Brendan Murphy Beyond the Veil

[Speaker 1] (0:00 - 1:16) What's up, everyone? Welcome back to the Here for the Truth podcast. Today, we are seeing the return of Brendan Murphy, author, speaker, podcaster himself. We have an amazing conversation diving deep into some of the themes of his work, his first book, The Grand Illusion, and his upcoming book, The Grand Illusion II, diving into nature of reality. What is beyond the veil? What is consciousness? What happens when one dies? Does this experience continue? What is heaven? Some of these are fascinating conversations and questions we get into right here. I think you guys are really going to get a lot of value out of it, for sure. Right before we bring Brendan on, Rise Above the Herd, the next round starts again, October 15th. This is our 10-week psycho-spiritual program, basically designed to give you an upper level in every single area of your life, for you to dig deep, to live more authentically, and to really create a reality for yourself that is more aligned with the true nature of who you are. If you're down, you can head to riseabovetheherd.co and submit an application to join the program right there. Okay. Enjoy this episode. [Speaker 2] (1:17 - 1:24) You are now listening to the Truth Podcast, hosted by Joel Raffiti and Yerasimos. [Speaker 1] (1:27 - 9:08) Brendan Murphy is an author, speaker, and researcher known for integrating spirituality and science. His book, The Grand Illusion, challenges materialist views of reality, presenting consciousness as the foundation of existence. He explores themes like the holographic nature of the universe and the brain as a receiver of consciousness. He's also the through diversity, a platform for raising consciousness and facilitates personal growth through his Evolve Yourself program, helping individuals accelerate their spiritual and personal evolution. He first joined us, it was a while ago now, episode 90, and we got into a bunch of stuff there. I think aliens, new age, Christian flip, modern medical lives, things like that. But anyway, man, we're now neighbors. We're both living in San Miguel Allende here in beautiful Central Mexico. Got to hang out a few times, get the families together. It's been awesome, man. How you doing? Yeah, good, good. It's good to be back with you too. And yeah, stoked to be neighbors too, man. It's awesome. Life is a weird, wild ride. Life is a weird, wild ride and such a trip. Also being from, I think we were both born in Sydney, never meeting in Australia really, then connecting here in Mexico in person, it's trippy for sure. Yeah. Man, I want to get into some of the meat and bones of your book because we didn't really get deep into that realm the last time we spoke. So, I guess initially, what kind of inspired the Grand Illusion? I mean, that's basically the long story short of it is I had experiences that concretized the ideas that were put forward in a book that I read when I was 20, I think. The book was called The Holographic Universe. It's pretty well known. So, that came into my life through my brother who is three years younger. He was still at school. He came home one day. He was like, there's this young guy I gave a talk, but he kept going off topic. He was supposed to be talking about business and he kept going back to this other book. So, I was like, okay. My brother felt compelled to let me know about that. He didn't often come home with book recommendations or whatever. So, I put that on the back burner for six months and eventually got around to reading it, blew my mind, opened up my awareness of possibilities. And then, I started having experiences like the first mystical experience I ever had. I was lying in bed not long after having read this book and integrated. I was just lying in bed and suddenly, I was like infinite consciousness. So, that was the beginning of, well, obviously, that's a very big paradigm shift for most people to realize that. So, the message of the book is basically conveying that from as many different angles as I possibly could and researching it from as many different angles as possible. So, pulling different fields of research together, showing that the message at the end of the day is the same. Consciousness is the basis of reality. Yeah, yeah. So, what was the book that your brother brought to you? That was the Holographic Universe by Michael Talbot. Oh, cool, cool, cool. Yeah. So, I've heard this term a lot, holographic universe, but what does that mean? Yeah. So, basically, the idea is in a hologram, I guess the core idea is that all information in the hologram exists at every point within the hologram. So, if you have a holographic photographic paper, you take an image, you can imprint the information of the image into the film. But, it's like if you cut it into pieces, you get in a holographic piece of film, you get the whole image in every little fragment. Whereas if you broke like a mirror, you get little fragmentary pieces of the whole. But in a holographic film, you get the entire image in every piece of it, in every fragment. So, essentially, the idea that all the information for, like if we take a photo of Joel and it's with holographic film, you break it apart, you shine a light on it, you get the entire image of Joel in every little fragment of broken film. So, the information that codes for Joel, all of it is completely present in every point. So, to apply it to the cosmos, all information exists at any point you go to in the cosmos that we exist in. So, you can access, at least in principle, all information anywhere you go, if that makes sense. Yeah. I mean, because when I, I guess in times of personal reflection and contemplation, I've felt like everything can be known just by examining what's happening within me. And it's almost like the same kind of principles apply on every layer. Is this something that would fit into this concept that you're talking about a little bit? Yeah, 100%. That's it. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And we're just kind of like filters or prisms that the information field operates through. So, like you said, you can sit in contemplation and access all sorts of information. There's no real limit to that either. Yeah. So, what does this mean for a human being coming into this knowledge? How did this impact you, I guess? And how should this be impacting people and how can they utilize this to be like, oh, wow, my consciousness is shifting or is more than I thought it was? Yeah. Well, I mean, for me, that's it. Amy's asked me that question so many times. Why does it matter to you? Why do you care? What are you trying to convey to people? And I'm always like, I don't know. It's just really interesting. But it turns our standard models of reality completely upside down. So, now you have a basis. At the very least, you have a basis for the idea that consciousness, first of all, doesn't come into existence through a physical body, through a nervous system, through a brain. So, we can now have a starting point for understanding, well, we can survive the death of the physical body where we are immortal. And in essence, we are immortal. The thing that created us, which is us, is immortal. It's not subject to the rules of time and space and all these sorts of ideas. Yeah. So, like... Well, I was going to say that belief, how does that impact you in terms of how you live your life? The belief of that we're immortal, does that impact you in a different way? Do you live differently because of that? Yeah, because you realize, obviously, that your choices have consequences. Nobody gets out alive, so to speak, but you will survive. Your consciousness continues to exist. So, the thing is the nature of that existence after the body stops working is determined by the kind of life that you have lived and what you have of yourself and what you've become. So, therefore, there's tremendous value in self-development and the kind of stuff that you guys do in WRATH and actually working on who you are and being a better person. So, that is, in the end, analysis. We learn that from the whole field of near-death experiences is rife with that message. It's like what you become in the afterlife is what you make of yourself here and now. And there are, yeah, there are essentially consequences for the choices that we make. [Speaker 3] (9:09 - 9:09) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (9:09 - 35:44) I think with the realization that the game doesn't end, the weights of every single choice that we make now is so much greater, especially with the psychological awareness of every decision I make is either casting a shadow if it's based in lies and illusion and falsehood, or it's leading me towards growth and potential. And I can, yeah, I mean, that's actually quite profound. It's not like you can just come here, run a market, do whatever the fuck you want, and then get a clean slate at the end of the day. So, would you say that if we're talking about reincarnation and the soul lives on, that there's always an incremental progress? So, let's say I'm living my life now as Erosimus. I'm doing the best I can to be as conscious and healthy and live with integrity that that's going to continue on as opposed to, no, I'm going to revert back in the next life and I'm going to be someone who lies, cheats, and steals, that kind of thing. Yeah. That's part of it. Yeah. That's part of the game. And there are different levels to it because if you go up to what you could call higher levels of self-identity, higher levels of consciousness, then you get a much broader bird's-eye view of yourself. You realise, oh, well, I'm this self, but I'm all these other selves as well, scattered through time, the illusion of time and space. Maybe you get to see, well, you've got personalities or different versions of you that are living in faraway galaxies and completely different cosmoses with different physical laws and rules and just all sorts of weirdness, but that is all part of you. So, as you go up, say, dimensional levels, you get access to more of yourself, but also your concepts of time change with that. So, you could see, well, you'll say past lives would become present to your awareness as a higher entity that is emanating those personalities. I might be going a bit off track with that, but hopefully that's- No, not at all. I'm curious more on a personal level, have you experienced these lives that you've lived previously or potentially in the future again? Or simultaneously. Or simultaneously, and then how do you integrate that and go, well, this is real, as opposed to potentially some hallucination or imagination? And is there a difference? Yeah, I mean, that's a pretty good question. A lot of people out there, there's a massive body of research on past life