The Map of Consciousness Part 2: From Force to Power

Introduction to Meditation

0:00the reason why meditation is conducive to enlightenment is because of course the meditation produces a detachment and what's the burden that we're being enlightened from it is the attachments enlightenment is disemburdenment burden is ignorance ignorance is ignoring your true self ignorance you know what are the ignorance being ignorant of their real self

Hello and Welcome

0:35hello and welcome back to the spiritual psychology of acting podcast why do some people live in constant anxiety while others face the same situations with courage why are some driven by pure ambition and desire while others seem strangely calm and grounded according to psychiatrist and researcher david r hawkins it's not random he proposed something

1:06called the map of consciousness a framework that suggests that human emotions and worldviews exist on a measurable scale from the most destructive states of mind all the way up to the most expansive and enlightened in the previous episode of this mini series we explored the very bottom of that map the heavy emotional territories of shame guilt apathy and grief but in this episode we start climbing

Moving Through Levels

1:33today we're moving through the levels of fear desire anger and pride before crossing a fascinating turning point in hawkins's model the critical threshold of 200 below that line people are driven by what hawkins called force where life is often a struggle above it something shifts we enter the territory of power and that's where we begin to stop fighting life quite so hard and start engaging with it in a completely different way so in this episode as we climb up the levels we explore what these states look like in our lives and how they

2:10show up again and again in the stories we love to watch because some of the most unforgettable characters in film

M Fields and Morphic Fields

2:17television and theater live right inside these levels so without any further ado let's jump into so part two of our map of consciousness series of episodes and uh yeah following on last week when we're stuck in the basement level of the uh deepest darkest emotions what did we cover

2:47it was shame guilt apathy and grief wasn't it yeah all the heavy ones yeah so it's good to know we're moving up the scale today yeah get a bit more positive ever so slightly yes i mean if you can call fear positive a positive it's a build on those ones though according to uh professor hawkins yeah getting slightly more energy with each with each level yeah so yeah we we briefly discussed the kind of the basics of hawkins work to get us familiar with what he can have essentially posited this theory of of like a map of

Morphic Fields and Collective Consciousness

3:23consciousness and calibration and stuff um something that came up in the research i thought would be a really good interesting way to start this this episode was this idea of uh m fields uh or morphic fields or i think to give it its full title morphogenetic fields and it wasn't a concept that hawkins himself came up with but it was a biologist called rupert sheldrake and he'd come up with this idea uh that hawkins then took on further with his exploration of consciousness um but essentially it was asking him the question

3:56why do human groups behave when they're together uh like organisms like what what you know you have got individual people and you know with their own little personalities but when you bring them together they create a sort of collective um this kind of invisible atmosphere um and it's quite interesting because it really does help you understand what hawkins is saying with the levels um but the basic idea is that essentially that when something happens it kind of creates this field which makes it easier for that same thing to happen again and again and almost create this like snowball effect of energy

4:27and the the mechanism behind this thing was called formative causation so it's this idea of cause and effect but it's influencing in this kind of ever expanding field a little bit like we talk about the mind erosions with the in the spiritual psychology of acting it kind of creates these grooves uh in reality it makes it easier and easier for for certain things to happen so

Mind Erosions and Patterns

4:49we need to do we need to just qualify for anyone who doesn't understand what's a mind erosion yeah that would be helpful actually yeah yeah so mind erosion was a concept that sam kogan used which was really useful which is just how we create patterns of thinking and through repeated use of certain patterns of thinking those neurons you know those neuron links get formed and we tend to use the same groove and the the the word erosion comes from soil erosion so the example i would give when i

5:19introduced this to the class is that when i used to walk home from school uh there'd be a path around the grass and then one day somebody had just walked across the grass so there was footsteps across the grass so that invites you it's like well if they walked across the grass i can walk across the grass so then you walk across the grass now there's two sets of footsteps and now the next person who comes along has a choice do they walk either walk the long way around the path or do they walk straight across the grass and take the shortcut of course they take the shortcut and then after a period of

5:49time a mud path begins to to form and the deeper the path the more people use it because it becomes an established path and nobody uses the concrete go around the long way path anymore and everybody unless it's raining walks along across the across the the the um mud path and the more people that walk through it the deeper the trench becomes that's the erosion so using that same analogy that when we use

6:21when we create complexes in the mind when we repeat thoughts frequently they turn into a complex and and of course there's nothing bad about this you know what is learning what is learning languages is creating mind erosions learning to drive a car is creating a mind erosions in fact learning anything is creating a mind erosion good habits yeah good habits well exactly but you could have a mind erosion of the purpose i want to be powerful or you could have a mind you know do you see what i mean is it's whatever you use frequently so the definition of a mind erosion is a repeated

Fear and Anxiety

6:55pattern of thinking which is unprecedented by any orientation so what that means is the mind is continually orientating itself and what does that mean orientate it means it's establishing a frame of reference you know when you go when people turn up to the class for the first time uh they want to know you know when we do a live workshop they want to know where's the entrance uh where's the toilets um where do i hang my coat is there somewhere to put my lunch uh and then the next day when they

7:27come back for the second day then they're not all disorientated where's the toilet where do i hang my coat they've already got a little mind erosion and you'll already see that the seat that they sat in yesterday in the semicircle when we sort of meditate at the beginning will be exactly the same seat that they'll go to sit in the second day because they've already created a little mind erosion yeah it's comfortable um yeah yeah so that's that's interesting because it's that we're noticing that the similarity there so that is more like a an individual psychologically kind of almost creating

7:58little pathways in the brain this this idea of m fields is like a more kind of um zoomed out version so this is kind of for entire cultures and societies essentially so that's kind of like almost like working in neural pathways strengthening those this is more like a i think basically one of the examples that david r hawkins gives in in power versus force is roger banister breaking the the four minute mile and how basically before that before that time in 1954 nobody had ever done it

8:28everyone thought it was physiologically impossible to actually achieve anything like that but when he did that he did it in what three minutes 59 i think it was once he'd done that within the year there's other runners who had also achieved that same thing it's almost like he created a new m field that people then it was something was actually possible again and then right you know but he broke the psychological limit there was a there was a perceived psychological limit that you cannot it is impossible for a human being to run a whole mile in four minutes yeah that was a given

9:01psychological limit that that was you know people accepted and then of course when roger banister broke that that limit was broken as well so now it became a possibility whereas before it wasn't a possibility but absolutely and then now you can zoom forward into present day and it's high school students can now do that it's become something that's just completely possible for hundreds of thousands of people across the globe you know you don't go did human you know evolution just change overnight no it was it was a psychological barrier that was broken down the other example that he gives is

9:35of the wright brothers and that's again a really clear example because you've got the very beginning of the 20th century these two bicycle mechanics who finally successfully flew the first aircraft and you've got like da vinci who created his own like flying machines people tried for centuries hundreds of years worth of people trying and failing to achieve flight once that again that barrier was broken down it was became possible you only have to fast forward a few decades and then you've got actual commercial airlines you know travel around the world you've got fighter jets all these kind of

10:08things and then eventually a couple decades after that you've got in space flight so it's it's like this something becomes not just possible but completely achievable for a greater number of people yes well do you know about the the hundred monkey theory that's um well it was there was a group of um acapellio islands and they had a certain species of monkey that lived on the islands um and there was a certain food source i think it was a certain kind of nut and they couldn't work out how to get into

10:43they knew that there was some tasty protein or something going on in there but they didn't know how to get to it and they would try different means of trying to get into this nut and then one day one of them worked out using a tool uh another rock worked out how to split it open and get the and get the food out and it's reported that as soon as that happened other monkeys on other islands also began to work out how to crack the nut and so there was a sense of a collective consciousness of the monkeys

