Alex Ferrari 0:00
You know what? I don't know why? Just don't want them on the show, from your point of view. And I think you touched upon it a little bit. But I want to dive in a little bit deeper on what makes these spiritual leaders who a lot of people follow.

Loch Kelly 0:16
The simplest way to say it is that is what you were saying. There's almost two dimensions of us. There's the spiritual and the and the relative human. The ego can take over and use the spiritual knowledge as a commodity so they don't see their own you know humanity and humility. However, this is the history of many of the spiritual teachers who have acted out,

Alex Ferrari 0:43
If someone is listening right now who thinks they're too busy, too broken, too skeptical for spirituality, what would you say to them directly?

Loch Kelly 0:51
Look within your own experience and find the times that you have been felt most free, happy, connected, a sense of unconditional love.

Alex Ferrari 1:04
Why do you think this isn't taught in schools or even in therapy, that this is a natural next stage of human evolution?

Loch Kelly 1:13
That is such a great question. It literally is. Is, you know, the fascinating thing because...

Alex Ferrari 1:25
Now, before we get started, I want to thank you so much for clicking on this video and getting ready to watch this amazing conversation we're about to have. But one thing I've noticed is that about 40% of you who are watching are not subscribed. It is the easiest way to continue to support the work we're doing at Next Level Soul, and it has been the joy of my life to have these amazing conversations with some of the most remarkable and profound souls on the planet. So from the bottom of my heart, I want to thank you so much for giving me the ability and the privilege of doing this work for you, so please just hit the subscribe button, hit the like button, and it really, really helps us out a lot. Thank you so much. And let's dive in.

Alex Ferrari 2:09
I like to welcome to the show Loch Kelly, how you doing Loch?

Loch Kelly 2:20
Good. Nice to see you. Nice to meet you, Alex.

Alex Ferrari 2:23
A pleasure to meet you as well. My friend, your work in mindfulness, consciousness, the deep end of the pool, as they say, is, is pretty profound. You've been doing this for a few years, and I'm very happy you're you're here. So I'm going to ask you my very first question is that most people come to spirituality because something hurts. As I always like to joke, no one looks for Jesus when they're in the Amalfi Coast, on a yacht, eating lobster and drinking champagne, they generally aren't looking for Jesus at that point or consciousness or anything else. So what was the pain or question that actually pushed you onto this path?

Loch Kelly 3:02
I mean, I would say that the majority, as as you say, I agree, come what I call because of the fire, but some come because of the light. In other words, some people have had peak experiences, and I had both. So some people are just, you know, struggling along in the routine and then all of a sudden, the the nature of their reality shifts. And what is here is this kind of profound connection, feeling of bliss, a sense of meaning. And so I've had, I had both. I could, you know, as I go back, I can see that there were times as a kid that things broke through when I was like, What is this? Does any any adults know what this is? And at one point, I can remember being on a school bus and thinking to myself, having had a just experience looking out of the window, and feeling kind of the spacious guy, and feeling it's very open. And I said, adults must, this is what adults must talk about. I realized they don't talk about it at all, you know. So, so I did have, I'll go to my more fire experience, which is, you know, one of them, which is that my father developed cancer when I was in high school. So he had brain cancer left side of his brain. I went off to college. I would come back. And he had been, he was reduced to being back to a kindergarten level. And then he worked his way up. So by the end of the year, he was ready to go back to work, but he would like, show me his workbooks and like, Oh, look how I'm doing, you know. So we'd switch. I just became a man and, you know, an adult. And now all of a sudden, here he is, and it was his. Left brain. He was a engineer and a math guy. So it, it made him more loving. So that was one of the things that you know, why I combine, you know, meditation, consciousness, neuroscience and psychology, because I saw that that he was very left brain, very mathematical. And he then all of a sudden, my girlfriend came to the door, and he was like, oh, Angela, like, so great to see you. And I was like, wow. Okay, so some something with the brain. Something shifted. So then he, he ended up having an aneurysm at the end of that year, and then passed on. So I went off to school in sophomore year, and, you know, very heavy hearted, and kind of left my family and would communicate with them. But none of my friends really had been through this, because they were all college kids, so they'd be like, All right, let's go have a beer, and, you know, sorry to hear about it. And I tried to talk to the Freudian psychologist. He just took notes. And I was like, Okay, that's enough of that. Then I walked out one kind of early winter evening, I walked out of the library, and just kind of felt or heard kind of a voice within me say, I don't know if you can take this much longer. And I kind of looked up, as if you know the voice was coming from the top of my head speaking. But as I looked up, I opened my awareness to the sky. I saw the stars, and something lifted and opened. And this feeling of being kind of contracted and small and heavy and worried just opened up and lifted. And I felt unburdened and connected to something greater. And I just started laughing and crying, and just felt like, Oh my God. And that just felt like I looked at the stars and the trees and the snow and everything just seemed so vivid and clear and hopeful and, you know, just just, you know, full of life that I had been kind of shut off from so I just, you know, tried to talk to people about that, and everyone say, Oh, that's cool, man. But that showed me, and it ended up being one of the ways that I actually found that was similar to when I ended up going to Sri Lanka, Indian Nepal, this kind of direct practice, which is literally feeling like your contracted awareness is identified, and I open up the awareness, as if we're in this dark cloud of our minds and our body and our emotion, and then just opening, Oh, how about The sky? Oh, and then the sky is also within your body, and there's this sense of big, open mind, open heart, that is a real experience of consciousness at a at a greater level.