stuff, past life regression. You guys would have heard of it, at the very least. I know Joel's familiar. I'm sure you are. So, we have multiple, different practitioners in the realm of hypnotherapy, past life regression stuff, who produced essentially the same body of information independently replicating each other, which is really interesting because we're talking about hundreds of thousands of people around the world who've gone and had this work done on themselves to access this type of information in altered states of consciousness. And what they come back with is essentially, the nature of it is more or less the same in essence, time and time again. So, it's a very interesting kind of empirical body of data and people are absolutely convinced that the information they've accessed is real and the experience that they are having when they go into the inter-life, their life between lives realms, that that is completely real. People are very, very convinced about the reality of that as distinct from, they say that that world is more real than this world. And that's what the near-death crowd also says. It was so much more real than this life here. Yeah. I can't remember if we talked about it on our first chat together, but I remember reading a very long time ago, Brian Weiss's book, Many Lives, Many Masters. And that had a huge impact on me at the time. I feel like it's kind of faded a little bit. But it was fascinating that you can put someone through hypnotherapy and then they would have these experiences. And not only that, I think the thing that really impacted me the most was that this person when she was under hypnosis was able to tell things to Dr. Weiss that he had never told anyone before. My mind just goes like, fucking how? How? It's so fascinating to me. Yeah. And that's pretty normal in that space. And that's coming in the NDE world as well. People come back with information that they shouldn't have had access to even under normal circumstances, but even more so when their physical body was dead at the time, clinically dead, and they're coming back with information that from a conventional point of view, they shouldn't have had access to. So, that's compelling. That's worth pondering on for sure. That's very significant. And it changes people's lives. That client of Dr. Weiss's was forever altered because of that treatment. And he was. He went in a completely different direction in his life's work. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it completely, radically changed him. He was so moved by the information. I think she came up with stuff about his dad and his son. And it was very profound for that to happen to him because it was so personal, so close to home. And yeah, it's like, well, okay. So, we're not just meat sacks anymore. We're something much, much bigger than that and much more complex than that. We're not just that attitude of so many people have of when you're dead, you're dead and that's it, game over. Well, it turns out it's a lot harder to die than we thought. Yeah. I want to bring up something that happened to me recently. I mean, you might be aware that my father passed away in February. And I met someone through our little health or freedom community here in LA. And I ran into her at the farmer's market and she just came up to me and she didn't know me very well. And she's like, I got a message from your dad to let you know. And I was just like, what? And she came up to me really bluntly. And for me, I'm fine with that kind of thing. I could see how to someone else, they might not be as cool with you coming forth like that. And I was just like, oh, okay. And she said a few things that landed, but then I saw her a couple of weeks later. And she came up to me and she said, I got another message from your dad. And he wants you to know that he's proud of you. And he didn't understand everything that you did in this life from his vantage point, but he gets it all now. And he understands that. And obviously it hits me emotionally because it resonates. But then I'm like, but I just don't understand it on some level too. I sense it and I can believe it, but then I'm like, well, I'd like to talk to him. I'd like to connect to him and maybe one day I will. But you hear that very often. I mean, this isn't the first time that I've come across someone who can connect to the other world in this way or whatever you want to call it. So, I'm just curious your thoughts on that and if you've had personal experience with something like that as well. Yeah. I've had stuff like that as well. It's very powerful when it happens. For example, my dad's dad, back when I got into this world, I was only 20. So, I've been in it for 21 years now. So, I've experienced a lot of weirdness that would probably freak a lot of people out. One of the early ones was a psychic reading. I spent two years going to a spiritualist church in Sydney and they would do these Sunday services, kind of like a bit churchy, but with the spiritualist twist on it. And they would have a guest medium come in and do readings for the audience kind of thing. And one of them one day, she singled me out and she was like, oh, I've got your pop here. And this is a woman off the street. She has no idea who I am. She's no way of knowing anything about me. And this is obviously back in 20 years ago. The internet was very, very different. We're not podcasting. I'm not on Instagram or any of that stuff. There's no public information about me. And she's like, oh, I've got your pop here. So, first of all, she knows that he's dead, even though she knows nothing about me. And then she's like, okay, so he's showing me his tattoo on his shoulder. I'm like, okay, well, that's where his arm, wherever it was. And I was like, okay, well, he did have tattoos there. And then she started going on about, oh, he's saying, you've been thinking about getting a tattoo. And honestly, I'm 20 years old. In the two weeks, the two weeks leading up to this meeting was the only two weeks of my life I'd ever pondered getting a tattoo. The rest of my life didn't think about it at all. But the two weeks leading up to this church service, I was thinking about it. I was like, what would I get? I don't know. What would I get? And so, he's like, she's going, well, he's here and he's saying, don't get a tattoo because you're going to be stuck with it forever. Don't do it. It's not a great idea. So, I'm like, okay, so this one's pretty good. And then she starts going on about his little bird. And he had a little pet budgerigar. And he would get it out of the cage and let it sort of pop up and up and down his arm and fly around the room and stuff. So, now she's talking about his pet budgie and what he would do. He would talk to it and all of this stuff. And it was like everything she said was absolutely accurate, absolutely spot on, including knowing that I was thinking about getting a tattoo when the rest of my life I'd never thought twice about it. So, yeah, I've had lots of experiences like this. The research into mediums is pretty extensive now. And it's verified under rigorously controlled conditions. People like Dr. Gary Schwartz have run ridiculously controlled experiments with mediums of all sorts like Alison Dubois and James Amprar and John Edward and all these famous psychotypes under conditions where it's impossible for somebody to cheat. It's impossible for somebody to fake their way through getting information. And long story short is these types of psychics, the legitimate ones, they pass the test with flying colors. I mean, some of them are scoring in the 90s, 95, 98% accuracy with absolutely no idea who they're doing the psychic reading for even and getting no informational feedback as to, well, that was accurate, that's not accurate. Nothing, nothing at all. They're completely blind, as blind as you can get. And the information's very, very accurate. Yeah. I'm probably going to butcher this story. Sorry, Alyssa, in advance. So, I think it's her auntie. Some time ago, her auntie's husband died. He passed away, right? And in world traditions, when they're buried, he's got a full suit on. He's got all these jewelry, everything in the coffin and he's buried. And then she kept getting these visions or these dreams where she was sensing that he was cold. He was really, really, really, really cold. And she could not shake it. It was so recurring or so prevalent, so prominent. And this is extremely out of the ordinary, but she commissioned the funeral home to go and re-dig up the coffin to see what was going on. And upon finding him, he was completely naked. His suit was gone. His jewelry was gone. Everything was gone. He was literally cold and naked, like this vision that she was getting. It's like someone grave robbed. How does that happen? It's crazy. Well, even premonition dreams. I've had premonition dreams before where I have a dream and then I wake up and then the next day it's a reality. It happens. You were going to say something in response to Joel. Uh, yeah. That's an interesting one because it's like, well, you know, the spirit, like his soul, isn't there hanging out in the ground. Like, so the choice of words, like that kind of that particular message of I'm cold is quite an interesting one. Like that's not, it would have been easy. You would think it would be easy to go, Hey, like I'm naked. Like they've stolen my clothes. Maybe it was I'm naked. It's like, maybe like I'm recalling the other story third hand or whatever. But yeah, sometimes like sometimes communications happen like that. I had, um, I had, yeah, go ahead, bro. Well, I was going to say that you bring up an interesting point because then it just goes into like the difference between what is a soul experience? Like, do they experience temperature? You know what I mean? Like what, what, I just think, yeah. Like what is these, these beings, these entities that communicate to people on earth? Like what is their personal experience? You know, I'm not, obviously I don't think, you know, the exact answer you can hypothesize. Maybe there's research on it, but like, I think about that. Like even in Joel's story, like, is he like, Ooh, like I'm shivering. But is there, is there, is there, like, I mean, I've heard like there's some kind of like a limbo period potentially, like where people are still hanging around, like kind of like earth side checking in, seeing what's going on. Like maybe like, you know, this was something that was affected this soul. Yeah. And there's, that's the thing, like, there's a spectrum of experience that's possible with someone who, when, when people cross, they're like, you get the people who are very, very strongly identified with the physicality. And so they tend to be very earth bound. And they might have like, the