foreign ERS those of us like our spirituality with a Twist okay so we're back we're kind of like going into the stretch rung of our little relationship series our idea was that we first talk about maybe just a bunch of stuff just general big picture give some people ideas and then eventually get to the point where we talk about this in a more personal way and we're definitely the point we're going to talk about in a more personal way especially for this guy over here which I'm gesturing with two thumbs towards me that's right this is my more personal thing um I didn't talk with Daniel about this in the beginning but I had like a little pre-announcement I wanted to do about some stuff it's something we were both talking about so um I think um we're gonna try to do um a little bit of social media presence for us which um we hadn't really done at all so we'll probably be going from our social media presence from zero to like shockingly little to undetectable right but the shockingly little will be a major step up sure so I had some ideas about this and I just want to put it out for people who listen in case you never check this thing because we never do anything on it so why would you bother so I'm gonna I think what I'm gonna try to do is I'm trying to do quotes from the shower curtain of wisdom from across the hall over there uh I have some people that like really like this in my life they like to get little wake-up morning quotes that are kind of inspiring yeah so I think I'm gonna try to do that and I'm gonna call It quotes from the shower curtain of wisdom it's kind of like an Indiana Jones thing maybe like uh Indiana Jones and the shirt in the shower curtain of wisdom there you go yes to find it you know um so I'll do that and I think I'm gonna start doing probably some short book reviews maybe something that's relevant to whatever the subject matter of the week is for us um I think there are people who like that kind of stuff and it's funny because books Aren't Dead books are not dead people really like it and people do come up and ask me at times like you have any thoughts about what you could read about this or that right yeah and I'm like yeah you know uh okay cool I'll get to the thought and so I'll probably try to make that maybe a little bit of a routine too maybe at least do once one a week or something so anyways if you're like uh you'd be like why should I ever check the Instagram for these people the good question you should never do anything that's a fair question Eric we're gonna do it you know and Daniel do whatever his what he wants to do but uh um those are some ideas I had in my mind I got a little music too maybe and Daniel is like uh doing this keyboarding you can see it over on uh over his uh left shoulder the tantric shoulder the left side shoulder of assuming you're watching the video assuming you're watching the video if you're listening to the podcast you just have to take my word for it right right right right yeah I think I think I want to I will I want to put stuff from the show up actually I'm like okay that's cool I'm gonna put quotes from the show because I you know we have some people who listen who will often send stuff that they heard us saying and passing and they'll put it in text and you know when you read it you're like oh who was that and they're like oh that was you or oh that was Eric I was like oh okay that's quotable yeah that sounds good that could go on a shower curtain somewhere I had the idea of doing that 1.2 in the very beginning which uh you and I have both been um dilatory might be the word for this a little delaying and doing this three years of delay um but in any case you know I was doing it for some of the people because we'd have guests on like Mary Kay Ryan or guy Newland or Robert Thurman uh Lama Glenn Glenn H Mullen Dean Rayden yeah a lot of our guests say really interesting things you know uh maybe other people aren't even as well no lady India or Johnny Osborne or you know yeah Keith Brewer without the funk yeah uh Remy Remy Delan right yeah I mean yeah I mean anybody Ashley yeah a lot of people yeah if I missed anybody I apologize but you know we had we have interesting people on who say interesting things so either us other folks I'd like the idea yeah yeah yeah okay so cool and I think as we transition into the personal part of the episode It's Kind of a Funny thing because probably the first review I'll do for this episode will be this book called sex with Shakespeare which is by this woman named uh Jillian Keenan this is my transition if you're following along yeah this crafty transition I just did uh no she's a journalist and um I think she had like articles really in big things like the New York Times maybe the Washington Post and all that but um She Wrote This Book which I think is really fascinating I'll give a longer review maybe in the upcoming week or something where she talks about the whole history and backstory of this spanking fetish that she has hmm and it's really bold because you know she was a kind of a semi-known person and all of a sudden she came out with an article in New York Times about like hey here's my fetish you know and then it was probably in conjunction with this whole book she was writing which ultimately is really cleverly done and she talks about Shakespeare she talks about her own life and her experience having this being so core to her sexuality so I wanted like I'll probably do that as the review of the week but what hit me was we've been talking about like talking about our own personal things and I began to realize like this is going to be really disappointing because you might think this is gonna be so much fun maybe we'll reveal our spanking vanishes or maybe it'll come out like uh Eric will admit he's a furry or something but it's not going to be that much fun not it really isn't it's going to be a lot more uh unfun than that or at least less Saucy probably but still kind of like important I think like for my heart all right so for me this has been like a slow kind of thing you know Daniel I started this podcast some years ago and I thought okay given the title gin and Tantra eventually we're gonna have to talk about what we think about some of these things which are a little bit more emotional for me we were talking pre-podcast about the fact that like the Moon is like really really close yes uh my son pointed out yesterday because I had come up in class and he was like let's go look at the moon so we did and it was amazingly close and like you're looking at the moon and the lights coming off so strong it was almost like blinding you couldn't look at it it had a halo around it I was like damn you can bear look at this thing so if you're a more emotional person um if you have the moon in cancer like some sensitive guy like me as Daniel was teasing me before we got on the podcast itself um yeah you're feeling that you're feeling the feels I actually woke up this morning with like a little bit of lateral headache and like a little bit of what they call Plum pitchy in Chinese medicine like a little like stuff in the throat so I was even a little bit worried like am I going to be able to talk because it's like for some reason this is super emotional but anyways okay so this is the thing that I've had in my mind which will probably for me be like honestly the only thing I guess I'd feel scary about saying in the podcast and it's a funny reason to be scary but here's what I actually think so what I actually think is hold on Eric let me ask you okay so yeah it's building up to it and you're like hold on a minute hold on you gotta back off thank you [...] so Eric what do you actually warm the person up and you're like wait a minute no back it off back it up back it off just build it down tone it down okay go ahead so Eric we've been doing this episode we've been doing these podcasts for three years I mean I'm assuming that you've been genuine and upfront but I guess apparently not what do you actually think no I've been genuine up front but just not on this subject matter okay fair just not on this subject matter but anyways so here's what they actually think about this I think the thing that was hard for me to say is like and it's a kind of give me something I'm going to try to talk about in this episode is I think it is totally fine totally okay to love be in love with you know have deep connection feeling for more than one person I think this is absolutely fine I don't think there's anything wrong or bad about it I don't think there's anything to feel guilty or ashamed about um whatever you feel like you may want to do about that is going to be your own business I think this will play out in different ways in different people's