11:18a kind of shared or hive mind of those monkeys themselves and that information was passed on uh without any physical contact i mean we see this all the time like for example in mythology when you when you study joseph campbell and and his mythology he'll share with you all these different fairy tales and myths that come from all different places and different cultures yet they have exactly the same story motifs yeah um and he and he proposited that it was because of a collective unconsciousness that's

11:55where they were coming from yeah it's all it's it's the same idea isn't it it's like something is transmuted like you say it's not like it's copied it's not like yeah they had some kind of inside information it's that something was like in the air almost like it was uh you know something unseen like unseen force almost yeah yes and also of course the power of purposes is also like you know the purpose i want to belong which is a very strong human purpose yeah i want to sort of feel part of other people's lives and and feel part of a group etc um that when that purpose kicks in that can you

12:32know get people to do any silly thing you want them to do yeah i mean for example that's an example of the wanting to belong of spreading allegiance to something that wasn't healthy yeah oh and that's the thing isn't i think a lot of people didn't realize because i think that's a huge part of it isn't it the the that power of wanting to belong socially it's a huge aspect for people but i think there is something even deeper going on isn't there something um stronger than just that purpose that there is i think it shows that the nazis the rise of the nazis really does show that this can also be

13:04used in a negative way obviously there's a real positive element to innovation whether it's flight or innovation in with athletes but then you've got this dark side of it that you can have a really destructive enfield which spreads the same way like wildfire and you've all of a sudden you've got a whole nation of people that are doing something that they would never have thought was even possible well like like uh exterminating the jews yeah exactly that became that this is so powerful that

13:34that became normalized i think i might have shared with you the the pen pal letters at some point where there was a pen pal letter between an english guy and a german guy during the 1930s and he said i'm not going to he said he's he's been invited to a rally of her hitler and he said um i'm going to go because i want to find out what it's all about but apparently they do this salute and when it comes to doing the salute i'm not going to do it and then in the next letter he says i went to visit uh to her hitler's rally and it was very powerful and when they all did the

14:09harl hitler salute at the end he said he watched his arm go into that position is that that it was that powerful that that uh human need to belong is so powerful to get caught up in the crowd you know yeah well that's things i think when hawkins took this idea he then applied it to this idea of consciousness and it's i guess what psychologists would call emotional contagion that idea of like people in groups respond in a collective way that they normally wouldn't if they were by themselves like in a sports arena um you know got this there's a sense of that tribalism there's there's lots of

14:44things that play but there's a real sense of a crowd you get that sense in comedy gigs as well all of a sudden if you know or even in a theater when you're watching a play some some nights um it can be the exact same play but in the audience there's there's a kind of a feeling there they don't know if they're allowed to laugh or they don't know if they're allowed to really relax and enjoy themselves different audiences different different nights for the exact same play right exactly i mean that that's that's the part of the magic of theater isn't it is that um that in the room that night are a bunch of individuals yet they create a collective

15:18psycho balance so all of those purposes and all their thoughts sort of put collectively create a psycho balance that's why it's so great you know if you're doing a comedy and you've got someone on a friday night who's had a couple of drinks in the bar before who's a real giggler who'll laugh at anything they'll get the whole audience laughing you know it just takes that one person doesn't it that will break the ice and then you've got like you've got them by the palm of your hand yeah we start that new enfield for the whole and for the whole audience yeah yeah but it's the same concept isn't it it is an enfield you know and it's very quickly created

15:51yeah absolutely i mean i think the interesting thing as well is i guess that's what culture can technically be as well that in entire nations they've got different ways of operating like some nations will hold like honor and obedience higher than than others um some will have much more kind of nationalism or morality or kind of uh obedience to parents all that kind of different cultures have different m fields and i think that's it can be something you're you're not necessarily taught but you just you've been brought up into it's that kind of generational thing right

16:23you can have experience this is how i operate this is how i think this is how i feel yeah we call it culture yeah exactly yeah yeah it's another way of looking at it it's gonna culture can be an energy absolutely and you know all these things as well they've got purposes behind them yeah you know if the culture is based on the purpose i want to feel superior i want to be in you know you seem to be intelligent to be superior then that's one thing but if the culture is based on love and compassion that's another thing isn't it yeah it's i think it's interesting thinking in acting

16:55terms as well the you know the the director can obviously be the one to set that m field for the whole production whether it's a play or it's a film you know we had that episode we chatted to stephen park when he you know he's one of wes anderson's troop of of actors and you know he works a lot with the same actors because they have that shorthand but also they get what wes anderson is doing which is like creating this incredibly complex detailed world that is a fantastical world based on reality but it is his own creation and then all the actors he gets them back again probably because there's that

17:29m field that goes on with them as a kind of a there's a story world there basically isn't it they that they inhabit um you know great directors they do build worlds for for the actors to live in almost and it's it becomes something that you can just it's not just putting on a costume it's you can feel there's a sense of of something and especially with wes anderson even though he has this kind of meticulous nature it's never constricting because actually what he's done is just created this world in which people can actually play there is a lot of freedom in that like stephen was saying yeah i think all the best directors create those those those um those those fields it's like a

18:03thing that trickle down thing as well we've talked about in previous episodes starts from the top and actually trickles down to all the the bits below it whether it's a a film set or it's a country right yeah i mean you know if you get a situation where like the producer and the director fall out or something like that then it ripples down throughout the whole company but if it's um if they're very sort of strong and united at the top then it has a kind of ripple down as well to the whole company absolutely yeah yeah and i guess where this comes into play as well for the for the levels is that

18:35it's another way of understanding the levels isn't another way of standing how we can move from one level to another it's more of an energy thing isn't it that's why there's you know as we go up this level of consciousness uh these levels contain more and more energy or you know different energy yes and we can go up or down them you know if you i was just thinking about the pandemic where you know in that time there would where there was collective fear wasn't there yeah yeah and it's yeah it spread probably quicker than the actual disease itself and everyone was brought to

19:10that level you know brought to that level of fear and it affects every conversation you have every you know do you know what i mean it literally infuses its way into everything doesn't it yeah absolutely so should we get into the the levels we're going to cover a few more than we did

Desire and Accumulation

19:28then we did the last episode yes so we've got six today and the first one is fear yeah forget everything and run yeah false evidence appearing real as i've heard it said yes yeah they're all good examples aren't they yeah they say the core belief of this one is that the world is dangerous if you get stuck in this you see threats everywhere that's that's you know when when fear really takes hold is it's hyper vigilance isn't it it's being constantly on edge because we

20:02we've talked about in the previous episodes as well especially the the emotions episode that fear is actually can be a positive emotion uh that is actually healthy it's a it's biologically part of you know wired into us just keep us alive and keep us you know from yeah from absolutely you know if we if we got burned and then we didn't create a fear of being burnt the likelihood is we're going to get burnt again yeah so you know so so it has a a bio evolutionary function yeah it's a good impulse to have because it protects us definitely yeah but for those who like live in this again we say like the

20:35the you know these are okay you know states to be in from time to time but for those who live in this level the whole world is dangerous yeah when it when it gets stuck of course you know within the spiritual psychology of acting we have the concept of shadow purposes so first of all what is fear fear would be watching obstacles to the purpose i want to feel secure generally speaking do you see what i mean in terms of purposes and obstacles it's like what do you want you want to feel secure and the more that you want to feel secure the more fear there's going to be right absolutely as soon as you have

21:08the purpose i want to feel secure you start what you start becoming fearful yeah okay yeah um so you know so it has its function but then if it's then repeated and there's ungrounded fear you know the mind is just anticipating fear based on trauma etc and based on past experience then in in our shadow purpose language then it would become a purpose an invisible purpose i want to have a frightening life do you see what i mean what came from just fear you know seeing obstacles to purposes that's what fear is

21:42dreading obstacles to purposes really and then well when the fear actually comes uh when the thing actually happens isn't it's usually not what what we were dreading is it yeah uh isn't usually not as bad but it serves its function the fear yeah and i think that's the thing is that you know people do feel fear every day in their lives to some extent i think you know there's there's definitely a social element to that that you know people experience oh what was it i read brenny brown talked about fear