thing is that not everybody who dies realizes that they're dead either. Like a lot of the information we get is, is about someone who's even died suddenly or whether they've died in their sleep. And then, you know, somebody has had to, somebody non-physically in their spirit world has had to come to them and try to explain to them that their situation has changed and they're not actually alive in the physical anymore. And sometimes that's a really difficult conversation to have because not every, because they're, they're so viscerally, they feel so viscerally alive still that they can't believe that they're dead. So they think this other person who's trying to do them a, you know, a favor by helping them understand is, is a raving lunatic. Like, what are you talking about? I'm dead. I'm right here. I can feel my skin. I'm warm. Like all this stuff, like they are having a full sensory experience like we do in the physical. So yeah, there's a, there's a range of experiences. There's movies where those scenes like that play out too, where someone, you know, dies, but then they think they're alive and they're tripping out because people are trying to, the other spirits are trying to tell them, yo, you're dead, bro. It sounds like, like there's guides, you know, whether they're, you know, related or not, whatever it might be, you know. Yeah. Yeah. Very, very interesting. Like, I don't want to die. I like, I mean, I'm going to, but like, I'm still curious. Yeah. Like, I'm so like, I'm so curious and even more so since experiencing, you know, my father's death, like this is like kind of catapulted me in a new, a new level of curiosity around death and around, you know, what happens and, you know, where did my father go? And, you know, he did have a lovely, peaceful death, uh, relative to like how other people go. And it's like, in that moment, like, again, you could read about it. There's NDEs, uh, research and stuff, but that personal experience, I'm like, man, I can't, like, I can't wait, but I can wait. You know what I mean? It's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Don't worry, man. You'll get there. It's a, it's really interesting because we do have, there's a lot of, um, you know, communication from, from the other side of the veil. Um, and it seems to be getting easier as well. And what they're telling us is over and over, like all sorts of different ways to die, different types of experience, but yeah, like for the most part, most people experience it. Um, if they're conscious through the process, um, you know, an extremely positive, amazing, uplifting, you know, joyous kind of a way, it's like the most amazing experience. And that's, that's a message from the NDE research realm, uh, over and over. It's like, that was the best thing that ever happened to me. Dying is the best experience ever. Um, you know, all that kind of stuff. And it's, it's, um, we get a lot of information from, you know, across the veil about what their existence is like and what it was like when they were first realizing that they were dead, um, and how they process that information. You know, whether they had a traumatic death, what kind of state was their psyche in? Like they have a lot of emotional baggage, um, because then that's, that's something that has to be kind of like worked through and processed. Suicide would be probably gnarly to grapple with. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Like you don't, you don't want to do that. It's not, it's not a solution. Um, because, cause the body is, is a damping mechanism. Like the body filters out, um, like feeling. And, um, so when you get rid of the body and you're just left with the non-physical bodies, then you are going to be in a pretty, like not an awesome condition. You're going to be like, oh shit, well, I'm still here and my problems are still here, but now I've really fucked up because I can't do anything like about my physical life to, you know, move that forward or solve things. So here I am. And, and apparently what I've gathered so far is that when people that have their lives cut short unnaturally, like whether it's suicide or, um, uh, you know, just in the heat to keep by bus or something like when it's not their time, they tend to have to stay, uh, kind of like in, in this sort of limbo in between earthbound kind of state until the natural, like timeframe of their natural life, expires. Um, which is, yeah, it's kind of, I wasn't really expecting that. Um, so if you die at like 25, it's obviously further away from what would be considered natural. So you're just kicking it, you're kicking it in earthbound for like another 50 years or so. Wouldn't that correlate like traditional ideas of like haunting, you know, as well, like if someone's died unnatural, like that, then if they're still in that place, like it would be quote unquote haunted, obviously without the, you know, the stigma that comes with that, so to speak, you know, there's a non-physical life that occupies this place as well. I think about, you know, like Palestine, you know, thousands of kids, you know, men, women, whatever, and their lives ending unnaturally, like is, would there be like a big conglomerate of non-physical life in that place just hanging out? Yeah, it's, it's interesting because that's, that's one possibility. Um, the thing is people's belief systems have a lot to do with whether or not there is a, like whether or not they can move on, um, and whether or not somebody in the spirit world can come and intervene effectively and help them. Um, like there is, there are teams of, of, uh, like workers in the non-physical realms who are, you know, devoted to dealing with crisis situations and, and helping people transition, like, okay, like, you know, someone's just died, we're going to go over there and help them, like not freak out, you're still alive, but just not in the same way anymore. Um, and then when, when it's like mass disasters, like the Palestine thing, you know, mass, um, atrocities, they, they have teams of people, like going into these areas to, to basically shepherd, um, people into the appropriate kind of realm in the, in the afterlife realms, because there's, you know, not just one place, like people's belief systems largely dictate, um, the immediate kind of post-mortem experience and where they go. So, yeah, there's, there's a lot that, that happens and there's a lot that's possible. It's not necessarily just like one thing, you know. Do you think there's like a different realm for each like Abrahamic religion, you know, like the Christians go to this realm and then, you know, Muslims go to that realm and, you know, Jews go to this realm? Yeah, that's exactly it. That's exactly what the research shows us, which is, it's kind of funny, but it's like, that's what happens because people's belief systems are what, you know, divide them. Um, and you know, what you identify with is, is what you gravitate towards. So, um, I'm getting to like everything we're talking about. I just want to say for the listeners, um, everything we're talking about, I've gone into in like unbelievable depth here. Like I'm painting the picture in a way that I don't think anybody has really. Um, so yeah, there's like a belief system heaven for every belief system, every religion. Um, there are no Buddhists in, you know, Christian heaven. There's no Jews in the, you know, so on. So like there are, what, what happens is people construct a virtual reality kind of simulation, um, that matches what they believed in their physical life. They go there and then they're happy. Like they're at least comfortable. Um, they're not too disoriented. It's expected. It's expected. That's, and that's kind of the whole point in a way. And, and the problem with a lot of like the belief systems that we have is, um, they're not very enlightened. Uh, you know, there's not a lot of like self-awareness that's part of the deal. So, um, a lot of these people end up in like a Christian fundamentalist kind of heaven and they think that they've made it to heaven and that's, that's it like game over kind of thing. And, and then somebody who's outside of that system has to kind of come in and go, okay, so who like, they have to kind of, it's almost like you get these, these souls coming in undercover to, to go, okay, who here is kind of starting to question the reality that they're in? Like, who's having a little bit of doubt, like, and that doesn't add up. And that seems a bit off. And, and those people, they'll, they'll single out in a way to go on, like communicate with them and go, Hey, this is not actually heaven. This is just your Christian belief system heaven. And, you know, there's this other place that we can, you know, move on to kind of thing. And, you know, kind of like if plant, start planting seeds and having conversations with them to start getting their, um, scope of awareness to expand and move on. So they're not stuck in these places. So you're saying that there is like a realer and more genuine afterlife or realm heaven beyond the dogmatic kind of sections as well. Yeah. Yeah. Um, like the Monroe Institute refers to them as belief system territories. Um, and they're all kind of like, I, I just, I placed them in my, in my model. It's basically just all kind of like low, low, mid astral kind of simulated realities where the beliefs that you have create this holographic world that seems really real and convincing. Um, but beyond that there's, you know, there's infinity, there's all these other different realities that are waiting to be, um, reconnected with and remembered. Um, and all we're doing by being dogmatic in our beliefs, it's just kind of like delaying the process and, and, you know, running the risk of like kind of retarding your spiritual growth and development and maybe unnecessarily reincarnating if you don't necessarily need to, or doing it in a way that's not very calculated and, um, well prepared or, you know, it's just like, it's not a good, you don't want to be stuck in a belief system territory. It's, it's a, yeah, it's not the end game. It's just a very temporary phase for someone who's got a very limited outlook. Well, I just want to say that, I mean, I look forward to the three of us hanging out in this lifetime, but when we get to that belief territory afterlife, like shit's going to go off guys. Yep. Yep. Um, so many inappropriate jokes could follow. It's cool to think about, like, it's cool to contemplate, like, I don't know for sure, but like, it's, I don't know, like having this conversation now, it's like, I can feel like my cells buzzing. Like it's exciting. It's, it's cool to think about. So. So, okay. I mean, so what is this experience and why are we having it? Um, uh, I would say universally in the, in the, in the realm of, it depends on your reference frame that you're asking, but in the realm of the NDE crowd and the past life regression crowd, the answer is it's basically just a school. It's an experience. Um, it's just part of a very temporary stage now, overall spiritual growth and development. And it's a way to have a particular type of experience that otherwise wouldn't be possible. Um, and you know, it's entirely done by choice voluntarily. Nobody forces us to be here. Um, and we're not trapped. It's not a soul trap. It's not a harvest, soul whatever. Um, the archons aren't in charge, all of this sort of stuff. Um, that's not how it works. Yeah. Like, Oh no. Like let's extend our victim mentality into the non-physical realm as well. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so like, are there, um, like, okay. We referred to as a school, are there like levels or like grades? Is this like a one level? And these are like, uh, do you graduate if you want to come back and have another experience? Do you graduate to like a different kind of grade? Yeah. Like, I mean, that's possible because there's so many, there's, you know, there's endless realms to potentially go into and explore and be a part of. Um, but it's funny you use the word graduate because, um, that is part of the lexicon of, you know, the Monroe Institute as well. Like just as a, you know, there's so many different answers that we could get, but that that's one aspect of it. It's like the graduates of this system, what they call the earth life system, uh, basically people who have managed to embody unconditional love. Like that's kind of what it boils down to. Like, it's like the challenge here is, is to overcome like life circumstances and a bio biological, um, framework that, that is kind of inimical to the experience of unconditional love. So it's like, it's kind of, in a way it's like the ultimate challenge. Um, so we're here to, to, you know, as I said, learn to love, um, and do it in a way that's like as unconditional, as broad, as non, you know, agenda based as possible. And the people who do that to the fullest extent are the ones who, you know, graduate and move on to, you know, whatever, whatever comes next. Maybe they just go back to their over soul group, the soul cluster and just, you know, hang out there for an indefinite amount of time. Or, you know, we can talk about, you know, there's ideas of like nirvana and this nirvana and that nirvana and, you know, liberation. And I'm not really a fan of, of a lot of that talk because, um, at the end of the day, I don't think that we're, I think it, it lacks nuance and it presumes too much. Like at the, at the core of experience and at the core of existence is, is, is a mystery, um, that no one can really unravel. Um, so, you know, it's like there, there's a mystical tradition that says that, uh, liberation is just another form of, of Maya, um, another form of illusion. So where does that leave those people? Like being, being really attached to that sort of, yeah. And I mean, being liberated from what? [Speaker 3] (35:44 - 35:44) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (35:45 - 35:46) Yeah. [Speaker 3] (35:46 - 35:46) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (35:46 - 35:57) Yeah. Yeah. Like from one, like oneself, really, when I like when people want liberation, I think on an unconscious level, they're begging for liberation from themselves, you know, from being human. Yeah. [Speaker 3] (35:57 - 35:58) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (35:58 - 45:33) Or just being them, being their consciousness, being their consciousness. Yeah. I mean, it's hard. Like earth life is pretty hard. Like, let's, let's be real. Like it's, it's not easy, but, but, you know, if you think that your highest purpose for being here is to get the hell out of here, then no, like you've missed, you've actually missed the point of, of why you're here in the first place. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I know someone who's influenced you on your journey has been the material of David Icke in some ways, and David Icke would, I disagree with him on this level. I think what you're saying kind of differs as well. Like he kind of comes from the perspective that this is some place to escape from is what I've seen generally speaking. Yeah. Yeah. Someone sent me like, cause I haven't read any of his stuff for ages. Yeah. Um, and cause I feel like I've, I've kind of moved on. Um, you know, it's, yeah. Someone sent me like six pages of one of his recent books about, I think it was The Trap. Um, and cause they mentioned it to me, like, you know, people ask me like, what do you think about this idea? You know, the soul trap or whatever. And I was like, well, can you send me something? What's he talking about? Um, and you know, there wasn't really any substance to it. It was kind of, it was kind of like, he was, he's kind of got one foot in one camp and one foot in the other camp. Like his, his found, his foundational message for, you know, 30 years is infinite love is the only truth and everything else is illusion. Well, if infinite love is the only truth, then, you know, what is the truth of, of life here? Like, isn't that just another, another variation of the theme? Like, what are, what are we trying to escape from? I mean, he's, his paradigm, his foundation is the same as mine. It's infinite consciousness. And I, I speak from experience with that. Not, it's not a belief, it's an experience that I've had multiple times. So for me, it's not abstract in the slightest. And I'm like, well, that's the container that all my, all my other realities exist within, like infinity. So if we are infinite, what is there to escape from? What is there to run away from? Who can keep us trapped or imprisoned? Like, it doesn't make any sense. Yeah. Yeah. No, I hear you. It's, it's, it's, I mean, self-imposed amnesia is one thing. Like, people come in here, they go through a process of forgetting, like the, you know, they drink from the river of, river of forgetfulness, so to speak. And, and we have to do that. That's part of the experience of being here is sublimating the rest of our, our memories and of, and the data of who we are, like on a multi-dimensional, you know, massive timeline kind of scale, like all these other selves, we sublimate that. That's part of the deal. And we know that coming in, because it allows us to focus on having this life's experience and just optimizing that experience rather than being distracted by, Oh my God, I did all this horrible stuff in these other lives and, you know, getting sidetracked and, and, you know, wallowing in self-pity or whatever, like we're supposed to be focused on this life. Like Joel Rafiti and Erasmus are supposed to live the best versions of themselves that they can possibly fucking manage. Like, that's it. That's your focus. And that's my focus as Brendan. Like I get to be Brendan this one time and that's it. Like, whatever comes after that, I don't know. And we're not supposed to know. And I don't know what came before it either, because we're not really supposed to have that information either. Like some people come in with a little bit of past life memory, but not a lot, not much in the grand scheme of things. Like we're not supposed to have it. And there, there are energetic reasons for that as well. Like Bruce, Bruce Mullen went into a lot of this stuff where he watched, he was a colleague at Monroe's and he watched in his out of body states, souls coming into the earth life system. And there's like a sort of a tower, what he perceived as a sort of a tower with like two bell structures opposite. I'm sure Dan Winter would have a lot to say about that structure, but people would go through, the souls would come through and there would be like a central point where they would be compressed. And the soul, it's like the energy field goes from like here down to here. There's this compression process so that we can not just like intentionally forget about the rest of, you know, the cells, but our history, but also to survive the energetic noise and chaos of life on earth. Like, because as far as he could discern, if we had the normal expanded energy field that we do when we're non-physically oriented, if we had that in earth life, we would not be able to function. Like there is so much emotional noise being broadcast and mental noise being broadcast by millions and millions of other people that we wouldn't be able to function here unless we had that kind of compression happen. Yeah, I mean, even just being an individual now, just me as Eurasimus, like I got to deal with enough mental, emotional stuff that then I have access to all my previous lives and everything else. Like, yeah, I don't know how I would be able to even tune into the frequency of functioning. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it'd be so vast. It'd be so vast. It'd be an endless like source of distraction as well. You're like, oh, what life do I want to re-watch today? That one was fun. Let's tune into that. It doesn't serve a constructive purpose. So, we block it out temporarily. Yeah. It seems like there's an overlap here also with like the tabulistic tree of life, you know, starting from the crown of Kizar and then moving into like grosser realms where things become denser and more physical, you know, so to speak. It's very, very interesting for sure. So, where is consciousness located? Yeah, everywhere and nowhere. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's the foundation of reality. So, everywhere you go, there is already an infinite consciousness, a substrate of infinite consciousness present already. Like, this is the holographic idea again, like it's already there. And that was the core experience in my first mystical experience was being a point of awareness in an infinite field of awareness, which was kind of, it's very hard to describe like you're vast on a level of vastness that you can't put into words. And it's almost a sense of expanding, but everywhere you expand, you're already there. It's very difficult to kind of convey that. No, I get it, man. I've actually had similar experiences which I held on to as very, very, you know, real and tangible and, you know, but I think as I've, you know, become too objective, you know, those experiences that it's like, you know, slipped a little bit, but I understand where you're coming from. Yeah. Yeah. So, that's my answer to that. Consciousness is the only thing that's actually real. Like, everything that exists is a manifestation of consciousness, the field of consciousness, even though it doesn't necessarily look like it. Like, and, you know, one of the chapters of Book Chapter Six, the point was to get into that and from a different angle, like to show that we've got some really interesting research around that, like clairvoyant research into subatomic matter, which shows that matter is just these tiny little like nano-tornadoes, nano-vortices. It's the field of like the etheric medium or the field of consciousness spinning in a way as to create bubbles, essentially bubbles, like bubbles in a fish tank. So, what ends up looking like matter, physical matter to us is it actually emptiness, nothingness, geometrically arranged, like it's just pressure in the field of consciousness. And there's no difference to me, like there's no duality to me. It's all one thing manifesting in endless variety ways. So, would you say that like the physical, like would you, the statement, the physical world is an illusion, is that something that you would say, or would you just word it in a, you know? Yeah, like, yeah, I mean, I agree with that in the sense that it's a temporary, you know, creation. It's a construct, it's a dream, you know, people call it a simulation. You know, I'm sympathetic to that because of the, you know, the nature of my journey and the research I've done. It's accurate, it's just I don't necessarily like it when people use it in a way that it's like, oh, well, you know, we should diminish the experience, we should try to block it out, we should try to, you know, it's like the Catholic, like self-flagellation thing. I'm a shitty little human, like I've got this filthy body in this fallen world, kind of. We've got variations on that theme still today, like in the sort of alternative communities. And I'm not, I don't sympathise with that, like way of looking at it and like the sort of negative overtones that some people use when they say, oh, it's an illusion. Like, yeah, okay, it is. In a sense, definitely. But there's also the common flip side of it within spiritual, certain spiritual types with the diminishment of suffering, you know, like suffering isn't real, trauma isn't real, you know, like none of that really should impact you. All you have to do is remember your eternal self, then all of a sudden, you know, you being raped doesn't matter anymore. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah, like I don't necessarily agree with that sort of mentality, because people will go, oh, well, people who don't understand what you're saying will go, oh, well, so you're saying I can just go and do anything to anybody, and it doesn't matter because it's an illusion, kind of like, that's not what we're saying. And you know, like we said right at the start, there are choices for the consequences we make, like, sorry, consequences for the choices we make in the illusion, in the dream that we're having. Like, it's very much a dream world in the sense of it being kind of a construct and the creation of a conscious mind or being. But the difference is like, you know, you have a dream at night and you wake up and there aren't any real consequences for that. But when you wake up from this level of the dream, there are. [Speaker 3] (45:33 - 45:33) That's right. [Speaker 1] (45:33 - 57:22) So, if there's consequences, to me, can you really call it illusory? Because, you know, to call something illusory would imply that anything that takes place, any actions, behaviors, ultimately don't matter. But if what we're saying is that what we do here doesn't matter, then, you know, despite the surface illusory nature of what it is, on a deeper level, it's not really that. It's still real. Well, and even if it is an illusion, it seems like it's real. And so, like, if I were to take a knife to your arm, Joel, like the statement physical reality is an illusion is kind of ridiculous when you think about it that way. Yeah. A hundred percent. And that's the thing, like. It's oversimplified. There's certain people that take certain spiritual concepts or principles and bastardize them and overly simplify them without greater context. And then, you know, live in contradiction because they are, I guess, advocating for something overly simplistic and then denying other people's realities and perspectives around this subject. Those are my thoughts on that. I think so. And I think most people who do that, you know, they're very confused and usually have a lot of like unresolved kind of, you know, shadow work to do, trauma and shit that they haven't processed. It's like, it's a way of trying to escape. And yeah, I don't agree with it. It's not helpful. Like, we're all going to leave eventually, one way or another. But the manner in which we live or conduct ourselves in the illusion, like, it's not the idea isn't to be saints and perfect. It's we're here to grow. Like, that's kind of the whole point of it. And like I said, what you make of yourself in this life here is what you are when you drop the body, the physical body, and then your non-physical self, you can't hide from that. Like people, and this is data we have from, you know, across the veil. It's like, oh, well, I had to face what the hell I was and the life that I lived. And I did not like what I saw. And I was able to see all the people that I'd hurt and all the flow and effects of that and the people I'd never met who were affected by my stupid selfishness and all this sort of stuff. So, it's like, within the illusion that we're operating in, you got to understand it's a game that's been designed for a reason. It's not just a temporary hallucination with no purpose. It does have a purpose. And that's why it matters. Yeah, I'm curious, because I don't know if we talked about it last time, but a lot of people bring up the analogy of like the whirlpool and the river, you know, like the river is consciousness and then you're a whirlpool of that and then you die and you go back into it. But like, even now, we're talking about like our afterlife selves, our non-physical selves, where we're still somewhat individual. So, how does that play into this whole conversation as opposed to we die and then we just become this, like, we just dissolve into the oneness and then there is no separation. Because again, even now, some people bastardize and go, well, you're not a person, there's no separate person. And it's like, okay, but I sure it feels like it, I'm a separate person. You know what I mean? So, I'm just curious, even that whole analogy, like the wave and the ocean, the whirlpool and the river, but then we're still non-physical, separate entities. Yeah. You get what I'm saying? Yeah, I mean, this is the game. This is part of the game. Like, the field of non-duality, like the infinite one, dreams these dreams and it has its own, you know, kind of, apparently, its own agenda or purpose. And so, like, Erasmus doesn't exist as an accident, Joel doesn't exist as an accident. Like, we are the river, we are the whirlpool, both at the same time. And, you know, it's a matter of where you focus your attention, your stream of attention, or the sutratman, to borrow, like, the Sanskrit term, where you focus that determines the kind of reality you experience. And they're all temporary, in a sense. Like, you can focus at the source, the creator, and have that incredible, vast non-duality and be infinite. But you will still have that point, that little pinpoint of, I am this. Like, I am a unit of something, a unit of awareness in the greater field of infinity. And then, you're not a drop in the ocean, you're the ocean in a drop. Yeah, exactly. Like, that's where a lot of people kind of, I think, lose the plot. Like, you never will necessarily, it's like, you talk about being dissolved into the river, but you will always retain that point of why, it's just the experience of the I will differ, and then sense of I-ness changes based on where we put our focus, like, what kind of reality we're in. Gotcha. I think there are those that, again, take to the extreme, they won't even say you're the drop, you're the whirlpool, they'll just say you're the ocean, and that's it. And I feel like that's limiting. Yeah, I feel like that's, you know, someone who's, yeah, just taking a little bit too, it's an unbalanced view. It's like, it's the middle way, you know, is to say, well, it's both. Like, we are all of that, all of it. And the separation or the sense of separation is legitimate and valid. And it's part of the simulation, it's part of the design. It's not the ultimate truth of what we are. But it's like, like you said, you take him off to Joel's arm, he's probably not gonna be happy about it. Like, even though we know intellectually, that this is not real, like physically, there is no such thing as solid physicality, but it really seems like it if you, you know, punch a brick wall. How do you hold that, you know, that there is no solid physicality, yet we feel the pain, like we feel solid physicality, you know, like, how do those things hold together? Well, I don't know if I can tell you how. Like, it's just, that's just my reality. Like, that's what, that's like, the physics that we have tells us that reality is not solid. Like, that's just modern physics now. It's emptiness. The ether physics that I get into in chapter six of book one shows that physical matter is emptiness, just like geometrically arranged emptiness. It's nothingness. And you know, we've had a number of physicists say, like Einstein, say these types of things, or talk about matter as just like solidified light. I can't explain how I, you know, like hold the tension of opposites, if that's kind of what you're driving at. It's just like, yeah. I mean, physicality though, is a certain configuration of that emptiness, you know, like sure on a base level, it might all be emptiness, but the physical experience is a certain configuration of that, which leads to other experiences such as touching a table, such as stabbing an arm, you know, whatever it might be. But yeah, I get, I understand on a scientific level what you're saying for sure. Yeah. I don't know if I can answer you in like a how kind of way. Give me all the answers. Give me all the answers. Well, yeah. I mean, it's an interesting conversation, you know, like, because we're approaching things from an intellectual standpoint. Okay. Well, the world is this way, physics says this, but then my personal experience of it isn't emptiness. Getting punched in the face doesn't feel like emptiness. You know, it's nice to pontificate and go, well, there's these experiments and these scientists that say that it's empty, but like, how does that serve my life on a day-to-day basis? Like, it's a fun intellectual exercise, but I, again, anyways. I'm right there with you, man. Like, because ultimately we all live and function in what seems like a physical world and there's a reason for that. Yeah. And my other thing with like calling this experience an illusion, doesn't that