lives we've been talking about kind of Carl Jung I'm going to try to write this book on Carl Jung because I think he went through these experiences we talked about his relationship with a woman named Sabina Spiel Ryan who's kind of another important kind of psychological thinker and you know their relationship may never even really have been fully sexual I'm like doing the research now it's not really obvious what happened between them but they actually had something very intense between the two of them and so I think these relationships are kind of based more on like an emotional and intellectual intimacy a lot of times they can be physical they cannot be physical and I think everyone will probably make their own choices of whatever they think it means but in any case from my point of view I don't think there's anything to feel bad about in any way and uh I think that's the thing that I thought would be the most important thing for me to talk about probably in these whole episodes it's funny I'll come back to it later on but I was like Jung does This Thing Called active imagination where he imagines he goes in these like inner Journeys and he would talk to his Spirit guides kind of right and he had like a kind of like what looked like kind of a gnostic philosopher named Philemon that he would talk to and and uh I had a type of practice similar right you know not even thinking about in terms of Jung where I talked to the Buddhist goddesses and I was like well okay do I have to do this or not do this and I talked to three of them my Trio of Buddhist goddesses and it was interesting Daniel I'll get to it maybe more later on but they gave different answers which I was surprised about I thought it would be one unanimous chorus of yes or no or something but it was sort of a mix they said different things so anyways I'll come back to it later on but this is the thing I really wanted to talk about and I kind of knowing the show was Jin and Tantra I thought well eventually these subject matters relationship love ultimately sexuality would have to come up in some deep way so this is my this is my thing right um and I guess the big thing is you know it happens it's part of human life and I don't think it's anything to feel bad about but a lot of people do so and I want to explain how one comes to such an attitude and then Jenna Tantra this being the show that it is I will tell Tales of my own life to illustrate this um because I think it touches on some very profound things especially sort of an idea of like soul matedness but I thought first things I'm just gonna I'll finish this little part up and I'll bounce it back to you but I think for me I should probably explain what the underlying attitude is I'm trying to like get to a little bit more so because I think as I was trying to prepare this and I'm working on this young book what I got to is the idea like my fundamental like metaphysical position my big idea is something like we're living in kind of an Enlightenment Factory the world that we're in is a field for us to get enlightened and it's really hard to say how much I believe that's true but like I really really believe that that's true other people don't have to agree would you say that you want to believe that's true or would you say you believe that's true because those are two different things I believe it's true but I don't think anybody else has to believe it's true no yeah yeah I mean yeah it's not yeah it depending no I like if I talk from my own personal point of view yeah I believe this is true I don't even have it to the point where like hmm maybe no I don't feel that way but I think like you know we talked about this a lot in recent episodes especially around subject matters like this I Enlightenment relationships love all these kinds of things I clearly get other people don't have to agree with me and I have people who I'm really close to who don't think this for sure you know the World Views are completely different but from the from like the point of view that I'm coming I'm coming from I think regardless of whether you think this is true or not from my point of view it is so even this other person doesn't think that I think it is for them too so I wouldn't force it like I wouldn't voice it upon them I'm not here to convert anybody you know but anyways that's how I think about it and then like the next step for me then is that we're also in this kind of Deep Field of kind of I guess karmic or soulmate interconnection that we can have these very deep interconnections with other people that are profoundly karmic soulmatey things that are kind of working towards that purpose at least that's the way I see it I don't have like a new agey sense of this I know people who do and their ideas more like before you're incarnated before you're born everybody gets together in some big huddle in some heaven and kind of decides you know okay I'll do this you do this Hut then we go or something I don't feel that way I don't have any judgment against people who do feel that way and I know people who are very serious you know who I respect who have senses like that I don't have that sense but I still feel like the relationships that we have that are profound and deep are these kinds of relationships that are kind of soulmating and I've talked about this with my kids where I feel like that's who they are and I talk about that with them you know pretty bluntly like okay I'm the dad now next time you can be the dad and Eric say oh say a little bit more about like soul mates because I feel like there's maybe a better description um in in the in the western use of that term soulmate is often referred to as most listeners would probably understand is like you are your mate singular right like romantic kind of mate but you're saying you know we're sort of Soul matey or these are our soul mates so what what do you you know I'm reframing that term and the way that I like it more because I don't I don't know I don't think there's like one mate I don't think there's like one child I don't think there's like one friend I don't think that way other people can think that way but I don't think that way so I think I'm trying to like get the term and I'm trying to reframe it in a way that I like more which would be like I think these are just profound karmic interconnections with other people you know I talked with llama Glenn about this at some point when I was kind of wrestling with this question some years ago it's even like pre-pandemic and I said so what do you think about this whole idea and he was like well you know in Buddhism we don't have this idea like you're split in half and there's some other person that you have to like complete the coin or something we don't have the idea and if I look honestly myself I don't think that's true to be honest though again there's lots of spiritual tradition around this there is yeah so in like something like the Kabbalah they have that idea and then like I don't got if someone had that notion I'm I'm not going to judge it or anything but I I don't feel that that way myself and you know it was llama Glenn and I at the theosophical society in Chicago kind of slipping like rum and coke after the retreat talking as uh we do because he's a a beloved spiritual teacher and friend and I was like yeah I think I probably think more like that you know as I was thinking about this question but there's no doubt I feel this way about my kids and that's the language I use you know we had this episode a bit ago we were talking about my son and he was going through a little existential crisis what's the meaning of things what's the purpose I learned [...] I'm gonna die you're gonna die you got all French existential on me or something like out of the blue at bedtime and I was like okay hold on let's get the coffee brewing guy no yeah let's get the absent out we'll roll our own cigarettes no I was just like no with him I was just no that's not how it is at all it's not I'm not going to force a view on you but that's not how I feel I think that you know we're all on this sort of Journey spiritually we're finding these people who are very deeply connected to us in profound ways and we influence one another and now in this time I'm your dad and you're my son but some other time you know you can be the dead you know that's totally fine like I was saying before or whoever we are and so we'll always have this bond between us and we're learning and the things that you learn will carry out that's my feeling right so I think these kind of more profound connections I'm totally fine calling them soul mates because I don't feel like I want to be limited by some definition of like a broken coin with another half I don't I don't follow