Alex Ferrari 8:17
That's beautiful. So awakening in general, seems to be the next natural stage of human development. You know, you go through this. You gets caught in the in that, like you said, the routine of life. And you kind of are this kind of focus, focus, focus. But when you open up and you awake a bit, and you start to see things, I always like to, you know, say it's like you're starting to see the code in the matrix. You're starting to see things a little bit differently than everybody else. Why do you think this isn't taught in schools or even in therapy, that this is a natural next stage of human evolution?

Loch Kelly 8:56
That is such a great question. It literally is. Is, you know, the fascinating thing, because, one, I think one of the reasons, if you look at it developmentally, is that, you know, as kids, we're, you know, in human beings are, our babies are very dependent on family and and, you know, where turtles kind of are born and go right into the ocean, you know, so they're, they're immediately able to be independent, but we have to be dependent, and then we learn independence. And the way we learn independence by school, by thought, by discriminating mind by ego function. That's a, you know, don't cross. That's a red light. That's a green light. You know, remember these rules, do this. So we develop this very strong identity that is an ego function that becomes an ego identity, and it creates the sense as we came to believe, I think, therefore I am so thinking education and survival and then success, you know, with doing things. Things well, achievement is, is about mental identity, and that waking up is, is a subtler dimension of consciousness that you know was by spirituality and religion was taken and then almost made into more of a ritual, and kind of a, you know, what you had to go to certain people to get, you know, get blessings, or it's in a church, or God's up above, or so there wasn't this, this development in the mass culture that the kingdom of heaven is within you, or that that what you're searching for is already here. Or look how to look within, even if people said, look within, they look within their minds, or they look within their personality and and this subtle dimension of consciousness is, is not an object, and it's not a thought, but it's just as palpable. And that's, that's what you wake up to. It's, it's similar to that experience of this of opening to the sky, this awake space that is the intelligence prior to thought, that from which we can use thought we can move our hands. But it's so subtle that there was no institution that really took hold to make it kind of a secular way of teaching. It became, kind of taught, and then there became, like these Olympic athletes of meditation, like yogis and join the monastery if you're going to get it. Whereas there is this tradition, which is, you know, one I looked for and found where everyday people would, you know, could just in the midst of their life recognize their whatever you want to call it true nature, being presence, authentic self, true, true nature, you know, just by small glimpses during The middle of the day doing these short little movements of awareness and consciousness.

Alex Ferrari 12:25
Well, let me ask you, with that said, if, if someone is listening right now, who thinks they're too busy, too broken, too skeptical for spirituality, what would you say to them directly?

Loch Kelly 12:37
Look within your own experience and find the times that you have been felt most free, happy, connected, a sense of unconditional love, and what, where were you? What was happening? And then, isn't that what we all want. And what if there's a way you know to not have to if religion is a is your doorway, that's fine, but what if it was a natural human dimension of consciousness, and you could access it just the way you could learn, you know, to do other activities that seem difficult, like, you know, maybe something as simple as typing. You don't know how to type. You don't know where the keys are. You know, you have to learn where the keys are. And now, if, if I, you know, people type, they just type with, you know, from a kind of flow consciousness. They just can type. So there's a learning of an activity or a type of consciousness that isn't mental. It isn't of your will. It isn't actually using a type of awareness called attention, which it can start with in meditation. But that's not that actually becomes an obstacle. It isn't trying hard or reading a lot of spiritual books, or even, you know, effortfully hoping that grace will arrive if you pray hard enough or but it's almost this, this tradition, is that grace is already here, that that what you're looking for is our natural. It's already given whatever this consciousness is. It's just covered over. So if there could be a way, if you could uncover this natural dimension of who you are, and its natural condition would be like you were as a joyful child, except now with, you know, a lot of learning and mental capabilities to function, then that's kind of what it would be like.

Alex Ferrari 14:59
Yeah, so Loch. Let me ask you, though you're saying the kind of you're insinuating that there's stuff on us that we have to kind of coats, if you will. Let's say big, heavy coats that we're walking around with. And as we move through life, we put on more coats and more coats and more coats those. But those are the ones that who are enlightened, or found enlightenment or just awakened, seem to have less coats. Now, many of those coats are coats that we pick up along the way, from parents, from classmates, from communities, from countries, from religion, specifically that it's kind of makes us heavier, and we can't be that free flowing child that we once were. So how can we break through a lot of that, or at least confront the programming that we receive? Because everyone, every soul on the planet, gets programming the moment they come out of the womb. They're starting to they're starting to learn, whether they're being taught or just observing, they just pick it up. It's, I don't know if you have children, I do. And watching them and seeing the traits, they picked up some good some like, man, you you picked that up for me after every God, Jesus, you know. And I'm like, I didn't even say anything. I'm like, but now they, they just pick those kind of traits up. They also pick up the good ones too, which is, which is wonderful, but they pick up all of you, which is, which is problematic sometimes. So how can we how can we really face because if they're watching this episode right now, yeah, that means that they have a question with inside. They're searching for something. They're curious about something. How can they break free from the programming? You are like, Well, I was raised like this, and according to my priest or my rabbi or my whatever, I can't do this, this and this. I I've had so many comments that people say, Oh, I'm I know I'm gonna, I know I'm gonna get in trouble for watching this show, but I just can't turn it off. I've heard that constantly, like, my priest is not gonna, not gonna be happy by me watching this show, because I'm talking about, like, you know, you know Jesus meditating in India, which as a former Catholic, recovering Catholic. Because I joke, it is, is a no, no, you don't know. You don't talk about these kind of things. So there's a lot of like guilt and that we deal with. So how do you deal with that?