22:14that that people experience social pain and physical pain in the same part of the brain and so and potential obviously exposure to that is what probably drives a lot of fear as well almost like you're saying that the fear of the thing is sometimes worse than the actual thing itself yes but by that time that we felt it we're already in this incredibly tense rigid fearful state yeah well it's a mind erosion you know people can get addicted to fear people can get addicted to suffering they can get addicted to disappointment addicted to betrayal addicted to rejection because

22:50it's what they anticipate based on previous experience and therefore it's what they bring on yeah again it's that sense of we're talking about the m fields it's like an attractor field isn't it the more you feel fear the more that you attract fear towards you you know yes there's a in it's interesting because in in the sanskrit we there's the word probda probda which means fear and our probda means not fearless and so it's interesting that the the state of realization that would be you know

23:25at the very top of the scale the enlightenment in that state there's no fear at all right yeah because there's there's no other in realization what's the realization is there's only one right they're all these different apparently different people are all embodiments of the same one consciousness and so there is no other for fear you have to have another but when you realize there is no other then naturally the degree of fear yeah and and the fear usually there's a lovely sonnet i share with my students

23:59quite early on usually so here's the here's the sonnet the wraith-like fears that lurk within the mind are less substantial than clouds in air seek them with reason's eye and you will find a vanished predator an empty lair then what creates the gnawing doubts and pain the irksome apprehensions men endure who miser like compute their loss and gain hesitant to give dubious unsure fear is the consequential

24:37mental state that follows on a fall from unity and this division with its fear of fate leads to increasing subjectivity where doubt divides their reason soon resolves establish unity and fear dissolves so fear is the consequential state that follows on a fall from unity and um establish unity and fear dissolves

25:11yeah so you know you've kind of lost yourself when you're living in a perpetual state of fear you've lost connection with your true self haven't you yeah yeah yeah i think you know the like you were saying with the pandemic you know kind of creating this huge global cloud of fear i think in the same way you've got any kind of social media right any kind of algorithm feeds on on fear because it keeps perpetuating and keeps you know showing you you know something to be afraid of something to kind of tune into it's what

25:44the news i guess has become a cycle of fear it's what kind of um like what media and all advertising and news kind of plays up to isn't it the sense of fear that you know that's that's what grabs your attention that's what uh makes you listen yes you're compliant i guess as well i think someone did an experiment they ran and they made a paper that uh was only good news and no one bought it right i know it's crazy that's the thing isn't it you know we we live in potentially the safest time in in history when you look back at all the events of of history all the times this is potentially the

26:18safest time and yet it's the time that's probably full of most anxiety you know people are more afraid than ever because they're seeing more than they should all the world's events are you know are are kind of seen at the click of a button at the swipe of a of a phone screen yeah yeah it's literally on your phone you you know you can see iran getting uh obliterated in real time you know that's yeah i mean what does it do to the soul you know what does it do to the human soul all of that

26:48yeah the mindless scroll as well isn't it of that and then there's a funny cat video and then there's a recipe and then oh there's more war and then oh there's more genocide and there's it's like it messes the brain up i'm sure yeah oh it's their daughter's birthday oh yeah there oh there's a missile yeah oh car bomb and that's the thing as well isn't it can be the fear can also be a tool of oppression because of this again this attractor energy field because it's contagious it can be used to control people it's it's fear of the other as well isn't it saying like

27:20you know absolutely immigrants are the problem the immigrants are coming yeah exactly yeah it's the immigrants are coming um it's a boogeyman yeah exactly well that's what they did with the brexit they literally had posters of immigrants entering into the uk and it was just all fear mongering and that's um that's what turned it wasn't it that's what the thing that always brings it to me is in jaws you know that's the what the story is really about is a town that's like gripped by fear and that's how the fear spreads and how it's um it's you know mishandled by the people in

27:53charge which is something we see on a daily basis now yeah i also i read a fact as well quite sober in fact that approximately a third of all u.s adults will be affected by an anxiety disorder at some point in their lives so that's not just feeling anxiety or feeling a little bit anxious but an actual anxiety disorder which affects them in their in their day-to-day what so they basically that they get stuck in the purpose i want to have a frightening life that's it yeah yeah yeah uh well you know following on from what we just heard a lack of unity is it's the it's only

28:28the unity that resolves the fear yeah yeah and in terms of the talking about the energy how this is also we're getting higher and up in the levels and with more energy this is still considerably below the critical threshold we spoke about last week of 200 and so because it takes real energy to rise above fear it means that those who are kind of stuck in it can't lift themselves out of it without help you know so then i think a lot a huge part of this fear contagion is that fearful people look to potentially stronger leaders to help them out of it and that's when you get people i guess like trump

29:03who put on a brave face and put on this idea of i'm strong so then people latch on to that because they're they're looking for someone to to help them get out of the fear yeah they need that they don't they lack the energy to get out of it themselves yeah and it leads people to do very silly things well yeah well it's things it's it's and fear is an inhibitor isn't it it stops you making good decisions it inhibits your personality yeah it's um stops you being who you're meant to be really doesn't it yeah so when we move on from fear where do we move where what's the next one in the

Anger and Injustice

29:38so one more level up we've got at energy level 125 desire oh desire and yes this the core belief of this is i need something outside of myself in order to be fulfilled there's a real insatiable quality to desire there's it's never ending we're always wanting we're always needing more and it's always something that's not in us it's always something outside of us that's gonna gonna be the key to to happiness and to fulfillment well that's the nature of desire isn't it i mean the whole

30:12in a way you could say that desire is poverty yeah isn't it because it really the real that i think that's the secret to understand of what is real poverty is desire because you could have as much as you as you want i mean i i remember um when i used to go and teach in new york a lot i had a friend a film making friend who was had a lot of money and he lived up in upstate new york and he had a beautiful estate million millions of dollars beautiful cars and ornamental lakes and swimming

30:46pool and uh you know really and we're talking serious serious money like i had my own um guest cottage to stay in uh there it wasn't even a room in the house i had my own cottage you know it was really like that and i remember we went um there's a few of us and we went to go into uh the hot tub it was winter and he said oh i've got a new hot tub do you want to go and we'll use the hot tub and we all got ready to go in the hot tub and then of course the hot tub didn't work and he was on the phone and he was having a go at somebody right on the phone and i remember sitting

31:22there and watching this and him being so annoyed that the hot tub didn't work and so frustrated and i just thought wow you've got millions of dollars you've got all of this you can do whatever you want yet at the moment you're just a bloke having a go at another bloke because you haven't got your needs fulfilled yeah you know or they're not even what they're not even needs their whims you know is and the amount of tension that it caused and i thought that's poverty yeah

31:57you know how many millions of dollars you've got if you're in a state of wants all the time yeah you know you can't find satisfaction in the present that's the idea the idea of desire is that if i can achieve this that or the other then i'll be happy you know if somebody an actor for example who thinks that if they if they're famous then they'll be happy is really saying that when everybody in the world knows who i am and stops me in the street and asks me for my autograph then i will come into the present and enjoy my life yeah or when i have x million dollars then i will

32:34come into the present and enjoy my life or when somebody loves me for all my faults then i'll come into the present and enjoy my life well i just think well why not just cut out the middleman if that really behind all the desire is the desire to come into the present and enjoy it this human experience we can literally just cut out the middleman and connect with the senses connect with what's in front of us and start to actually enjoy this experience rather than thinking it's always somewhere in the future i always think it's like a donkey with a carrot on a stick desire you know

33:07just out of reach just out of reach because you know as soon as you think you're about to achieve the desire the purpose the next one is activated already yeah there's no respite you know yeah um i remember hearing jamie fox when he won his oscar he said he got home he put his oscar on the mantelpiece uh sat back uh poured himself a drink lit a cigar and he said he saw the thought come into his head and the thought was i want another one and he's literally just won one he just won it and

