ASM174 THIS with Michael Gungor

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what is this anyway a special conversation with my good friend and liturgist podcast co-host michael gunger this week on ask science he's mike answers even though he may not understand he'll talk anyway he got problems he won't stop them but i'll talk and talk and talk until he flew in the face science faith in life [Music] you know the reason there's an ask science mic at all is because of a friendship i made several years ago with a man named michael gunker if you haven't heard of him he kind of started his career as a christian worship leader and songwriter he went through a period of deconstruction which is when he and i met each other and started something called the liturgists and the most known thing the liturgist done does is a podcast known as the liturgists podcast and i realized that michael's never been on an episode of ask science mike ever and you know that this year one of my goals is to have more conversations with people on ask science mike almost like science mike asks because i actually do like asking people questions um i really enjoy listening to people you know explain what's going on but this week uh this show is actually i only ask one or two questions and all the other questions are from patrons of ask science mike so i want to thank everyone who sent in a question and we got to just about all of them i saw a couple of questions came in after we recorded the episode um but we got the vast majority of questions covered so this is a look into what michael's up to not just with the liturgists but also he's got a book coming out called this and he's also got a podcast of the same name and for those of you who are thinking about what potential avenues of reconstruction look like what what a post post post everything spirituality could look like i think michael's a great resource so for those of you i've realized that over the last couple of years um the ass science mic and literature's podcast audiences have diverged considerably so there's quite a few of you that listen to ask science mike but don't listen to the literature's podcast even though that show is is much more popular it's got uh you know five or six sometimes eight times the number of listeners that ask science mike has and on that note michael and i are going on tour together uh we're testing two dates at first uh but we will hopefully expand that if these if these sell well if people seem interested so we're doing a tour called tabs and wafers and it's all about like our spiritual journeys post deconstruction as we've tried to build something new build community uh build a spiritual identity have spiritual formation happen in our lives and tabs and wafers is our exploration of that uh we're gonna do one friday may 10th in boulder colorado and then saturday may 11th in portland oregon so those tickets are on sale now to everybody so you can go to ask sciencemic.com and click on the events button and that will take you to those events michael and i also along with our friend hillary mcbride are hosting a small retreat in ojai california may 24th that's called ken min that is a men's retreat from the liturgists and i think we've got three count on three spots left for that only because a couple of people had to cancel that event was sold out but a couple of spots opened back up so we'd love to see you either in boulder uh for tabs and wafers in in portland for tabs and wafers or in ohi for ken men all of those are listed as events on ask mike.com and without further ado let's dive into my conversation with my co-founder and best friend michael gunger also known as vishnu das although it's hard for me to believe there are probably people that listen to this podcast who don't know who you are because something i've noticed happening over the last 12 months is um it used to be the science mic audience was this subset of the liturgist audience and they've started to diverge so this is my best friend and podcast co-host michael gunger so welcome to the this is the first time you've ever been on ask science i know i'm honored which is really weird actually and in a typical ass science mic way i don't ever decide what an episode is going to be about the people who listen to the show decide what the episode's going to be about so i asked people um what their questions were for you and in a very ah science mic way i haven't curated or shaped these questions in any way and i will read them in the order in which they appeared on the feed i'm sure yeah but uh the main reason i want to have you on ask science mike is not only so that people who listen to the show and don't know there's another podcast you and i do called the liturgist podcast which is slightly more popular than that science mike if by slightly it's a multiple of listeners and that multiple is significant but because you have started a podcast that's not the liturgist podcast that's true um so i'm gonna start with my own question because my therapist said i i should start asserting my needs so sorry audience third question you're about to ever ask me no i'm just kidding probably not far um what made you want to start this as a podcast i'm coming out with a book by the same name this on april 16th and it's a pretty significant departure from my work historically so part of me part of the reason for the podcast is to kind of prepare the road a little bit for where the book is headed so it's kind of i'm trying to lead up to the book's release with some ideas with the podcast so that people just doesn't feel just totally out of left field and i don't know we talk about non-dual things and some mystical things and stuff on the liturgist podcast but there are times i want to go deeper into some of these subjects and it doesn't it just doesn't totally fit the format or feeling of the literature's podcast necessarily and if you wouldn't mind yeah what do you mean by non-dude well thank you for asking uh you've never encountered me an interviewer i know interesting um you kind of interviewed you interviewed me for that's true the one wild life thing that's true on our litter's podcast um you're a good interviewer actually uh non-dual is a term that mystics and sages have uses used from all different traditions and it's sort of the same thing as talking about the oneness the unity of all things non-dual is often preferred to some of those language because one saying oneness um still kind of you can think of an opposite in a way like numbness or two-ness or whatever and within oneness there is twoness there is the sense of twoness here with us talking to each