metaphysically that point of view and I guess we'll get some metaphysical beliefs as we go through because I think it does matter but I think it could be like you know family friends I was thinking about this you know even I didn't put the notes but like you're a soulmate of mine Daniel I love you like a brother and like if it wasn't for us meeting a lot of things in my life wouldn't have happened same I wasn't doing this podcast uh also I would not be doing this podcast because neither one of us would know each other that's true but like also the idea like there's things that like I do because we know each other and so I kind of acknowledge that I mean I think of it in that way which I think changes the value I place on the relationship yeah yeah so whether that's family or friends or kids but some of these are um you know loving someone or being in love with someone in some deep way and I you know I think that happens I think that's just part of it um I think for myself multiple people have sort of been my guides for coming to this so I think the young book kind of matters for me because I think he was kind of ironically kind of a guy that I didn't think about them all the time but he is a person who thinks this way right you can kind of tell and he talks about relationships as being like kind of alchemical that people meet and they alchemically transform one another yeah and that has been my experience to be better or worse but I think he's staying for the better yeah well you know I could totally not like talking about the thing where you mix the camels and explodes in your face it like blows your nose off sometimes a little explosion between a couple of people is good you know things can explode yeah but anyways I think you know I think he thinks of it in that way I think and this is you know probably clear from episodes we've done but I think Rumi's a guide for me on this too with uh Rumi and Shams of Tabriz which we've done episodes on in the past but if you don't remember the roomy story roomy was a relatively kind of conservative you know maybe more typical kind of teacher of Islam yeah and uh this traveling Mystic Shams of debris blows into town he's looking for kind of a soul mate like it's the whole idea of the story is that he asks give me a guide to find someone who I can who I can look into their eyes you know who can hold my gaze I think is the idea you know I can find someone who can kind of share this space with me and the voice comes and says hey find this guy roomy so he goes and he finds him and they had this very intense relationship you know they're obviously they love each other really deeply and I guess there's a question of what happened to them was it like sexual or non-sexual it's two men conservative culture the tradition would say nothing happened to them between them physical I don't have a problem with that being the case either that might be very much true it might have just been an emotional mental spiritual connection between two people maybe something sexual happened I'm a 21st century person I wouldn't care you know but in any case you know it reminds me the Sabrina Spirit thing who knows what happened between them right but Carl Jung and her but something happened that was transformative obviously you know and so you can kind of see that I think that you can also see the hostility though because if you know the end of the Rumi shamsa Tabriz story what happens at the end is sashan's probably gets killed right like he realizes things are bad he flees then he comes back again and they're kind of reunited together um roomie becomes a poet I think when he first leaves never wrote any poetry before he's probably what greatest poet had ever lived I would agree I would I would he's he's in a discussion there's no doubt yeah there's no doubt it's amazing and so you know uh uh Rumi discovers himself as a as a poet and artist I've done their a Sufi it's a Mystic the whole part of his life they never would have had otherwise but there's also hostility right and you could kind of see that there's a I think there's an underlying hostility to this whole point of view on some level that kind of goes through and you could see it in the roomy story because ultimately the the way it is talked about is it's Rooney's own son who conspires to have him killed because he's kind of like uh creating a public spectacle and embarrassment for the family and that's the that's the cap around the story right no one knows for sure right John's is just someday gone but the basic idea is that probably he was murdered and probably murdered by people close to roomy especially when the roomy's sons so anyways I think though that but that's a guide for me and how I think about things I think the time certain tantric Masters obviously the Buddhist tantricas have an attitude like this I think they're a Zen Masters that I like like EQ who has ideas like this you know and so I think I've had like influences in learning how to think this way for myself again with no expectation that other people have to agree with me other people feel different but at least for me I've come to this kind of attitude and I think the most the most shocking part for me probably is that I think that these soulmate relationships are actually there I think that's the metaphysically most prizing part for me so for me I honestly think it's real I think you'll go through your life and you're like that's a special person to me I know this is a special person and in a funny way even in our relationship because you came up to me when you know we were all the way back in grad school and you came up to me and said like hey well when I was in grad school and you were teaching okay I was just you know saying yeah but we were in grad school together that's right that's right but you came up to me and you're like dude I wanna like there's something that I think we need to do together uh of a spiritual type and I was like yeah okay cool and it like made me do stuff I wouldn't otherwise do sap definitely true hence the homurac tension no there's no homo erotic attention but anyways it was one of these things I was gonna say now your butt hurts and I've never felt the same about my prostate now I think that like the thing is it's really real right and who knows how this will turn out you know given the vicissitudes of different people's lives I would say I don't think there's any societal context for this in this Society there's not the context for what for the idea that you're going to be deeply in love with some other person I don't think that really has a lot of space here and we could talk about why in love with another person and what do you mean outside of your traditional relationship or or I think especially if it's sexual but I even think if it's not sexual I still think that's hard for people so I still don't think that's easy for people right I know I'm just trying to clarify what what relationship are you referencing are you referencing like a friendship or uh or uh you know I think especially the ones where there's people are in love with each other there's romantic things there's the physical aspects of things that might be outside of a monogamous setting there's no social context for that got it but my experience with this to be honest is and now come back to it because I did some stuff with Esther perel and I think this is really interesting so we didn't talk about this pre-show no mentioned a little bit last week but okay um we haven't done it like any notes or anything but I guess surprised there's some really fascinating things about this because I think even like really intense friendships people don't like oh yeah but we can get to it we can get to it so I don't I don't think there's any societal context and I don't even think that's a judgment it's just not that kind of society it just doesn't have that wiring in it which is different I think the Astro Pro stuff is kind of helpful so I guess we'll get to it so why would what would be you know if we're playing if we're playing Fair uh what do you think some of the benefits for having that be we'll call it taboo for the sake of this conversation what would be some of the benefits that you would think that why would that be beneficial for being taboo well let me bounce ahead and I'll do that forel stuff and we'll like kick it around okay let's do it okay so because I didn't know what order we're going to do this in right so um okay we've done some episodes on Esther perel yeah she is uh kind of a couple's therapist she's more trained kind of in a little bit of a Neo Freudian kind of a style I think originally so she's interesting she fit into some of the episodes we did we were talking more about monogamous