The Ancient Path to Inner Freedom with Richard Haight

Alex Ferrari 0:09
I'd like to welcome back to the show returning champion, Richard Haight how you doin Richard?

Richard Haight 0:15
Thank you Alex nice introduction.

Alex Ferrari 0:20
I appreciate it. Well, you're one of the few. You're actually the second returning guest I've had cuz the show is a young show starting out, but apparently had such a good time that you said, Hey, can I come back on to talk about my new book? I was like, absolutely. I mean, last, if anyone, if anyone cares to listen to our last episode, we did finish off with the concept that the Road Runner and the coyote is a great analogy for a great yogi which is the Road Runner, and the coyote who is obviously stuck in the material world.

Richard Haight 0:54
Material Girl.

Alex Ferrari 0:57
I think we should we should jointly write a book about how the complete philosophies of the Road Runner

Richard Haight 1:04
For Warner Brothers, right?

Alex Ferrari 1:06
Oh my god, that'd be amazing. So you have a new book, it's called the Genesis code. Can you what first best question is? What is the Genesis code?

Richard Haight 1:18
So now, just before I get started, how much time do we have today to talk about this?

Alex Ferrari 1:24
I am open. So we are good. And we are for an hour, hour and a half? Couple hours already went to the back we are good.

Richard Haight 1:32
Good to know, before I go too deep into the weeds on this one? Sure. Sure. Sure. So the Genesis code actually started many years ago. I was I was eight years old, I had a dream of Jesus coming to me and asking me to find his teachings and bring them back to the world. Having no clue what that meant. It sort of initiated this search for what that truth may be. And I spent many years going to the Bible, I just went to church and I just found that there was it was just so confusing. So thoroughly confusing, is there's so much inconsistency and so I couldn't find what this thing was, I really didn't know, deep within me, I'm gonna have to find this in my own life. I mean, if I was being really honest, that's what I would would have had have said to myself, but you know, kids, we want to get the answer the easy answer. And so I started this process of what we will call spiritual awakening that has taken since I was eight and up to this point now. At some point, I did understand a fundamental principle that when he abides by this principle, it's it's liberating in ways that that are deeper than what psychology could be liberating or even really. I don't mean that you can walk on water, but but but it's you're free of the suffering of the ego itself in a profound way, and you understand exactly why you're free of it. And you understand exactly what you do, that binds you up in it and get you caught up in it. I wrote many books on awakening and at some point, I don't remember when it was maybe last year, I just had a vision. In the middle of the night I had a vision and later when I got out of bed to check it because the vision was of the Bible was a vision of what I saw on the vision was the Bible flipping backwards from the end which would be revelations all the way to the beginning which is Genesis Now I've never been a fan of Genesis I didn't like it just seemed I didn't understand it. It seemed very different from or like out of sync with with for example what we think we think of as Christianity and I'm not even Christian but but but it just I did didn't understand it. And I think I think it made me feel that God was you know, actually not a very kind person. Right? Because Because he kicks Adam and Eve out of Eden or heaven for what seems like a pretty trivial thing. I mean, they're just kids

Alex Ferrari 4:25
Exactly imagine if our kids don't eat the chocolate bar, don't eat the chocolate bar and all of a sudden like you're out of the house like that seems pretty extreme.

Richard Haight 4:36
Whatever you're gone right and and so and specifically saying we're gonna I'm gonna make you suffer and just about every way possible. Yeah, it sounded like a pretty horrific thing concerning this would be an all knowing God that would have known in the, during the creation of the universe and Adam and Eve would have known that they would we're going to make make this choice. And he specifically put that tree in the center of the garden and made it look really edible and tasty,

Alex Ferrari 5:05
Of course. And then there's a snake involved,there's a snake involved, there was pressure, peer pressure, it was like

Richard Haight 5:14
Peer pressure, they're a very clever snake clever that all the animals in the garden, obviously. And so I had a strong bias against it. But in this, in this mystical state that I've entered into the middle of the night, I could see the text of Genesis one, specifically chapters one through three, which is the creation story. And, and I could see like, text was highlighted, specific lines were highlighted. That was that I understood were encoded. And I understood what that coding meant. And so when the vision was over, I got out of bed, went to my went into my office, and my workspace got my Bibles and, and started reading through Genesis one through three to see, is this just a brain fart? Or does this actually work out with the actual text and turns out, it works out with the actual text, didn't matter which Bible I used or which version, the same basic pattern is there, the same basic will almost a layers of perception are there. And so that code is embedded in there. And that's really where it began. And once I, once I saw that code, then I understood I needed to write this book. And that's when, when, when the project really took off?

Alex Ferrari 6:34
Now, I know this is a very loaded question, what did you see in the code? Is that basically the entire conversation of the book? Or is there certain things that you're able to see.

Richard Haight 6:43
The book is interesting in, it's very different from other books, what the book is doing when I saw the code, and I understood what it meant. I also understood that this was the truth that set you free that Jesus is described as saying, you know, there was a truth, they set you free that he never explicated on. Right. And so I understood the nature of this code and the principle that it that it that it conveys, but I also understood that for a person to really get it, they have to develop a certain inner awareness on what they have to develop the eyes to see. Because our brains are so confused with our biases. So confused with our belief systems, that prevents us from seeing things that are really obvious. I mean, we can see this in the world right now. There's so many things going on, that people are in denial of. So we know this is an actual fact, it's just that most people don't want to admit that about themselves. Right? There's an old saying, it's easier to fool someone and then to show them that they've been fooled. Right or true. It's very, very true. And that's true of all of us. And so when I saw the Genesis code did when I saw the principle, it did a couple things. For me. One is it really high, like high definition made it very clear, all the subtle little ways that I was going to miss in application of mind and consciousness, in behaviors and whatnot. And I don't mean this in a moral sense, because this is not the teaching is not a moral teaching. The principle is not a moral principle. It is a principle of mind and consciousness. That is that applies by the way we direct our attention. And so the book is, it unravels this whole process and shows how the code lays out. Because within Genesis, there's not just the code, that's the thing that nobody seems to see. I know, I certainly didn't see it. Never heard anybody ever talk about it, a book about it. But it's it's sort of religious teaching, ethical teaching, moral teaching, you know that the Bible is about those kinds of things, as well as maybe some historical things, a lot of mythology and that sort of thing. But there's another layer underneath of it. And the code in order for it to truly function requires that an individual do two things. One is they soften their sense of individual, of the individual ego, like open it up so that you you use more and more feel your connectedness to your environment, to to reality, we know this in physics, the entire universe is a giant field of energy. This is what Einstein was saying. This is what quantum physics says it's one giant field of energy. That that layers many different almost like a rainbow many different layers of frequencies of that energy, that that are matter energy and matters interchangeable. So we know it's all unified. Yet we perceive ourselves as being somehow separate. Like I'm talking to somebody else who's separate from me. We don't have a shared like, yes, we understand we have some shared experience. When we get up in the morning we go to the toilet We, but, but I don't feel like I don't mean AI. But we typically don't recognize that the same thing that's looking at your eyes, the thing that's looking at your eyes is exactly the same thing that's looking out my eyes. But through a different filter through different set of filters.

Alex Ferrari 10:18
So it's really interesting, it's really interesting, because, you know, I was I was talking to a new neurosurgeon the other day, as one does. And and it was really interesting, he was coming up with the concept in regards to oneness. And all of us being connected as as as being connected. And he took it took a scientific approach is like, it's the equivalent of an electron or an atom saying, I'm the only atom that really matters. It's all I only care about that if the other atoms don't work together, we don't have a body, we don't have existence, we don't have the material, the material reality that we have. It is the cooperation of us all this oneness that we have lost, that we've lost along the way we've disconnected from ourselves because of the ego, the ego separates us, because that's the job of the ego, we have to kind of bring it to that. Is that a fair a fair assumption?

Richard Haight 11:17
Yeah, the ego is a survival tool. Absolutely, it is an illusion, in a sense that that aids the body to to survive. And so the electron, I think the electron idea is great, or photon or anything like any of us, there's no there's no distinction between this electron and that electron. They're all identical. There's no differentiating quality or aspect of one, there's an electron a versus electron B, they're all identical. In the same way that electrons are identical in different atoms, or fleet free flowing electrons, I can, you know, right, whatever that would be. Electrical we call electricity, maybe human beings are exactly the same when they're late, we have layers of we'll say layers of mind, layers of identity, layers of psychic qualities, I don't mean psychic in a mystical sense, I mean, like, of the psyche. And when we get deep enough in, through, could happen through meditation could happen through some mystic, naturally occurring mystical experience, you know, you're walking along the beach, and so you just something opens up and you feel totally one and connected. And the individual identity of you is just gone, could happen through psychedelics, there's lots of ways that this can happen. I suppose it could happen as a result of getting hit in the head in the right place, who knows, right? You never know when it will happen, or in what way it will happen. But it is possible to get down to this layer of well Foundation, what I would say, of pure perception. That is not about the identity. That's even deeper than the organisms survival mechanisms. And that layer, or that layer, that that that foundation is identical on everyone. But that foundation is what's looking at your eyes. That's what's experiencing. It's really interesting in the better, that seem to be individual.

Alex Ferrari 13:25
It's really interesting, because I feel that so much like you know, you and I are both obviously heavy meditators, you wrote a whole book, multiple books on meditation, and I'm a heavy meditator as well. I find that when you're meditating, and you fall into that really sweet spot where time doesn't exist anymore. Where you aren't even aware that you're in meditation anymore, you're almost gone. In this kind of place there is when you're in that place, the ego is gone. There is no ego in that place. You are reconnecting I feel so many times to the source and I think you can get through that through psychedelics like you said, many deep meditators are able to do that sometimes it's very blissful I know in my meditations I get almost a blissful feel sometimes and and many times when we not many times every time we go to sleep there is no ego in sleep. We are disconnected from the material world and then we come back to it every every morning with like a reconnection

Richard Haight 14:26
No ego when you sleep because you do take on identity in your dream it's just a flexible ego

Alex Ferrari 14:32
It's it's a different it's a different definition

Richard Haight 14:34
You maybe Richard or Alex and it may you may be somebody else

Alex Ferrari 14:38
Right now but very often in dreams you are you you are experiencing it so yeah, there is that ego. I'm not talking about I think that's more of identity than it is ego because it's not the sense of ego like I am the best or my egos being hurt or things like that.

Richard Haight 14:53
Ah, so I'm actually going by what I would say is the scientific definition of ego, not the kind of lay persons usage of it. Ego in the sense of a sense of an individual identity.

Alex Ferrari 15:04
So that would be the definition of ego, correct the science, the more scientific,

Richard Haight 15:07
It's between what we call the eid, which is your body's like primary drives to breed and, you know, survive fun stuff, which is society's influence, right? So I'm looking at it from a scientific perspective, from that scientific perspective that I'm referring to the ego

Alex Ferrari 15:28
In the dream in the dream state, but in the meditation state, I don't, I found it not to be there by my personal experience

Richard Haight 15:35
That's right. And I imagined there. I mean, I've had plenty of dreams, a dream, dream states, or sleep states where the ego wasn't there, of course. And so it can be there or not be there. But it can also be there during meditative states. But as you notice, when you get to that sweet spot, which not everybody gets to correct, took me years, it can take it can take a long time to get there, where it's just, we're just, we are the moment, we are clear. There's no time.

Alex Ferrari 16:02
It's, it's amazing. I love I love the moments where I fall into a meditation. And then when I come back out of it, I have no idea how much I don't even know what time it is. Yeah, I've lost all track of time, I've lost all track of space. And that is a moment of, I always find it a moment of reconnection because I feel invigorated, I feel alive. Many times I feel blissful. Like I'll walk out, walk out of my office, and I'll just be like, in this high. So really bizarre thing. And I've gotten used to it over the years, but almost high, like you're just like, so happy. It's almost like you went and touched, touch the other side for a second and then came back and like, okay, but you do it in a very controlled as opposed to a near death experience. It's kind of it's kind of something similar. And that's why I can understand it

Richard Haight 16:52
In a sense, I think it's very similar to a near death experience in that the ego has has has been checked or is gone.

Alex Ferrari 17:00
Yeah. It's like there's a door, you pass. And the ego has to stay there like the security guard won't let them into the party.