imply that there's something that's less illusory or more real? And how does that work in the context of what we're saying that all there is is constructs and different experiences? So, like, aren't then all the constructs and all the multitudes of experiences, quote unquote, illusory? And then poses the question, what is real then, you know? Right. Yeah, exactly. And that's why I think some mystics say that even liberation and nirvana are just more maya, more illusion. Because of what you're talking about, like, my baseline of what is real is consciousness. That's very broad. That's very all-encompassing. Like, for me, the only thing that exists is different modes of consciousness, like different modulations of a state of consciousness. Like, this is a state of consciousness. We're not accustomed to thinking of it like that. We're like, well, this is my physical body, I'm physical, I'm in my office or whatever. The only reason you can have that perception is because you're in a particular state of consciousness. And so, that's modified by the association with the physical body. And if the body starts working, then you have a different experience of reality and consciousness. Yeah. So, I think it's kind of the same thing to say everything is an illusion or everything is reality. You end up in the same place. You do, because that's right. Because what is reality? Like, it's just perception. It's that there's an ultimate truth to anything. It's your consciousness processing information that is so-called reality. Yeah. So, where are we right now? I get with that. Where are we right now? Like, where are we? Where is the central hub of this thing happening, you know? How does the saying go? Like, God is a circle, there's anticipation everywhere, and circumference is nowhere. Like, am I playing the video game somewhere else? Like, controlling myself, having this podcast right now? Yes. But that's a legitimate, like, that's a great question. And there's data around that. Like, we have a lot of data around that stuff that says, you know, we are multidimensional beings. We exist in multiple places at once. Different versions of Joel, like, just hierarchies of different levels of identification. And they get kind of, as you go up, they get broader and bigger and larger and more encompassing. And as you come down, they get smaller and smaller and smaller and more restricted. But yeah, we have this concept of, like, the oversoul or the higher self, which is choosing to inject itself or, you know, to use the terminology, like, the theosophist and the occultist. Like, there's the monad, which sends a ray down to create the ego structure, and the ego sends a ray into physical reality to create a personality. Listen, I gotta have a conversation with someone out there and, like, Joel, he needs a little upgrade. Can you come down and give him a little injection of something? Projection. Projection. I'll take a fucking upgrade too. Sure, why not? I'm trying to keep evolving and expanding after this life, you know? Yeah, that's it. That's the spirit. That's so good. No, but this is where I agree with you. It's like, I know that I exist, you know? I'm a conscious, I'm aware of that. And, like, I have life and, you know, like, what do I want to do with it? And how do I want to live? And how do I want to become a better person and have more love? I mean, this is where I do really align with that, you know, thing about, like, we're here to learn love, you know? And then what are our barriers to that? And what do we need to do to dissolve and remove those barriers so we could be more loving? That doesn't mean we just walk around, like, with no ability to set boundaries and have armor and, you know, we're just sitting there and going, I love everyone. Okay, I'm going to stab you. Fuck you. I'm going to rob you. [Speaker 3] (57:22 - 57:22) You know what I mean? [Speaker 1] (57:22 - 58:19) So, like, there is a human being. This is the thing, like, how do you define the love? How do you define learning love? Because obviously it's not being all accepting, all forgiving and boundary-less, right? Loving sometimes is telling someone to fuck off, you know? From the outside, that wouldn't seem like very loving. Yeah. Well, I like M. Scott Peck's definition again, which is, you know, it's being interested in the spiritual development of another person. And genuinely, sometimes telling someone to fuck off is leading them down, you know, a spiritual development path. Sometimes that's exactly the medicine that somebody needs in that moment. 100%. 100%. Yeah. I mean, I know in my life, like, sometimes someone's setting a strong boundary or being clear or calling me out was like, okay, all right, I need to get off my high horse and I need to reflect on a deeper level and see how I can integrate that and expand more. You know, like when Joel does it to me sometimes. I was going to say, you're welcome, bro. [Speaker 3] (58:20 - 58:20) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (58:22 - 58:53) Yeah. And like, I think, I don't know, I think people have a general concept of like what love is or what it means to them, at least. To me, it's like, okay, so I agree, I completely agree with everything you just outlined, like Erasmus and, you know, having boundaries and stuff. Like, that's part of self-love. Like, that's the foundation. Like, you've got to start with self-love. And if you don't have that and you don't have much, like that's your foundation. So that is part of the game. It's like, okay, self-respect, self-worth, self-love. So I was going to say, like, this is- What was that last thing that you said? [Speaker 3] (58:53 - 58:54) Oh, sorry. [Speaker 1] (58:54 - 1:13:52) Sorry. No, you go. What was the last thing you said? No, you go. What? The last thing you said got cut off. You know, I was talking originally. Once you go to that foundation, you expand from there. Like, you apply it outwards, right? Yeah, and this is something where I think the English language at times falls short. And I've talked about this on previous podcasts, you know, the Greeks have six words for love. So you mentioned self-love, that's philotia. You know, then there's like romantic love and then there's playful love and long-standing love, you know, that you would experience being in like a 20, 30, 40, 50-year partnership with Amy. You know, it's different than also just maybe a general love of humanity. And so I think it's interesting to think about that as well. I mean, sure, are you compartmentalizing it or like labeling it? But it's true. Like, how I am with my dog, you know, is a little different than obviously how I am with my wife, you know, after 10 years being together. Like, you know, there's a joke somewhere in there, I'm waiting for it. Yeah. Or like my love towards Joel, you know, like it's different, you know, so. Yeah. And, you know, the modifier of like, you know, unconditional love is a really interesting one because it's like, okay, so like without attachments and without an agenda. And that's challenging. That's really challenging. Like, that's one of the ultimate challenges, I think, like, it's very easy to love somebody who's doing what, you know, you want them to do or behaving, you know, behaving themselves or being civilized or whatever. But, you know, I have a friend who, he's about 70 now, who was living in Ahihi with us. He's still there. I had him on the podcast a while back, but Francis, Francis Ailey. And he was talking, he was telling me about how he was trained with a martial artist, you know, one of these amazing sort of last of the lineage type guys from, you know, Japan or wherever it was, forgive me for the vagueness there, but he was learning with this guy for 10 years straight. And one of the things he talked to him about was these challenges of, okay, like loving through different levels, like there's like the basic level of like loving somebody who, you know, you're romantically involved with or whatever, all the way through to loving somebody who, you know, don't really like a whole lot, all the way through to loving an active enemy. Like, how do you love somebody who is actively your enemy? Like who wants to tear you down and wants to hurt you? That's, if you can do that, that's huge. Yeah. But, but at what point does it like become self-sacrificial, this idea of unconditional love, you know? Well, I wouldn't take it there. I wouldn't take it there. That's not what I'm suggesting. No, no. Okay. I mean, listen, I, I'm not evolved enough to go, okay, let's say someone murdered both of you in front of me, like where I'm going to go give the guy a hug. Yeah. Yeah. You know, but like, and is that, is that the appropriate response? Is that the elevator response or is it, I don't, I don't know. Like, I know John Demartini brought up conversations around this in our, in our talk with him on his workshops where he like, he like had some type of exercise and this woman like faced the person who killed her kids or something and then like got them both crying and, and hugging each other. And like, fuck, like that kind of blows my mind on some level, but I don't know. Like, is it, is it, and yeah, off, off, off to, I don't think the immediate physical emanation of that happening is going to be like, oh, let me give you a hug. No, not right away. I mean, there's a process to it because I feel like there's as a human being, like you're going to bypass if you just go through something horrific and go, I love everybody. Oh yeah. I mean, this person just raped me. I love them. Yeah. I mean, for me, the only way I can kind of give us some credence is with the understanding that all there are lessons, you know? And so that person's fucking learning their lessons. And so there's a little bit of love in that. Yeah. And the compassion of like what, what, what personal choices and events and other factors led a person to be a person that would do something like that and to understand that in a deep level. And then also to understand that, then like whatever happened that affected you personally is a lesson for you as well, you know? Now there's stages to that. I don't, I personally don't think it's psychologically healthy to go from an experience, like something horrific happening to then all of a sudden, like, I mean, maybe there are individuals like that that can totally just be there, but I don't, it doesn't feel, it doesn't feel like a natural progression. The problem with any of these conversations is that, you know, it's, it's the three of us having it. Okay. And our listeners, I would say are on a certain level, but to the general layman, if they're hearing something like this, it just leads to unhealthy tolerance of evil. And this is what ultimately leads to evil proliferating on our