Loch Kelly 17:25
Some people are religious. Some people are spiritual, not religious. Some people are consciousness and not necessarily using spiritual language. But I have, you know, I did a master in divinity. I did, I did the three year degree, which is a degree that's done by ministers. And some of my good friends are, you know, interfaith groups. I'm involved with Father Thomas Keating, who was very good friend of mine, who was a priest who started centering prayer. And, you know, we just have the same language. We just like, immediately drop into talking about the same thing. So this is a place that everyone can meet. It shouldn't be a threat to anything. Everyone can keep their their religious beliefs and their metaphysical and their, you know, theological beliefs. This is like, Well, where does that all meet? The human being. So the human the human consciousness. And we're talking about human development, that as we grow up, we develop ways to protect ourselves and functional parts of ourselves. And where people have big, big T trauma, or, or everyone has small t trauma, which is basically hurts and protections and feeling that you need to repress something, and you feel like you're angry, but you can't say it, or you feel like you're, you know, somebody makes you feel small or worthless, and then you feel like a part of you feels, oh, I'm worthless, you know. And you repress that. You try to be, oh, I'm worth something, and you try to kind of counteract it with another part of yourself. So this psychological dimension is not to be ignored. It's to be unburdened from its what it's holding as these burdened beliefs about who you are, because the function so we're not getting rid of, for instance, the ego. We're growing up from it, and we're thanking it for all its hard work, and we're asking if it wants to semi retire and stop me with with higher higher pay and more vacation and just be part of the team, because there's something that's more wise and more compassionate, a dimension which is what we're talking about, is this true nature, authentic self, that actually is a functional dimension of who we are, identity in mind that can be. With our humanity, which is always going to be imperfect, but there's certain like feelings when you kind of get taken over, what's called blended or identified with a part of you, I'm worthless, I'm no good, or I'm going to show that person what really is, you know, and then you realize, oh, okay, that's a part of me who's that appearing to and this is the move, the mindful move, is recognizing what's happening, not denying it, not repressing it, not fighting it, but stepping into something greater that is you that can be aware of it and has compassion for it.

Alex Ferrari 20:42
Well, you mentioned something that there's consciousness and spirituality? Yeah, I, I personally can't, can't separate those two. I think if you're conscious, there's a level of spirituality, and if you're becoming spiritual, there's a level of consciousness to it. Yes, in your eyes, how are there people who are quote, unquote, conscious that just completely ignore spirituality? And are people who are spiritual who completely ignore consciousness?

Loch Kelly 21:11
Consciousness goes throughout all of it, you know, is somewhat recognized by religious or spiritual, or what I'm talking about is secularly conscious people. So conscious people who are, let's say recovering from recovering Catholic, or, let's say recovering from being in a cult or some other kind of thing. So they're rejected, like, I'm not going to use religious language. I'm agnostic meaning. Or they're just like, I don't know. I can't I'm not sure, but I know. What I do know is my own experience, and that when I'm when I'm closed down and and feeling identified with a part that feels separate, then I know I can shift to feel more connected. And when I feel connected, I feel everyone you know is deserving of respect. And so the Golden Rule shows up, you know, I treat everyone you know as if they're the same as me, love your neighbor as yourself. Of course, that's conscious, that's that's the experience that doesn't need the metaphysical belief to say, what is this that is invisible and unnameable but real? So even the word spirit is like, well, I don't, some people say, I don't know. And even you know, Buddhism, in some ways, did that move to say, well, we're not going to say that. There's, you know, something else. We're just going to we're going to, as you asked, we're going to see what gets in the way. We're going to meditate. First thing we're going to see is like, all right, what are these five obstacles? There's doubt, there's there's, you know, grasping, wanting, desiring everything, rejecting everything. There's, you know, these are the movements of consciousness that keep us pushing and pulling. What if you just recognize, okay, that's just happening, and that's not me, that's coming and going. So then where, where am I? Where's the location of what everything's arising to

Alex Ferrari 23:23
As you're walking this path. There's two of you right now and two of me. One is the conscious, mindful, spiritual person. And then there's the the lock, let's say that is living in the third dimensional world, living in this experience. Now those two individuals have to coexist and have to balance, because if you go too far down one or the other, you go too far into the material world, you'll get lost. If you go too far down the spiritual consciousness, mindfulness, you start to pull away from this world like meditating in a cave for eight hours a day for 40 years, you're not you are in another existence, another reality. When you do things like that in a monastery, you live in this perfect little world where everything's about consciousness, mindfulness, exploration of spirituality, but you're not really interacting with the world. We're Yeah, so there's a lot. There's a movement now that I've seen that even in the Indian in the Eastern philosophies are saying we need to have these gurus come down from the mountains, and these seekers come down from the mountains and start to become CEOs and go into the world, so we can change the world in a different way. So how can you balance something that's ethereal, like spirituality, consciousness, mindfulness and the practical world of just trying to do what we need to do? So in other words, obviously you. Have a mission in life, you're trying to spread this information out to as many people as possible. That is, there's a spiritual component to that, but there is also an egoic component to that, which is not a bad or negative thing, it's just an egoic thing. Like, I need to go do this. I need to spread this. But there's that balance. So how can, how can you balance those two, as opposed to, like, if you're in the spiritual space, going, everything's going to happen, everything will unravel the way it's supposed to. And there's, there's truth to that to some degree. Yeah, that's true, absolutely, but then, but if you don't get up off the couch, yes, and go, hustle a little bit and go, you know, if I wouldn't have built this studio that you're sitting in here. I wouldn't be able to create the kind of content that I create for my audience that takes a level of ego. Yeah, that's what you off the couch to do that. So what do you think, sir?