Richard Haight 17:07
That's right. That's right. And something you said about that, that there's a vibrancy to that experience, when you're coming out of it and you're entering back into the normal perception. Something is with you during them, it's as if everything is like your compute, you've refreshed your browser on the computer. Yes, it's like that you're seeing everything fresh and new as it is not just as your memory projected to be, right, or at least a much greater percentage of as it is then and less of how you can make use of it. So it feels fresh and new and open. And it's not that you don't have memory, have you looked at that person, you know their name, but it's just that that memory isn't the primary filter through which the perception is being experienced.

Alex Ferrari 17:52
Right, exactly. And it seems like like a lot of the master Yogi's and things, they're able to get to meditation into that that sweet spot that takes us a minute to get to sometimes they're able to get jump in and jump out whenever they want. And they can go so much farther and deeper than we could. And you can see it you're gonna there's almost a vibrance to there. Just being in the room with them. It's really, it's really interesting. Now, in the book, you talk about the face of God, can you explain what that means?

Richard Haight 18:24
I'm referring to the face of God, I believe, early on in it sort of a, an affectionate term for a mystical experience that I had. Where I realized that the nature of the universe, at least admit I'm going to describe the experience. I'm not, I'm not I don't know anything about physics. I mean, everybody has a little bit about physics, but I'm not an expert in physics. So I'm not I'm discussing are, I'm going to describe this as I experienced it, and then what I called it. And so I saw the universe as essentially the shape of a torus. And for those who are not familiar with it, imagine a doughnut with a hole in it. That's a torus. It's a ring shape but but basically what you've there's this flow that's doing this now the Earth has an energy flow, just like that. Magnetic fields, galaxies, you know, you know, the whole thing has this type of flow, which at the time, I didn't realize. And, but, but the entire thing I realized was conscious. every atom, every cell, every electron, everything within it, is conscious. That the important point about what it described as the face of God, is that we have to differentiate it's helpful to differentiate conscious ness from like IQ or intelligence. We tend to think of consciousness as being like IQ or intelligence or ego, right? But that's a really limited and as long as we hold consciousness to that kind of definitely We are going to be blind, to something that may be much more fundamental and deeper. I'm describing consciousness as simply the apprehensive capacity, perception itself, the very capacity to perceive. And I don't necessarily mean through the eye gaze. Although we do perceive through the eyes, that level of perception goes much, much deeper than the physical senses we think of. And that first sense is just the recognition. I perceive

Alex Ferrari 20:30
The watcher the watcher, if that concept of the watcher,

Richard Haight 20:33
Right, and that that process of the recognition I perceive is happening at a universal level, and is, in fact, what, what leads to what we describe as the Big Bang, or the escalation that we describe as the universe, it's a search of consciousness to define itself to understand itself. With an exploration, that would include all potentials, all possibilities, that balance out in a positive and negative form, what that means, but what I mean by that is, so try not to get too esoteric here. But what I mean by positive or negative form is that conscious. Consciousness itself is a what I describe as a conscious zero, it has no actual substance, besides the function of perception. But once it recognize in once you recognize you now I'm putting it in time, but there's very difficult to talk about this is a timeless state.

Alex Ferrari 21:31
Yes, obviously. This is not these are not easy questions,

Richard Haight 21:35
I will say this is center to foundational prior to how we want to think what we think of as physical existence, that statements alive because physical existence, whatever we think of as existence, actually, in a certain way, has always been, might not have been this universe. But But this process is all is a timeless process, actually.

Alex Ferrari 21:55
Well, I mean, the concept of time, in general, is, is based around revolutions of a planet around the sun. That's how we measure time. That's right, in this existence. So if we were in another existence, or if we were on Jupiter, time would be different. If I was, I would be different. Yes. If I was a dog, one year, would it be seven years, you know, if I was if I was a fruit fly, a day is a lifetime. It's all about perception of time. That's why there are those moments where you know this as an athlete as well, you get into the flow state, that state that time stands still, like you've just don't even have any recognition. We talked about that in meditation as well. But getting into that, into that understanding of time, you start realizing that it's, you know, of course, consciousness is no place in time consciousness is just what it is.

Richard Haight 22:50
Yeah, it's, it's, it's prior to what we would think of as time,

Alex Ferrari 22:55
Which is hard, which is hard to conceive of, in this, this reality in this in this reality, that material reality, not really good at this. He goes like, What do you mean, there's no beginning? There's no end? What do you mean, it's always been happy, there has to have a beginning, everything has to have an end. That's just the way the world works. There is duality. There's good, there's bad, there's black and white. That's all ego. That's ego

Richard Haight 23:15
I know, that's right, to a degree. Depending on which lens you're looking through, and if you're looking through the lens of the ego, all that seems to make sense. until something happens, where you suddenly realize, oh, my gosh, there's, it's possible to look through a different lens and realize that through that lens, all that time stuff isn't exactly fully true. Correct? What's helpful to allow the organism to continue the experience or story of life. Right, but but, but that's not all there is. And there's actually something a perception it's much deeper than that. And so, so, if it's alright to get back to the positive and negative so let's imagine let's imagine there's no time no space, there's just suddenly in the midst of nothingness there's the awareness I am well use that that's a common like true description of truth is I am or God is I am and all that kinds of we will say that okay, so that's the fundamental thing is the recognition. I perceive. Right? So if there's a wreck and if we say I am the very fact that we say think feel that means that we already have an innate understanding of of its opposite it's it I am not nervous. You cannot make a statement or have the thought or feeling of I am Ness without having something to judge it by or compare it to, which means you also Intuit a I am not notice we now have the idea of being and we also have the idea of not being whether they're both at the forefront of attention or not is irrelevant. One being conscious one being unconscious, that's all it's but both forces are there we have a problem. In a negative, that balance out to zero. And the exploration of consciousness, as it explores its possibilities of being always creates, it always results in or is a positive and negative juxtaposition. So no matter how complex the system is, you will always sum out to zero. So we'll look at protons and electrons positive or negative force, people been wondering the mass of the universe and the weight of the universe or the charge of the universe for years, what we know what we know so far is the charge of the universally sets what it seems, is zero, because the positive forces and the negative forces protons and electrons balance out to zero,

Alex Ferrari 25:41
Right, and with quantum physics, and getting into that field, so much has been revealed to us, which has been talked about for 1000s of years, in some in some cultures, and in regards to, you know, Wednesday went all the way down to as far deep into an atom as they can get, they discovered there was space. So there, there is no solid state, which is so difficult for the ego, and for the mind two fields of energy, its energy, it's all fields of energy,

Richard Haight 26:11
And we don't even know what energy is.

Alex Ferrari 26:16
It can never be created nor destroyed all this kind of stuff, but you just

Richard Haight 26:19
Nothing to compare it to.

Alex Ferrari 26:21
There's so there's so there's so fascinating, because there's so much that, you know, we as humanity have figured out, they're like, Oh, this is the way it is. And that's and that's been that way since the beginning of recorded time from from from around the campfire, when they were, you know, when they were still clubbing, clubbing animals. And in running from tigers, they were like, You know what, I know, I got this whole thing figured out, I got that whole thing.

Richard Haight 26:48
I've yet to meet a person, this includes me who thinks when they have an idea that they really like who thinks it's wrong.

Alex Ferrari 26:55
Because the ego won't allow that the ego won't allow that.

Richard Haight 26:58
We assume we're right. And not everybody can be right. And the chances are pretty high that most of us are wrong. And the chances that any one of our ideas is correct, is also pretty sketchy. And so which is why it's very helpful for an individual who actually wants to awaken in this way to like the foundation of their being or the fountain of their existence. And be free of I don't like to call it an illusion because it's it's demeaning and kind of rude. Because it's the ego is an essential thing.

Alex Ferrari 27:34
Oh, without without it there, the ego provides a service, it helps to protect you. You know, it there's you know, there's you wouldn't get up on stage and speak on front of 1000 people or 10,000 people or anything without an ego to say you can do that you might do some people might be delusional in that sense. Other people might not be, but the ego allows that, you know, that example, but also protects you from that, from the tiger around the corner that was going to eat you these kind of things. The ego does have a place. It's that when the ego runs rampant, which is what basically everybody's ego runs rampant, some more than others. Trust me. I've been in the film industry for almost 30 years. I've met a couple that you're that you just like when anyone says do not know who I am. Oh, wow, you are so good. You are you are off the reservation when you say that somebody your egos completely out of control. And I see I see now I think what's going on in the world. Like I think we mentioned a little bit. There's so much discourse in the world right now. There's so much upheaval on every aspect, whether it be political, whether it be countries, whether it be environmental, the pandemic and everything that's going on, never in our not in our lifetime, for sure. But I can't even remember a time where the entire world was going through something at the exact same time, the entire world is going through it. Not a section, not a country, not a group of countries, the entire world's going through the same time. And this kind

Richard Haight 29:09
I call it the three pillars of collapse.

Alex Ferrari 29:12
So please explain that.

Richard Haight 29:13
So in 2009, I had a vision in the I was in the Amazon, I had a vision there of what was the near future to come. Our societies worldwide would go through what what I call the three pillars of clouds, or what that vision showed is the three pillars collapse, which is economic, ecological, and societal. We can all happen at the same time. Yeah. And the key point is that in all of these levels, that all layers of our societies, corruption has taken over. And so people are not sufficiently wedded to, to the truth or their desire to explore honestly. Instead, they're at a point where they're either taking milking the system We can see this in so many organizations worldwide where the leaders are all like 70 80 years old,

Alex Ferrari 30:09
And just holding on with holding on with like,

Richard Haight 30:12
They they're holding everybody back and doing everything they can, it seems to keep their control over systems that they don't even understand these people don't know how to use the internet. They don't know our world anymore. They're disconnected. And but but they're enjoying their influence and whatnot. And I don't want to judge them in a negative way. I'm just saying, we because we might do the same thing if we were in that position. Of course, I just but but but you just have conversations with ordinary people where more and more polarized people are more and more, what do you say, into their party line?

Alex Ferrari 30:47
Or just with it, they're just, they're falling into ego, they're falling into the, the

Richard Haight 30:52
Yeah, bombing onto what they believe to be a truth because it makes them feel secure, oftentimes, socially, because their friends believe this and whatnot. Again, I don't want to judge that morally, because that's not the point. What's happening, that's clear, and very few of us are willing to say, maybe my perception is incorrect.

Alex Ferrari 31:11
It's tough to say that it's really tough like you, like, you know, it's easier to tell someone that you've been fooled, then that you have been fooled. It's easy to fool somebody than to tell them.

Richard Haight 31:21
That's exactly right, that you could replay that 1 million times, and it still works out.

Alex Ferrari 31:28
Yeah, because you don't want your ego doesn't allow you like I haven't been taken, you've been taken, I haven't been taken, I haven't been fooled. It's a weird, it's a weird thing. And then so you start digging in more and more and more into whatever your belief is, regardless, it doesn't matter what side you're on it both both sides, all sides has to happen. And then there's this thing called a pandemic that kind of has shaken up the entire world, in a sense that industries and places, different industries, different companies, different things have been completely shaken up to a place where that that the whole power hole that you that you were talking about is been completely it's been thrown out of whack because the pen that So now everybody wants to work at home now. The whole thing has changed, things are starting like shifting, you know, the way the way things have been done, has shifted completely. Now the way you and I are talking, it's completely acceptable to do business in this way now that you don't have

Richard Haight 32:30
No majority of businesses done this way now, right?

Alex Ferrari 32:33
Right. Because before it would be like No, you've got to you got to drive over you got to fly over there was a lot of flights, there was a lot of this you have to be in person that has changed because of the pandemic. So there's there's definitely a change in the air. There's no question about it. And I feel like it's, I think the chaos that's happening, and I don't think it's going away anytime soon. If anything, I feel like it's amping up, if you just look at the news, things are starting to amp up more and more. It is the death rattle of the death rattle. That's a good description. It's a death rattle of the last,

Richard Haight 33:06
But it's also a revelation rattle. Correct? Because we're going through an apocalyptic phase. And I don't I don't mean that exactly in like a religious sense. I mean it as the term as the term is defined itself, or is defined, which means Revelation to break down. Right, right. First, it's like the ego is very, it's it feels cornered, feels cornered, and it's not going to release for a lot of people until they lose everything. And, and they go shit, everything I really thought might not be true. But that's the first step. I call it the greatest knowing the first step to becoming aware of the essence of your nature, or the fountain of life, or whatever you want to call it. The essence of the universe is to just like a cathartic, I fucking don't know, there's nothing I can look at, that I believe to be true, that viewed from every single possible angle will hold up. That's the first thing and that statement is true also for what I call the face of God or that primary consciousness. It doesn't know what it is. So if we were to call it God, people think God knows what God is. But what I'm seeing is that it doesn't know what it is. And there's a reason why it can't and that's actually part of why the universe is the way it is why when we get to that zero space, there's this sort of blissfulness or a feeling of connectedness. You'll see in Genesis, it's not in Genesis, I can't remember actually where this quote is it's in in Exodus, if I recall, where where Moses goes to Mount Sinai. And he converses with this burning bush and turns out to be God and then he asks the that God tells him to go to the people and give them this certain information. And he asked Who Who shall I tell him that sent me? And he says, I Am that I Am. Tell them I Am that I Am sent you. What does that mean? Actually? I Am that I Am. It means I'm self beginning. There isn't somebody before me, I wasn't the son of somebody. I exist that I exist. That's what it's saying. It's not giving any definition of its nature. Just that it doesn't know. It's saying, I know, the one thing I know is that I don't know where I come from. Because I don't come from anywhere.