other you and i non-dual means that that the duality that we that we perceive and like any division in reality is not actually real non-dual it's seeing through the um constructs that we divide up the universe with or the reality with to see how it all goes together okay and so that's become a major thrust of where your book is going and yeah so for me non-dual thought really helped uh helped is not even it was salvation for me for i was a guy who was often stuck in my own head about trying to figure out which construct was the most was the best was you know for i grew up in a way that was very religious my dad was a pastor and my career and family and friendships and everything was built on my belief and my assumptions of how the world is and how who i am and who god is and if there is a god and all that stuff was directly taught it all went it wasn't separate from the way i made a living so it was like a really scary thing for me to question my beliefs to evolve in my journey because my journey as it was paid the bills and let me have friends and people that i felt safe with so to question and look for the truth meant that i had to be willing to leave behind all that stuff on some levels so it took a long time to deconstruct all that for me non-non-duality seeing how all of it goes together seeing how my questions of is god real or intimately acquainted with and perhaps even identical with my ego story of you know i want to be liked i want my dad to be proud of me i want to be i want to feel okay i'm afraid although it was the same thing that this it was out of that that those questions were coming so seeing um [Music] through some of the really hard divisions of there's a me and i've got to decide if there's a god and what that means and um as all that kind of fell into infinite mystery of an experience of this very moment um i stopped suffering with all of that stuff okay yeah let's uh let's jump into the people's questions all right evelyn had the question for you and she said how do you differentiate your work between the this podcast and the liturgist podcast yeah that's a good question i mean this podcast the idea that which is funny i didn't say the idea of the podcast when you asked me before but the idea is to deconstruct or to to to see through the stories that cause us suffering so we we take a story um so far you know like the last one is on free will and sometimes our feelings about free will create feelings of regret like oh if i only would have done this things would have been better or shame guilt oh i could have if they only wouldn't have done this if i would have done this and it puts us anywhere but the present moment because we assume that things could have been different than it is right now and that ability to foresee a future that's d that's not fixed with our imagination is a vital ability of human beings that allows us to thrive and create art and civilization and religions and whatever else that make life so beautiful that ability to imagine something other than this like here's a tree okay i could turn this tree into a canoe or to a guitar um or a house or whatever that ability and the imagination is amazing but that same imagination that same story of we can make the world what we want it to be makes us suffer when we really believe it down to this moment of i should be something other than i am this moment should be something other than it is and um so yeah that's the specifics of this podcast that's the very specific vision for it and we have an element of that the literature's podcast but there's the literature's podcast is not so much a view it's not a strictly non-dual we're not trying to get to a non-dual position with a literature's podcast we're more interested in allowing different perspectives to come to the same table together to have a conversation together through different lenses art science faith all of it without needing to agree necessarily but by but to belong together to connect together and um offer each other dignity in a world that so often robs so many people of dignity chris wanted to know what do you mean when you feel like everything is connected and how do you visualize or meditate on this concept great question chris um if it's a concept it's not quite the thing it's it's actually a lack of concepts is where the experience of non-duality lies it's when the concepts are let go of which is why so many meditation practices are focused on just keeping your focus one place so that all the thoughts and beliefs and stories and thoughts of yesterday and tomorrow kind of just disappear into this moment and quiet down and don't stop spinning out into all these imaginary worlds that don't exist you're actually present with the this that does exist and um so all is connected is a is a way of talking about that which can't really be talked about that i love in the data chain it says the very first line is the tao that can be told is not the eternal tao so as soon as you say all is one all is connected you're already creating a concept of what that means you're already abstracting reality into a thought into your imagination and so it's like one step removed but it's it's pretty good as far as one step removed goes to say that it's all connected um but in reality i mean it's just look into your own experience look into your own awareness in your own breath look at like wiggle your thumbs and say really look into that experience how is that happening who's making that happen where is that happening from where are you getting the thought to wiggle your thumbs from where is the breath in your lungs this pump that's allowing your heart to pump oxygen through your body that keeps your muscles moving where's all that coming from is that a self-contained reality or like you dependent on your environment are your thoughts your language dependent on your culture your upbringing your experiences you can't find anything that's actually isolated from anything else um it all goes together and that's one thing to just say um but when you when you kind of let go of clinging on to how you think the world is and your own ego's need for the world to be a certain way so that you can feel safe um the it's like just a common thing to say from from the mystical point of view those who have let go to the point of kind of uh they stop constricting their body they stop grasping their hands around the ideas then they all talk you start talking in ways that jesus and buddha and even even paul said some things i think that uh like oh i think he's had some glimpses here um of the wave within the ocean because that's the experience of like when you let go