Loch Kelly 25:53
So, so this, this is the same question that I had even as I went off to explore as a graduate student into Sri Lanka and sat in a five day retreat, 10 day retreat, 21 day retreat, went to the studied and then up through India, and then ended up in Nepal with this Tibetan teacher who, in a matter of minutes, shifted my consciousness just by having me do a simple glimpse exercise. And then I thought, oh, okay, well, should I just stay here and do this? Or should I join, you know, become more of this, join this club of Tibetans, or because that's where and then I was like, No, I'm going back to New York City, finished my degree, and actually, I feel like, you know, they need to have soup kitchens and shelters built. So I'll go help with that, because I felt like, Oh, these are people. That one's me, you know. So immediately, the key is that it's what's called the word non dual in its in its fundamental sense, means two truths. There's this absolute reality which is spiritual, and there's this relative reality, and they're not two. So bringing them together is actually the most spiritual and the most you know human thing that humanness and the Beingness are human being, then you bring beingness and humanness together this. How do you do that? And in some ways, I came back and was, you know, did my work in New York City, trying to in the middle. So I would, you know, I became a psychotherapist for a while and teaching meditation. So I'd sit in this clinic in Brooklyn, and, you know, see psychiatric patients, and sometimes they wouldn't show up. So I would just look out the window and do my practice, and then the next one would come in, and I do that. Then I'd look out the window, do my practice, and the next one will come in. So all of a sudden, now I'm like, wait a minute, why do I have to look out the window? Why don't I just do it while I'm here with the person? And what's the same in them that's with me? And all of a sudden it just becomes a continuous flow. And so what I call awake in the world. I call it awake loving flow. So it's like people who are in flow consciousness, or in the zone in a sport or music or walking in nature, you you enter this embodied, connected, non mental, highly functioning way of doing things, and that's the ultimate goal of of this.

Alex Ferrari 28:46
That makes sense, because you, you know, as I've done my research and my studies, and you start having spiritual experiences, as I'm sure you had, and you start seeing behind the curtain a bit. It's it's almost enticing and intoxicating to go there and stay there, yeah? I mean, when you have a deep meditation where you are walking around in full bliss, yeah, it's real difficult to go and do your taxes. It like, it's just like, What am I doing? This is where I need to be, yeah? But it is this balance that, and I think it's a really important message to put out there, because so many spiritual seekers just want to sit and meditate all day, and that's fine, yes, but at a certain point you've got to balance it with the real world and bring that into that's what we all need to wake up this planet. That's right, because if we're all stuck in caves nothing's gonna go.

Loch Kelly 29:42
Yeah, and it's not too it ultimately is not two things and that this. So this kind of practice that I do, which is called effortless mindfulness, or from the Mahamudra tradition, so they have. Of this sense that you wake up from your small mind to this awareness based knowing, and then there the next phase is awaking in so it's called same taste. So the spiritual dimension, or the awareness, is the same taste as the human and the stuff that's coming and going and just very, very ordinary, mundane. They're not two things. There's washing dishes. And, you know, meditating is it becomes this flow consciousness and and it's more fun, then you're kind of blissfully, I mean, you know, blissfully doing most things. I don't know. I haven't yet achieved the state of blissfully doing my taxes, but that's but many that may there may be somebody out there who's achieved that level, but, but a lot of other things that are daily.

Alex Ferrari 31:02
But you know what? The funny thing is that for accountants, that is the bliss, right? That's right. So it really is a balance, like we need everybody on board to do the things that they do and to find their bliss. One thing I always find fascinating as a meditator is that, and I'm I'm not perfect. I'm sure you aren't, either in regards to meditation, where you meditate, and you can meditate for two hours or three hours, or go on retreats and all that stuff, but when someone cuts you off right in traffic or something else, you know, I'm either still angry, not me personally, but you like you as a person. Might still be angry, yeah, still might be resentful, still might snap, but they're like, but I'm but I'm wearing all the right clothes, I'm wearing the right trinkets, I'm meditating all the time, I'm reading the right books, but I'm still so angry, or I'm still so sad, or I'm still so traumatized by this. What do you say to people that are kind of stuck in that where they're they're anxious, they even still feel anxious. What is missing from the effortless mindness, the effortless mindfulness that you talk about?

Loch Kelly 32:18
Yeah, so the effortless mindfulness combines the primacy of this awareness based knowing which is available, and in some ways it the dimension is free of pain, free of worry, free of shame, free of fear. And then it comes and is with parts of us that have fear and anger and shame and that are and it the key is that it's not about stopping if, if something arises apart, certainly the body will react. If you're standing on a corner and a car comes right by your your feet and beeps its horn, you're gonna jump. I mean, nobody will, you know, no one will be like because or the or they'll get hit if they see a car coming at them, they have to move. So, so there's some human dimension that initially the the arising of that experience is not you. It's arising to you. It's part of you, the anger. Then the question is, does it turn into resentment and or judgment? I shouldn't be angry like a spiritual ego, judging you. You know, what's wrong with you. You should be more spiritual. You know, stop that rather than, rather than realizing we all have so so I combine, in this, the as I mentioned, the kind of direct path, non dual meditation, with neuroscience and then psychology, and particularly in psychology, this what's called parts based psychology and internal family systems is one of the best known versions of that. And I've co taught with Dick Schwartz, who's the founder of that. So the the framework there is that the healing agent is this authentic self, and you actually the goal is to live your life from self leadership, so that that self is the leader. But the work is to realize that there are all these different sub personalities, or what's called parts, or Jung call them personas, or, you know, repressed contents that will get triggered and come up and they have a certain world view when they take over us. Like, that guy shouldn't have done that. I can't believe he cut me off. Like, who are these people I'm going to follow? You know, they, they have their own personality. But you, you step out of that, and you're with that part of you. So. So, so you can realize, okay, you know, it's okay. You soothe yourself. You do like a self soothing. And then you unburden the parts that get, that tend to get triggered and everything. Then you have these functional parts of you, because you need them to do, you know, to learn, you know, know how to drive and you know, do do functional things. But they're no longer like an angry driver. They're just a driver that gets startled and go like, Oh, that guy, wow. I can't believe he's That's so dangerous. Wow, man, oh, man. And then you let then this kind of authentic self comes in, and the next moment, and you're resilient.