planet, right? Because this also, this is the baseline idea of Christianity, right? Love thy neighbor, love your enemy, right? Unconditional love. And that really hasn't served the mass consciousness in the healthiest way based on what we're experiencing. I don't actually think, I would go so far as to say, I don't think it's actually been embodied even enough to have any impact. Yeah. Well, it's, I mean, they're just taken as platitudes. So you're just saying they pay lip service to it, but people aren't at the level of consciousness to actually embody a teaching. Well, you talk about, you talk about Christians, like you were talking about Christianity, Joel. You know, how many Christians have I encountered over the last 20 years who hate my guts because I don't see things the way they see them. Like how much unconditional and turn the other cheek have they embodied? You know, not a lot. No. I say unconditional love if you look at the world and behave exactly as I do. So yeah, no conditions attached, just do what I need you to do. Yeah. So like, what is it that gives rise to evil if not the allowance of the good, if not the tolerance of the good? You know, what allows evil to exist? Yeah. Well, what, like, I mean, but just based on this conversation, like evil proliferates and intensifies, you know, what's the classic saying, because good men do nothing or because good men don't speak out, so to speak. Is there, it's interesting, like, I don't want to get too philosophical, but is it, you know, is evil a thing? Like to me, I could identify lots of stuff that I think is horrific and diabolical and whatever, but those are all words that point to mental categories. Evil is a mental category. I might put like, you know, the way my hair looks in the morning in the evil mental category. Like what is evil? Does it really exist objectively? Like, can I go to the supermarket and buy a six pack of evil? Yeah. Let me ask you this, like being locked in a room and watching brutal raping of babies and children, like, would you objectively say that's evil or would you like, like, again, like I'm using an extreme example to... Yeah, yeah. I take your point completely, like that's horrific, like I would experience that as horrific. It's, you know, but on the philosophical level, like the reason, one of the reasons I bring it up is because we have this conversation at a certain level of consciousness, in a certain state of consciousness. A lot of the deeper levels or layers have a very different perspective on what is going on, like in the physical experience. Like, you know, there are NDEers who've had deep, very deep, very deep, profound life-changing experiences who've come back and gone, well, okay, like I now understand what we would call evil on a whole different level. Like it's not actually what it looks like. So that's interesting. Yeah. Well, I think I kind of get what you're coming at because I'm approaching this conversation from a human standpoint. Yeah. Like, as opposed to, like, a soul's experience of life, they may take that differently. So, let's say a person who's been, like, who has gone through horrific things, the human form, like me to tell a person right after they went through something horrific, you know, like you chose this or this is part of your lessons, like probably wouldn't be the ideal thing to say, but then a soul may be like there was a reason why that happened because they might not feel things from like a nervous system, physiological standpoint, because that's not their fucking makeup. You know what I mean? Yeah, exactly right. That's right. And that, you know, we know from the field of research that, you know, souls choose to have certain experiences and the fastest path to growth is to experience things that make you challenged or uncomfortable. Like, so, it's like, okay, well, that on the human level, like something might be absolutely horrific and unthinkable, but then when you see from the spiritual level, like that's just maybe in, you know, let's say that person is dead and everybody involved is dead now. They're on the other side, they're in the spirit world and they're able to see it from a higher vantage point and go, oh, well, if you haven't done that, I wouldn't have had this growth experience. I wouldn't be able to see things the way I do. Like, it's changed me in a way that has maybe I don't need to reincarnate like 500 times now. Like, you just saved me a whole lot of trouble kind of thing. Like, because I've understood, I've taken on this lesson on this message and embodied it now in a way that wasn't possible until I had that experience, like just as an example, you know? And I think when these conversations come up around evil, like it needs to be broad and inclusive, like what we're having right now, you know what I mean? Like, but from just a basic human standpoint, like people objectively would look at certain things and be like, they'll use the word evil. I mean, you said horrific, like horrific, evil. I mean, I don't know, like there's other words that we could probably throw in there. Yeah. Well, I mean, from a human standpoint and I guess leaning on Ayn Rand a little bit, like how do you define good? And to her, good would be that which promotes life. And so, then evil would be that which acts against life. So, from an objectivist perspective, every single living organism, its primary value and function is to survive and is to continue to live. Think about the flower facing the sun or, you know, the animal not thinking twice to get whatever it might be. And so, then yeah, she would define evil as that which acts against the natural function of an organism, which is life. And the thing is, that's an interesting, like I get, I fully empathize with that. At the same time, what about, like what does a bushfire do? Like a bushfire destroys as it creates, like it creates new life and an abundance of life, but it first extinguishes life in the process. Like it's, is a fire, is a bushfire evil? Is it horrific? Is it diabolical? Like, it's just, it's a thing. It's just nature. So, I mean, I guess the thing is there's multiple, multi-dimension perspectives, you know, there's multiple dimensions of conclusions and perspectives and ways of perceiving the same thing, which, you know, obviously holds true. And I would, I would add, like just in case anyone now there's a misunderstanding, like my basic sort of message is like, if you're using any of the kind of like the spiritual principles or the like lessons to justify hurting people or exploiting people, then like you don't get it. You're, you're, you're off on the wrong path. You're actually going to have a really rough time. I agree. Yeah. This has been amazing, actually. Yeah. Define amazing. Define amazing. What's its opposite? Can you buy a packet of amazing at the store? Yeah, yeah, exactly. You can. But yeah, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's my perspective of the experience of, of, of the conversation, you know, and me feeling into the value, into the value that this conversation can have as well, you know, from subjectively, if you will. Yeah, subjectively, like I guarantee you, there's probably like millions and millions of people, if we like force them to watch us, they'd be like, these guys are fucking crazy. These guys are the least amazing three gentlemen I've seen in a Zoom room in my entire life. They're like, this, this is evil. There are people that would think it's evil. Just like you said earlier about like Christians based on your, your belief system. Like people would think this and would watch this and be like, these people are out of their fucking mind and like keep kids away from them. Yeah. Yep. And yet, you know, I, I know for a fact that like, I would absolutely have, I would absolutely choose to have my community full of people like Joel and Eurasimus and myself, because I know that the way, you know, push comes to shove, like we're all, all men of principle, and we will all take a stand for what we believe is right. And I have a funny feeling we'd probably agree on what is right 99.9% of the time. Like, if there's a fucking mugging happening outside in the street, you want Brendan Murphy in your, living in your neighborhood, living in your street, because I'm likely to do something about it. You know, cause I don't like to see people being hurt and suffering and all that stuff. But at the same time, like the, the spiritual level feels philosophical stuff has to be taken into account as well. Like maybe somebody chose to be mugged from a spiritual level before they incarnated to have a certain experience. So they can grow in a certain way. Like most, most people are not here to even be awake spiritually. Most people are not here to even contemplate what consciousness actually is, because it would interfere with the journey they're supposed to have, you know? Yeah. And I think there's definitely from a psycho-spiritual level, you can make the argument that like people that get mugged, like a lot of times, even from a psychological standpoint, like what's their state that made a perpetrator attract or like be attracted to them. Wow. Wow. Right. No, I'm saying in some situations, like, you know, I use the example of like someone walking down a street in New York city, that's like scared and afraid, you know, someone who's looking to do harm is going to go after that person versus someone who's walking down the street, super confident, grounded in who they are and moving through the world and kind of, you know, projecting a certain quality or energy out. So that's what I'm saying. Obviously, like, I'm not saying, okay, but like, if you're into lessons, if you're into learning, like an event happens in your life, you can't change it. It's already happened. Now, what do you do with it? Do you self reflect and go, oh, like, you know, I shouldn't have been walking down an alley drunk and high at four o'clock in the morning in another fucking country? It's that it's a classic city part of town. Yeah. Right. It's that, you know, the Zen allegory of like, maybe, you know, like the man, he's a farmer, he has his son, his son falls off the horse, breaks his arm, you know, all the neighbors come, oh, it's so unfortunate. And he goes, maybe, you know, and then, oh, there's a war happening. Oh, your son can't be conscripted, can't be conscripted to the army. All the neighbors come back, you know, oh, that's such a good fortunate thing. Maybe, you know, like, who knows in the context. Right. [Speaker 3] (1:13:52 - 1:13:52) Yeah. [Speaker 1] (1:13:53 - 1:14:06) Exactly. Bro, what are you excited about? What am I excited about? Okay. Finishing this second book and getting it out there. Is that the Grand Illusion 2? [Speaker 3] (1:14:07 - 1:14:07) Yep. [Speaker 