Alex Ferrari 35:40
Which is so difficult for the mind and the ego to comprehend.

Richard Haight 35:44
Oh, the ego hates it. I mean, people God knows where God is. Oh, no, no, no, that's what you think.

Alex Ferrari 35:49
Because you need you, you need something to hold on to you something to hold on to, right. The concept of there's Yeah, the concept. I've always been. There's nothing to hold on to, like you're, you're out there without a buoy to hold on to in an ocean, you need to, you know, the ego needs to put something

Richard Haight 36:08
There's is something to hold on to that's the ego.

Alex Ferrari 36:10
Of course, the ego, you hold on to yourself.

Richard Haight 36:13
You pay for that. Now, in all fairness, I don't think the ego is wrong. And I don't think that people clinching is wrong, either. I don't think they have a choice. Because I know what it was like when I was thrown in the pool and didn't know how to swim. You're overwhelmed, you're going to freak out, the ego is going to pass your body's going to go into a panic state. And that's why we're in such a state of chaos. And essentially, we we've lived in in ways that seemed so certain for so long, we can't imagine that we might actually have to live hand to mouth.

Alex Ferrari 36:46
Yeah, it's it's a strange, it's a strange thing going on right now. I mean, I mean, you as an athlete would understand this as well, is that in order to grow the muscle, it needs to be broken down, and needs to be broken down. And I think that is what's happening to us as a society as a species as a humanity as humanity. We are being broken down in so many ways to a point where we're, that's the only way we can grow. You can't grow from a place of strength, it's hard you need to, even if no matter how strong you are, right? You gotta wait, you got to test the muscle, you got to push the muscle, right?

Richard Haight 37:21
If you talk to athletes in any sport, and and I find it especially true in the more complex sports, like like, for example, mixed martial arts is a great one, too, to exemplify this point. You got someone who's just beastly like they they're a great puncher. I remember Chuck Liddell, he just had this right, overhand, right, that would just clean people's clocks. And so he that was that was his moneymaker. And he relied on that. And other skill areas were much weaker as a result. And so athletes who could take advantage of his weak points, took them apart. And so as we see this sport evolve, more and more, are the athletes becoming highly skilled in all of the areas because they understand that there are very few individuals whose moneymaker is strong enough now to overcome all of the varied skills that are out there.

Alex Ferrari 38:12
Yeah, if you have ground game, but you can't punch your weak, if you're not good, or whatever, yeah, if you if you're gonna guess out, you need any more cardio in your life, these kind of these kind of things. And it's kind of this well roundedness but, and I think, you know, using that analogy, I think spiritually, we all have to become a little bit more well rounded, and open up and look at things from completely different perspectives that might not be comfortable for yourself. Sometimes, you might have to be honest with yourself, which is extremely difficult for the ego, you know, it look, I've have had to go through my own self awakening and my own self, you know, journeys and conflict, and count the complex contemplations of my journey in life. And it's not easy. It's taken years and years and years, to get to where I mean, the guy who was 20, something, which we all know who you are, it's what it's generally speaking is nowhere near the person I am today. But it's taken a lot of work and a lot of asking difficult questions. And looking yourself in the mirror, and many people just don't want it. The ego, their egos don't want to look in the mirror. They want to hold on to what has been what is comfortable, what is their, and they don't want to ask those tough questions of themselves and admit tough truths about themselves. And I think that's also another reason why as a society right now there is there's a breakdown, things are starting to break down around us whether it's like the supply chain, and we just went to the supermarket last night. And we're like this is this is serious, like there's, there's holes in this when was the last time pre pandemic that you walked into a supermarket in America? And it wasn't Full of obscene amounts of food, and I would I even said things to myself. I'm like, I would just walk down the frozen food aisle. I'm like, oh my god, this is one supermarket in one city. And there's 1000s of cities around the country. There's 10s of 1000s of supermarkets. And they all look like this.

Richard Haight 40:20
Yes, that's right. And now cites an abundance. Oh, my God, such an abundance? And yeah, that kind of a country where that's always been the case. You've never walked in and seeing empty shelves, it's like not even within your realm of imagination. Oh, yeah. But I mean, you could imagine it in a fantasy land, that will never be real, but you will not anticipate that tomorrow that there might not be food on the shelves.

Alex Ferrari 40:43
It is in during the pandemic, it was really terrifying because everything really started to shut down and people hoarding toilet paper, as we all remember,

Richard Haight 40:50
In the beginning of the first how many months, six months or so?

Alex Ferrari 40:53
Yeah, toilet paper was more more expensive than gold. I mean, it was like, it was insane.

Richard Haight 40:58
Priorities! You know, um, it was, what we do understand, actually, is that the essence of ourselves is our anus, because that's what it really comes down to, right really comes down to when the shit hits the fan, pardon the pun,

Alex Ferrari 41:12
Or the Fit hits the Shan as I like to say,

Richard Haight 41:16
Toilet paper is our priority.

Alex Ferrari 41:18
Who would have thought like when the world was, you know, when the apocalypse when the apocalypse comes, you're like, wait a minute, I need to have a clean, but I can't, I can't move forward without a clean. It's just It was fascinating to see. And you just like, I still remember calling up friends. Like, do the guests have toilet paper here? This, they got like five left, you know, I can't buy any more you should get down here. Like it was, it was an it's an insanity. And people think that that can't happen, or it is happening right now. I mean, really is happening. And there's certain things that things, that's, that's what I'm trying to say things that we always thought. And we always took for granted that we're going to be there are not. And people feel it from, you know, poor kids who come out of college with two or $300,000 in debt, and said, Hey, I got a degree, where's my job, and all of a sudden, they're like, there's no job for you not that's gonna pay this back. I'll let you university doesn't make a lot of sense these days. It depends. Now more and more, you know, Google and all these other big tech companies are like we don't we don't even require a four year degree. And you have to show competence, you just have to show. So it's like, just so those all these things that we were holding on to growing up, are starting to loosen, and it's freaking a lot of people out. Yeah, and it's starting and it's and now you're starting to entrench yourself in beliefs that give you some sort of hold on your life that makes sense to you. So like, you know, if I believe this, politically, I'm gonna hold on to this politically, if I believe this line, yeah, because it's the only thing you have left to hold on to when the rest of the world is starting to go down, you start back the ego starts to back itself up into a corner, and starts to like, put up the put up the walls, start putting the guns up, and starting to like, I got to hold on to something because I can't go out there alone. And that's what's happening to us, as a society and by countries and the, it's just so much that so it's pretty fascinating to watch what's going on and, and see it hopefully with a clear eye. And that's why I hope the show does is to give people different perspectives. Because if you can't change your perspective, you can't grow, you can't move if you can't go forward in life.

Richard Haight 43:32
Here's the thing that's, it's, it's beautiful. And can we it can be disconcerting when you recognize this. And so what I will say now, I'm going to make a statement that, that is a model that's functional, all models break down at some point. So it's just a functional model to help people kind of get a sense of what's going on, in a very short frame of time. The further you you the further your daily window of awareness, whatever you think of is your daily life, intelligence of you is from the root of your being. The more unstable you are inside emotionally

Alex Ferrari 44:12
Say that again, this is good

Richard Haight 44:15
The further that you are psychologically I suppose we can say. And also I would say, neurologically from the root of existence that zero consciousness the more unstable you will feel in times like this of course, and that will express itself whether you want it to or not as moral judgment. Those people are fucking idiots. They're evil those lefties those wingnuts those that image there's this scorn and, and it's just an animal backed into a corner, right? But what it doesn't recognize what the ego doesn't recognize is the corner that's backed into is actually it's furthermost distance from the root of being that The corner. There's this tremendous smallness inside, as a result of going to the extreme of ego and its closeness. And so what people tend to think is, especially if we've been exposed to Eastern thought and philosophy is that we should kill the ego or the ego needs to die, or the ego needs to disappear. That's actually not helpful. And that's never been the way, right. It's that the ego opens like a flower and opens to a greater context, it opens to the universal connectedness of life, it can do that my ego has done that. It's a very different experience from the closed ego. This is why Buddha sitting on open flower. That's what that means. Right? It's a hint that people just, you know, a lot of times people teach, I find this with my own students, I will teach things very, very clearly. But once you say a word, once you say a sentence, you're not in control of how people receive it. Exactly. Oh, god, yes. Right. And so then later on, maybe some months later, weeks later, I'm talking with that same student, and they say, you know, you said this a couple weeks ago. And this means that and I'm like, No, I didn't say that. Whatever you think I said, That's not what I said. Here's the video to prove it.

Alex Ferrari 46:17
But it's the filter, but it's the filter that we all have. So like we all have, it's just the way our ears our perception. Our again, it's all back to perception, our perspective, if you will, of what you're saying. So this in this conversation to one person could be very enlightening. The other one could be enraging,

Richard Haight 46:34
Enraging this and just plain stupid.

Alex Ferrari 46:37
Exactly. It could be it could be multiple. Yeah, but other other people can find it very enlightening. Very, it can lead them down certain paths of thought and can make you ask questions. So it all depends on the perspective of the person listening to the words. And that is something actual motivation is correct. Exactly. Because some people I mean, what was it like? I mean, well, there's, there's, there's so many things that some people take the wrong way and go off on a distance. And like, well, obviously, Jesus's Jesus's teachings in general. You know, I think it was Yogananda who said, Jesus that was crucified on the cross in one day, but his teachings have been crucified for the last 3000 years,

Richard Haight 47:18
Yes, been crucified. In fact, I'm in the process of it seems like maybe writing a new book that sort of about that. Currently, it's, it's, I've actually pinpointed within the New Testament, exactly where it went astray. The one thing that's there now, there are many subtle things, but there's one core principle, one core thing that they've missed, that's been perverted, that has caused almost every form of misunderstanding. And I mean, let's be honest, a lot of Judge mentality. There's a reason why Christianity is on the wane right now. It's because there's been a backlash over for years and years of the finger wagging phenomenon, you're going to hell, if you don't believe is, I believe, and the sad thing is, they will do it to each other. If you're not in my specific group, you're going to help. If you go back and you look at the original groups of you know, the writings of their of the first generations of Christians after and Nasus Gnostics, after Jesus's crucifixion, you will see a common phenomenon. And instead, they're all calling each other antichrist. Right? If you're not the Christ, teaching is here. Anything that's different from this is a mis teaching, and therefore antichrist. This is just another form of moral judgment, you're calling them evil. Right. And that's not helpful, because we all know what it's like when someone calls us when someone labels us. And in a denigrating way, what happens is, there's this feeling of closing up, we're not probably going to want to talk with that person, or certainly we don't feel that they're having a genuine conversation with us. They're not seeing us, they've just given us this really simple label that allows us them to dismiss us.

Alex Ferrari 49:03
Right, because that way, the ego is extremely happy, like, okay, that's obviously I'm safe. I'm good. And I feel really superior. Exactly. And there's nowhere in history in the history of humanity that anyone has has changed their mind from being called an idiot.

Richard Haight 49:20
Yeah, that's right. That's exactly right.

Alex Ferrari 49:23
No, nobody ever has ever done that. So when you do that kind of thing, it is counterproductive to the scenario that you're trying to achieve, generally speaking.