of that you can feel how the constrictions that separate you from your breath from the air around you are just stories in your head brandon wanted to know from both of us have you guys found it hard to maintain relationships with the evangelicals you were close to with before deconstruction do you have any relationships that stayed strong with evangelicals oh it's so hard for me not to like throw these questions back at you because i want to hear your answers sometimes um i don't have a lot of close evangelical friends unfortunately um i hope in the long run i re-establish some of those connections there's a i have a couple evangelical buddies that are not again not super close it's hard to i don't know that we we laugh now about some of those old versus like unequally yoked things like now and like oh yeah so fundamentalist but there's something kind of practically useful about trying to have a relationship with someone who has at least a similar foundational view of reality as you too you know like as an evangelical if your foundation of reality is this guy that's my friend is going to burn in a lake of fire for eternity because of what he's thinking right now it's hard it's hard and arguably evil to not try to convince him you know to like not preach the gospel to him and be like you're you're off track man you gotta you gotta get right because your soul's in danger if you really believe that how do you not do that for somebody so that's tough to have a relationship where you believe foundationally different things there are people that are that are evangelicals in practice that don't really believe that down to their core and they can have relationships with people that they don't agree with and not feel the need to convert them to hell because i think deep down they don't actually believe it i think they don't actually think i think they think god is good he's it's gonna be okay i don't know how but it's gonna work out um i think there's a lot of and i have some evangelical and i think my evangelical friends that will be able to have a great relationship would have to be a little bit more in that vein just otherwise i don't there are some disagreements philosophically religiously theologically that would make normal living really hard to be close together and i i think that's okay i think you can still show respect to somebody um who's who's on oppositional mission for the world than you are um you can still respect them give them dignity be kind to them but sometimes a close relationship's just not gonna be in the cards yeah you know it i don't know that i have any i have friends who i was friends with when we were both evangelicals yeah but they're not evangelicals anymore i do have friends who are evangelical but they're not um like close friends yeah they're like affectionate acquaintances or um you can get a coffee absolutely great coffee i'm in town it's great to see you tell me about your kids what's going on yeah but there's there's certain there's just some fundamental assumptions i have that are radically threatening to their worldview yeah that i you know doesn't bother me yeah um but it's tough it's tough um i mean my dad's an evangelical and we're friends i hear music like superhero music so that's definitely coming on recording so a little little context setting we're in a house in albuquerque new mexico here to interview richard rohr for the dinner the liturgist podcast and william is here and i think william is in the mood for really loud music hey william i'm going to ask him to maybe the door's not shut sorry this is a real power move william what if it's not william william i'm confused i can't even find william i'm just leaving it all right what i mean i'll cut that part out okay okay but i'll leave the music i mean what else you're gonna do uh yeah it's tough when you have like a fundamentally different uh view of the world where they you know they're an evangelical person like you say like their main concern is like are people going to heaven or not i'm like what's heaven what's what's hell what do you i don't and and when and when they're sometimes views that like exclude people that you love so like it's hard to how can you bring like a friend into a space where that friend isn't going to honor the humanity of a lot of your friends like lgbt people for example like if they're not if they think that all your friends are going to i don't know it's just a lot of i'm thinking of like family members i'm trying not to say any names stuff but it just it makes it makes it difficult to live much of your life around them if they fundamentally disagree with and think your world and your beliefs and your relationships are dangerous yeah yeah calvin said are you going to record an audio book ann alexander said and will the production value be as good as it was for the crowd the critic and the muse like damn [Laughter] spell d a y y y y y y u n i'm i'm thinking that i'm going to i'm so hesitant because i know how [ \_\_ ] hard it is sorry can you say [ \_\_ ] on your podcast yeah it was market explicit okay um you can take it out if you want no not a chance i probably won't edit this at all including you walking around uh it's just it's a lot of work but i it is kind of what i do you know because it's kind of what i do for my whole life is score things score podcasts and other things so uh probably but i don't know how i'm gonna get it done in time so that's one thing i'm freaking out about a little bit right now it's just like scheduling my days so that it all gets done in time but uh it's i actually i remember the crowd in the critical muse audio book i didn't know that was yeah there's like bonus little audio things in there like a when i talk about a song i wrote as a kid and i'll sing the song yeah of course yeah like pot it was like i shouldn't be surprised that's actually i think doing that is what kind of prepared how i think about the podcast literature's podcast because that was my first speech with other things involved the thing that i ever did was the crowd the critic of the muse so i think the liturgist podcast is kind of part two of the crowd the critic of the muse audiobook it's yeah it's interesting because i i like how beautiful the liturgist podcast is and in so many ways ask science mike is a reaction to the liturgy so like what's the most radically non-performative thing yeah like can i make a podcast that is in no way super normal stimulus yeah and it's like i made greg stop taking out all the um you did yeah i was like just leave them if i if i pause for 20 seconds feel free to cut it to three but other than that like keep it clear