relationships and things like that um but she you know she really counsels all kinds of couples she's an interesting person that she's also cross-cultural she's from Belgium but she's worked with couples that are cross-cultural especially and uh worked in different parts of the world so she's a really interesting person for this and so um and I can I'll hook up a link to one of the Instagram posts since we're gonna be doing this maybe we can listen to her talk for themselves but she says you know she said she's getting interviewed I don't even know who the dude is who's interviewing her it seems like it's some random movie but it's a little clip you can find so I've been doing this research for this book and she says okay there's lots of Frameworks for which you can look at how people think about relationships but she says the big thing is like the exclusiveness model versus the uniqueness model and I got to the point where I'm thinking like this almost seems to me like maybe you could call these orientations so she doesn't use this word but I'll use it a uniqueness orientation and an exclusiveness orientation what struck me in listening to her was how close this was to like the actual language that people use so I was really struck when I was listening to her like yeah this is exactly how people talk and then maybe kind of think okay she's a clinician she's been listening to people for years she's using the exact words that people use so let me balance this uniqueness orientation off yeah and off the listeners you can see what you think I'll do that one first so what she says is you know the people in the uniqueness orientation their General attitude to something like when they look at another person they say what we have between us is unique and that is what I value that uniqueness that's what I want the unique connection with this other person if this person has some connection with somebody else this doesn't bother me because I know that what we have is unique and that's what I want I this isn't threatening to me I feel the uniqueness and the specialness of what's happening between us and whatever emotional even physical connections that person might have with somebody else that doesn't threaten me because it doesn't undermine my sense of that uniqueness and um and again it's striking because it's an exact word like I think in my own head that's the word I use like I think okay my connection with this person is unique or special I have valued it this way ergo that's how I'm going to act I think this is a special thing I've made this conclusion and then whatever else happens after that it's fine with me but I value this thing other people too real quick I asked some other people too I was just talking with somebody yesterday about this two people who have this similar kind of mindset they're like yeah that's exactly the word they use they use unique so would would you then uh would this be analogous to say something of your of this reframing or redefining the soulmate idea yeah I think I feel that way yeah it's some kind of combination of like intellectual connection emotional connection some kind of feeling a bond potentially with also feeling of romantic feelings attraction those kinds of things too but it's it's this sort of things you know okay so that's one side the other side of this is what she calls the exclusivist orientation I'm gonna try to be even more fair than she does because when you listen to her she sounds a little bit more harsh about it uh then maybe what I think we even want to do but it made me think huh Esther I wonder if she's what she's really like in her personal life well yeah I mean Mr you Saucy minks it makes you start thinking ha but anyways we're gonna try to be fair about it so but I think I'm also going to try to quote her as close as possible so I you know people can fact check me on this but I'm going to try to be as close as the words that should use so in the exclusives orientation what she says is that she that person feels like what I have with you is made special by the fact that we do this exclusively with one another right then nobody else that gives this the specialness right I had done a thought experiment with uh like an old friend of mine he likes these like uh ethical riddles like uh you see a train going down the track and there's three people strapped to the rails and you know that they could die you could flip a switch and it'll redirect the train but then one dude will get killed do you do it do you not do it he likes that kind of [...] I don't I don't know if you like that kind of [...] either Daniel I'm not into it that much but anyways he likes these ethical riddles you're stunned in the silence I mean whatever whatever you say someone it's just a point of argument you know someone's gonna be like well but then his life he was I didn't tell you that he was a philanthropist and a father of 12 and now those youngest son's gonna kill himself at the age of 15 and you guys turns into an Annex murderer and he kills another board right exactly people that wouldn't yeah the way to go dummy you know shows you where your morals are yeah no matter how you answer it's a bad answer right bad answer oh you let them all die oh no problem you heartless son of a [...] there you go you know don't you care about the lives of those wrong with you and you just do you know like why don't you go save him and then murder them yourself how about that I think uh I think uh yeah it's a certain kind of personality so he likes this kind of stuff so I said can I ask you like a tough question he's a good sport so he said yeah go ahead ask away I love it ask me something I said cool let me let me propose this to you if you had a thing where you could still be with you know he's married so you could still be with your wife but be with other people but she would also be able to be with other people too you wouldn't lose her you know like your relationship will continue to go on forever but you know you both have to have this thing happen would you do that or not do that and within like a nanosecond like you know like faster than any Jeopardy answer ever given in history the show he was like a hard no no and I said okay that's interesting and I was trying to go like well why and I thought about our episode we had done about serial monogamy and you know one of my other old friends I had talked to it said you know that he had had these poly experiences and it had kind of made him it kind of got him to the point of like Securities and insecurity these issues had come up for him and he thought about that pretty deeply it kind of changed him he felt like a more secure person probably in the end even though that wasn't for him so I asked my I asked this friend of mine that I had posed this riddle to well is it insecurity or something and he said no no it's not like it's part that he said he admitted that but then he started saying like it has something to do with like a sense of like specialness that he wanted to have you know with this one partner and that somehow if that specialness wasn't kept that would sort of ruin it for him and I was like okay I understand we had a little bit something before that because he said something about time well you need time for relationships and all that and I went well I said Carl Jung was with like his wife and Tony wolf for like 40 years is that enough time you know it's a lot of time and then he got a little Snappy with me and he said well do you want me to answer the question or not or you want to argue with me and I was like okay all right back to being the back to the moral back to the moral uh question stepped back okay um and I said I'm not trying to put you in the spot or anything so we were fine then um and then he answered this thing about like and then he said something about well I would want my my wife my partner to be able to be there when I want her to be there so there was like an immediate time thing for him and I was like okay you know so that's how he feels and I was like okay fair enough you know and I wouldn't you know argue against any of that that's how the dude feels but that probably wouldn't be like how I would feel and so I was like okay there's just like individual difference with this but we get back to the extra perele thing so here's how she talks about this she says for the Esther for the exclusivist orientation what's really important for them is she uses the word restriction so she says restriction and boundaries and then she says borders now what really struck me about that is like that's exactly the language that people use like they talk exactly those words boundaries borders like that's exactly the word so I was like God damn Esther