Alex Ferrari 35:48
Another thing is that so many seekers are chasing enlightenment. This thing, whatever that is, that definition of enlightenment is Buddha. Buddha had a great marketing team with enlight, so they put it out there. But they want to find enlightenment without, with avoiding trauma, right? Can someone really awaken without healing? Or does one have to just, does one or does one have to really go in and do the work before that's awakening happens because, because can you be awake, but carrying around all this baggage of trauma or pain or guilt or shame with you, right?

Loch Kelly 36:29
Yeah, so this kind of relates to what you were saying before about these two two dimensions. So I was just teaching a seminar this past weekend called waking up and growing up. So basically, you know, and this guy, Ken Wilber, talks about waking up, growing up and showing up, right? So, so this is the key, is that the awakeness doesn't have to grow up. This, from this perspective, the awakeness, the freedom, is already here, equally within all of us, as much as the Buddha, we have that awake consciousness available inherently already within us, then we each have individual human growth and traumas, and so you can have what's called initial awakening out of identification with being like the ego and the body mind, and go like, Oh, wait a minute, that's not who I am. I'm this awareness you have this kind of however, this is the history of many of the spiritual teachers who have acted out. So, you know, you know, you know, teachers who then, through anger, sex, power,

Alex Ferrari 37:51
Gluttony,

Loch Kelly 37:52
Yeah, gluttony, drugs, you know, there's a whole history of some of you know, very authentic. You know, a pretty good percentage of modern teachers who have fallen, and it's because, having I have actually treated some of them, and certainly have treated more of the people who were hurt by them. It's that they have this initial awakening, and they didn't do the trauma work, and they actually can stay in what's called a spiritual bypass and not do the trauma work. And what happens is kind of this adolescent part of them usually takes over, and they're like, I can do whatever I want. It's all relative. It's all it's all good. So they take on personality wise, that that ultimate sense that all is already Okay, and it's all there's no problem, there's no you know, right and wrong, good and evil. Ultimately, it's all unfolding. But that's not true on the relative level that people you need respect and hard time you know, and and integrity and treating people valuable, but they just treat them like objects, because it's like, well, I can just do what I want, because I'm free and I'm awake. And so that ego takes over, the spiritual ego takes over the initial awakening and acts out through the unhealed trauma.

Alex Ferrari 39:20
You know, I'm assuming you've heard of the Epstein files, and they there was a large dump the other day of different files and emails and things like that. And there was a very predominant, who I won't mention, but a very predominant spiritual leader who everybody in the spiritual space has heard of because he was a, he was a, he was a, one of the trailblazers in the space back in the 80s, he was on Oprah all the time and all that stuff. And when I read that, you know, there was always something inside me that I said, you know, I don't know why. I just don't want him on the show. I listen, I don't have 100% batting average either. You know, I'm not batting 1000 with people who come on the show. Over the years, I do the best I can. But there was just something about that, in from that, in that energy. I was like, You know what? I don't know why. Just don't want them on the show, from your point of view. And I think you touched upon it a little bit, but I want to dive in a little bit deeper on what makes these spiritual leaders who a lot of people follow. I'm not talking cult leaders. That's a whole other conversation, but I'm talking about spiritual leaders, people who read books and go to seminars, and some of them follow them around like it's the Grateful Dead, you know, and but they're not what they seem to be, or the truth comes out about them. Because I'll be honest with you, I've, I've had people who come on the show, and, you know, we had a little bit, a little bit of a banter prior to us recording, and you're the same human being that logged in, right that I'm talking to right now, that's right. People, people ask all the time, is Alex, really? Alex? Right? I'm like, Yeah, I'm the same dude. Nothing, nothing's changed. But I've had people come on who are one way right before the camera turns on, and then they turn on. I'm like, right? Oh, these people are Oh, okay. And sometimes I don't air those interviews because I have a respect and responsibility to my audience. Long question, sir, to ask you is, how, how do they? How do they fall so far and and their mental status, just as a psychotherapist, what is truly going on inside their head? You remember that, that documentary series on Netflix about OSHA Yes, oh show yeah, oh show yeah. Great documentary. I mean, I fat. It was fascinating, yes, but he has millions, oh yeah, 10s of millions of followers, and still, to this day, around the world. So he did have some value, oh no, in his teachings, yes. But, you know, he had 78 Rolls Royces

Loch Kelly 42:14
And machine guns

Alex Ferrari 42:16
And machine guns. We've, we've gone off astray here a little bit.

Loch Kelly 42:20
And he was deeply on, deeply on, on painkillers as well. He was

Alex Ferrari 42:25
Right. And then and drenched in gold and yeah, and, you know, had women all around. It was just like I would. So it's so interesting to see how, like, the person I was talking to you about in the Epstein files has provided a tremendous amount of value to, yeah, the spiritual space. But yet all this other crap, like, What the hell, man. So what's your thoughts on it? Can you explain it to people?