stop making people think i'm smarter than i am and more articulate than i am it's just interesting you don't need a lot of editing i own a lot no no i i edit you quite often you don't um nearly as much as the rest of us do no but i mean hillary doesn't um very much for a while i never owned yeah and i had to be like no i need to um to sound more like a person so i trained myself to um again that's a weird thing to do that's what i care about it's what i i can't you know i just care so much about people feeling i'm a very special person but they're special too and so what i care about in in the work i do is normalizing myself so that if people like lift me up in some celebrity mindset how quickly can i like reintroduce the notion that i'm not only a person i'm not even a normal person i'm normal like in some categories but yeah in many categories here but if you average out the categories i'm exceptional with all the categories that i'm remedial the average i believe will be so [Laughter] i feel the same about myself so that's why we're friends by the way we're on we're on a trip to albuquerque and um we all we've done is a series of depending on our perspective either excellent or really poor decisions william just said he's like you two give each other permission in ways that is like not entirely healthy yes yeah we denny's has been involved 1 30 a.m denny's whataburger's been involved an edible on an airplane was involved which is why some of those decisions were made that's true but we didn't drive folks we didn't drive we didn't drive we were driven by a confused and uh reluctantly giggling corey pig we had a great time we did have a great time uh marcy wanted to know have you decided on a name for the new brand slash band no is the next band name this no no i haven't decided yet i am um again with with the launch of the book and the new podcast and this new world of liturgists uh actual organization and plans i've got so much on my plate right now and the final tour for gunger that is going to be the end of april beginning of may on the west coast i just i don't have extra creative energy right now to like we have name ideas but nothing that is stuck and no plan yet for how we're going to release what's next musically for us um so sorry no no big news to to break to you there we're just hoping that there's a lot more time now for abraham's bosom i've heard that yeah i think we should uh make that a priority i mean science my listeners probably don't know about abraham's blessing no they probably don't that's a band that mike and i are both in uh mike singh sings and plays bass and it's we've got one smash hit like by the numbers it's been heard by it it's kind of a smash hit because it's been on the latest podcast and quite popular on the legends podcast and it's about uh abraham's the milk of abraham oh man it's our job folks this is what we do for a living we were there was no edibles involved in that song and we'll be back to our conversation with michael gunger in just a moment after a word from our sponsor this episode i'd like to tell you about kiwi co kiwico is an amazing learning product for children the idea here is you get a monthly box in the mail that they call a crate they're age-appropriate and they're centered around science technology engineering the arts and math and what amazes me about kiwi company is how much my kids love it you know i got a free box from kiwico as part of this sponsorship and our house we've got our kids are 11 and 14 and we're always trying to figure out how to get them to set the phones down and if we get them to set the phones down we hear two words over and over i'm bored and what amazed me about kiwiko is macy's first experience that's our 11 year old daughter was building a hydraulic arm herself of cardboard and plastic syringes and it was not only participatory but it allowed her to really learn about physics and mechanical engineering the next box came and it combined science and the arts where she built a centrifugal force painting device that let her make paintings on a rapid spinning canvas where she built the machine involved and then created the art kiwi co is amazing kids of all ages enjoy it and what i like about it is it shows the power of science to be something that transcends gender norms and gender expectations and normalizes arts for everyone involved kiwi co is doing something quite remarkable for listeners of the vast science mike if you'd like a free box sent to your house all you've got to do is go to kiwico.com science and sign up and they will send you one completely for free from their entire line of art and science kits for children from ages 0 to 16. i absolutely love kiwico and i think you will too again just try kiwico.com science well done no notes nothing no notes i just love that from his heart he just spewed all that out in one take from his heart it's i i believe you they buy the absolutely 60 seconds i go like three minutes every time i talk about it i i you sold me i also literally signed up on like i wouldn't imagine anything less yeah so they sent us one free but then i signed up both our kids to kiwico i just love it so much all right so back to the show william had a question not william matthews uh william said how has your journeys and practices influenced your as in both of you kids and parenting gosh what a great i should have asked this one before the spot how do you guide slash build them on spiritual for lack of a better term matters um that's a question we're constantly asking you know there are wise people like richard rohr who that's why we're in albuquerque talking to richard rohr for the literature's podcast and and i've heard him talk about how how important it is for kids to be in some sort of structured religion um for the growth of their spirituality in the long run and i don't know um we have not offered our children much as far as structure with religion we meditate at night together i uh we used to pray more together we've done we do a lot of times at dinner i'll do like mindfulness meditations about our eating i've taught some buddhist principles to amelie who's our older eight-year-old they've been to church they've been to this meditation center that we go sometimes in los angeles and we're trying to figure it out i don't know uh amelie considers herself buddhist at this point it's just funny uh because a friend yeah it's like are you christian or buddhist she's not a buddhist because i think we talk and then somebody asks why he said because my dad is and i was like oh that's sweet oh no she said i want to be like my dad oh wow that is sweet um but yeah just