you nailed it you know because it's like the exact language and you can tell you she's just kind of reporting what she's heard I'm about restriction I don't think people who feel this way think of it as being restriction oh you know I think what's happening on how happy they are you know I suppose so that's a different question because that gets like okay that gets to the D okay we'll do it but you know she starts talking about these things and like for me I can say as a uniqueness person like I don't even like those words like they're not part of my vocab right I would never say boundaries borders would never even occur to me I asked a couple other people about this and I was like I was describing Esther perel stuff and they were like no I would never use those words those words don't even occur to me this is why I'm totally against building a wall in our Southern border it's it's that might be why all those Maga people like it you know what I mean Christian it's metaphysical it's not as people it's you know analogous wanna we want the flow you know we're both just teasing yeah yeah so I I don't think that and so but like when you talk about restriction and then I think you can't get away from the idea of repression right because you might have feelings for other people doesn't have to be repressed but like we talked about our episode about this that's kind of a good thing yeah because you need that mechanism to be able to kind of make this sort of style of Life work which is fine you know but it's probably going to be part of how people are going to be um so it's like it's kind of interesting then right but I think what you were getting to would be does everyone who's in this style of thing really wanted or not wanted that's an interesting question so maybe one will get to but anyway she goes through it she keeps talking about this Esther perel and she says um you know uh the uniqueness people like want to elevate specialness and it is in the context of what exists between the two people now she says this takes a certain kind of maturity more maturity and more differentiation between the two people I don't know if I would say that or not to be honest I don't know what more mature or less mature about this would be but anyway she says that so you can listen to it for yourself and you can kind of decide what you think about that I know if I would intrinsically say there's something more mature or less mature about this but she said it's also like not for the faint of heart because it can bring up for people who are more exclusive mindeness minded things of like vulnerability jealousy insecurity and maybe trigger like attachment issues they might have psychologically so it's something to think about but anyways she says exclusiveness says something like you giving up your freedom is what makes me feel secure so some of that it strikes me might have something to do with like a certain kind of sacrifice and I think there is probably a part of at least American culture we can hear from our other people across the world say that again Eric you giving up your freedom well she says something like for the exclusiveness-minded person that other person I'm the exclusive minded person you giving up your freedom makes me feel more secure that shows me how much you value me um and so that speaks to that person you know their psychology their orientation towards things which gets me to this idea there's probably something about sacrifice there because it's a it's a it's a at least in part for America it's a judeo-christian Vibe right [Music] and it even comes up in other things like I was watching with my daughter before she ended up to Paris she's off in Perry last night she was Alto four in the morning with a bunch of gay French artists that she met with some other friends of hers and they spent the night like hanging out on this houseboat so she's having a good time when in Paris already well yeah when in Paris um but anyways we were watching American Horror Story 1984. watch the whole season and uh I won't spoil it for people if you haven't seen it I think it's pretty good it came out like six years ago or whatever but okay so but anyways it got to the end and the the conclusion of the story there's this whole thing about like that's what good parents do they sacrifice themselves for their kids that's like the last lines of the whole thing and they play this kind of sentimental 80s song that the guy from Genesis wrote when his father died anyways it's a whole big ending to the whole climax of the whole season and I looked at her and I was like I don't I'm not sacrificing myself for you I don't feel a single moment of this is sacrifice it never crosses my mind the word never occurs to me I enjoy you I don't feel any of this is sacrifice and I don't want you sacrificing yourself for your kids either that's not my Paradigm that's not my way of looking at the world but I think for some people that is right you know and they that that adds energy to who they are right does that make sense what I'm trying to say there yeah yeah I think people feel that and then Esther Pearl kind of continues off with this idea that in the exclusiveness thing she uses this word she says it creates the fantasy of a certain kind of Oneness so she uses the word fantasy take that for what you want to take it um I know if I use that word but that that's what makes it feel special to that person like my friend I was talking about this is obviously like a big deal for him and if that was lost then he would feel that somehow his experience with his wife with this person would be contaminated somehow or broken or ruined where like a uniqueness person doesn't feel that the uniqueness person feels more like what we have is special I want to give you freedom I want to give you experience I want to give you those spaces to do that and this is clearly like this so crazy because it's like exactly Verbatim what people say so you ask people and you know it's gonna be most of the people are gonna be more exclusivistic it's an exclusivistic culture it just is right but if you could find people who are different they'll talk one way and the people are more exclusivistic they'll talk exactly the way she said that's been my experience with it you know and it's interesting for me because coming from this more uniqueness orientation the way she's describing it like a lot of the language and the ideas in the exclusivist thing I would never use those words they don't even resonate with me you know but I can understand other people they do so I mean this got to the point where we're talking about judgment I guess I might as well do this you know I had these conversations with my brother I talked with him yesterday about this he's much more like the exclusive this guy and that much more the uniqueness person and we had had this thing where there was some my uncle got sick last year we were doing a lot of caretaking for him and if you've been through this situation you end up spending a lot of time together right maybe more time than you usually would with somebody even if it's your sibling or whatever so we spend a ton of time together and what I what we realized was that you know talking with one another we got probably the closest we've ever been in our whole lives through this experience because we really talked in the way that you do when something serious like that is happening and what we kind of realized was there was some subtle feeling that we were both judging each other whether we were or not it wasn't obvious you know I think some of the things we thought we were judging we really didn't mean to be but because we saw the world differently I think there was this feeling like he felt I was judging his life I felt like he was judging my life and how I think basically judging our ways of being in the world or something and we talked it through and we realized no this is totally fine and even though we might not feel exactly the same way this is totally fine and it like flipped our relationship around like that it was really amazing and we've again we've gotten probably as close as we've been since you know maybe when we were kids or something you know we you have to go back to like you know my being in my teens and him being like a 10 or 11 year old for us to be this close so I asked them you know he's a very private person but I said could I share this and he said yeah and so it was sort of that amazing thing of like recognizing the individual differences recognizing that people have different orientations towards the world and going okay you know this is how this person feels outside of that framework of judgment anyway so I wanted to share that party what do you think I mean you