Richard Haight 49:31
In fact, if an individual actually is curious and wants to explore what I'm saying here with regard to these labels and integrations and the judgment, moral judgments and all that, all you have to do is pay attention to your own the feeling in your body. When you label somebody. Oh, yeah, you will know without a doubt if you're paying attention, that in that moment there says you're getting a dopamine hit, and you feel morally superior. So maybe this whole denigration is part of it is you Want to feel morally superior, you want to go superior to other people, and right on the world is an absolute. It's like a frenzy of moral superiority going on. And moral superiority is another sign of the extreme distance one is from, psychologically from one's fountain of being.

Alex Ferrari 50:21
Because it's a play, it's a place of insecurity, of tremendous insecurity. It's tremendous insecurity. Because when you meet someone who is when you meet someone who is comfortable in their own skin, who understand who they are at a deep, deep level, nothing fazes them. It truly, you know, I've met some I've met individuals like that, where they're so comfortable in their own skin, and they understand who they are at such a deep level, that you can say anything to them, and they just be like, it just this, it's like, it's like water off the back of a duck. It just it doesn't, it doesn't even touch. And it's as opposed to someone like, you know, you see something on in the news were in a 15 size, literally saw this in the news the other day, a 15 second argument in a supermarket, some guy took out a gun and shot the guy and killed them for a 15 second conversation, because His ego was so bruised in that 15 seconds, that he had to take action and ruin his life and ruin the other person's life, obviously, and all the people all because of of not feeling comfortable with who they were, or even understanding who they were actually really with who they are, who they are exactly who they are.

Richard Haight 51:31
And they are right with their existence.

Alex Ferrari 51:34
Yeah. And it's, it's it's a scary, scary, sometimes. Is it a little scary out there because of that. You also talk about in the in the book, the attitude of harmony? Can you can you dive into that a little bit.

Richard Haight 51:52
One of the issues that we tend to psychologic configure confused by is we we tend to label events in our lives, people in our lives, the universe itself as being good or evil, good or bad. And this is a very, very childish, very, very simplistic label. Now there's a reason why we label things. It's to expedite and not have to spend time on something, right you give. So for example, let's imagine the first time you you were an infant in your crib, and you've never been out of your crib, somebody picks you up and takes you out the door. Prior to being taken out the door, you may have seen it from your crib, but you didn't think of it as a function. You just saw the grain of the wood, or what you didn't know was wood. But you you saw it's in a sense, its essence to some degree. Even if it was a low resolution image, you're not seeing its function. But as soon as you go through that door, a whole new universe opens up to you and your mind automatically by association creates an embedded story in the nervous system, which says that door is a portal to another universe, door equals portal. Door is function. So then after that, every time you see a door, you no longer see what you originally saw. You see its function primarily. Right. And that's a shortcut for the body has to survive is trying to save time, if every time you looked at a door, you had to see its like atomic level kind of thing and build up to eventually get to its function. You'd be dead before before he went to the door, right? You would it would be actually ruinous to your life. So these are lists like mental shortcuts that are built into the nervous system. It's software, that sort of self directing software as you develop that you don't even have to think about it happens naturally. It's instinctive, right? In the same way this good and bad thing happens. Promise. It's, it leads to a certain amount of disharmony. At some point in an individual's life, not every individual but what we'll say what we'll call awakening individuals. At some point they recognize however, I'm perceiving the world and live it. It's it's not satisfactory for me anymore. I've got some maybe they are familiar with the term shadow work. I've got some shadow stuff there that needs to be dealt with. I need to look at things. I need to reassess my life. Right. Some people when they get to 4045 Like you know, they realize they've been living a completely bullshit life. You get the idea?

Alex Ferrari 54:37
Oh, yeah. Yeah, right. If you're lucky if you're lucky at 45

Richard Haight 54:41
Right. And you may you may just go the cheap route and buy a nice Mercedes, or whatever else car you maybe if Teslin I don't know what you're getting now but thinking hoping that that will save your life and cheat on your wife or husband or whatever, you know, but that doesn't really work. Right? It seems enticing, right? You know, and then But that doesn't really work it actually causes more disharmony. So I'm going to get back to the disharmony question here and in harmony and disharmony in a moment. However, some individuals, maybe after they've made a few of those mistakes, or possibly before, they recognize that whatever the issue is, is really in here. It's not the things i It's not that I don't have a Mercedes, it's not that I don't have, you know, some, you know, young guy, young girl to to fornicate with her. It's, that's really not the issue. The issue is the way I perceive myself and the world something amiss there. Right. But in order to really make progress, we need to sort of set aside the whole good and bad label thing because it prevents us from seeing the details of reality, and ourselves. And so it's actually helpful then to start to look at in terms of harmony and disharmony. Right, everything is one, but it can express it harmonious way, or dis harmonious way. And I'm not saying harmony is better than disharmony. It's your preference. It's up to you as an individual, would you like to actually feel harmony within your body like through and through? Or would you like to feel this anxiety all the time, or depression all the time, or feeling of, of smallness, where you're stuck in the emotional refractory period for long periods of time.

Alex Ferrari 56:23
When you've if you feel smallness in life, it's because you're disconnected.

Richard Haight 56:29
It's because you're disconnected, that you're right, you're disconnected because of this program that's running that's morally judging everything. That's why you feel disconnected.

Alex Ferrari 56:42
Which goes back to like, He who has not thought he was not sin throw the first stone. That's right. You know, if we go back to Jesus.

Richard Haight 56:49
Thou shall not judge it comes in. So the Genesis code points this out, there are two fundamental things that need to occur, and an individual to awaken to the depth of harmony within them. First is the, the softening of the feeling that you know, shit, and that what you know, is true. So it's like it's going towards maybe I'm not sexist, sir. Not, it's not like, it's important that I know that if I pick up this bottle, there's gonna have to this belief that whatever's in there is going to, in some way, nourish me, in this case, it's water, that water is nourishing, and that reaching out with my hand and grab it, but I have to have the belief that that's all possible in order to have a drink. Right, that's functional knowledge. But there's a whole bunch of beliefs and theories and knowledge that are not so functional, or totally dysfunctional, that we're holding on, it's like baggage that weighs you down. And it creates a veil of perception that makes it very difficult for those individuals to actually realize, in a sensory in in an embodied way, I guess we will say in an embodied way, the fountain of their being, it's, it's like just this completely like mystical concept to them. We even call it mysticism for that reason. It's not mysticism at all. It's actually the fountain of your being. It's there all the time, it can never not be there. Everything else is just operating sort of like, it's like the hardware of your existence or something like that. Everything else is just layered on top of that, but actually can bail you from perceiving the fountain of your existence.

Alex Ferrari 58:28
Yeah, I mean, it's the programming that we, we pick up along the way. I mean, there's certain amount of programming that is I always tell people are like, oh, you know, I came programmed from the factory that way. Because there are certain innate talents and skill sets that I do, I can't play basketball on an NBA level, not my thing. You know, but I can I, you know, I have a way of talking, I can talk to people I can have, that way I can do I can tell stories, there's certain things that I that fall into my, my toolbox, but as we grow, and also that's just our experience, through our parents, through our, our, our community, through our countries, through our, our experience, certain programs start to hardwire in, which is like, you know, if if you ate a banana, and every time you touch the banana, you burned yourself, hmm. Bananas would be evil to you. That's right. You know, if every time you see a banana, you're like, Oh, I can't get a banana. You know, people who have you know, digestive problems, you know, they look at a tomato and going, but other people go to a tomato go, oh, I can't wait to have you know, some pizza. You know, but other people look at pizza like I've got I'll die if I eat that. And same thing. It's all about perception. But this programming that we're built in, you have to understand that you are not your programming. You need to become aware of your actions aware of your programming, and then start when you see certain things happen. Sit back, watch be the watcher of your own life and say you know I don't like that that's that's Giving me disharmony when I do that.

Richard Haight 1:00:02
That, that's right. That's right. It comes down to ultimately it comes down to actually what you just prefer in your life. Right now, the danger to what to that fact. So let's say if we remove the moral judgment, sure, I'm not gonna call you. Bad are going to fucking ring ring. I'm sorry, I'm cursing on the show. Or, you know, Lefty idiot, or whatever. I don't know, anymore. Sure. I'm not going to do that. Because it doesn't help. I don't like when people do it to me, so I'm not gonna do it to them. Right? There's so then the question starts to be okay, if we're not going to call things good and bad or good and evil. We're not going to morally judge life. By what do we base our decisions? How do we make our choices? The answer is preferences. And then a person will say, Well, how what how does that not evil, moral relativism. Now, so the question is, what is moral relativism? Moral relativism is the belief that you need to have a strict set of morals, like a societal level of morals, in order for, like what's good and bad, in order for us to not go off the rails. And so if every individual just did what their preference was, it would just be chaos. And this is true. Every individual that has a closed ego, if they live their life, by their preferences, if everybody did that, it would just be chaos. And we would probably go extinct as a species. And so this idea of moral relativism has killed the idea that you can actually live your life without measuring morally long time ago. And the reason it killed that philosophically, is because people were completely unaware that you can actually consciously be in touch with the source of your being. And if you're in touch with the source of your being, your preferences are no longer small preferences, their preferences that take into account the large picture, a connectedness, connectedness, so your preferences are now benevolent, in a sense, a harmonious and a sense. And a large scale. They're not just what you want, like a two year old, who just wants the cookie. So in other words, is the true thing in societies of people who have closed egos, but it makes no sense at all, when people's egos open up, right. And that philosophy has not addressed because the philosophers themselves may not have been in touch with the essence of their being.

Alex Ferrari 1:02:22
And it's really interesting, because if you look at primitive civilizations, not only in history, but like, even currently, today, you go into the Amazon somewhere. And there's, you know, there's still native tribes who have been there for, you know, 1000 years or something like that. And they haven't really let the outside world in. They have, they have a sense of connectedness, because their survival relies on that connectedness. If they don't work as a unit, as a, as a, as a family as a village, they will die out, they won't survive. Where we've now gotten in the mainland, if you will, we've gotten to a place where technology has made survival. You know, almost a second thought, a secondary thought, like, you know we've got house.

Richard Haight 1:03:12
To say that for most people, it's not even on the menu.

Alex Ferrari 1:03:15
Right! Housing, yeah, what's important is getting money to be able to afford all of this technology and all this, these things, that's, that's the concern. But if you notice that just by me saying that, like, my concern is about getting money to provide a roof over my head, food on my table, they hear the word my a whole lot. There's nothing that there's wrong in that set. And that sense, as far as you know, we all have to live in the world that we live in. But the perspective is so different from a tribe like that, where going out to get something for me makes absolutely no sense to them. Because if it's just for me, like if I had all the coconuts in the forest, what I will die because eventually my coconuts will run out. And because I didn't share my coconuts with the entire tribe, the rest of the tribe died. And I'm alone and then I die, or of holding all the coconuts. Some of the other people were like, Hey, man, I'm gonna have to, there's gonna be a war.

Richard Haight 1:04:16
To your point and happens a lot quicker than that. And oh, yeah, human being very few human beings can survive alone. Even if you had all the coconuts. Like if you had an infinity of coconuts, yeah, and training and training for survival. It's like shit happens, you're going to be injured. And there's going to be a time when you're not going to get up and go to the waterhole because you twisted your ankle or broke something or whatever. Someone has to bring you water what you got coconuts. Too many of those will cause diarrhea. Now you're dehydrating yourself with your coconuts. And you're dead. Right? So that's,

Alex Ferrari 1:04:49
But that's again, and we're using this as an example by by trying to illustrate that if you don't consider the whole right, we will not serve If we do not consider our neighbors if we do not consider our, our communities, our countries or the world at a much deeper level, we will not move forward. I think that's what's going on right now that there is this complete, reshaping re recalibration of where we're going as a species that is uncomfortable, just like when you're, when you're bench pressing 200 pounds, 300 pounds, it's uncomfortable, but it's needed in order to grow. And sometimes that's a personal pain. But sometimes it's a societal pain. And I think we're going through not only personal pains, but also societal pains as well.

Richard Haight 1:05:40
That's right. That's right. That's exactly right. And as we go through this pain process, much as you described, there's always an opportunity that we start to get tired. And we may become, the ego may become tired enough that it goes, I just can't argue with this person anymore. I don't want to want to say that anymore. I just, I just want harmony, I want peace. So I'm going to stop adding to the mess. Right now that's maybe a small percentage of the individual's SAT is an avenue through which many individuals will probably awaken, quote unquote, spiritually.