having if she was leaning more towards christian stuff we would probably i'd probably go with that i'd be happy to take her to church if that was something that seemed like it was helpful and but anytime we've gone it's not felt like it's been helpful um she doesn't really like it lucy's for she doesn't really have a lot of opinions about if there's some toys there and some kids she's gonna have a good time but um we've done a lot of com conversation we're trying to stay open um and go with it day by day this might be the wrong thing we might be totally screwing it up as parents so far it seems like it's working really well she's a very open child very compassionate child she's not opposed to any spiritual or practices necessarily that she's come across but she sees through a lot of them as far as you know when she's encountered some fundamentalist in-laws or something and she kind of knows i don't know if that's true um it's made me happy and proud that she's can can think and kind of see like but if that if that's what they're saying then what about these people and you know she's already kind of thought some really good good not just about me but about us the global family and i like seeing that in her eight years old already [Music] so yeah i don't know if i have maybe in 10 years i'll have some good wisdom to offer you about how i raised my one child i have two children but i i don't know we're taking it as it comes but openness vulnerability uh and some sort of practice i i'm that's what i'm those are my biggest values i would like i want her to be able to sit first for a little while and focus inside focus on her heart and and do that without needing an ipad or always be in the external world but to kind of be able to go inside and look around in her inner experience i think is an important thing that she could take into whatever religion she chooses or any non-religion um i think when i look back at the spiritual practices that i did as a kid my dad would make me pray in tongues set the time or praying times or the worship services that we'd have the long revival services whatever we'd sit through i think the the biggest value that i took in all of that was learning how to be still how to listen to my own heart how to um be present to the moment our coach has been kind of um when they were young just make sure they well first of all when my kids were young we were fundamentalists yeah um so my kids got raised in like really strict structure and then we got exiled because of my rampant heresy so that led to a less structured period but we did try to find supportive community for them and my approach has always been to share my practice so they have some sense of belonging information but leave openness for when they say like i'm not sure i'm into this yeah you don't have to be and let their questions kind of guide their formation so i have one daughter who's still pretty conventionally christian much more conservative than i am and another daughter who i think right now is like i don't really have spiritual beliefs whatsoever and i'm just like great with both of those yeah yeah let's see where it goes don't i don't stress about where they are spiritually yeah um their journey is their journey not mine uh and again i could be totally ruining their lives yeah like imagine hearing yourself say that a decade ago or however long it would be like what are you doing be a responsible man of the of god in your house yeah and so to counter that our approach has been to be honest with them that we don't we don't know the single best way i know to be involved in their lives spiritually and that we're just doing our best and our focus is to be honest and apologize and just see how it goes yeah exactly joe had a question that i think you'll enjoy how has the evolution of egos influence the universe inevitable part of the journey of the cosmos and therefore probably other parts of the universe have evolved intelligent individual life with egos as well or is it a fluke that is a wonderful question welcome to ask science mike that is a wonderful question that's a that's a very absolute question now if we go back to what i was getting at when i was talking about the free will thing and we come to the conclusion which is where i see things from that our imagination of what could be or what could have been is never anything but us using this amazing tool which is our imaginations and so we can use this imagination to craft the way that the world will be but when it happens that's what happened so like the ego has been part of part of it yeah so that the universe evolves into an ego which continues to be the universe and continues to create or create is maybe a loaded term um continues to become this moment by moment by moment by moment so to say is it a fluke or was it it again i think it all goes together it's the ego is the universe doing what the universe does the universe becomes the earth the earth becomes a single sort of cell organism a single cell organism you know it's it's just what's happening so what has happened of course how else could we think of it to think that something else could have happened you have to use your imagination you have to create a world in your mind that doesn't exist that's not this and that i think is the source of suffering it's the source of lots of great things as well but it's also the source of suffering so um [Music] to think again of something that could have been is just fun dreaming or as long as you keep it fun it's fun dreaming otherwise it's just uh delusion and maya the illusion the dream chris had a question about free will but i think you just answered it okay so megan wants to know how much mental space does climate change take in your brain i mean it feels i don't know why this year maybe it's just been the the weather's just been so crazy it's hard to not constantly just see it and feel like [Music] where wow um like it's not it's not out of sight out of mind it's insight what's going on um yeah i i don't i definitely think it's at the top of the things human beings should be using our imaginations to uh envision how the world could be other than it is this is a very good use of our imaginations right now like how can we make make our civilization more sustainable um and so yeah i mean i've gotten more it's become like if i see a piece of paper the other day i was emptying out a really gross bathroom trash can but i saw some things recyclable in there i was like oh man i can't i can't just let it be in there i have to get in there and get it out so i don't know i there's a level of um it's always in my mind if i don't know what to