probably have stuff well no let's go back to the question that I brought up earlier because yeah yeah I already did dude I already answered it this is the orientation of these two people that's it I don't have anything to say about who's better or worse I don't see the advantages or the disadvantages well I'm not saying signs of folks I got nothing else to say about it no I'm not saying from your perspective I'm saying that Society has this as oh I see what it is right so regardless of whatever I'm just saying like you know I mean if you don't want to say and if you'd have zero opinion on it no I'm just given a hard time because that was my answer right no no I know what but you wait what you said was let me let me say what Esther perel thinks and then we'll come back to it and so I think I agree with her I think these are two different orientations towards the world sure and I right and that's that's I think and I agree with I agree with that or you know right so but then I guess my question is is okay so now that now that that has been illuminated right that people who are listening to this are saying okay this is illuminated and some people probably fall on one side or the other of the blade yeah right they're saying this is their psychological Tendencies maybe even we can go deeper archetypes if you will right right but then we are existing within another Matrix right a societal Matrix of of moral ethical kind of things that are you know newer or older or whatever that are in place for some particular reason right and some things have lasted this one has lasted beyond the the grips of organized religion as the only source of connection to God or Community or anything else right even as time has gone on post Enlightenment and things like that right science is built but this one Still Remains and this one Still Remains almost ubiquitously across the world we disagree on this so you and I don't agree on this point but that's okay finish the point but we don't we don't agree I don't like I factually disagree with you on this but it's okay well I mean you know you don't think that it it it it it it exists as that as I have more like this I knew this was going to happen I have more the sex of dawn position I have more the esterol position the monogamy is the new idea it's not the old idea the monogamy is the new idea it's a societal idea so what but that's what I'm talking about Society yeah I this one this Society here yeah yeah right and so and what I'm saying is this is the predominant View right yeah yeah and so what I'm saying is that like as this is the predominant view of society why would that be the case what are what are some ideas as to why that would be the case because if people are having this maybe not internal struggle but let's just say observation based on this right so you talked about unique and exclusive orientations and so someone could be honest and say well you know I kind of feel one way or the other but if one person is challenged let's say some of our audience is challenged or 50 of them is challenged on this idea I'd be like well I could totally understand that right but we live in this kind of this structure really that doesn't doesn't afford people to really kind of experiment naturally right with this kind of a thing it's sort of you have to find a little group but now you're stuck within a group and that's like it's like-minded people but it's not exactly not really even find a group that's that like-minded to be honest right so how do your reviews are so my question is are my wanting to you know as we kind of I want to discuss this a little bit as to like why would that be the case and then how to work within and around that because I think you have to see the rules in order to be able to kind of find the spaces within them of course you can decide to leave totally but you still have to know the the game in which you're playing because even the other people who might be like-minded are still playing within that game they're still playing with let me throw it back to you first I'll give my answer but you asked the question so let me ask you it first back because you have a stronger feeling about this than I do so like what do you think you're more Capricorn dude you think more about the societal aspects in some ways than I do what do you think about it well let me just okay so I'll start by saying that like supposed to like you know maybe like I'll have you answer it first and I'll kind of give my two cents sure even a flip route because it's more of an issue for you than it is for me I think you know I think it's I think it's an issue for everybody whether they want to say it or not I think that people should break with the Society of course so I think if you don't agree with that you should break with it right right but that's gonna be my answer every single episode right right but for people who are not necessarily as bold or are working within that you know what I'm saying because when at least how I think when you come to the finality of your decision and you're like okay now I've decided that's a process yeah and in order to get somebody over the hump of their decision whatever their decision might be they have to go through various kind of steps or feelings or intuitions or however you know what I'm saying and so for me this discussion helps people reframe their thinking from concept to actuality so that they can come to that point and say okay I have I feel it I think it and I feel it within me now to be able to do whatever I'm going to do with it do you know what I'm saying but I think you're asking something about like why is this Society like this correct so I know do you know this Posey with thing no okay it's a great idea it's it's like letters that stand for the purpose of a system is what it does okay right so you look at the outcome of it I had a lot of conversations with a friend of the show and beloved friend Justin key about these issues so he's like a Northwestern Law grad he teaches at Lake Forest College so he's a kind of a faculty member there if you haven't seen any of the episodes with my friend Justin yes and he would always ask us we should have him on again by the way yeah yeah no we're slightly broken up okay well whenever you guys make up we'll make up next week once my retreat is over I'm on semi Retreat we'll make up okay you and I are always we're we have we're Fiery Soul Mates sure we're fiery assaults um uh that homoerotic tension between us no that's not true either we're both pretty CIS straight guys but in any case um he would always say like that's the reason I was getting a little Saucy because I you know I don't know what you think about that question because my answer would have to be and I don't know what you I honestly don't know what you think but my thing like he would say like cui Bono kind of a lawyery term like who benefits if a society is wired a certain way Posey would the purpose of a system is what it does so for me I would probably have to say if I look at this historical thing a lot of this was to keep women probably like engaged you know and it was a way of controlling women and this issue still comes up currently in the society there's a weird thing with like Justin Peterson if you even know who that is on Joe Rogan I don't think that's his name Jordan Peterson Jordan Peterson right that might be a Freudian slip yeah I mean whatever [...] that guy but like we could at least get his name right you know yeah Jordan Peterson so um and there's this weird thing where he's trying to say the society has to be reoriented back to where you force women to marry otherwise you'll have too many single dudes running around and they're going to get like the ornery and whatever and I was like and Joe Rogan looks at him like what are you talking about what are you talking about the genius Joe Rogan cracks that argument you know and he kind of goes like well you're Mr libertarianism like what are you talking about you know he immediately picks up on the inconsistency in that so this is such a weird subject right I was out with someone I want to have on as a guest uh on your grandma who's like uh um TCM person traditional Chinese medicine person in our field but she also has as part of her professional life I think she calls it Venus seminars or something I'll have to look it up to get a better to get it more accurate but she wants to work with women who are having trouble who've had trouble with their relationships sexuality sexual trauma so she's really proactive on this so I we went out uh some weeks ago and I was like well you're going to come on this podcast and talk and she was like yeah I'm going to do it so that's definitely something we were talking