33:42the joy of it you know straight away i want another one yeah that's key to desire as well isn't it it's about accumulation and greed but there is that insatiableness to it that what do millionaires want they want to be a billionaire especially we're seeing that gap in terms of extreme poverty and extreme wealth you've got these especially after the pandemic you've got the most richest people that have ever lived in history and yet they want more what do they do with all this money they just want more of it that's all there is to go you know there's there's no end in sight with that it's

34:12yeah it's insatiable also the more if i have a purpose i want to be rich what fuels the purpose i want to be rich is the idea that i'm poor so all the time i'm having the purpose i want to be rich i'm actually strengthening the idea that i'm poor yeah yeah that's what happens when you begin to understand visible and invisible thinking yeah you see what i mean it's like for example the more in a relationship if somebody had a fear of rejection and they counterbalanced it by you know being clingy and wanting to be really loved then that would be repellent and they would be rejected

34:44exactly what they were dreading you know that's how shadow purposes work yeah they create the reality you're trying to avoid yeah well it's the thing about desire as well the desire is the level of advertising any advertising for whatever product is it's always that happiness is one purchase away it's you buy our product and you'll be happy it thrives on this this constant human need for for wanting more this to this kind of innate desire and hunger in us and and it thrives on the idea that you're not enough yeah and that's the key isn't it's always it's outside of yourself happiness is it's

35:20not inside it's it's some you need to get something in order to be fulfilled yeah yes now in the bhagavad gita it talks about desire and it says that in the same way that a fire is obscured by smoke or a mirror is covered in dust desire tarnishes the face of wisdom it is the wise man's constant enemy it says in the of desire now if you think about it the desire itself is inevitable because if you just decided

35:55now you're going to give up all desire and you just sat there it's like i'm not playing anymore i'm not doing anything before long you'd have a desire to go to the toilet you the mind would start desiring food or start it would start doing something and so literally when you're in the womb the cycle of desire began and when you were born you had a desire to suckle from your mother's breast for example and then once that desire was satisfied you had another desire which was to have a sleep and once

36:30that desire was satisfied you had another desire to suckle on your mother's breast once again and it's been a perpetual chain of desire since then apart from in deep sleep where there are no dreams right because even in the dreams you're just chasing desires you know the the the dreams are generally based on fear and desire aren't they yeah yeah um and the only other time apart from in deep sleep of course is in the depths of meditation that's when the stream of desire actually comes to stop

37:03but if it's a natural thing you know even just the desire i've got to go into town i've got a meeting in town after this today and then i was going to meet with ruby uh later on she's back from university they're all desires right and it's in it's incessant it just doesn't stop they're all purposes what we do have control over though is the attachment to those desires i think the desires are inevitable and i think that you can select your desires you know the shankracharya talks quite a lot about streamlining one's desires

37:37that when you've got lots of different purposes all going at once quite often people find themselves in a situation where they've got lots of different medium term purposes that end up being contradictory to each other a little bit of this a little bit of that and what's suggested is really to focus our energies is to streamline our desires and find out what's really important the one or two things that are really important in our lives at that particular time and to and to focus on those yeah yeah and there's that saying isn't there that the the the grass is greener on the other side

38:12that's desire but i saw a sticker the other day and it said the grass is greener wherever you water it yeah that's nice yeah isn't that yeah so that you know like you're saying desire is a part of human part of just being a human and there's why desire is higher up in the levels it contains more energy because in order to get something you first have to have the desire to want it so that that energy can move you out of states like apathy and grief there's more energy there so you're it's the desire

38:44to seek a better life or in your desire to be more productive um or to achieve goals so that's the kind of thing that's the positive side of it that desire is desire is best i think you used as a springboard to get you into these other states a lot of these lower states especially under the critical threshold 200 they should really only ever be uh states to springboard you up into a higher level yeah i think that's the same with all of this it's like all of these we recognize all of these states every one of us will recognize all these states but what we're talking about here is when we get stuck in them and they they become our kind of baseline level really yeah uh we always return

39:18to a few good examples of this i mean like the film the wolf of wall street is pure desire encapsulated in a whole three hour long film it's just pure desire it's pure uh dripping success wealth um you know money power status all of that um but then again desire is also the level of addiction as well so you've got films like reckoning for a dream it's a film about addiction but it's a film about people that are you know desperate for fulfillment you know and you've got some of the

39:50characters who are looking for that in heroin and you know finding that next fix that's the thing that will make them fulfilled but then you've got the main character's grandmother who's addicted to validation and she wants to be famous she wants to be on tv and that's almost as destructive as the drug that the other characters are chasing throughout the film yes well they are to be seen that they're neurochemical drugs rather than induced chemicals that they're self-manufactured chemicals their addiction to self-manufactured chemicals aren't they yeah that's it yeah i always think that you know

40:23whenever you think of these states often the kind of comic exaggeration is one that can encapsulate it really well one that sticks to mind for this is veruca salt in uh willie wonka she's pure desire encapsulate it's always i want this i want more you know give me this daddy you know i deserve this i want i want this i won't ever be satisfied until i get this thing that's pure exaggerated desire isn't it yeah it's um well it is the next step up where does it go for them from desire so interestingly so we go from desire into anger and i think this is this is a really interesting

40:59one because most people would think of anger as violence and it's rage and it's been you know losing control and you know while there is a part of that which is completely destructive we are now at a level 150 still below that critical threshold so but it does contain more energy than these other ones anger is the realization that something isn't right and so it's it can often be the first sign of somebody waking up and kind of getting to the stage not just of of of helping

41:30themselves but actually then potentially affecting positive change so i think if we if we talk about the the previous levels if apathy says that nothing matters and grief says that everything's hopeless fear says i need to survive anger is saying that something isn't right and that's a really powerful shift anger can be a real source for for change you know as we've seen like for rebellions for resistance you know for any kind of social injustice anger can be actual a positive fuel

42:01but that's the word though isn't it that usually when when there's anger there's a perceived injustice whether there is an injustice or not but there's a perceived injustice yeah you know and justice is just that everybody gets what they deserve yeah basic meaning of justice isn't it everyone gets what they deserve so if you don't get what you deserve there there was a the experiment um i saw a video once and it had two monkeys and they're in cages next to each other and the keeper uh was had two different food types one was cucumber the other was apple and they would give them give one a piece

42:37of cucumber and then give the other a piece of cucumber and they would both eat their cucumber and enjoy and they'd be looking at each other and they're both eating cucumber and then they do it again one cucumber another piece of cucumber enjoy it and then they get a piece of apple and they give one a piece of apple then they give the other piece of apple now they preferred the apple because it's got more sugar in and it's tastier um and then what they did is they gave one a piece of apple and then they gave the other a piece of cucumber and the one that got the cucumber went absolutely nuts like absolutely just enraged by this yeah because

43:17of the injustice and it in it was a an experiment to show you know when we're treated unjustly what's going on internally you know and where does this come from yeah there's a lot of monkeys today isn't yeah it can teach us a lot yeah but yeah you can see with that as well that so desire is below it because desire leads to frustration and that frustration is that stepping stone into anger you can see how it is the next level up that it's um it's a it's a almost a function of desire isn't it it it creates that energy yeah at least it's act it starts becoming active generally speaking as we

43:54know you know within the spiritual psychology of acting anger in acting is attacking obstacles to purposes yeah the first precondition of acting anger is you have to have a purpose yeah you have to want something and then that has to be then a big obstacle is put in the way and then the shadow of the light of the purpose hitting the object of the obstacle creates shadow and that shadow is the emotion you know sadness anger or whatever whatever comes from it yeah i think you