do about it on a you know i do what i can and i wish you know assume that i also could be doing much more but yeah it's a big it's a big thing it's not a it's not just like a line on a on a political set of like well there's this and this and this and oh yeah climate change no it's pretty high up there maybe number one for what for what humans i feel like should be and what our political whoever we're voting for whatever the policies we're implementing that should be at the top of the list in my perspective um but that's not to say that i'm like a great activist for it it's just i see that it really matters for human civilization buckle up all right that's just a long longer question clarissa asked i'm curious if you know of any people who either identify as buddhists or people from other traditions who seem to have some enlightenment or understanding that this all capitalized is all there is who are also very involved in social activism i understand that enlightenment can lead to social activism in theory like you say our resistance to things like racism patriarchy etc is also a part of this but my impression is that many of the people who are talking about these things are not the same people who have dedicated themselves to dismantling oppressive sense of systems by participating in activism or running for office maybe i'm wrong about this and just haven't been listening closely enough to the right people but it makes me wonder does being quote in on the joke close quote necessarily come at the cost of a reduced desire to fight oppression put another way does it dedication to social justice require buying into the illusion of separateness to some extent is there a good way to do both do you know of any examples of people who strike that balance well i'm sure there are many i just haven't heard about how do you personally navigate this maybe the practice of non-dual awareness itself is subversive to oppressive systems and this context will help this question make sense as a lawyer involved in public interest work i have a tendency to get overwhelmed with all the oppression i see and it would be easy to abuse the idea that everything belongs and use it as an excuse to give up fighting for change i really want to learn to navigate this well so i'd love to hear your thoughts ps thank you both so much for sharing your story through your podcast and your book and your music i'm learning so much from you so much love to you both and thanks for your patience with this absurdly long question also if i wanted to read something by rom das which book would you recommend starting with wait is her name clarissa yeah clarissa will you please be my friend clarissa i just like you very much that was all great what a great set of questions the the problem with that science mike as a media property is the questions have a level of thought that an answer can never deliver on that was one of the best questions i've ever heard um it sounds like did you get my book at a show or something she was really talking some of my very specific book language um i mean every time she said this it was all caps so so she may have she seems pretty in yeah cause i did sell books on this last tour even though the book's not out yet so maybe she got it um but it's a great question that is a great all right so let's um let's start with the end so i don't forget that ramdas books yeah i really like his talks the best like on audible if you just search ramdas i there's like the original be here now talks are really good or there's another set of talks escaping me right now that i really like anytime you hear his voice i mean he's a great writer but there's something for me ramdas is heart he's like all heart and so to hear him speak for me is does it does the job better because you get to kind of hear his his heart in a way that words can be limited sometimes um as far as the social justice thing and this is a big question that a lot of people were asking on the buddhist series when i looked on the mastodon questions and stuff and as far as like seeing the perfection of this as it is the connectedness of all that it is and if that's if you see that how can you be a powerful agent of change and i think in the book i try to make an argument that that theoretically is possible but it's a really i think you're right cliff i don't know a lot of people that are totally at home with how things are right now that are super active agents of social change but i don't know that many people on either that are either of those things i think most of us are true i think most of us are just trying to get by the day um you know to have people that get mad and post some angry things on facebook to me is not the same thing as being a really active agent of social change um or to to be completely at home with this so yeah i don't know many people at all on either of those counts and both when i think of as i'm trying to scan through i mean i think that uh yeah it's even it's hard to also define and to say who i know is is really doing those jobs well i have a hard time saying so and so is really enlightened and so and so it's not that's not something that makes sense to me and that i don't feel like i have any ability to judge i do think theoretically they can go together but that might be a really hard thing i i do like how i feel bad saying ken wilber's name on mike's podcast that might be the first time [Laughter] um but in i think it's the future of religion or something like that he talks about different lines of development of spirituality and he places those things on different sort of lines of development so to to grow up and to be a really active healthy social person is not necessarily the same skill set or um as as the inner spiritual life being healthy and whole and peaceful within yourself so to have both of those things growing to be a person who is at peace but also not limiting that peace by being a hermit to have true peace is a lot easier for a hermit so to be somebody that's actively involved in the world like you and to have actual compassion and really do the work in the world and to be completely at home with this exactly as it is is a tension and a paradox and to do it perfectly i don't know anybody that does it all without probably thinking that they i don't know how to say this um i don't know anybody who doesn't ever cause suffering to themselves or others in some way um so your question is too good for me i can't you're stumping me a little bit i don't know who to tell you i don't have like a shining beacon of light to say look this is the person that does it all exactly as you should um but i also