about this thing and I was like you know if I looked at it like a roomy thing or a union thing you know like we talk a lot about medicines like Ayahuasca and these kinds of things we've done psychedelic episodes like one of the strongest drugs you're going to take your whole life is spiritual connection and love it's one of the strongest drugs you're going to take that's now chemical Elixir itself and it led to this conversation of like well why were those substances so taboo and it was like because it would challenge your level of Consciousness it would change who you were and so I asked her do you think that's part of what happens with these things with sexuality that you have to kind of like hold them into these boxes you have to kind of restrict them because otherwise it you know it will change people's level of Consciousness because it's just as strong of a drug or love yeah and she was like because I've had this thought before so I asked her opinion she was like yeah there's probably something like that you know so that might be a reason too no I mean to my I don't know how you think I honestly don't know how you think about this but to me I would say like yeah Society wants people to live a certain kind of way and um and you know as we've been talking about I think that that fits for you that's cool you know then you're fine with it and honestly I I thought about this a lot if like what you want to do is be monogamously involved in an exclusiveness way with another person maybe have some kids live your life working in run a small business you work in Corporate America whatever if that's the idea of like what works for you as a life then you're probably this is like [...] Shangri-La for you you're probably super happy here you know what I mean and honestly I know people who are yeah right I have real good friends who are like yeah this is probably who they are this is their orientation as a person you know I had like one friend who worked in Corporate America since he was in his early 20s I was like how does this [...] guy do this I thought he's like the strongest guy in the world I would like throw myself off the top of the tower where I was working like I couldn't do it and as time went on I realized it's not him being strong or something this just doesn't bother him correct like he's fine with it so like that's a kind of an evolution in my thinking of this I suppose so to me you know Society has whatever its motivations are I mean what do you think the motivations are stability yeah in this in this stability yeah I think you know but but on the same token right so I mean I guess that sounds like bad right like oh stability like that that's not exactly exciting you know what I'm saying like vanilla is not an exciting flavor yeah yeah but like without that stability then I don't know that you have the opportunity to to break away from anything I don't know that you have the the place in which from where you can grow now maybe yeah okay I'm sorry yeah no I'm cutting your flow please I say now maybe the argument could be made that you know people would have been enlightened historically regardless because there's they were practicing and there was Karma and that was going to happen anyways you know but there was even structure then right the story of the Buddha this all the monks who had to leave their Villages leave their society to go and become you know live in a monastery and whatnot but a monastery existed because it was outside of society right the sort of the what do we call it like the battery for the spiritual practices uh coming out from the monasteries in some way you know well I mean like the Buddha just leaves though there's no Monastery he goes to he just no no I'm not saying he's like I said he went to a monster you know I'm just saying he he had a structure from which he left so I I guess what I'm I'm disparaging and giving credit to the structures that are in place for providing people the opportunity to break away Jonathan gets me about this Daniel is there are this doesn't have anything to do with this relationship structure idea in particular so like Tibet is a non-monogamous culture right I remember reading that in like llama Glenn's book on the Dalai Lama as he starts talking about the six Dalai Lama who's sort of like a little bit of a player right as far as Dalai Lama's go probably a lot of them aren't I mean right at all it's the fact that he had one girlfriend was like crazy but he was really like he was kind of like a Dalai Lama [...] Point okay all right but run a lot of poetry you know about love and whatever it doesn't Vibe with me for some reason but anyways he's sort of famous for this in Tibet and uh but there's a passage where he's just like llama Glenn just says like well listen his behavior wasn't dead unusual a lot of people would be non-monogamous there was no expectation that men or women would be and it's a Buddhist Tantra culture or and maybe we'll talk about more next episode or something but there were you know there's the mosso women of Tibet they're non-monogamous right and it's not like it's not stable it's totally stable it's just it's just different so you know again you have to like think about what do you think that means I also want to talk about I mean there's other people I want to talk about because this I think is an interesting question what you're asking I know it's a bigger deal for you you know what I mean I think you think about this more than I do you know um so I think like that's why I think I think it was kind of important to be like well what do you think about this because me I don't think about this as much like you know the the Tibetan culture from from my understanding has been moved from more of a warrior tradition over the last you know thousand years or more you know to a spiritual culture you know what I'm saying and so their their practice is one of non-violence you know and domestic violence here in this culture is rampant really I don't want to say domestic violence in Tibet isn't a problem too because it is okay okay I'll full disclosure on that I I guess I'm just saying that like I don't you know part of it you know there's numerous reasons for which one you know could be moved towards rage jealousy being one of them and that happens even within relationships that are exclusive oriented orientated right you know what I'm saying I would imagine at least again thinking from how I'm thinking of just like maybe low-level people Maybe not maybe I'm not giving Society the benefit of the doubt so that could be on me right thinking like right but I would imagine that that that that that incidence could potentially rise you know and particularly against women in the in this case more than than men you know if that was to if it was to if someone was to have an agreement with somebody else and somebody was let's just say better at doing that than another person not necessarily only sexual but just having a more magnanimous kind of open uh desire for uh what do we call it unique uh Connections orientations in that way that the other person may not you know what I'm saying and if that the and if the person is truly in that orientation completely then it should not be a problem based on how we're talking about it but if somebody is kind of like a little bit in between or whatever then it could bring up you know attachment could come again because to me that what we're talking about if you're talking about like domestic violence though we have domestic violence in the west like crazy right and I'm the number one way is a woman you're gonna get killed is by your partner for sure well the number one reasons you can get killed is because of jealousy and that's in this culture right and that's but that's right I don't know I don't know what it means you know like it doesn't solve the problem to say no no it doesn't make everything like super exclusivistics people are still gonna and it's it's a clacia Well I we didn't get to talk about we will next episode yeah this jealousy thing is a delusion right well that's from a Buddhist point of view right that's crazy town correct but that's so I'm just I'll I'm I guess I'm just like working it out loud as to like what would be some reasons as to because it's here right we could say however it is we want to break it down that's fine but it's still here it still is in existence right the thing that's so interesting I know if you read the sex of Dawn I have not no okay anyway sex Adonis maybe we'll do that as a book review too I should do that one but like this is the new thing yeah this isn't the old thing and it's so funny because there's a story that would go there was this sort of ethical system that developed under like