44:26know great great way to look at this idea of anger being both constructive and destructive is in the example of my martin luther king and malcolm x both you know after the same thing technically um but both going about it by different means you know martin luther king being the more um non-violent uh resister and then malcolm x his famous phrase was uh by any means necessary wasn't it that leads to more um more violent resistance i think the interesting thing about malcolm x is that he did actually

44:59evolve in his later years the more that he um he had that pilgrimage to mecca and and changed a lot there and you can see that he's actually probably moving up those levels of consciousness but uh but the interesting dynamic there is that the creators of x-men don't know if you know this but they they based the characters professor x and magneto on these two figures on martin luther king jr and malcolm x and so they're kind of like fictional um parallels you know they're both after the same thing but uh have very different responses to anger and he's one of the more successful than the other

45:34the non-angry one is more successful right in the long run yeah yeah and that's the thing isn't they talk about with this power versus force force can create a lot of change in the world for you know especially in a destructive negative way but eventually if there's enough power power always overcomes force in the end so it's always always the better way to go um i mean i think you know you've got the x-men example more recently you've got black panther again it's the same kind of dynamic you've got t'challa the king of black panther again it's all about understanding the anger

46:08understanding the this generational injustice and still coming from that same place of trauma but trying to change it into something that's more positive you know to have positive reform rather than just pure vengeance and i think this is the dark side of anger isn't it anger can lead into retribution and vengeance and that's what you've got to see with the other character with killmonger he's experienced so much trauma in his life that he's internalized it to the point where somebody has to pay and then that's when you get the real dark side of anger is when it's it becomes something really

46:41quite violent yeah yeah what's that what's that phrase as well with it if you want to take revenge you better dig two graves that's it yeah yeah yeah exactly that's where it leads isn't it don't become a monster in order to defeat a monster yeah well that's it um there's a concept known as the cycle of ungrace okay so there's a cycle of grace but there's also a cycle of ungrace like a downward spiral and it comes from revenge that someone wants to take revenge and then they take revenge on someone

47:16and then the person that they've taken revenge on then take revenge back on them for having taken revenge on them and then they take revenge back on them for having to take revenge on that one and an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind yeah uh and it's um that's known as the cycle of ungrace and the only and the only remedy for it is forgiveness right yeah the only thing that will stop it is forgiveness yeah that's i mean that brings to my nelson mandela as well isn't it that he's you know been in prison for most of his life was it nearly 30 years and you know he's got every right

47:51you could understand if he takes that path of vengeance but he doesn't he refuses it and despite the injustice he um chooses forgiveness yeah that can be an incredibly powerful way to live your life yeah yeah yeah the forgiveness is key isn't it for finishing off thinking and having peace of mind if you held on to every little hurt that everybody's had towards you you'd be a nervous wreck you know by the time you get into midlife uh so you know the forgiveness and especially and i think it

48:23all starts the forgiveness starts with learning to forgive oneself yeah i do an exercise in class i don't know if you ever did it with jordan because this comes up because you know obviously actors punishing themselves because they made a mistake you know i have to say to them look we have no tangible canvas we're not painters we can't see when we're making mistakes there's nothing we don't have any tangible paint we're literally painting the character in our imagination is nothing is nothing there's no physical substance there so the chances are we're going to make some mistakes as we go along so we need

48:57to sort out our relationship with making mistakes and of course there are no failures there's just lessons to be learned etc and the fear of making mistakes is worse than actually making mistakes yeah um and um that to be and that if you do make a mistake to be able to instantaneously forgive yourself so i get the students to sit nicely and take a deep breath and let everything go and just become quiet then i get them to say the words in the mind i forgive myself

49:30oh my god and the tears right and then you look out after it and it's like they're all they're all like in tears because they thought they could never reach such a state where they could possibly forgive themselves for all their shortcomings you know and it's teaching that relationship to be able to forgive yourself and i think when you have that relationship with yourself that you kind of go easy on yourself you know you're disciplined but you're not going to punish yourself if you make a mistake you're just going to learn from it then that is the key

50:02to being able to forgive others yeah forgiveness then leads to freedom doesn't it yes hi i'm martin delaney and i'm here to tell you about the upcoming seminar for the spiritual psychology of acting i ended up studying the full course and it really helped me to develop as an actor and most recently to prepare for a major film role that i was involved in following on from the

50:36teachings and techniques of the great stanislavsky and combined with the very best in modern psychology and ancient practical wisdom the spiritual psychology of acting will provide you with the right knowledge and a powerful toolbox of techniques to help you create any character to grow as an actor and to thrive within the industry the seminars last for two and a half hours each it's jam-packed with useful information and will give you a firm foundation in the main principles of the art and craft of great acting so if you love acting and if you're looking to up your game you can sign up via the

51:11spiritual psychology of acting website or click the link in the description and enjoy the many benefits the seminar will offer you and best of all it's completely free should we move on to the the next level always so we go up a little bit more energy up into level 175 which

Pride and Self Respect

51:39is pride and so we are starting to get when you say just in case anyone doesn't understand from the last one when jordan's saying the level is 175 what he's talking about is a calibration between zero and 1000 1000 would be enlightenment uh and zero would be kind of completely lost in shame and the just to recap the critical level where we go into evolution is 200 so at the moment we're on pride which calibrates what did you say it was 175 so we're just below

52:16this positive critical threshold so we're still they're still very much operating in force rather than power right but we are starting to get more positive um and i guess the positive here is um i think the example that david r hawkins gives is that pride has enough energy to run entire militaries kind of part of this energy level is about self-respect and ambition and discipline um and again you've got desire for achievement so you're kind of rising out of these levels that's why i think you know

52:49you get somebody that lives in complete poverty you know that has lived in the slums uh or a council estate or a ghetto and is then got a job in the military or has got a place in university when none of their family has because of you know these levels of real poverty which is the levels of shame and guilt it's such a huge leap to pride that it can often be a an incredible uh shift in somebody's life it feels really interesting you're saying that i'm just thinking about we're getting we're getting

53:20some on the tv now we're getting some art some join the army right with the sort of global situation it is we're getting sort of recruitment adverts on the telly and what are they selling really they're not selling join the army they're selling the purpose i want to belong i want to have an exciting life like because you do lots of fun stuff yeah and i want to be proud of myself yeah they're selling that when you come home in your uniform and you're a hero that's what we want you to buy

53:56into right now go and put yourself in the line of fire yeah exactly it's dressing it up isn't it it's dressing it up with many people pride yeah exactly and this is david r hawkins talks about this being an incredibly unstable level because on the on the surface it looks incredibly strong uh and i mean there is lots of positives you know it's it's you know at this stage you've got enough energy to have self-belief and to begin to strive for greatness or even just improving your circumstances but it is a transitional level you can't get stuck in pride and i think the flip side

54:31of pride is that it's inherently defensive it's a it's a state that's needing constant reinforcement and as soon as you don't get that then that's when it flips that's when um you realize that it's weakness that's disguised as strength um and then and the flip side of it is it's arrogance and it's elitism and it's uh superiority and completely based on your identity as well yeah the pride i think there's uh well first of all i was i was going to say that in the in the you know in the

55:02in the christian tradition they have the idea of the seven deadly sins and i was contemplating you know what they would be like as characters right so i was i was working on a project where they were going to be some characters and i wanted to find out they were like a bunch of gangsters you know they're like kind of like a dark keystone cops gangsters was the idea and i was wondering who was the leader of the seven deadly sins and it turns out and i took and i i questioned some people in my philosophy school and one one lady told me that pride was the chief of all the sins and that all the

55:40other sins follow on from pride okay and that pride was the original sin you know what why we're in the mythology why was satan cast out why was lucifer cast out because of the pride of taking pride of the position of being the light bearer that's what lucifer means light bearer and the pride of that is what created the fall and we have the saying today don't we pride comes before a fall which is true which you know is psychologically and and actually true it would seem right and it's and it's pride