Alex Ferrari 1:06:20
Well, it's kind of like what the, you know what the military does, or the Navy SEALs do, they'll break an individual down, they'll break the ego down to a place physically, that it it's done, it can't fight back anymore. And then that's how military military training goes. You break in sometimes you can become part of the unit. That's right. And it's so it's not about individuality, the Rambo's of the world don't exist, really, you know, inside of, of the military, it's all about the unit, it's about the core, it's about working together. Because even at the military standpoint, they understand that if it's just a bunch of individuals out there, you're going to lose the battle. So even at that level, you can understand that you have to work together in order to make this happen. Because if you if you fall too far down the rabbit hole of your own self, which obviously social media is a drug and a half, about how to just constantly it's about me, it's about what my beliefs are what I do, it feeds that it feeds that we're it's an addiction at this point, right? It's crazy.

Richard Haight 1:07:26
And what that does, now you talked about in order for them to come together, they need a common name. And that is what people are fighting over. Right now in the world, we're fighting over what we believe are what should be the highest value. Right. Right. And so you have some that I will say the individual will so this typically kind of a more modern, like the United States was founded on this idea that the individual is the nexus of the most essential point. Right? So we need to lend power to individuals, so they can be motivated in the world. Right, not do as minimal hindrance on individual behavior as possible, when you have will say, tend to be socialistic, communistic point of view, or groupthink view like in Japan, they're not communist, but they do have a Confucian idea that everybody should behave the same way. We all hate, you're not they hammer down the nail that stands out.

Alex Ferrari 1:08:29
Yeah, they stifle it, they stifle they stifle the individual. Yeah, yeah, it's just yeah,

Richard Haight 1:08:34
For group harmony. The issue is, if you look at like a lot of old Japanese movies, you will see a common theme like oftentimes the main character, at some point in the movie is standing like, on the beach, looking out on the ocean, wishing they could be somewhere else. That's what's going on there. Right, not because the land is, it's just because it's such an impressive, psychic state that they're in, they can't be individualistic, they cannot exercise their individual desires.

Alex Ferrari 1:09:03
I mean, that's it. That's what's interesting about samurai bill, samurai movies, you know, the Kurosawa films and Seven Samurai and those kinds of things is that the in Japanese lore, and again, you know, much more about this than I do, that the Samurai is is an individual, but it is, but it's based around a moral code of being of service to a to a boss, I forgot the name of it, the to the king, I know. Exactly. But when he's when that daimyo is Left Dead, or he wanders the land, life is pointless, his life is pointless. And he just and that's when the adventure is like a great, great setup for a great story. But generally speaking, samurais didn't always stand out. But they did. In a sense, they always they were always at a higher, different and a higher different level than someone who didn't have their skill set. Didn't know how to work with a sword. But yeah, It is still in that culture still kind of all. All samurai Woody. There wasn't like the one insane samurai sound like the

Richard Haight 1:10:09
Insane samurai there were there were everybody would go. Yeah, there were there were a couple but nothing in the samurai world

Alex Ferrari 1:10:17
But it's not like the the gunslinger of the West, which is very similar,

Richard Haight 1:10:23
I guess I guess why should point? No, it's very much like that actually, yeah, very much like that you have what were called Rooney who did not have masters in there, their goal was to become so famous that eventually they'd be hired by some Lord for a high position as a retainer, right. And so he would go out and have life and death combat with other groaning individuals and non affiliated Samurai, essentially, in order to get a name, so that they could then get a great job. That that was just like the Wild West only with swords. But the key thing is, so if we look at the samurai ethos, the highest value was loyalty, highest, it's a gang mentality, essentially. Now, loyalty to the society or loyalty to your feudal lord. Whereas if you're in a gang or whatever, it's not for society, it's for your criminal,

Alex Ferrari 1:11:18
Your tribe, your group, your whatever, sure,

Richard Haight 1:11:20
That that may be actually kind of working in a way that most of society might not appreciate. Right? So but but their highest value may be loyalty. For example, if we get to the individual, the highest value may like in the old west, frontier spirit, that might have been the highest value in the US at some point. The key point is, there are myriad different values that an individual actually has. Some of them are in we'll call the pole position, or one of them is in the pole position during significant portions of your life, but but they shift around according to the circumstances, and do and also age and also age, just h and h. Sure, yeah. And the key point is the only highest value that can be in that pole position and not lead to a breakdown of the individual psyche or consciousness under pressure, as well as societal breakdown is an embodied sense of clarity. As soon as any other value takes the pole position takes the highest position. We're going astray from our fundamental nature, all the values are inferior to or should be lower on that hierarchy of values, then be embodied clarity. And I don't mean, just a reason or logical clarity. I mean, there's this feeling of broadness and openness and clarity in the body. It's like the inner eye can see all aspects of you without flinching or judging all aspects of life without flinching or judging. When that's the proposition, you're awake,

Alex Ferrari 1:12:56
And when you're awake, so let me ask you, what will it take for us to wake up?

Richard Haight 1:13:02
Honestly, you know, Jesus says, Know the truth and truth set you free, know the truth, and the truth will set you free. What that means is honesty, like, deeply embodied on it, not like some external truth that's out there that if I study some book, it'll tell me what the truth is, like an object. But like the actual endeavor to be honest, and truthful, in the depth of your being, that is the truth that one knows that sets them free.

Alex Ferrari 1:13:32
So I think and I think right now, there's so many different versions of what honesty is in society, meaning what's honesty, what's true for me is not true for you, and vice versa. And now there's a distortion of the truth.

Richard Haight 1:13:46
Yes. And so again, I'm not talking about anything that's objective, right? I'm talking about attitude toward your exploration of life, not two plus two equals four.

Alex Ferrari 1:13:57
Right! But if there's a truth that easier, so if there's a truth that you believe that you know what it is, but that, you know, if you weigh 1000 pounds, that is completely fine. And I'm just going to, that's, I'm cool with that. That's a truth for you. But that's a truth that we all see that will eventually to your demise.

Richard Haight 1:14:21
Well, so what's actually happening there in the psyche of the individual is they're justifying something that they even know is unhealthy for them.

Alex Ferrari 1:14:28
Right! It could be drinking, it could be smoking

Richard Haight 1:14:30
It's the ego that's protecting themselves. So that is not a sincere search for truth, right. It's the attitude of truth. Truth is not even their attitude of honesty is not that they're painting their mental picture in order to justify whatever it is their way of being or doing. So yeah, first of all, 1000 pounds or 100 pounds. Those are facts. I've met someone who weighed like, there's a there's a fighter called butterbean. Do you know Butterbean?

Alex Ferrari 1:14:56
Of course I know no butterbean yeah, he's amazing puncher.

Richard Haight 1:14:59
They are Yeah. Okay, nice, massive, massive dude. It's a wall. He's a fat. I mean, it's just giant. He lives slay like a sumo wrestler essentially,

Alex Ferrari 1:15:08
His huge. He was he was so entertaining. He's such a great personality.

Richard Haight 1:15:12
Yes, yes. Yet, you know, and you would think he's got cholesterol off the roof. Blood pressure, his heart rate is crazy. He's just your diabetes. But they checked him out and he had like, perfect blood pressure, perfect heart rate, I was just we just he didn't have high cholesterol, it was just like, a medical miracle. A total exception for him that body style might work. Might be exactly right for him. I don't know. So it's all very in the sense. We're being honest with our deepest self. That is the route. And I don't mean honestly, in a factual way, I mean, honestly, like, sincere, deep desire to, to, to feel and perceive what is going on within our mind and body without trying to justify it, or minimize it or distorted in any way, without allowing the ego to play its little Magic Games, because that's the lie. The truth is that sincere attitude, right? The lie is the egos stories, that's the serpent in the garden.

Alex Ferrari 1:16:26
Right. And, you know, addicts deal with this all the time when they'll just constantly tell themselves, I'm fine, I'm fine. I'm not I'm not an alcoholic, I'm not addicted to this drug or that drug until you see all the destruction around you. And the ego still says no, no, you're fine. You're fine. Why? Because ego wants that control. And it's extremely, you know, we are fascinating,

Richard Haight 1:16:49
We fascinating. And the interesting thing is that addicts may be I think, that almost a perfect example of it. But then you start to ask yourself, what does that mean to be an addict? And then then that starts to open things up, you start to realize we're all addicted to all kinds of stuff. The exact same thing that a heroin addict would do. For some of us TV, food,

Alex Ferrari 1:17:11
Food, tv, sex, work, working out all of it.

Richard Haight 1:17:16
Yes, that's right. And so if we look at these addictions, we ask ourselves, honestly, what are these addictions actually doing? What are these activities, they're distracting us from something that distracting us from something that makes making us uncomfortable. That's why we're doing it.

Alex Ferrari 1:17:32
It's interesting, because the Forgot what philosopher said, he goes all of man's troubles. It is its inability to sit in a room by himself quietly. And it's such a true true statement that, you know, for so many souls around the world, for them to just sit quietly. That's why meditation is very difficult for a lot of people. Because it's just, it's too much. And the ego is like, we this is ridiculous. Why are you here? Like I don't, and it starts fighting back against it. And it it took me years before I finally was able to, because I tried meditation multiple times in my life. And I would do five minutes, I'd be like, Why am I here? Well, you know, if you would have told that person like, Did you meditate two, three hours sometimes? It would be beyond my comprehension. But it was because the ego was fighting it so badly. Where now it has no say in it. It's like, I have to do it. Now. It's part of my, my daily practice. But but it is true because

Richard Haight 1:18:36
In most people, they are you capable of being with yourself without distorting without distracting without trying to paint or justify or minimize in any way can you actually just perceive and be. That's it. And that's waiting is the easiest thing in the world, and also the most challenging thing you'll ever do.

Alex Ferrari 1:18:55
Right, exactly. Because,

Richard Haight 1:18:56
I mean, you are going to do something. Right. And it's not actually the doing that leads to the awakening, so to speak. But you're not able to help but do stuff. Yeah, I call this the woodpecker on a concrete pole phenomenon. Which is, okay, so, so as we start to awaken, he says, individuals have gone through the questioning of what they are. It's a very common sort of Eastern approach to like, what is the observer? What am I and that kind of thing, you kind of weed it down? It's a never ending process in a certain way, because your mind will keep on pecking at what it thinks you are. It'll keep picking you keep asking, keep picking, pick, pick pick. And, and it's actually causes a tremendous amount of disharmony. Oftentimes, it can be quite upsetting. It's so and there's no way of stopping it like it is going to continue that would pick that mind is going to continue to try to define its nature. This is what the union versus doing? Again, I talked about that that zero, conscious zero, and is projection of what it's just mathematically exploring all potentials of definitions of self. And your mind is made from the same thing. It has the same function. And so your mind will do the same thing. That's not wrong. It has to keep pecking until the brain till the till you get such a headache or till you run out of energy that it goes. I'm done. I'm done. I don't care. I don't know what I am. And I admit it. And that's the reality. I don't know what I am. So one thing I do know is that I don't know what I am. And it says magical catharsis.

Alex Ferrari 1:20:48
Right! And then you start to search, you start to search out, you're not searching anymore. Well, not to a certain extent, like you're not searching anymore. But you But you start, like, at least for me, for my awakening, when I started to question these things, I've always questioned it at certain points in my life. But the ego wouldn't allow too much to go forward. But as I've gotten older, I was able to finally start going started listening to certain teachings and start listening to finding books, like your books and other people's books and just start listening to different perspectives about the same problem. We're all talking about a problem. We're all talking about the same price. Jesus was talking about it. Yogananda was talking about it, you're talking about it, we're all we're all talking about the same problem of trying to find

Richard Haight 1:21:35
This is very interesting and I'm hoping you'll continue with there's something that that you're suggesting here, which is I find quite fascinating. So if you can kind of keep going with it.

Alex Ferrari 1:21:43
Okay, okay, so, so finding the going back to finding, the question is, how can I return to source? How can I return to.

Richard Haight 1:21:51
You're posing the question as a function? How can I do X? Right? You're not posing the question is, what am I?

Alex Ferrari 1:22:01
Correct! You're absolutely right.

Richard Haight 1:22:03
So we got to differentiate the two. So we had the original question is, what am I? So what reality? Or what is true? Because it's the same question. So if you are asking the question, How can I return to what was the question of source? How can I return to source? How can I return to my first thing is you can never be separate from source. Right? It's impossible. Right? That is the foundation of being you have never ever been not for a single moment of your life. Ever been separate from source? You just think so?