judeo-christian Islamic whatever you have this kind of system and as it like fell apart because it used to be God told you to be this way right start makes this point John Paul start the French philosopher which my daughter will be studying at the surbone when she's not out partying on houseboats but um you know he says something about like you know people used to think God made all this stuff and then they said Nature Made all this stuff and that's not true either there's no monogamous oriented chimps they don't exist it's nothing this is the new thing for whatever reason it appeared it was part of some social structure that got built up for whatever reason that's the sexadong argument right so for whatever reason this appeared and like then the argument goes like because you need the hierarchical societal system where you had something on the top and something on the bottom so you stuck the women on the bottom you put the guys above them agree yeah and then you put the few the Lord above that guy and then the King was above that one and then God was at the top of the whole chain yeah being right and then like along with the women there were like the animals I think I think for me like understanding why that you know why that's there helps to break the chains more readily for me do you know what I'm saying for me because like again this is something that you and I I so you have kind of an ambivalent feeling about this from my point of view but I might be wrong to me I think you think well you need the stability and the society needs to have this structure you do and where they had the stability um but then you also kind of like it's the other part of like well people probably individually have to break from it is that how you feel about it yeah okay yeah and the reason and you see this then there's being like a good and bad thing at the same time or something I do yeah yeah unfortunately I mean it's a it's a [...] argument to be honest on my part you know what I'm saying but the place that it comes that runs through the episodes like it comes up periodically when the subject matter comes up and I'm always trying to figure out what does Daniel actually think about this yeah so I I think that like there are and and you know we only have like two more two or three minutes to finish it but I will finish it you know because I think it's because of my experience at War and because I still I do pay attention to International politics maybe more so than the one in the United States and for those who don't there is a whole world of [...] that is going on currently all over you know still currently other countries ruling other countries and not just politically but like with an Iron Fist and when I say Iron Fist I mean at the end of a barrel of a tank or a rifle or you know there's still uh modern day uh colonialism literally not just like metaphorically like actual other countries taking all of the resources from other places in the world and because I've seen like you know this kind of drama firsthand I know the the from my own experience the depth to which people can be absolutely brutal like real brutality you know what I'm saying not Jordan Peterson discussing uh a civilized Western man as a quote animal you know what I'm saying like no a real gross human behavior right that it's about like societal chaos or something yeah yeah like you know like momentary psychosis right and then oh well now I'm back to normal now I don't you know I just I just blew up those guys and now I'm going home for dinner you know hey no big deal like I gotta get home to my family you know what I'm saying like this kind of [...] but because I'm aware of that I'm like well it's better not to be in that state if that's the end state if that's complete and utter chaos well then maybe some like discomfort and some other forms of suffering that are definitely not as bad as that are a better choice than that right what do you think about that is like human beings have lived all kinds of different ways for sure over the time so you don't need this one necessarily just to create this you know right there that bothers me I don't think you need to have there's a kind of an argument I guess it's a Jordan Peterson top argument you need to have this otherwise you have chaos yeah you know I don't know you make that argument a hundred years ago and there's a whole bunch of people who are stuck in really shitty positions sure where you're saying okay you have to be in this shitty position otherwise we have social chaos sorry about that right yeah I mean I'm not I know that's that part always bothers you know I'm saying that part always bothers you sure and I'm not this is this is not the utope this is not the Utopia you know what I'm just saying I'm just saying in in in potential comparison not I'm it's not a one-to-one but in potential comparison what what you would have as Choice wise in that scenario is extremely limited extremely limited so like like I said it before like on one hand I think that we are sort of in like invisible prisons in one level you know uh it's for me it may be better to be an invisible prison that I might be able to get out of than being an invisible hell that I will not I mean it might be true I don't know like this is I don't know this is a difference in somehow like our Karma orientations to how we think about things or something because these questions are bigger for you yeah I always think like you're a Capricorn I'm a little Gemini you know so but anyways all I can say about that is like I don't think my saying this stuff or proposing we'll continue this maybe next episode yeah am I proposing a different way of doing things isn't going to topple judeo-christian culture no it ain't gonna happen so as a matter of fact the one thing I had with with my friend Justin was like the big change is divorce if you want to talk about a change the fact that people can divorce at the rate they can divorce that's a change yeah you worry about some little people who are like are going to have alternative relationship models that's like a small percentage of people for sure that's not the thing that had impacted divorce that's a huge impact because maybe 50 of the people are going to do it whatever the number is correct yeah that's a big deal and like in my parents time you couldn't do that they're silent generation correct that's a boomer thing so you want to talk about what changed society that changed the society yeah I agree that destabilizing I don't know I don't think any of us would want to take it back no but I mean that's a huge deal then you really did change the society right that's fair yeah you know more so than any of this stuff I don't think like I know they're trading in Chicago they're not going to topple the world but they're still trading people who are doing this you know they're just trading one for another one yeah but yeah and there was a woman in the audience who was like I want to get divorced and she had all this ethical churning inside of her was it right was it wrong and the Dalai Lama do you have kids and then the woman said no and then the dog said well if there's no kids involved that's an individual choice between adults that's totally fine yeah and and my friend was really offended because she was like a big marriage proponent at the time then she got married and she's against it but at the time she was really upset by the answer and I was like well that's just a Tibetan answer because you want to keep the stability of the unit but you allow people to go and have experiences with other people they answered that question in a different way yeah well we're gonna have to leave it we're gonna leave it here all right you gotta go yeah yeah okay at least it's a lively conversation yeah for sure for sure okay I have to share my experiences next week of why the hell I would come to a feeling like this maybe one more episode on this thing but it's it's a saucy top top for sure yeah yeah all right okay cool man all right uh as always uh thanks for tuning in to Jen and Tantra uh Eric Daniel we're gonna say goodbye do all the things like comment subscribe share with us hit us up gin and Tantra gmail.com on Instagram at gin and Tantra leave a comment on YouTube uh if you know us text us you know whatever just shout out like we appreciate all the love and the hate and all the things in between uh because I believe that we are uh uniquely oriented people ah wink wink we'll get you guys I want to say before you go thanks for the thanks for the conversation Daniel this stuff is really helpful to me good yeah well you know I gotta be a thorn once in a while right love you brother love you too I'll talk to you soon yeah [Music] foreign [Music]