56:15becomes for a fall and that fall then becomes this downward spiral down to the whole way down to shame doesn't it yes there is a almost a shadow of um shame in pride i think yeah well i think that often pride is used to mask shame and to lose oneself from shame the there is a purpose as you'll know i want to be proud of myself i found that that purpose for the first time i had a student who would come very early on in teaching and he would do a good job and all that and i was thinking what but

56:45there's a there's a kind of slight smugness or something about his work he's doing well but what is it and it's like is it not to be admired it's not to be special and then it clicked from watching myself what is he coming here to the class for he wants when he's on his way home he's taking pride at how well he did in the class and how john said well done that was really good acting today and that was his purpose for going to the class it wasn't about other people it was about him earning the right to

57:17take pride yeah in what he'd done do you see what i mean it wasn't it wasn't a flashy show for anybody else it was all self-directed stroking i want to feel proud of myself and so it is it's a complete inversion of the all the good qualities of pride isn't it yes it comes about yourself yeah you got to maintain i think there's positive i think that there's um that there's egoic pride which is based on one's you know ideas of oneself ego uh you're all based on the individual identity but i think

57:50there's a deeper kind of pride which is i suppose the dignity of the self yeah i suppose it's not really pride it's it's treating oneself with dignity you know that there's there's certain things you wouldn't do you wouldn't stoop to this do you see what i mean we wouldn't self-respect part of pride yeah exactly and that that's healthy but when it becomes egoic and it's about me and mine that's where it becomes unhealthy but as you say you know for someone on a journey climbing up the ladder

58:23it's better to be in that state of pride than in a state of anger or fear absolutely yeah yeah we're getting more and more energy more and more positivity i always think you know if you're in an argument with someone and they don't back down even when they know that they're clearly wrong i think that's because their pride is at stake right that's part of it that they they'd rather hold on to their sense of superiority rather than you know preserve the truth well because right the reasoning there is because the the feared truth in the person who's doing that is i'm a bad person right yeah i'm

59:00wrong or bad so being proven to be having made a mistake isn't just i i made a mistake it's i am bad yeah yeah so that's why they will defend it um with every atom of strength that they have because the consequences of not defending it and having to live with the thought i'm bad or i failed or i'm wrong is so unbearable they'll argue until the cows come home yeah a few a few exactly good examples of this in film and tv one that came to mind was commodus

59:37the joaquin phoenix character in gladiator oh yeah he's he's pure pride but it's really it's mixed with i think a severe insecurity that's the shadow part of it there that he just he desperately wants to be recognized as the greatest leader that rome has ever seen um he's constantly demanding love and attention and as soon as that's threatened when maximus comes along he turns into this petulant child maximus needs to be destroyed it's it's the um the pride is is the thing there that's completely um running the show for in his life yeah yeah well what's behind it is vanity and then what's behind

1:00:12that is is fear and self-rejection in that character do you see what i mean the vanity and the pride are just masks for the deep-seated self-rejection you know we're talking about mind erosion and the depth of the ditch yeah right so if you have a mind erosion say for example a generic i'm not good enough mind erosion right in every situation like an inferiority complex in every situation you just enter into every situation assuming that everybody's better than you

1:00:42if you've if you've got that situation that mind erosion what you might do is cover it up with a mound of earth right so if you can imagine a ditch but now there's a depth to the ditch what we tend to do is then cover up the depth of the ditch with the mound of earth which is of equal height to the depth of the ditch do you get the image do you imagine the ditch and then you put earth on top of it in a mound like a molehill yeah but the height of the molehill is the same as the depth of the ditch

1:01:17so the more that person sort of proclaims their superiority you know that the opposite is true right yeah does that make sense it's because if they really did you know if they didn't have an inferiority complex they would have no reason to prove to anybody that they're superior yeah that's it so what i'm trying to say is psychologically speaking this is useful for actors is that the the depth of the of the of the say the self-rejection or the negative self-image that the character has

1:01:49is in direct proportion to the intensity of purpose they have to resolve it so the bigger the need to be superior the bigger the inferiority complex behind it yeah the bigger the need to be seen to be intelligent the bigger that i'm a stupid idiot thought that's behind it do you see what i mean that it's actually proportional and that's great to understand in acting because if you're playing a total narcissist with all of those purposes you have to create the equal shame and self-rejection and

1:02:22trauma that's behind that yeah to truthify it you know and that will really propel you as an act when you've created all that shit in the background that will make you really want to be superior as the character because you're trying to escape what you think you are you know yeah yeah totally yeah it's i mean it's the same thing with anger as well isn't it like you're saying the injustice you've that you have to create the injustice in your mind otherwise you want there won't be anger you'll be forcing it it's you're always creating what's what's really going on behind the layers

1:02:54isn't it as in my experience getting angry has only ever made things worse yeah the few times in my life where i've lost it and i've you know really given someone a piece of my mind and told them what exactly what i think of them it's just created more that's the cycle of ungrace right there isn't it it's how it starts yeah in my all i'm saying is that in my personal experience every time i've ever used anger as a means of resolving an issue it just made the problem even worse

1:03:26well that real lived experience i'm only speaking from real lived experience there yeah no the same i would say yeah that it's because it's on it's uncontrolled and it's you're using that it's the impulse but you're giving into the impulse rather than using as we say as a springboard to get you into these higher levels and that's that's the crucial thing with this pride one is that it's so close to the the threshold level which is why people often mistake it for uh for pure positivity and strength when actually a lot of times it's masking weakness yes underneath that power is actually

1:03:58more force exactly and so really the the personal growth can only really begin when you get yourself out of pride into the next level which we're now getting into finally the critical threshold we're into um positive now so it's energy level 200 which is courage courage yeah courage the will to overcome fear yeah that's how we define courage right yeah it's the will to

1:04:34overcome fear and the first precondition of courage of course is fear yeah you have to have fear before you can have courage um remember this is different than what we were talking about earlier the uh a prabda which is fearlessness so the state of realization you know where we were where we would all like to end up is fearlessness that we're no longer living in a state of fear yeah in the meantime we need courage a will to overcome fear so what what what do they say about courage then in the

1:05:09courage is basically saying i can face this the the core belief is i can handle life that this is where real growth happens and it's it's where actually the energy is shifting from reactive to proactive so now we're getting into this level of of power now i think you know all these other lower levels life is really seen as um you know hopeless or sad or it's frightening or it's frustrating but then at level of courage those same obstacles are now seen as exciting or challenging and stimulating i think yes that's the thing isn't it it's it was the level of accomplishment and it's

1:05:43uh exploration and determination and i think that's a that's the thing that's really interesting that the same obstacles that affect people and keep them stuck in the lower levels can actually be stimulants for people that are living in this level of courage those exact same obstacles it says you know seen with a different point of view and with a bit more energy um you've now got more energy available to learn new skills to to really grow uh education becomes much more attainable um everything becomes will start to get easier when you've got power you're kind of realizing your inner power i guess

1:06:17the force is you're really really trying hard and this is now we get into the state where you don't have to try it hard because you're realizing your inner power and your inner confidence right this is really a critical step isn't it when we reach the level of courage because it's only then with the courage that things can change that we can we need courage to to to create change absolutely yeah exactly a great example of this is samwise gamji from lord of the rings he kind of embodies courage he's this small hobbit he's on this incredible quest and despite all that he goes

1:06:52through he never actually leaves frodo's side he's always um dependable and especially epitomized by that part of the end of the in the last film when he he realized he can't carry the ring but i can carry you frodo and see this that's pure courage you know it's standing up to insurmountable odds those same things that would end people are seen as this is a challenge that i can face this is actually something i can get through and it's often depicted as an act of grace isn't it that the courage coming in it was like you know an act of the grace of god by the grace of god i had the