Alex Ferrari 1:22:33
So then finding that so answering the question, Who am I? What am I were that?

Richard Haight 1:22:40
So who and what are different questions, so very much. So part of this process I talk about in Genesis code to logos, and it requires is actually a strenuous practice early on, because we are really, really not just you and I, but just humans in general. We're kind of lazy with our words. And oftentimes, we don't really look at what they mean, not only an addict, definitional level, but what they mean on an association level within our subconscious mind wasn't somehow the capacity to perceive elements of the subconscious mind. Fair enough. But who, and what are very different questions, because who now is a persona? Who isn't identity? And that is still the default mode network at play the default mode network? Are you familiar with what I'm talking about? I'm not please, please elaborate. So relatively recently, there's been an exploration of meditation, and psychedelics, there's a lot of research into both. It's great that it's happening at this time. Another synchronicity, what they noticed is people who have are successful meditators, skilled meditators, can typically meditate to a point where this this the an area, a number of regions in the brain that are along the central line, are active, which we will call the ego at perception. The eye itself identified perception, I am Richard, it's a subject object type relationship, or perception, that when we meditate to a sufficient depth, or take a certain psychedelics to a certain strength, that shuts down, like blood flow to those areas actually slows down, and they quiet. And then suddenly, it's like, we dropped into this realm of non subject object relation, or that timeless realm. Right, right. And so because that's actually a neurological thing that's going on, it's important for us to differentiate Who am I from what am I? Who am I is still the default mode network. It's it's it's the serpent in the garden, posing the question and it can't lead to a functional answer. What am I is taking us much closer to the right direction. Now, as we practice the logos are refinement. of language will, will, will make us ever more sensitive to how to formulate a nonce. And what I like to describe as a non syntax error question. By syntax error. I mean, it's an it's a, it's a, it's a question that can lead to a viable, functional Hanser. As to not, you'll never know what you are. But, but it will lead to an exploration that's sort of open, versus one that's closed from the outcome. If the question is what who am I? We're kind of close from the outset. Now, part of that might be so we have, we have an issue of language, again, the true self versus the false self. So there's that the ego self, that's the identity that's developed through your lifetime, from the momentum of the universe that came through to you that societal influence that genetic influence, that's your experience of life, that makes the identity that you have now, you didn't choose it. Right? If people think they chose it didn't choose it. It just developed. Fair enough, you're like a three year old kid, you don't have this concept of choosing who you are. Right? Right. So it's a natural development. That thing is simply not capable of making a functional question. And if it asks the question of what am I who am I? It's referring actually, it's self referencing. Self referencing, it's the little self asking the little self what the little self is. Right, you follow? Right? And so in a sense, we can't even get the question right, until that little self starts to quiet. When even the question isn't, isn't it's not worth even within our reach, until that little self quiets, then the big self can now ask the question, and it's question might be something very different. It probably won't even be what am i But the little self will certainly make the What am I? You'll do, who am I first, later on once the Who am I is completely destroyed, because every answer leads to disharmony, it will usually go to then what am I? And then it will ruminate on that for a long, long time, or maybe a lot of very short, intense spurts. For some individuals who gone very, very deep into this at some point that falls away. And then the question is, simply, how do I want to live my life in a way that's in harmony with the true nature of my being, which is a conscious zero non knowingness? How do I live my life fully, authentically? Because you will never know who or what you are.

Alex Ferrari 1:27:58
It's a really fascinating way of looking at it because I always I always thought of my personal journey as a, a haze. That is a complete isn't purple isn't it wasn't a purple haze. A metaphorical haze that we thrown on to ourselves over the years with our, you know, our programming, our life experiences, all that stuff. And the ego is very part of that haze. And then as you start to awaken the Hey, starts to clear a bit here and clear a bit there and things. You know, what I always I always find, I think you said it earlier is like when you attach the feeling of when you hear something, or you, you hear you read a book, you watch a movie, you go down a path to hear someone speak something, if the feeling feels authentic to you, a little bit of that haze starts to wave away, a little bit of that haze starts to go away. And that's something that has happened to me over the years, especially when I started to meditate, where that haze started to click because you're when you meditate, you go into a place where there's no haze. So you start realizing, Wait a minute, there's another way to play this game, in a way and then you start going, Wait a minute, how can I bring what I'm feeling in meditation into the real world? And that's when you start to question that's when you start to search. When I think searching, I'm searching for answers or thoughts or perspectives. That starts to clear this starts there's a clear that this is starting to clear the haze a bit to the point where hopefully we're some of these Yogi's and some of these masters like Jesus like Buddha, and these and these in these masters. They realize that the Haze is all gone, and they understand the truth of who and what and how they are in this existence. In this life,

Richard Haight 1:30:00
Understand what is this thing? What they understand actually relates exactly to what you just said. Because what you're not on a search now for what you are who you are, you're actually in a search for how to be authentic. exactly to your nature, even if you don't know exactly what your nature is. And you find out, you get hints of it through doing things, right. Or seeing things and noticing the feeling the bond is this feeling of like, Oh, that feels so good. So Right. So whatever, that's so engaging, so inspiring. It feels so meaningful. Most people are insensitive to that. That's your radar. That's your compass is meaningfulness in it like an embodied sense. Like your body is engaged, and it feels meaningful. When you're done that activity, you feel like, Oh, thank God, I did that instead of what did I do with my whole day? What a waste of time, right? So we start refining through awareness and embodied awareness, authenticity. And that refinement burns off so much chaff, and Deadwood. Until eventually, there's nothing left and you just feel light and clear inside. It's a marvelous place to be. But it's, it's something that's is is not complicated. It just has not been well articulated throughout the ages.

Alex Ferrari 1:31:22
Right, exactly. And especially for today's modern world. Some of the older texts are difficult to read, because I've tried reading some of these older texts, and

Richard Haight 1:31:31
They're difficult and also, they're oftentimes monastic type. They come from an Aster type sources, which mean they do have these are these texts and explorations of people that were living their life in a secluded, idealistic setting. Actually, I think that's a terrible setting to do this. I think it's a completely terrible setting. Because against the nature, natural flow of reality,

Alex Ferrari 1:31:55
Right! If you're often in a mountain somewhere, yeah, if you're often in a mountain somewhere in some some and monastery, nothing that against that, but if you live your entire life in that perfection of like, there's no this I can meditate for 10 hours, like

Richard Haight 1:32:08
No wife, no children, no school, no, none of these who take responsibilities for

Alex Ferrari 1:32:12
I always say, you know, Jesus found enlightenment, because he didn't have kids. Right, you know, I look throughout throughout like, even,

Richard Haight 1:32:23
I think he had a lot of kids, most of his disciples behave like children.

Alex Ferrari 1:32:27
Very much so. But no, it was so funny because there's I go I you know, I've studied a lot of the the yogi masters over the years. And I always found here in maha Shai, one of the most fascinating Yogi's, because he had children, because he was the only one I've been able to find, because most don't they choose not to have children to go on their spiritual quest, because it's a lot harder for kids with kids. Because, you know, and a wife and, or a husband,

Richard Haight 1:32:55
I would suggest, I would suggest that that is an assumed mindset. If we've inheriting that forever, my way towards awakening has been under pressure. This is why the samurai to me, because my teacher was going easy on me or creating an ideal environment, but actually being intense with me trying to find my weaknesses. And that's what actually greatly expedites things. So, but we can't even we can't even begin to, to expose ourselves to that type of training until we start to make some attitudinal adjustments.

Alex Ferrari 1:33:28
Right. And that's what I've learned in my time with trying to find my own path. My own spiritual path is having a family having those real world pressures. That is my, obviously, it's my path, because I'm walking it. And I'm not getting rid of my children anytime soon. So, um, so that pressure of living in life is such a better representation of what because you can read a book on a yogi who was in the Himalayas, you know, like, that's great, dude. But, and I love their concepts, but it's hard to try to put that into this in today's world. It's hard. It's concepts fit, you know, on a, on a, you know, maybe on a spiritual level, maybe on an intellectual level. But then you start, you know, things start to throw off embodiment seems impossible. It's tough. Because, yeah, because you're like, Oh, well, I can't do this, or I can't do that, which are limitations you're putting upon yourself,

Richard Haight 1:34:28
Their activities are actually tuned to a monastic lifestyle. So correctly, take those same activities which were tuned to a very specific way of being specific way of living without kids and without women and without temptation and all of that, and you try to put them into the, the normal world. It kind of just doesn't fit.

Alex Ferrari 1:34:50
It's tough. It's tough. certain concepts obviously, can come through, but it's difficult to do all of it. So I always found that faster. That's why I love it. reading about the Hiromasa, who had kids, he had a wife. And he was an accountant, prior to his finding his path, so it was like, Oh, this guy wasn't like just born. And all of a sudden, he was enlightened. It took him a minute to figure it out. And that's the thing that a lot of people, and please, please, I'd love to hear your thoughts, too, is like, you know, Jesus wasn't born and just showed up at 30. Like our 31 hour old, he was like, there was years that are unaccounted for. And I would argue that probably during that year, he was finding his way he was going through his trials, he was he was educating himself. He was, you know, there's there's many texts, Indian texts that talk about Jesus over there and meditating and all this kind of stuff. You know, it's I know, that's blasphemy for so many

Richard Haight 1:35:46
Where he lived was right on the trade route between the and the way it was like the main roads for so you obviously you couldn't live there without being exposed, we tend to think that they would only have Jews at that time would only have been exposed to Judaism. No, that's not true. They would have been exposed to all kinds of different religious ideas, spiritual ideas. Right, exactly. And I get through there all the time. It's a trade route. So I got to the east to get these ideas.

Alex Ferrari 1:36:16
Right. And look, Buddha did the same thing. Buddha had to go through his trials, before he figured out his path. No one just shows up enlightened. That's not part of this experience. That is not part of why we're here.

Richard Haight 1:36:30
I'm not sure no one maybe I don't know. But but maybe one pretty strongly that that's not that that most people are not going to show up that way.

Alex Ferrari 1:36:37
Most people I'm not sure if anybody but I haven't I haven't seen anywhere in my journeys in my history. My studies that I found someone who just like was literally born and was enlightened. There could be that was born into that possibility. I too have yet to I've yet to see it, or is it possible? Sure. But generally speaking throughout history, if that I've studied in my, in my studies, and in yours. Generally, there is a process we are here because we are going through a process. And some are here to go through an enlightening process. And we're here just to learn certain lessons, and continuing that enlightening process. Some find enlightenment in this in this in this time. And there are many Yogi's or many masters who have done throughout history, and it's been recorded and so on. Jesus being one of them. But we are here to learn, we're here in a process. So I just always, even when I was a kid, I'm like, he just showed up at 30. Like, yeah, that I, you know, like what happened, like, where stuff wasn't recorded? Like, you know what, that has to be some record of, you know, he didn't just show up and he's like, Alright, I'm good now. And and like, there was no explanation of his journey, because that shows that show that that doesn't go with the narrative that those people writing back then wanted, like you were saying, You're you're an antichrist, you're an antichrist or you're an antichrist, but because it

Richard Haight 1:38:03
And almost all of that was happening in Greece. All the all of the all of the original texts that we have these were not Jews writing it. Right? Right. These were Greeks writing it. So in order to been far removed from the culture in which it was born in and if you think of Jesus's disciples, including Jesus, he was a Mason, they say, people tend to think he was a carpenter. But if you look at all of his all of his references to building, it's always with stone. Yeah. He was probably a Mason. Right? Where did Freemasons come from? If they were guys that Jesus was probably amazing. That's what they call themselves Freemasons. Right? Right. So there's a lot of things that we misunderstand from that time. Sure. Even now and even people then misunderstood because different cultures Christianity spread outside of, of Judea. Sure, outside of the Jewish concepts. Now, there were some Jewish groups as well, but we don't really have access to that information. Now, the only access we have is primarily Gnosticism. And, and forms of Christianity, and they all didn't agree with each other. And the most important thing is that Jesus as amazing probably couldn't read. What nobody could read in those those days. sighs the, the, the church elders,

Alex Ferrari 1:39:29
Sure, of course, the priests and the clergy,

Richard Haight 1:39:32
Since they couldn't write. They weren't writing this stuff down. greatest teachings Jesus ever get no one was writing it down. That's the reality. And that's a hard thing for people who believe in Christianity to swallow but I think that if they actually just accept that first, that will be the beginning of their true Christianity.