don't think that the kind of piece that i'm talking about with this non-dual thought is a necessity unless you're just done suffering you want to be done suffering that's how suffering ceases but to be involved in the world and to see that you're not to be in in the world not of the world is a really delicate dance [Music] and it sounds to me like you're dancing it um the fact that you're asking the question says a lot about your heart that's why i said i want to be your friend because you sound like a beautiful person but that there is a paradox there there is a tension there and the fact that you see that i think means that you're not off on the deep end of either one of those in ways that are going to be too destructive andy stevens says i wanted to ask something very similar to clarissa's excellent question how do your very stages in the journey of faith slash beliefs relate to jesus's teaching on laying down one's life for a friend being the servant foot washer care for the poor and needy how do you find peace within the context of the suffering of others i ask because i have a sense of not doing enough or sacrificing enough for those who seem poorer or in more suffering than i i know we are all one and that otherness is a kind of construct i just feel inferior to those who seem to give out more than i by the way this question is for both of you and thank you both for your work and inspiration you want to start since i've been blathering on i mean i'm interviewing you okay if you need space to think of course i'm always ready to deliver something that seems like i've prepared ahead of time i would love to hear it andy i just get this in the sense that you grew up an evangelical maybe you didn't maybe it was some other conservative variation of christianity what i hear in your voice is internalized total depravity this idea that you haven't done enough and you feel inferior to those who give out more listen to me carefully you beating yourself up helps no one it actually makes you less able to move through the world in a way that reduces suffering and creates peace do what you can i don't do enough so what i try to do is more today than i did yesterday but also understanding that sometimes i have to rest i cannot help everyone but i can't help someone and i can help someone today not tomorrow not next week when i see suffering i try to think of a way i can address it immediately and then do so if i am able but if for those of us who grew up in the christian tradition we were told to be like christ and we understand christ as this singular figure who saved the entire world and i think we internalize this message that to be like christ we must also save the entire world and i realized several years ago that if i were to literally be crucified it would do nothing for anyone that if there was some powerful theological moment when a man was crucified by the roman government that that wasn't merely a social event that has been an inspiring story but something significant theologically happened it would not be reproduced by me literally being crucified on cross that means when i look at how to pick up my cross as a christian i have to understand that that is a metaphor that is an allegory meant for me to examine how often i work hard to support my needs without considering the needs of others andy it sounds to me like you are already a person who considers the needs of others so i would say start by loving yourself and offering yourself grace and as you do so then do the same for others [Music] yeah i just i feel that so much and i feel when you say that you feel inferior i just wish you could see who you are and how extravagant and glorious you are not as something that the ego can not something like you have you try really hard to be great and have done enough if you've done enough good deeds and and said enough smart words and whatever your very fact that you exist and that you're here and there's breath in your lungs is testament to who you are which is this it's all of it it's the glory it's the the beauty of all of it um the perfection of all of it and i get i get the guilt thing the shame thing that was that was the thing that tortured me most about my faith for three decades and um i think if you look the question that i would ask you who who's who is that who is that that's inferior what is that story that you're telling where did that come from the more you can look into that where'd that message come from where is that being reflected back at you from um i hope that you can see beneath the lie of it because it's not true um i know i'm sorry to go back in time here but somehow that question brought up well i don't know why i didn't say in her very question she said around us and then we're here with richard rohr those are two people [Laughter] that i think are exemplary with this marriage of like seeing how it is the oneness of everything the non-duality of everything but also being very involved in social action i mean that's what richard rohr's whole place is called like contemplation and action and then ramdas is like he spent most of his adult life caring for sick people and dying people um he had this whole for years he had this whole thing with fixing cataracts surgery like offering free cataract surgeries to people in india that for a few bucks he could give people sight you could give people sight he's done all he's been very socially involved through the years um while also talking about spirituality so yes it is and i'm sure there are a few other uh duh names that i know of that are doing it both well um yeah there you go you and i have that same problem ask me specifically people's physical book i immediately can think of i know me too asking about an idea yes yes but now put it embodied in the world as a as a physical item or a person oh i got nothing yeah so weird all right uh aaron wanted to know in your last podcast on free will you said something like imagine how much suffering would be alleviated if we actually thought we were where we were supposed to be it sounded similar to richard roars everything belongs and did help me some since i've deeply regretted past decisions that have led me to an unhappy marriage but still how do you say that something in a truly awful situation such as rape or losing a child is the point to alleviate guilt for past decisions or is the point to accept the situation you are in i don't think you ha as far as what am i going to do now there's there's a you could take that no free will idea and quash the human spirit that watch the human imagination and say just deal with it you're in a bad relationship deal with it