1:07:26courage to face this demon so there's something gracefully in in courage i think another good example of of of this of courage is a moana the the disney princess i think that she's almost the archetype of uh of courage it's that idea of stepping into the unknown and and facing these things that are greater than than yourself you think about any disney princess of previous times they're they're damsels in distress and this is someone who is you know going on a hero's journey essentially i think that that whole archetype going the hero's journey stuff is leading to courage

1:08:00right that's and it's we often talk about in the hero's journey the threshold right there is a crossing of a threshold and this is it you know courage is that necessary step needed in the journey in order to succeed and activate the characters yes yeah i always think ted lasso is a good example of courage as well because it's a much more relatable i don't know if you've ever seen that show but it i haven't no what's that what's so he's a he's an american uh coach who gets a job in uh richmond fc in in london a football club a soccer club and he's completely doesn't know the

1:08:35rules at all he's you know he's just a very optimistic uh coach it's based on a real guy that jason sudeikis had as a coach um he's like eternally optimistic but it's all about this he positively infects this team of misfits and uh and leads them to to glory against the odds but it's it becomes such a huge success that show i think because it came at just the right time which was lockdown had just happened and then they just released this tv show which is full of optimism full of characters that are courageous despite uh facing setbacks and that's exactly what i think

1:09:10the world needed to see at that time that you know like we're saying this this time of fear and the unknown to see um relatable characters being courageous being courageous yeah exactly in those moments yeah he's a great um yeah relatable version of that it's a down-to-earth version of courage you don't need to be on epic quest to destroy rings or the hero journey can be something that's actually is a lot more relatable brilliant and what's the final one then of today oh yeah

Neutrality and Inner Power

1:09:37we'll finish today with we'll go up again quite a chunk it's 250 now which again interestingly enough is called neutrality and again it's another one which which at first glance you think that's a bit strange that after courage you've got neutrality which sounds like a baseline it sounds like something which is like passive than active it's exactly it sounds like it's it's and i think it's actually misunderstood it's it's not apathy it's not that you don't care you're now at the level in which you don't need to control everything that you can you can allow things to to unfold and actually i think

1:10:11the key to this is that you're you're unattached to the outcomes of things you don't need to prove anything like pride constantly needs to prove itself neutrality it doesn't have that need so people in this level are you would describe as adaptable or resilient they're emotionally stable they're pragmatic decision makers and they don't react impulsively again we're at this stage where we're not reactive we're proactive so there's some so at this level then there must be some sense of self yes and that's where it's dipped over it's gone into the the magical 200 yeah is there's some

1:10:50reference that you know the person must have a sense of themselves to be able to adopt some kind of neutrality yeah it's almost a precondition for detachment isn't it you have to have that sense of yourself yeah yeah is it the same as impartiality potentially but it's probably more it has more energy than that uh so there is there is definitely i think you know life is never black and white and and david r hawkins talks about those who do take like a rigid stance or position on something they

1:11:20create polarization which then in turn creates opposition and division and you've got all these like lower levels uh coming into play but neutrality is is it's not it's not taking a stance but it's realizing that that you can conserve energy instead of fighting everything and that which doesn't bend is likely to break and i think for neutrality what comes to me for me is like martial arts you know something like karate is uh it's all about not defense in terms of you have to constantly

1:11:50defend yourself but there's a suppleness to it which is that you're ready uh that you're you're you're trying to avoid fighting but it's not avoidance it's it's almost like a a destabilization of of chaos and and and violence and it's and it's that sense that there's a real power there that you you don't necessarily need to do anything um but it's there's an inner power there that you're not easily intimidated by something okay there's well it sounds like there's a calm neutrality there must be some calm and presence yeah yeah uh yeah it's obviously it's flexible it's

1:12:22non-judgmental there again another quote that comes to mind is i think it's often misquoted to john lennon but it's a it'll be all right in the end and if it's not all right it's not the end i think it's an indian proverb initially but it's often quoted as john lennon but there's an unshakable confidence to it i guess yeah if it's not a happy ending it's not the it's not the end yet yeah exactly yeah yeah again it's that level of optimism i think another interesting thing about neutrality is that neutral people value freedom which means they're harder to control so we've talked

1:12:58about you know those who live in fear are incredibly susceptible to control because they need that stronger figure to lift them out of it but at this level of neutrality you have more freedom you have more like you say sense yourself confidence autonomy exactly and then that's very hard to manipulate because of that detachment i think yeah yeah there's a there's a kind of state of being that i find like in when do you remember we did the exercises in class on analysis of actions where i show you how

1:13:28to observe your own psychological actions yeah and what what will happen in the exercises is someone sits in the semicircle with a book and they start reading the book and then when their attention is more or less on it they put their finger up and then someone asks them a question and then they answer the question and what we do then is we analyze what were the psychological actions so it's a way of teaching understanding to understand how to analyze psychological actions in life and therefore for the character in plays and when we first do it and the person's doing it and they they do their action

1:14:02and i'll say what the action is okay oh yeah that was that was it there'll be someone who'll go i didn't see that how did you get that right how how are you seeing that because they know i was right because the person will say yeah that god yes that's exactly what was going on and they'll say how can you see that and i say well the thing that's stopping you from seeing it is your attachment to being right because you think this knowledge will bring you some kind of power if you could only understand what you know what what people really thinking behind their words will bring you

1:14:35some power because of that attachment to power you're unable to see what's going on so then i what got them to do was doing an exercise do you remember um i remember getting plaster scene as a child for christmas yeah yeah and you got it and it had that lovely smell you know that kind of synthetic plasticky plaster scene smell and then you it would have cellophane and then you peel off the cellophane and it would be like perfect pristine virgin plaster scene i get the get them to imagine that that's

1:15:09their kind of mental state when observing that they just keep very still in a state of neutrality and just observe and then whatever the psychological action that's coming in from the other person leaves a kind of imprint in the plaster scene because it's how you made you feel do you see i mean there's a subtle reaction and then what i'm doing is i'm measuring that but you can only do it if you can just keep very still and give up the attachment to knowing do you see what i mean that that strikes

1:15:44me as an act of an active positive use of neutrality yeah it's a good way of looking at it as well isn't it that neutrality is a pristineness to it you've you've let go of everything that's muddying the waters there's a pureness to it yeah the past impressions are what muddied the water isn't it that's what stops you from seeing things as they really are is your ideas about what things really are because of past experience but that's exactly what the purpose i want to find out is which is you know the most important purpose for mental health is i want to see things as they really are

1:16:18and to do that we need neutrality we have to be free from bias you know i i teach that the duty of an actor is to observe human nature well if that's not neutrality do you mean remaining the impartial observer not taking sides just wanting to understand human behavior for what it is and what's behind it you know wanting to actually understand it rather than judge it that's the difference yeah i think i wonder as well like you know in meditation you know i guess it's kind of a

1:16:50road to enlightenment but what you know the practice of meditation does is everything falls away right the the stuff of the day is that you know things that are are bugging you you let it all fall away you get to this state of neutrality this is kind of what you're practicing you're practicing neutrality every time you meditate because you're letting go yeah and you're i mean that that's the reason why meditation is conducive to enlightenment is because of course the meditation produces the detachment and what's the burden that we're being enlightened from it is the attachments yeah

1:17:26enlightenment is disemburdenment yes yeah burden is ignorance yeah and ignorance is ignoring your true self ignorance you know what are the ignorance being ignorant of their real self yeah yeah if you if you remembered your real self you wouldn't act like such a dick do you know what i mean you wouldn't need to yeah exactly exactly yeah i think you know if we're going to take examples of

1:18:01this interestingly a lot of the kind of the mentor figures and stories you could describe as being neutral in this in this level so obi-wan kenobi in the very first star wars he's that embodiment of of neutrality the same for mr miyagi in the karate kid there's just a calmness there's a real stillness and wisdom and patience with him i think obi-wan moves from apathy to to that doesn't he at first when it's this he's like he's he's reclined from the world he's yeah the request he's kind of had