Alex Ferrari 1:39:52
But just just, you know, just look at I mean, the Crusades weren't very Christian.

Richard Haight 1:39:59
I mean, I mean, what they've done is they've justified the things they want to do by the religion that they follow in defense of Christ. Now, it's interesting, they call Christian apologist apologists. That doesn't mean apologies like I'm sorry, it means in defense of right in defense of Jesus. That's what it means. In defense of Christ actually Christian apologists, that means in this Christ, that which is connected to the root of being need your defense? And are you arrogant enough to think that you understand the nature of Christ sufficiently to know how to defend it properly? There's a tremendous arrogance that's going on here. Now, the interesting thing is if you talk to Christian scholars, and if you talk to those who went to what do you call the school that you go to just set my mind for?

Alex Ferrari 1:40:49
Preschool? I mean, Preschool preschool, that's a technical term preschool.

Richard Haight 1:40:57
They're exposed to this information, they just don't give it their flocks. Like they're they know, they have to study the scholarly things. Preschool, he themselves, actually the priests and the references, they know what I'm saying. Yeah, of course, share this with people because they don't believe the ordinary person is smart enough or capable of dealing with reality. It's, it's, it's, it's a condescending point of view. Yeah. Without without question, this is why we still have this problem. Now, our leaders do the same thing. They don't tell us the truth. We're not capable of handling the truth. So we don't trust them. Same things happened with Christianity. But this has happened with every religion. Yeah, pretty much. And so this brings us back to if it's all right. This brings us back to the fundamental problem of society, which does come down to the individual, and groups of individuals, but it comes down to attitude. We tend to think the ego tends to think if we just formulate the government, create the right punishments. If we have the right kind of economy, that will straighten people out, and all will go well. That's not true. Because if we don't trust ourselves, and a D, fundamental level, if we're continuing to morally judge ourselves and others, which we're doing all the time, we're constantly measuring our worth. I'm worthy of love, I'm not worthy of love. That equation is going on constantly in the subconscious mind for people and then projecting it out onto other people. So long as that's happening, there isn't a community. There isn't trust, there isn't communion. No matter what laws you make, the system will collapse given time. This isn't an issue of should we be communist should be social should be capitalist. So that the questions that people are asking, should we believe in a religion? Or should we be secular? Right? Should we be atheist? All those questions that the philosophers are asking you you'll typically you'll hear and I love both of these individually. I mentioned Sam Harris and Jordan Peterson they have different ideas on this. But they're asking the wrong questions as brilliant as they are, or asking the wrong questions. Because it comes down to is a deep wellspring of trust for being and if you have that, great without that, no matter what society you develop, it will collapse. The timer is starts the moment you you put your flag up some some forms of government and some types of laws will allow it to live to last longer than others. But absent communion with your your own body, and the essence of your being nothing will actually work. And there's no getting around that. So we have to mature as human beings if we want to survive as human beings now maybe we don't want to mature or maybe we don't have to survive I mean that conscious zero we talked about the face of God it's continuing whether they're human beings or not, or the planet will continue with us without any will continue other forms of life are going through the exploration. Human beings are just really interesting because we're essentially we're we're mobile earth it's all we are. There's nothing here that's not the earth right? We are the earth literally exploring itself in ways that a lot of other animals can't explore itself.

Alex Ferrari 1:44:27
And I never really that's a fascinating perspective. I've never thought about that. But we are you're absolutely

Richard Haight 1:44:33
Earth really just Earth. Yeah, we're carbon based star matter and star matter. There is no disconnect from from the universe. We are the universe exploring itself.

Alex Ferrari 1:44:43
We come from it, and we go back to it.

Richard Haight 1:44:46
We've never left it.

Alex Ferrari 1:44:47
No, physically I'm thinking like, Well, yeah, even now.

Richard Haight 1:44:51
This is still the universe we don't come for thought we leave it.

Alex Ferrari 1:44:54
No, no, no, no, I understand. I understand. But like, you know, any merges we emerge, we emerge from the earth. And we go back, and we go back to the earth.

Richard Haight 1:45:02
And we and as and we would what would you call a good word for that we emerge and then

Alex Ferrari 1:45:06
Descend, descend, dissipate, dissipate back in

Richard Haight 1:45:11
Back into the overall form. Yeah, it's all it's happening.

Alex Ferrari 1:45:17
Yeah. And then

Richard Haight 1:45:18
We've been so what I'm saying is so simple. But you never hear anybody talk about it. You're right. And you can't get it any of that if you're being really honest, you cannot look at it any other way. We are just emergencies of the earth exploring itself. This is the big bag of molecules. How do molecules become intelligent and conscious? Maybe that's the wrong question. Maybe they're inherently so intelligence develops consciousness always is that something we was worth exploring? We've started out just like by default, saying, No, it's all matter. And it's not conscious and somehow magically, for human beings. Consciousness emerged, but not for any other animals. As we're exploring other animals, you start to realize, wait a minute, the great apes seem to be conscious. Elephants seem to be conscious dolphins seem to because we magpies and crows

Alex Ferrari 1:46:17
But on a different level, but at a different level.

Richard Haight 1:46:19
Well, it's we're talking about intelligence here as the key points, we need to separate out intelligence

Alex Ferrari 1:46:25
From consciousness. Oh, no, because

Richard Haight 1:46:27
Separate those two out then things are easier.

Alex Ferrari 1:46:30
Yeah. Yeah, you look at you look at elephants, they feel they you know, you've seen some of the I've seen some of those documentaries. And you see, like, they stay three or four days with their dead mother who just died. Because they cry and they feel and dolphins do as well. And obviously, the great apes do as well. It's fascinating. It is a different sense of consciousness. But there is a consciousness there of some there is if you look at if you've ever looked an ape in the eyes, you can't tell me that there's not something looking back at you. Some people will tell you that. You know, like there's,

Richard Haight 1:47:06
I wont tell you that No, that's just an automaton.

Alex Ferrari 1:47:10
Of course. Exactly. But if you look at you looks truly I mean, look, I mean, look at Oh, God fossies work and and Jane Goodall's work with with with it with chimps

Richard Haight 1:47:24
Were so similar to them.

Alex Ferrari 1:47:26
Oh, my God, you can't you can't look at that research. And it's scientific research that she's done over things.

Richard Haight 1:47:32
If you're if you don't have some strong bias, of course, without admitting this all likelihood, they're conscious, like we are

Alex Ferrari 1:47:41
Just different,

Richard Haight 1:47:43
Different filters. I mean, they have. So it's interesting. Since we're really what we're really asking about is our senses. So how do I say this in a way that that is as clear as possible, and this is going to get into will seem very esoteric, but I suspect at some point in the not too distant future, this will just be like, obvious, most scientists will just admit this is true. What are the four forces of what we call reality? Do you know them? I do not, I don't mean to put you on the spot. So I got, we've got the strong force. These are atomic forces, the weak force. This is what holds electrodes, you know, atoms and atoms together. Then we have electromagnetism, and gravity, right? Part of what blinds us to what those actually are, is we think of them as forces. Again, as if they're unconscious. But I what I would add to it is that they're actually senses as well. But these are senses, that an atom that's missing an electron, or any any particle feels a kind of anxiety, it wants to be harmonious, and it's going to try to attract to it. That which is going to fulfill its nature. It's a sense. And when it receives all the particles necessary for it to be at Harmony, there's a cathartic release. This is consciousness. That's how I see it. That, that all other senses build simply build on top of those four primary senses. That's all that's going on. And the first sense is just the awareness of I am slash I'm not the awareness of perception. The next senses are those four foundational senses of we'll call physicality, upon which then we develop further senses. Life forms, for example, ability to smell, hear, detect electromagnetism or Whatever else all the different senses that we have. Intelligence in itself is a kind of sense. Right? Not every animal has the same rational sense that a human being has, they have other senses that they're far stronger at than we are. Now, we being very arrogant bias creatures tend to think that our way of perception, our senses are superior to all the rest, because it allows us to dominate things. But those other animals might be around millions of years long past when we go extinct. Sometimes being the most dominant is actually a losing strategy.

Alex Ferrari 1:50:37
You're like, well look at the dinosaurs.

Richard Haight 1:50:38
Yeah. Right. Although that was not necessary, a case of their own failure, like an asteroid hit the Earth, but no, no, we're likely to press a button and nuke ourselves. Right? That's a failure of a sense, that's intelligence gone astray are gone awry, as a result of being disconnected from the fountain or foundation of being from the primary sense which is of existence, slash non existence, this conscious zero. Does this make any sense?

Alex Ferrari 1:51:08
It makes all the sense in the world. Absolutely. I mean, it's what you're saying is the connection to being, I would also consider that connection to your higher self is that is that

Richard Haight 1:51:19
It's actually your lowest self, it's the the common denominator, we call it the highest self, because when we generally that we feel much lighter and better and appealing to it. Actually, it's the foundation denominator,

Alex Ferrari 1:51:33
I understand what you said, yeah, it's it's it's.

Richard Haight 1:51:36
The reason there's words is because essentially, what's happening is your mind creates a geometry of thought, and the geometry, the thoughts that are out of sync with the geometry of being lead astray. And our words help to correct the thinking, there, to me, this entire system is mathematical, all based off of positive and negatives, that are mediated by zero, there are always balanced out by a conscious zero, which means our our psyche is also geometric, and our thoughts are geometric. Now, of course, it takes a hell of a lot of embodiment to get to a point where one can perceive what I'm talking. And it's not some, just like, some woowoo idea. But the way we get back, the way we recognize this is by becoming very precise with our language. And that takes a lot of training itself. Like, not training in that someone necessarily teaches you what to say. But like, bodily awareness, as you speak, you can feel when something's not quite arrived, and not quite correct. You can you know, when you're telling a lie,

Alex Ferrari 1:52:43
It's interesting, too, because when, you know, people always ask me, in my, in my side of the world, and in the film industry, they're always like, what is that thing? What am I going to? How am I going to make it? How am I going to pop out? How am I going to do this? And I go, the biggest thing for you to succeed in your endeavors, artistic or others, is to be authentic with yourself to be and that is something that most most writers and screenwriters and, and filmmakers and artists, that's what blocks them. But the ones who succeed, you start going through all the greats. They are authentic to who they are, whether you like it or not, that authenticity is what we are attracted to. Not the BS not this, this not that not that what we think it is. It's the authenticity and that's what we that's called honesty,

Richard Haight 1:53:37
That's honest it comes back to the the truth that sets you free. That's what it is. Yeah. What it is this attitude of just revealing, it's a revelation of your essential nature, right, good and bad and ugly and all of it people who, who just like you said, who write or like playwrights or or screenwriters but but novelist and whatnot, my books is well and good nonfiction doesn't matter. If you get a sense that that person is somehow kind of skirting things and you can sit and you can sense it, and you can sense of their being. It's a turn off. I mean, we want to be taken to the edge. Emotionally, physically psychically, like psychically, I mean, like the psyche. Yeah. Why else would you read a book?

Alex Ferrari 1:54:22
Right! And that's why and when you watch a film, sometimes you look at it, and you're like, oh, yeah, that was just that was made for the money or there wasn't. Yeah, there's too many of those. You're right. But when you see something that has an honesty to it, an authenticity, authenticity. And you know what, and I always use this example, in 94, there was a movie that came out that I went to the theater with my high school buddies I was already out of I was already in college, but I went with my high school buddies, who were all knuckleheads. I was a knucklehead, you know, it was still in the state of, you know, the John Claude Van Damme and Steven Seagal were the greatest actors of all time. I was In that stage of my career, it true that true that no offense guys, but at that time and there was a movie that I watched in the theater and I saw it, and it cut through even all of that ignorance and ego and everything it connected with me at such a deep level that I even my friends were like, wow, that affected me. And they were knuckleheads and full of ego and full of bravado. And this movie cut through all of it and it was the Shawshank Redemption

Richard Haight 1:55:29
Oh yes. Oh yes,

Alex Ferrari 1:55:31
That movie. It is so pure.

Richard Haight 1:55:35
It's right into the depth of emotion and be

Alex Ferrari 1:55:39
Oh my god like you can't I you know, anytime I feel bad, like if I release something and someone gives me a bad review, I'll just type in bad review Shawshank Redemption and I just start laughing at people who gave Shawshank Redemption bad reviews, because they obviously weren't. They didn't get it. Yeah, but

Richard Haight 1:55:55
I wonder you since you're so versed in, in, in film industry. Sure. Can you give an example because the Shawshank Redemption i i don't remember who directed it?

