as you give up your identity to the thing, it you're the one who's doing that. Correct. You, right? Yes. It's still you. It's how the way that you see the guru. It's the way that you see the messianic character. You know, it's how even if somebody is feeding you the the ideas, it's still your perception. It's still a selfish kind of way. But until you're able to kind of transcend yourself and not in a bad way, you know, because the bad way is like I'm going to sacrifice for this or I don't mind if these people are hurting so long as the objective is is, you know, is good. It it's a it's a short-sighted thing and it's not there is no promised land. Nothing is promised to anybody. Nothing. So, no one's taking you anywhere. Whether it be heaven or Mars, they're selling you something that they can never ever you can never pay for it and they can never deliver ever. Even if the thing that they're selling for you comes to fruition, it ain't real. It's not a real thing. It won't be the thing that you thought it was going to be in the first place anyways, right? No. I mean, it's the same like this kind of cult is the same thing that they've been doing. It's been years been going on. Oh, aliens are going to come down for us. We have to drink this special uh bleach so that we can uh they'll be able to take spirits can rise into the sky when the meteor comes over carrying alien seeds that we can now incarnate into and fly off to their Yeah, I forgot the name of that sandax or whatever. That was a cult at Heaven's Gate, right? Heaven's gate. There you go. I mean, it's the same [...] It's the same [...] you know, but because people's memories, they don't they don't know about this stuff or they don't care to look into it or they don't believe it's them. You're the one that can't see. I can see. You know, like that [...] just sounds crazy. And I'm not saying that anybody is right or wrong. I'm saying it's all [...] up, you know? Use your brain. Go ahead. Yeah. Yeah. Just just use your brain and run it through a filter. You know, Mary Kay, it's good to have an open mind. Just don't let your brain fall out. Yeah. I used that line at like when I did the Pacific College commencement speech. I never heard from Mary Kay. I read it in like a personal ad way back in the day. Okay. But anyways, yeah, I mean I think from the Dowist point of view, you know, just kind of doubling back is one of my favorite things and like if you don't question the world around you. Yes. And that would include like your own social conditioning and the norms and worries of your own place. You have to develop that thing to become a psychosspiritual person. It's just like embedded in the project. And Ryan said an interesting thing in our kind of conversations about this. He said, "Well, you know, really any religion starts out as a cult by definition." Yes. And I was like, okay. Yeah. And then eventually when you trace it through, if we go to China, I just thought like Confucianism, that's like a kind of a cult that builds around Confucious, right? And now he's the cult people person and he's the charismatic figure and now you have a whole bunch of things that come out of that that deal. But then it becomes like the rules of a society came out of that thing. We live in a kind of a Christian cult in a way, right? You know, even if you're Christian or not. when people are realizing that in weird ways, you know, even like people wouldn't identify as Christians. There's a whole bunch of books being written around that now that we've mentioned a little bit here and there. Oh, you know, this really is a Christian culture, isn't it? You know, no matter who you who you are, but that started as like I mean, not even in a derogatory sense, but just in an anthropological sense, that's a cult, right? Right. You know, and then eventually Rome says this is the law of the land and now you live within that. Mhm. But I think the point is for what at least what I see we're trying to do here, I think you feel the same is like you have to question these things, you know, and then when you start developing that habit of questioning, well, I'll question the things around me that everyone takes for granted. And then when you hear the more outrageous thing, well, I'm a question that too, right? Which got to like I asked kind of a weird question about this at the end. You know, as we're getting toward the end of the episode, maybe. you know, like we're promoting spirituality, right? And I had to like look honestly and say, well, is this like a culty kind of a thing we're doing, right? What's the line between like presenting something like as a spiritual thing and what's the line between presenting something as a cult? And it got to back to what you're saying. I think honestly, you know, uh you know, how do you make spiritually not become a cult? How do you make things not become a cult? It's because you do that critical thinking thing, right? And you you do that. I'm looking at myself, you know, to like see where my own hinks are that I'm gonna get rid of so my thinking is more clear and more honest and authentic and more direct. And then I'm able to have a clearer view on the world around me. So I like I kind of grabbed my Daly Lama t-shirt. I had got this like when the Daly Lama was doing this thing uh in Washington, I went to his teaching there and kind of get got tandra teaching from it and all that. And it it has a weird backstory. So it says like believe nothing here if you can see it in the camera. Yeah. Yeah. At the time I bought it in red and white, right? Because those are kind of like tantric colors, right? The goddess colors are red, you know, and all that. I thought, "Oh, that's cool." Yeah. I