1:18:32enough of the world hasn't he he's yeah and he remembers who he is yeah it's almost yeah there's that that's that line isn't it when he goes that's a name i've not heard in a while his own name it's like he's remembering himself it's like the ignorance is falling away and he's stepping into that mentor figure that is is going to help look defeat the the empire yeah another great example is atticus finch and to kill a mockingbird he's someone who's completely unshaken by any social pressure there again there's that um there is an unshakable quality there's a groundedness to

1:19:04neutrality you'd have to have a sense of yourself to be able to practice neutrality yes yeah yeah because it's a mind that's free of bias yeah and again going to slightly kind of comic version of that you've got colombo the detective he's a you could say he's neutral um he's got such a relaxed state i mean he's unthreatening but he's he's always observing you know there's there's there's something always going on that he's he's a again he's misunderstood as neutrality can be often misunderstood as as um apathy is actually detachment which is

1:19:36which is real power and he doesn't care if he's misunderstood right yeah yeah the ego is what isn't again is because of a sense of himself isn't it yeah yeah the truth again is more important than how he's perceived yes that's what makes him a good detective that's why there's a tv show about him yeah that's why he's endlessly fascinating yeah yeah so i think yeah in terms of um looking at stories then i would say that most uh plays and films and tv shows there are stories about moving

1:20:09above 200 aren't they that below 200 the characters are reacting they're in survival mode um it's all these all these lower levels dominate and above 200 is when the characters are beginning to find the courage to then start to shape the reality i think that's why we find these arcs so satisfying because it's it's going into something that's recognizable um in us which is this inherent power that we all have well essentially every story is about a movement from some kind of ignorance

1:20:42to some kind of enlightenment yeah yeah yeah you know that's the story yeah it's the human story that's what human beings need is to move from ignorance to enlightenment yeah um collectively we need an m field of peace love and enlightenment really that's where we need to go if we want to see a a spiritual renaissance which is long overdue yeah yeah great well i thought it'd be good to end this

1:21:13episode with a few examples of because i think you know what really well written characters they change and i think they in terms of talking about these levels of conscience they move between levels and i think you often talk about characters that um are boring to watch they kind of stay the same um but those really well written characters are ones that go from one extreme to the other and so i've got a few examples here of of states and levels that we've talked about in the past uh for people to get an idea about i think one of the the clearest ones and the most well written

1:21:44is walter white in breaking bad he's always a great example uh to bring up and uh his arc is shame to desire to pride so he starts off in shame when we see him at the start of breaking bad he's completely emasculated he's powerless he's struggling financially he's you know unrecognized genius he doesn't have the respect that he feels that he deserves and i think there's a lot of shame there which he's living in and it starts to build this resentment in him um that's where we we begin

1:22:17this story and on top of that he's got cancer all of a sudden so that he's he's stuck in all these really lower levels and a baby on the way but yeah all these stresses yeah there's there's almost no chance for him to to get to enlightenment and then he then has starts to get to the desire when he begins cooking meth all of a sudden he has a bit more purpose it's leading to money and status and control and obviously that's great there's more energy involved there but it's he starts to spiral because he gets attached to that and again it's believing that fulfillment lies

1:22:49in that success which is again probably a hang-up from the resentment that it's he attached himself to in in that lower level of shame and i think then he transitions you know what at whatever point it is it's very subtle but he then transitions into pride when he really truly does become heisenberg i think there's he creates this persona which he's kind of almost cosplaying as and you'll fake it till you make it but then he actually really does become this incredibly dominant drug baron but and so this identity this identity he's created of heisenberg is built on the idea of superiority and pure force

1:23:24and then there's that great bit at the end where he realizes you know when he's talking to his wife when it's kind of all come undone he's kind of forced to to to recognize that he actually didn't do it for his family he did it for himself he has to realize that but then he dies you know surrounded by his happy place all his meth making facilities and his is a chemistry genius so he dies in pride so he never gets above that level so it's moving from shame to pride really in that instance shame to pride yeah and

1:23:56using desire as the as the spring i remember him saying i i i didn't do it i didn't do it for the money i didn't do it for the money what did he do it for he did it for the pride yeah the respect yeah and he liked it and like don in in sexy beast for the sheer fuck offness of it all yeah yeah yeah yeah it's great yeah i think you know the we often see characters moving from

1:24:26from one extreme to the other and it's usually they're rising up the levels i think interestingly it can also work in reverse um so even though heisenberg you know walt rose up to to pride he was going from lower levels to higher levels whereas a character like michael corleone in the godfather he's got almost that reverse journey so he actually starts off in a place of neutrality that he actually he's he's quite apart from this crime family that he has um perspective on it and he has independence like he says to his fiancee i i'm not my family you know that that's what he

1:24:59kind of holds on to but then after his father brando gets attacked that's when the rage takes over that's when there's energy there for him to take action and then he goes to pride at the end again his level of pride which is often pride i guess you could say is a level of gangsters because it sort of needs to do with control and status and stuff like that but um by the end of that godfather film he's now fully don corleone isn't he he's his identity is completely built around force and authority and there's that great image of the door closing on his wife because he's completely

1:25:29transformed into this his father basically he's gone from this this quite stable place into this now and he's now fully into the family now yeah now he's become the godfather hasn't he yeah yeah which is why that story is so great isn't it why it's so well written yeah because because there's a seeming so so it would seem that there's been an elevation he's got to a more powerful prominent position yeah but according to this he's actually gone down the level he's descended yeah he's descended from neutrality into pride yeah yeah and uh another positive one to end with most people will know

1:26:04is uh tony stark uh iron man from from those films that he starts off in pride you know the very beginning of iron man he's he's incredibly arrogant he's he's completely status driven and that's his worldview isn't it that i'm i'm the smartest man in the room you know he's uh he's got all this money and and authority and that completely flips when he gets captured in afghanistan he has this kind of moment of of reckoning when he realizes the damage that his weapons manufacturing is doing and then decides to then make a change take responsibility for that and and uh build this you know again

1:26:39another alter ego of iron man and then you get to the stage later in the avengers movies where he actually gets to a point of neutrality he becomes increasingly calmer and level-headed there's that inner confidence that comes out he doesn't need validation anymore that's not what he's after and then it can culminate in this huge act of self-sacrifice he saves the uh saves the entire planet yeah so it becomes a hero through that yeah yeah i think it gets even higher higher than about courage yeah it takes courage for that final act of sacrifice but yeah he ends up in a place of

1:27:12neutrality i think yeah right through sacrifice yeah but that's always it that that's what makes the hero a hero that is the definition of a hero is one who sacrifices for the greater good that's what heroic act is isn't it that's what heroism is that's that's the the hero archetype is one who sacrifices the individuality for the collective yeah that's why we see it in so many stories isn't there something so positive and affirming about that helps us uh hopefully achieve that in our in our own lives well that's the whole purpose of stories isn't it we're watching people moving

1:27:46between these levels and really they're maps of life you know the myths are really maps of the human experience um to show us to teach you know they're the very best don't isn't it wait when do you know that thing when you're watching a tv show or a film and there's an actual character who's dealing with the problems that you're currently dealing with you ever had that yeah it's amazing when that happens and you learn so much by watching them in the drama navigating it because you're comparing it to your

1:28:17own life and i think that's one of the very important um functions of drama theater film is is to show us the stages of life and how to negotiate the different obstacles we meet as we move up the ladder if if we should so desire to do so thank you for listening to the spiritual psychology of acting podcast if you're interested in learning

1:28:51more about the spiritual psychology of acting there are a few upcoming free intro seminars you can sign up for the next one is just around the corner on the 26th of april and there are two more next month one on the 13th of may the other on the 31st of may you can find the link to book a place on those in the description of this episode join us next time for the final part of our mini-series where we'll cover all the higher levels of consciousness until then be kind to each other and we'll see you next time

1:29:31we'll see you next time

1:30:01we'll see you next time