Alex Ferrari 1:56:05
That would be Frank Darabont. Okay. So he also wrote it based on a Stephen King short film,

Richard Haight 1:56:11
He is what started he had a lot of money backing him. Because he had he had some star stellar actors in there,

Alex Ferrari 1:56:18
Quote unquote, big money that That movie was probably made for 10 to $15 million. Oh, yeah, that wasn't a Tony. Tim Robbins was a star. But he wasn't. He wasn't a megastar. Morgan Freeman was definitely not a magazine at that time. No, he wasn't. He was not Morgan Freeman. Yeah, he was he was he Okay, so I'm like looking at it in a retrospective. Oh, absolutely. Like now you're like Tim Robbins. Yeah. Tim Robbins. And, and and Morgan Freeman. But no, in 94. You guys, everyone could go back. They were stars. But they weren't who they weren't like they're not Tom.

Richard Haight 1:56:53
They weren't. Do you have an example? Because people will still say yeah, it was the star power that made it that Oh, sure. I got one. You have an example of a movie that was low budget that didn't have any Sharon stars and is just like that, that hit it big. And just hits hits, it hits the viewers deeply.

Alex Ferrari 1:57:14
Hit big And okay, so look, I'll tell you what, that's something that people would know. Okay, so I was gonna say winds of desire, because that just hits you at a level that you can't even comprehend. But it wasn't a big hit. Because it was a French it was a foreign film. But a movie like Big Fat Greek Wedding. Big way, big, Fat Greek Wedding.

Richard Haight 1:57:35
I've not seen it.

Alex Ferrari 1:57:36
I mean, every I mean,

Richard Haight 1:57:36
I'm taking notes right now,

Alex Ferrari 1:57:38
So the big a Big Fat Greek Wedding is a comedy. But the writer Nina villa, I forgot I can never pronounce it. She was a Greek. She's Greek because the whole movie is about her Greek experience. That movie is so authentic. So authentic to the experience of family. Because everything in the movie was her experience having a Greek growing up as a Greek family and all the nuances of of it's such a great it's a fantastic film. That was a no budget movie with no stars in it. And it is the biggest in that one of the biggest innovative films of all time still is one of the biggest fitness films I made like two $300 million Wow. But it doesn't you don't have to be serious and be authentic. They'll authenticity and Big Fat Greek Wedding connected with the world because of its authentic look at family because we all have if you're Italian and really Cuban if your child that we all have crazy families and the characters in the nuances and the things like that connect so we all projected ourselves into that movie. So when you watch it you'll see Oh, that's my mom. That's my dad that is my experience because the but the thing was authenticity. Yes. Because people try to people try to remake that and many other of course like when you see a movie like Pulp Fiction how many rip offs are there they try to rip it off a million times? Yeah sure. But no one can reconnect the way she's because it was authentic thing that only she she was the only person on the in the world who could bring that movie to, to the masses. It was her story in her story only

Richard Haight 1:59:17
Do you for me personally. Do you remember the movie was actually originally a like a novella by Stephen King called Stand By Me. Of course, who directed that? That would be Rob Reiner. Rob Reiner. Okay. Now he was probably popular at that time the actors is no one really knew

Alex Ferrari 1:59:33
Well they were nobodies. They were all kids. Yeah, they're all kids.

Richard Haight 1:59:35
They're all kids. Right. But, but that one really hit me. Like I could watch that endlessly. But almost exactly. My childhood. That's how I grew up.

Alex Ferrari 1:59:46
Well, the thing is that that movie specifically Rob Reiner was not a big director. Yet. Yes. He was not he was not. He was known as meathead from all in the family. He's He's the actor who played meathead. and all the family so he was still trying to

Richard Haight 2:00:02
Okay, so this movie would fit into what we're looking for.

Alex Ferrari 2:00:04
Yeah, it was a studio movie. But again, we're talking about 80. So that movie was probably in the 7 8 9 $10 million world, which is basically an independent film in the studio world, but that was a small movie, but it had Stephen King behind it. But it wasn't your normal CNN came from wasn't a horror movie. So it wasn't something that they can really hang

Richard Haight 2:00:21
That ring with the same kind of authenticity that you're talking about?

Alex Ferrari 2:00:25
Oh, absolutely. Because there's because it was authentic to Stephen King. Yes. And then the authenticity that Stephen King brought it into the story, the screenwriter took it to the next level. And then Rob Reiner understood it very clearly brought his authenticity to it. And then the actors brought their authenticity, even though they don't, they didn't have that existence, because they were kids. But they were authentic to the characters of who they were playing. But it all started with Stephen. It all started with Stephen King. So we you start going throughout cinematic history, you start analyzing hits and non hits. You look at a movie like The Matrix, which I talked about a lot on the show that was as authentic to the was our skis, who directed and wrote it as anything that they've never been able to read. Honestly, they've been able to reconnect with it. They've tried many times. I've never been nowhere near the first so no, there. You know, I enjoyed the second one. The third one I didn't like the fourth one was there. But the fourth one yet, it's okay. It's fine. But watch it The first one was good enough. The first one is one of those stories that shook the world. The movie that the world changed after that movie, because it started to question reality. It's the first time in a mass way that we all started to question it, whether you're questioning if it were a simulation, whether your question, but you started to ask different questions after that film. And it was hidden in this beautiful, action packed visual effects extravaganza. So it was able to hit the masses. You know, someone like oh god, James Cameron. So James Cameron, who's one of the most famous directors in history, one of the successful directors in history made Avatar and Titanic and so on. He made a sequel to aliens. Oh, if you so aliens, the reason why people look back when the first one was alien and an alien. Right, exactly. First one was directed by Ridley Scott, who was a master. Okay, second one was a young director who had just made a movie called Terminator, who really is still trying to figure himself out as far as I figure himself out, but other people needed to figure him out. Sure. But the way he approached that story, was unlike a normal way you approach a story, you he approached it in the way of this is a story about two mothers protecting their young. Yes, yes. And that changed the intent. But that's enough, that makes it real, we can relate to that. And that's why there's aliens, there's action, there's, but at the end of the day, it's a story about a mother protecting their child, and from the alien queen point of view that she was protecting her children. And from her point of view, she was protecting nude, which is the adopted daughter that she got along the way. That authenticity into story, we were able to connect to because there was something so and again, from his perspective, if you notice throughout his entire filmography, it's full of strong women.

Richard Haight 2:03:25
Yes, yes, that's right. That's right. All his films, all of them have strong even that's including the abyss,

Alex Ferrari 2:03:32
The Abyss True Lies, yes. Titanic, all the terminal, all the tournament, strong women at the core, that is something that's authentic to him, because he was raised by a strong woman. Hmm. You see what I mean? So these are, this is authenticity. And it doesn't have to be like, the extreme of Big Fat Greek Wedding, which is like literally my experience, but aspects of you the truth that you are thrown through your art through through what you're doing. And I truly feel that that's, and that's what people connect to. Yes, Steven Spielberg, could you connect to ET? Because Steven Spielberg looked up in the sky with his father, and wondered about aliens.

Richard Haight 2:04:18
That's right. It was a real feeling for him

Alex Ferrari 2:04:20
And for him, and that is why you connect to him that film, there are other films that he's made that you might not connect to. But there but this but this specific, that specific field you were able to connect to? So like, you know, and we could not

Richard Haight 2:04:35
Actually because you have you now have the screen, right. Like you said, there's many layers. Are you okay with time? Can you I'm fine, fine, fine. So you have the screenwriter, and so you've got the maybe whatever the original story is, if it was a book or whatnot, I don't know. But then you got to run through the this, the screenwriter, who then has to get approval by the producer and the director and it gets rewritten many, many times as to go through the actors and proper sets that isn't even the space that it's in. has to feel authentic. tick, each actor in it has to feel the all the universe if we're talking about close encounters, for example, or else it won't come through. It's such an incredible collaboration, potentially, what we're talking about is authenticity, the truth that sets you free in a completely falsified world.

Alex Ferrari 2:05:20
Absolutely.

Richard Haight 2:05:23
As we hear it, what we're really talking about objective reality, we're really talking about the reality of feeling that's the truth that sets you free. And to see to that is the way forward and that's what people don't people want to think it's meditating on a mountain saying so many ohms or doing this that or the other thing following this certain tenants, but all of that is tertiary stuff. Most of it can just be burned up and tossed out. If you if you are living to the depth of your inner reality, and I don't mean your beliefs, I mean exactly love you have for your child, parent or the all you felt when looking at the universe or the the describable drive to become a director or whatever your passion, why you have that passion, you may not even know

Alex Ferrari 2:06:24
Programs program that the factory program, program that the factory.

Richard Haight 2:06:30
But unless you explore those things, you are going to be miserable.

Alex Ferrari 2:06:36
Absolutely, I agree with you. 100%. Richard, man, I, I love talking to you. It is such a great we always we always have such fascinating conversations. This was definitely one of those very fascinating conversations. We went everywhere. We talked about so many different big questions, and it has been an absolute pleasure. Can you tell people where they can pick up your new book, The Genesis code?

Richard Haight 2:07:03
So Genesis code I never asked you did you have a chance to read the whole thing or not?

Alex Ferrari 2:07:08
Not the whole thing Iwas I was reading it's a pretty it's pretty dense. So you start reading you just like I can't kind of digest. Okay, I can't digest

Richard Haight 2:07:14
Better to take it slow.

Alex Ferrari 2:07:15
Yeah, yeah, it's bite bite bite on that when you can eat all hell up. And at the same time.

Richard Haight 2:07:19
Yeah, it's it's really, it's really deep. It's not that it's complicated. And like, it's not like I use big words too much.

Alex Ferrari 2:07:26
No, no, no, no, it's about the the concepts. You read it and you're like, I got to sit down and think about it. You really

Richard Haight 2:07:31
It's gonna make you reframe. If you're being honest, don't read a reframe the way you see just about everything, not only agenesis but nature of reality and yourself. And you will only know if it works if you actually apply it correctly. What it summarizes to is authenticity. Now, where can people know where can people get it? Oh, so this is available yet? Any online? Yeah, any online store, for example? whatnot, you can find it on Amazon. Most people will probably get it from there. But no, we're not. Yeah. I think I'm not even sure how many bookstores are open.

Alex Ferrari 2:08:04
There's a there's a couple there's a couple. There's a couple left. And then where can people find out more about your work?

Richard Haight 2:08:10
RichardLHaight.com. I have a lot of videos on YouTube as well. Right now I'm going through what I call the trust experiment. So real briefly, I've about three years ago, I was diagnosed with impending paralysis, run over by a horse. And there's, there's there's no solution for this particular problem. Rheumatoid arthritis is growing into the nerves, cutting them off. So eventually, I would lose my arms. And after that, I doesn't meditation and my body gave me a solution. I applied it, that went away. For three years, it's come back. But now my body's telling me something very, very different. And it's called the trust experiment, which is to actually go into the paralysis, not try to fight it. And this is going to challenge like, my students don't want to see that happen. Who would want to see that happen? But sure, like depth of my being, I need to go into this fully the attitude that that's just where my body, like, if I close my eyes and meditate, it's like my body is just completely turned into trust. And I need to explore paralysis. And that's not wrong, it feels like right on every level. But if I'm talking about I've got six or seven videos up talking about this process, if you watch them, you'll start to notice like really obviously, where you don't trust yourself. That's important to know. Whether you go through the kind of trial I'm going through right now or not, it's irrelevant, because you'll have lots of other areas in your life where trust for yourself will be challenged. And I don't mean your egoic self I mean like your the depth of your being will be challenged and most of us don't notice when we just when we turn our backs on that that depth of being with for those who are on awakening path you might find those videos very helpful. And I'm going to invite you to join the trust experiment to the degree that you can.

Alex Ferrari 2:10:10
I Richard, appreciate you man appreciate the time. This has been a fantastic conversation you are welcome anytime back on the show. Because we always have I mean we ended last class conversation with a wily coyote and the Road Runner and this one we went down the path of movies and and finding the truth in yourself so I I appreciate you my friend, thank you for all the hard work you're doing out there and, and and trying to help people around the world so I appreciate you my friend.

Richard Haight 2:10:37
Thank you, Alex. Anytime I love to talk with you.