actually, it's just a weird side story. I wore this up to a water park in Wisconsin over the Christmas holiday. It's a sentimental thing. I went there with my son. We used to go when he was younger, my daughter, too, you know. And I was just wearing this around the pool area as I went in to like do the water slides and the [...] with the kids. And then there were people coming up to me that were like, I love your shirt. And I was like, why? Cuz in the back it's a bunch of Buddhist [...] But I realized, oh, those are like [...] manga colors to some of those people, right? Thing is kind of like part of their whatever. And I went, oh, this is weird. At least it seemed that way to me. The Buddhist quote on the back which is quite long you know uh goes believe nothing no matter where you read it or who said it no matter if I have said it meaning the Buddha right this is supposed to be what he's supposed to said before he passed away unless it agrees with your own reasons and common sense believe nothing and that's like the heart of it right and I so I when I turned the mirror back on myself I said well are we trying to promote something that someone else can say well what about your cult, you know, that you're presenting. They went, "Well, no, listen. We're at least in theory trying to do something different." Yeah. And I kind of skimmed through and, you know, there's a lot of sort of Buddhist things about this. Even from the Daly Lama, he says, "Should you do everything your guru tells you to do?" I grabbed this quote from him. Even if it seems strange or you should do, he says, "You should do everything your guru tells you to do, even if it seems strange." Right. And then he says, "Wrong." Mhm. No, you know, he says, you know, you have to like look and see if this has reason to it, you know, and you're not supposed to like just accept like odd aspects of what you're being asked to believe. And you can't, you know, you're not supposed to just say, "Oh, it must be a test or it must be like a teaching or it must be some crazy wisdom." Sometimes they use that phrase, you know, it must be crazy wisdom, you know, or you know, any of these things. And you know, Daly Lama says, "No, no, no, no." Right. And like just to wrap these up. Yeah. You know, um a little bit of a longer one, but he says, "Oh, this is from the Buddha. Oh, monks and wise people, just as a goldsmith would test his gold or their gold by burning, cutting, and rubbing it. So you must examine my words and accept them or not accept them, but don't accept them just out of mere reverence for me. My teaching is not a philosophy. It's a result of direct experience. My teaching is a means of practice, not something to hold on to or worship. My teaching is like a raft used to cross the river. Only a fool would carry the raft around after you already reached the other shore. So you're not supposed to put this reverence on things. And then if you were to follow the dharma, the teachings or the path purely out of love for me or because you respect me, I would not accept you as a disciple. Because if you follow the dharma because you have uh yourself experienced its truth because you understand and act accordingly. Only these conditions have the right to call yourself one of my people, one of my students. You know, it's like that kind of language, right? That's so important and that makes the difference. I got one from the first Daly Lama just really quick which is the true spiritual master looks upon all living beings with thoughts of love and shows respect to teachers of all traditions alike. Such a one only harms delusion meaning that that's the thing that you're trying to get at your own delusions. If you take this attitude not being partisan not like doing this thing of like you know my teacher's the one and that's the only one I respect or something. He says, you know, such a one in doing that will harm the delusions, which is the thing you really want to go after, your own delusions, right? And that's the real enemy that you're trying to get at. So, anyways, I just thought that was important to get to before we got out of here today. That's a great great way to end it. You know, like this is what makes the difference hopefully, right? Like, okay, I was thinking of the people I was talking to, well, don't you have your own cult of things you believe? I was like, "Well, no, I'm trying to like do the opposite of that." Right. Right. Like we're misunderstanding each other. Yeah. So, anyways, that's great. Great way, great way to end it right there. Yeah. Mhm. Awesome. Well, Eric, thank you for being on the ride with me, brother. Audience, thank you for listening. uh you know whether you're just starting or you're just passing by or you've been here for a minute, we appreciate uh all the eyes and ears that you uh lend us on a you know weekly basis here or sometimes more frequently than that. If you find our work uh beneficial or stupid, that's up to you. But uh like and subscribe. I don't care if you like really just subscribe because then you'll see when we drop stuff and you can get uh you can get it quick if you hit the notification bell uh or get it whenever you get it. It's all good. We appreciate everything. Uh if you have a question, comment, you want us to cover something or you're interested in this topic more deeply, feel free to hit us up at jin andtantra@gmail.com, hit us up on the gram, jin and tandra podcast or if you know us personally because our names are literally listed right here. Feel free to uh shoot us a message and uh we'll be we'll be glad to continue uh conversation with you. For Eric, this is Daniel. We'll get you guys in the next one. Keep your mind open. Peace. [Music]