Loch Kelly 42:45
I mean, it's just, it's just kind of simply, what the simplest way to say is that is what you were saying, there's almost two dimensions of us. There's the spiritual and the and the relative human. And if you get a spiritual and then some people have a very intellectual or charismatic part of their personality that then they let the ego can take over and use the spiritual knowledge as a commodity so they don't see their own you know, humanity and humility. You know, because there's something where you know, real people who are authentic are doing a service. You know, doing this at a service, not you know, to be a superstar, but even when they become famous. Because I know some who have, you know, become more famous and remained humble, and you're genuine from the beginning, but others have not. So it's this willingness to do the, you know, to do the honest psychological work and to admit that awakening doesn't doesn't mean you're not. You don't still have the same human just like you still have a body that you still need to eat food and you still need to take care of it. You have to take care of your psychological dimension, which has its, you know, it has its wounds, and it has its strengths and it has its, you know, tendencies toward selfishness or grandiosity, which are the kind of temptations in any you know. You know power. You know power corrupts. If somebody becomes famous, it can, it can become a temptation for some

Alex Ferrari 44:36
Coming from, where I come from, I've seen Hollywood and working in the film industry, I've seen what happens to an actor or an actress who was nobody, and then all of a sudden, fame gets thrown on top of them, and it's it destroys most people, but the spiritual fame is a whole other conversation. Yeah, because I love the way you're explaining it, that the the. Ego now has the information of the spiritual side and the experiences they could have had very profound, deep awakening. You know, Kundalini awakenings, whatever that a near death experience, even that really transforms it. But then the ego comes in and like, I love you, what you said, the intellectual, if they're intellectually, they'll start to rework it a little bit. Do you believe that these, these people, or any person who starts to go that way, is that they have not done the work on the human level to to release that trauma, to release that programming, to release those things, to really understand how to be humble in this in this situation.

Loch Kelly 45:46
Yeah. I mean, I think there's a progression. And I want to, you know, speak to your question and to the audience who probably are also interested in, how do they avoid them as they wake up too? Yes, exactly. Yeah. Because that's our, you know, that's my own, you know. And some of it's about what's called awakening, head awakening. You wake from your like ego, and then you become more embodied, and then there's almost like a heart awakening. So some of the glimpses that I do, it's called dropping from head, mind to heart mind, and you literally unhook your awareness, and you let your center disidentify from thought, feel your body directly from within, and then drop below your emotional heart into kind of the safe, compassionate, wise Center, which is kind of open and boundless. And you look from here, and you, when you're more awake in the heart, you just, you just see, everyone's the same, nobody's hierarchy, nobody's lower. Everyone is precious. And you know, you kind of see clearly that it's not about praise or blame or success or failure, that it's just about showing up and being real.

Alex Ferrari 47:15
Now you mentioned your glimpses. You teach small glimpses rather than long retreats, which is what kind of did,

Loch Kelly 47:22
Or long meditations. I do long retreats. But within that, you know, people go down to the beach, they come back, they talk to each other at lunch, that we do silence, then we do glimpses, then, you know, so it's a very kind of training to be in the in the world, in a in a nice environment.

Alex Ferrari 47:41
But why are Why are brief moments sometimes more powerful than years of practice? Why are these little glimpses that you teach more powerful than sitting in a cave in the Himalayas for eight hours a day or 12 hours a day for years on end?

Loch Kelly 47:58
Yeah. So. So the key is, even if you do long or do some preliminary it's really the preliminary practices are often to calm the mind and soothe the animal body, which is agitated, your nervous system and your mind. You're anxious or depressed just from your so you kind of calm that system. But the key is that a glimpse isn't just a meditation. It's actually a shift from the predominance of mental personality centered identity to awareness based embodiment. So any awakening is a moment is just has to be like that. It can't be slow. It can be slow. Slowly. You can get more relaxed. And then it has and then it dropped the bucket. The bottom of the bucket drops out, you know, as they say in the Zen tradition, but there's a shift that is literally like, are you aware of being identified with the small self looking out of your eyes? Okay? So what if that were just a part of you, and you thank that part, and now you just allows your awareness to dis identify, open up, let go of the problem solver. And then what's here when there's no problem to solve? What's this that's aware of that thinker, that problem solver, aware of your body, and is here an alert. And so that shift takes those takes just a moment, and anything else can, can if it's slower than you're involved. In some egoic, deliberate, effortful action called meditation. So they even call it in the Mahamudra tradition, the goal is non meditation, because, because you're awake and you're you're not trying to meditate. You're just what's called recognizing this dimension, then realizing, oh, it's me, and then familiarizing yourself with the relative world from here. So it's just those kind of simple 123, and then you just start to move and talk and walk. Then you lose it. No big surprise. You get caught. You learn that you're caught. How you get how you unhook or unblend. You learn to return home to your heart and then open to see from the eyes of your heart. You know, these are kind of words I'm using, but it's, it's very experiential. It's not intellectual. It's, there are these glimpses that take you and show you how to shift your consciousness, and that does it through different ways, different starting points for different learning types and different people have different obstacles that keep them from from letting go and discovering this

Alex Ferrari 51:27
Loch, let me ask you, because you seem you know, obviously you're an educated man, so you obviously are intellectual in your mind, irrational, rounded, sound, very grounded, but yet, you are approaching consciousness, mindfulness and even spirituality with this kind of lens. But yet, I see that you also are playing around in the Woo, a little bit, the Woo, woo, as you will, a bit as well. So you're dancing these two dance the line very nicely. What is your take on all of this? This is a bigger question, you know? What is the meaning of life now? What is, what is your perception of why we're here? What are we doing, and all of these things that you're teaching all your life's work, how is that incorporate in a system of understanding this insane thing called life, beautiful, insane, painful, loving. It is all. It's everything, everywhere, all at once. That's what this is. And we're all just trying to figure it out, and we're all trying to create evens within it. But I'd love to hear your personal guide after doing all this research, yes, going off to Sri Lanka and hanging out with monks and Tibetans and Buddhists and all of this stuff. What is your take on spirituality? What is you know? What lens do you see life through?