that's what it is that to me is not where the freedom of seeing through the illusion of free will has the ability to take you like if you the fullness of what you can experience by letting go to the river uh that is everything and not seeing yourself as a separate self trying to control it that includes your feeling that you're in a bad situation that includes the your recognition that like if i do this there there could be these consequences if i do this there could be these consequences and following the best route following doing the action that your imagination of all the possible worlds in your head that's all part of this that's part of the no free that's part of what is so it's not ignoring part of what is to say well i have these feelings about what i want to do i have these recognitions that there's these things that are evil in the world like rape like racism like oppression to say that i accept what is is not to say okay cool let's just keep doing that direct to fully embrace what is is also to look into your own heart and say do you want that stuff like do you want to be abused do you want racism to continue do you want if you want to fight it and you want to be part of the active social change necessary to create the the tomorrow that we imagine in our heads that we would love to have happen that's part of this that's part of what is right here that's so it's not a case raw syrah whatever will be will be in the in the sense that we don't need to act in the sense that we don't need to change something about right now or change our behavior from what we did yesterday to today if we're fully present to this right here and now we're also fully present to our knowledge about what we would have like what caused suffering yesterday what happened yesterday in our memories and our stories and all that it's not that it just goes away in our memories it's still there you still have the memory still have the stories you still have the desires um and you can act accordingly as if it was a free of just free will as if we had the decision between tomorrow a and tomorrow be because what else could we do that's how it works that's how this works we have the at least illusion of free will and it's the feeling of free will and that's part of what this is and we have to have that that's a very important mechanism for human humans operating in the world so when you're imagining what kind of future you would like if it's in that relationship or not in relationship i don't think you have to conflate that with well i just have to accept what is that has nothing to do with it what is includes your desire for what you want tomorrow to be all right our last question came from leah and she says so curious about your relationship with music how you write your songs are so layered and truly an art form what does it feel like to you your music feels so connected to the moment i get lost in it i just want to hear more about that process and how the journey of this has affected your music playing and writing very excited to read the book smiley emoji oh thank you you're such nice people that ask questions on this show good thought nice thoughtful that's yeah these are yeah great people well they they follow a pretty good dude they have good podcast taste um thank you i feel at this point like music was my primary spiritual discipline for my life like that's what music is primarily what taught me to be in the moment like that was my singular focus for the first 30 years of my life outside music and spirituality together and they were married together it was like a way for me of worshiping god it was my music but there was also a playful element to it and so i have that playful element be brought into my spirituality i feel like a real gift and so glad how that was all married together in my experience um but we've we've never made music primarily through uh like we never had a big label that was telling us what we needed to sound like we never had a r that was like all right we need a song that sounds like this and it's gonna work on the radio and so we made music out of paying attention to what was happening inside of us and what was happening in this moment like what what are we feeling and what would be fun to make right now it was always very searching searching our own uh experience of the moment and trying to turn that into music so that makes me very happy to hear that you that the music helps you find your place in the moment because that's how we tried to make it um i i grew up in charismatic churches with you know like long long music sets where we're improvising and following the flow of the night and then i studied jazz in school so learning my guitar as a way of being in the moment and responding to whatever was happening around me and adding to whatever was happening to around me by becoming part of the dance that made the world better [Music] to me was as i look back really what helped me develop spiritually and learn how to be present and focused and in a in a flow and so that's the yeah that's how we've made it in the past pretty even though it was our job we made decisions that were not smart for a job oh we're having some success in the christian music industry how about i stop believing in god and sing about that not good not smart for a business but that was what was happening in the moment um so high mountain came out and like i don't you know and sort of destroyed a lot of what was happening in her career but but then helped us find some new people and you know it's just i'm i'm glad how music has been uh part of the the flow of our lives in a way that wasn't just our jobs but it really over overflowed into everything and when you're hearing our music you're hearing you're hearing the moments of our lives as clearly as we can portray it with sound so thank you for your question and your kindness where can folks find your podcast it's called this which is a kind of a non-descript term that a lot of a lot of podcasts have this in their title i can imagine so if you really want to find it you probably just search for michael gunger in the podcast store you can find it anywhere you listen to podcasts and when can people buy this book it's available for pre-sale now and it comes out april 16th comes out april 16th so uh if you don't want to mess around with google or itunes search you can go to asksciencemike.com click on the episode titled this with michael gunger and we'll have a link both to this podcast and your place to pre-order this the book this has been a conversation with my dearest friend michael gunger thanks for listening everybody and i'll talk to you next week