Loch Kelly 52:54
So I would say that the first thing is, is that what I'm doing and how I answer that is by what's called pointing or sharing or inviting people to have a direct experience for themselves, because that's the only answer that nobody can tell you, there's no book, there's no and that that's Actually one of the more seductive things, is the beautiful poetry about it, you know, from people, whereas when I talk, I give kind of, okay, here's a map, here's some methods, and here's some markers so you know what you are. And then the method is the key. So there's different methods I'll give you. Let's try this method. Let's try this method. They're all going the same place. They're all showing they're they're asking you, don't look at me. Look back at yourself. Look Within. Yes. Now here's how to look within, and here's what you're looking for, and here is what's not so important to look for. There's a lot of stuff in there, thoughts, feelings and say, Okay, let that come and go. Now look for what doesn't come and go. And then see if you can rest as that which doesn't come and go. And then as this, just include what comes and goes, and just see if they're not actually not two things. And all that's changed is not the content, but the context.

Alex Ferrari 54:39
It's beautiful because you're right, there's, there's so many, I always tell people, and this is one of the core pillars of what we do, because it's, it is a slippery slope. Look, it is, and there is a lot of there's a lot of temptations out there, and a lot of shortcuts, lot of. Shortcuts that people sell out there. But you, as I both know there is no shortcuts. This takes time.

Loch Kelly 55:06
There's no but that's the interesting thing. There's no shortcuts, but there is, it is already here, so there's no that's the point. Some of the shortcuts are long cuts, like, take you down. Like they say, they say, like you got, you got to do all these, you know, you got to do 120,000 prostrations. You know, before you're, you know, you're as if you have to earn something, or as if you have to. So there's some, so there's, it's always a paradox. There's always awakeness, and there's always unfolding. There's always a spontaneous presence, and there's also kind of a mixing, or a growing up and waking up that never stops, that's never you never get to a place called enlightenment. So I don't even use the word enlightenment. I use the word awakening because it has an ing. So it's always this dance of the ultimate and the relative, the spiritual and the mundane. And they're always dancing. And you're always getting caught in one and you step back, and then you come back in and you dance and, and, and then you feel this, this kind of flow.

Alex Ferrari 56:23
What you said, something that was pretty profound, is that when as a teacher, you always aim people back at themselves, yes, and that is one of the core pillars of what I do. And one of the core pillars of Next Level Soul is to let everybody know if there is a teacher or a guru or spiritual leader who says, I am the way right, run right. They're guides. They should be guides to guiding you to your own power, because Christ said, Christ said it very easily, what I can do, you can do and more. The Kingdom of Heaven is within you. Those are those core pillars. And when you have people who are out there saying, I'm the way, I'm the master, you must bow to me. You must understand that's when I start getting a little funky, yeah, yeah.

Loch Kelly 57:12
The way I say, the way I say that is that the role of a teacher is to introduce you to your own inner teacher. Absolutely. Oh, that's great. I like that. Yeah. So you've got your own inner guidance. You've got your own inner wisdom. Everyone's the same, and that what I give is pointers, a little bit of a map, helpful hints, but, but they're all toward don't listen to what I'm saying. And in fact, when I do the glimpses the because the premise is that the awakeness is here as well as the mental, emotional, humanness. I'm talking to the awake you. I'm asking you through, through your mind, through your language, through my from my awakeness to my language to your language to your awakeness. Can you the awareness notice what doesn't come and go? Can you the awareness drop out of your head and be equally within your whole body? Can you be more open hearted and look more from this open hearted place that's already connected. So, so when you talk to the awake, that's why it's direct. It's like, All right, let's, you know. And then now there, from there, you can look back honestly and say, Okay, now, can you see where you get caught? Oh, now, can you see the trauma? Oh, now, can you and you're like, oh, yeah, sure, okay, because now you're not defensive, and now you're not looking from a judgmental, analytical part. You're looking from this presence. When you're like, Oh, sure, that's right, I do that. I get I tend to get mad. Someone cuts me off. Then I get mad that I'm mad. Then the part of me says, Don't get mad. You're mad. Then the next part says, Well, you could, okay, you can get mad, because that's very human, yeah, but not that mad.

Alex Ferrari 59:18
But get out of get out of my head Loch.

Loch Kelly 59:22
That whole stacking of the

Alex Ferrari 59:26
It's like two boys. Well, it's the angel and the devil on your shoulder, kind of thing. In many ways, what is the biggest mistake people make when they're trying to find this within them, to be present, to be mindful, to be con, to understand their consciousness, to be in the moment. What is the biggest mistake they make?

Loch Kelly 59:47
I mean, you know, you can start almost anywhere in a lot of a lot there's a lot of good paths that have initial preliminary help. You know, doing yoga, Qigong. Uh, Buddhist meditation, going to church, praying, doing a rosary, doing you know, those start to calm you and and center you. But then the mistake isn't as much a mistake. It's it's that the map hasn't been you don't know what you're looking for. You don't know and you don't know how to look and you don't know what's looking so the strange thing is that the spirit is already within you, whether you want to call it the spirit or this awareness, consciousness or weight consciousness, it is what knows itself, and it's invisible. It's and yet it's alert and and knowing, but it doesn't know any information. It's just awake, which is why the word awake, it also includes and is inherent within your body and all the personality parts. It's not separate. It's not other. It's not looking from outside. There's a wholeness to the spirit and the body, that body, mind and spirit are not separate and that, but that what is knowing is not thought. It's some kind of clear awareness. So it's not just intuition. So this category of what that is, there's words for it. You know, the Sacred Heart in in Catholicism, they call it the Sacred Heart, or bodhichitta into Tibetan Buddhism, which means it means awake consciousness or awake heart, but it has a compassionate clarity that it's called rigpa, which just means awake awareness, or Turiya, which again, means that there's some dimension. So that's the first thing to find that is not on the map of psychology and even philosophy, is this awareness based knowing? That's not BiPAP, that's not dissociated, but is actually spacious and pervasive. And how to experience that? When people experience that through a glimpse, they're like, oh my god, that's so simple, like and so freeing. Why didn't anyone ever tell me this?

Alex Ferrari 1:02:35
Now, we kind of touched upon this earlier, but I want to kind of ask you in a different way, because I think it is something that stops people from going down the path which so many people fear, awakening, because it means losing ambition, losing the edge that they have built up to be able to do what they're doing in the world, what actually happens to drive creativity and success when you're doing it. And again, it's that balance we were talking about. What do you think?

Loch Kelly 1:03:05
Yeah, so, so this is first so, for that very reason, and because much of what I'm doing is this path, which is in the world, you know, and is teaching people who are just doing everyday work and not not separating it out into being a monastic is that one of the best doorways, it to awakeness is what I call awake loving flow. So what I say to people is Okay, so tell me what you do in your free time that you love doing, and isn't it with your eyes open, and isn't it engaged with something? So people will start to say, I play music, I walk in nature. I do this sport. What sport? Oh, there's a particular sport. This person does skiing. This person does surfing. This person swims. This person does bicycling. This person runs. Oh, really. Okay. What else? Oh, gardening. Oh, I garden. So what you do in your in your free time, is you do an activity with your eyes open that drops you out, wakes you up from the ego centered life and connects you to the world and to the Spirit. So that doorway, I call the doorway of flow. So the flow, the flow, no, so I take people into this. I do this couple different things, but called a memory door where I'll say, Okay, now go back. Remember that, take yourself there right now. Remember very specific time you're walking with friends, you walk up this mountain top, you're laughing. You look out over the sky, you just feel so good. And normally you come back down and say, I can't go back there for a year. You know? Like, what am I going to do? That's the only time. So do that. Now, go, go there. Visualize this. Feel that. Now notice it's not about the mountain, it's not about the people. It's you. What's revealed by the support of that those conditions you the free, awake you now, let go of the visualization. Now, let go of the qualities, and open your eyes right now. Aren't you the same? Free, awake, open eyed human being right now? And couldn't you just go and do something that's the same, that doesn't require a person, place or thing like that.

Alex Ferrari 1:05:47
Beautifully said, my friend. Beautifully said, now my final question is, if humanity is in a collective awakening crisis right now, which I believe they are, you know, what do you think we're being asked to learn in this moment as the rest of this world seems to be crumbling around us as we speak.

Loch Kelly 1:06:07
I mean, I think it, think it's got to be what we've been discussing, which is, how do you bring together the the spiritual and the and the human? How do those two go together, and how do you experience that don't think about what you should be doing in response until you go and become it, and then see what you're moved to do. See what kind of curiosity and courage and creativity come forth in how to respond. So, so it's really, you know, finding deep, clear ways of glimpsing who you are, of returning there, that are effective, and not just doing the initial calming meditation of just calm your calm your body and brain and thinking that's enough, but you got to go to the heart of of who you are to just be, and then learn how to do from being

Alex Ferrari 1:07:10
Now Loch, where can people find out more about you and the amazing work you're doing in the world, sir?

Loch Kelly 1:07:15
So certainly the best place is the website, which is lochkelly.org, lochkelly.org,. It's a nonprofit organization, and there are bunch of courses, online courses, live events, and particularly my app, which is available in your pocket and has one minute two, minute three, minute four, minute five, minute 10 Minute glimpses for different types of people. And it kind of takes you through an intro course, and you can get a feeling or an experience of what of what this is like. So, yeah, go check it out and see if it's for you.

Alex Ferrari 1:08:02
Loch it's been a pleasure, my friend and honor speaking to you today. I hope it helps people awaken a little bit more and also just do that balance that we've been talking about, balancing the spiritual and the human all in one, because we're not here to be purely spiritual. No, we're here to experience the human

Loch Kelly 1:08:21
Absolutely, yes, it's more fun that way.

Alex Ferrari 1:08:25
Yeah, because we got the spiritual on the other side covered that. Yes, we do that all the time. We're actually doing it right now, as you and I are talking, that's right, our higher selves are hanging out at a bar somewhere, laughing about what we're doing right now.

Loch Kelly 1:08:40
They're they're actually right here and then in the middle of it, connecting each other.

Alex Ferrari 1:08:45
But then, but, but also, if everything is, if we are living all of our lives at this one time, and there's no pass in those future, then there are versions of somewhere sitting in a bar.

Loch Kelly 1:08:56
That's right,

Alex Ferrari 1:08:58
While we're also here. It's, it starts to make the head hurt. Loch, it has been a pleasure, my friend, thank you again, and keep up the good work, my friend, I appreciate you.

Loch Kelly 1:09:05
So great. Thank you so much, Alex, great to meet you. Great to be with you. Hope everyone enjoys.