1] (1:14:08 - 1:21:33) Cool. And what's, can you give us like a little, you know, something about what people can expect in part two? Yeah. I mean, it's huge. It's very deep. It's very like, it's a continuation of book one in the sense that it logically progresses from where that one stops. It's a very deep exploration of immortality, the afterlife, the different aspects of self beyond the physical level of self. I mean, yeah, there's a lot to it, but that's a little bit of a nutshell kind of, if people were kind of interested in that stuff that we were talking about earlier, then that's, that's, you know, they need to read it. Cool, man. Nice. Nice promo. You should be a promoter. Should be a marketer, right? But yeah, get on the book two waitlist, because that's a thing. Maybe we could include the link in the show notes or something. Oh, it's available, it's available, the waitlist on Amazon or something? No, no, like I have a, when people want to be notified when it's ready, I have a waitlist for that. So people can jump on and just, when it's finally done, just go, here it is, it's ready, it's out. Shoot over the link and we'll put it, we'll put it there. Definitely. I feel like I've got, you know, I'll go open questions, but yeah. I mean, there's so many questions we can ask. We can go for like five hours talking about a million subjects, I'm sure. Well, the one thing I did want to touch on is like the nature of the brain, right? Because much of the materialist view is that consciousness is located within our heads. And then how does your work correlate with Sheldrake's work with the morphogenetic field? When he's saying the information is external to us and like there's different levels of consciousness, like I have a personal consciousness, then also like I have my family consciousness, then like I have a consciousness of even like the place where I'm living, I can receive information just from where I am. Yeah. I mean, like that's all very related, I guess, to what I was doing. I talk about his idea of the morphic field, morphogenetic field in book one, super relevant to research. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, specifically, I might need you to like hone in on something there for me. No, no, you're all good. Basically, I'm just, I guess, wanting you to clarify the point that consciousness doesn't live in our heads. And like you're saying, the brain is a receiver of this information, of this data. Yeah. I mean, like we live in the field of information and the brain is actually, like I think Stan Grof referred to it as a reducing valve. So, it's actually, instead of generating, it's doing the opposite. It's actually, the brain is eliminating 99.9% of our awareness so that we can have a particular type of experience. Yeah. We have tons of information that proves, like categorically proves that A, consciousness operates beyond the physical body and B, more to the point, more importantly, actually is not generated by the brain or body at all in the first place. It actually exists completely independently. Hey, Brendan, is there a book that you recommend to the audience, that people that are really into, I guess, exploring this, like the deep research? I don't know if it's your book or, no, I'm saying if there's other books as well that like really because I'm assuming your book, The Randallusion and the second one, you're not just talking about NDEs. You're covering so much, but is there a book that really goes into all this research that's being done about NDEs and OBEs and things like that, that people can look into? Well, that's the reason I wrote a book too, because the discussion generally, particularly NDEs, but in general, what we don't have is, there's just a deficit of like a model of understanding what's going on, as well as acknowledging and sharing cool stories and cool NDEs. Most of the stuff in that field is like a collection of case studies, and this happened to this guy, and this happened to this guy, and it's like, wow, that's amazing. But there are too many researchers, particularly the academics, they don't connect their work with other fields of work and other fields of research. So, that's where someone like me has to, it's ridiculous. The fact that little, like nobody brandy from the northern suburbs of Sydney, a family of middle-class parents, nobody's heard of, I have to do this because it's not being done and not being done well. People are too, they're too stuck in their little sort of like blinkers areas of specialty. And so, that's the point of what I'm doing. That's really like the book. Book one is very, very comprehensive, and it lays the foundation for the book two, immortality, afterlife stuff. But I even, I do get into it, like the mystical stuff we talked about, the nature of consciousness not being brain-based or body-based, that's all book one, that's the whole point of book one. And it's very interesting. There are times researching that where I was just like, wow, this is the shit that I'm coming up with, and finding the research I'm finding, and the dots I was able to connect were unbelievable. So, I know a lot of what's out there, especially in the field of afterlife, near death, and whatever, because I've been eating up the 2021 years now. And there's really just, there's just a real gap there where people have not done the connecting of the fields, and then push the conversation to a higher level, where it's like, what's the nature of what's going on here? And why does it look like that? It's like, we're stuck at the level of kind of telling cool stories. And you know, like, that's oversimplification. But the point is, I feel like what I've done with book two, in particular, is actually move the conversation to another level and pushed it forward. So, that's why I'm excited to get that out, you know, hopefully early next year. Awesome. And if people don't want to get book one, they could just get that on Amazon, or is it your website? Yeah, yeah. Go to brendandmerphy.com slash TGI for book one. And I sent you the link for the waitlist of book two as well. Yeah, yeah. Bro, I think what you're doing is super important and super needed. And I definitely recommend if people are into this conversation to go check out book one and jump on that waitlist for book two, man. It's very, very fascinating stuff. Yeah, anything you'd like to leave our audience with, I guess, just in closing? Um, not, you know, nothing really comes to mind. I think if they found anything of this interesting, they should read my work. Like, I'm not like, I can talk about stuff. And you know, we can be here for like, you know, two hours or 20 hours or whatever. But the level of detail, like the reason I write is because I the writing does something that I can't do in a in a conversation like a whole other whole other thing. So if people want to save themselves 10,000 hours of research, go and read book one. And then when book two is ready, you can save another 10,000 hours of research. Yeah. Cool, man. Dude, thank you so much for joining us. Once again. Yeah, lots of love for you and your family. Let's go shoot some hoops soon. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Oh, you play hoops, bro? Yeah. Are we all hoopers? Yeah, yeah. I mean, I used to a lot back in the days, but not much in the last 20 years. But you know, I could still we had we had five rounds of my 40 my 44 year old body around a little bit. So we had we had five rounds of tables in us the other day. Brendan got me three to in route around the grounds of twenty one. So pretty much I'll destroy him. Yeah, it's just with you. It's just about it's just about getting over yourself. But then, you know, I don't care. [Speaker 3] (1:21:33 - 1:21:34) I love it. [Speaker 1] (1:21:35 - 1:24:44) I love when people go like, oh, it's just about getting over your serve, like a huge aspect of the game. It's like, yeah, you know, it's just Michael Jordan. It's just about like, you know, making him five foot three or something or take away his jump shot. You know, Michael Jordan have a jump shot. We thought we played it. Granted, it was once, but we played a game once last night with cheaper rackets that don't accumulate as much spin, kind of disabling his serve. And I got I got a I got a victory over him. Got one win out of like 30 games. Barely, barely, barely. He's going to hold on to that forever, forever, forever, even in the afterlife, bro. Even in our afterlife heaven. You know what? We can play table tennis in afterlife heaven. Are we able to? I mean, do we have physical bodies where we can do that? Or is it just we're just going to think it? I think I think in the afterlife, like you get like badges of all your accomplishments during your earthly time. Like my first badge is going to be beat your ass once in table tennis words. Yeah, that's exactly how it works. Yeah. Actually, I don't know if you've seen it. There's a Disney movie called Soul, which seems to be pretty resonant with this conversation in depicting what potentially happens. If you haven't seen it, check it out. Yeah, that's interesting. They I didn't. I shouldn't I shouldn't add anything else, but they had that with fuck. What's it called? The Robin Williams movie. Oh, yeah. Well, dreams may come. Dreams may come. Yes. That was actually quite good. I haven't seen that since it came out. I might have to watch it again because me too. Very insightful. Anyway, there are also a movie too. I know it's based off a book, but I haven't seen it. Cloud Atlas that goes into like a lot of different weird, odd stuff in my different worlds. And if you heard of it at all. Yeah, I do. I saw that years ago, but it was kind of like the same seem to be like parallel selves. Oh, maybe that's what it was. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Hi, guys. Thanks for listening. Brendan, thanks for being here. Thank you, everyone. Chris McCormick, Rath graduate. He says, I had reached the blast ceiling and couldn't get beyond the mediocrity of my life that had become overwhelming. This course shattered the blast ceiling into smithereens and provided extremely well thought through steps, knowledge, and experiences to enable progress. The level of detail revealed around the insidious programming we humans have been subjected to allows for a quantum jump in understanding and ability to take one's power back like never before. There's life before rise above the herd, and there is life after. The two are very different. Just make sure you do the work and keep going. Thank you so much, Chris, for sharing your experience inside Rise Above the Herd. There's hundreds of other testimonials just like this about our group coaching program, which this will be the 11th time we're running it with over, yeah, 110 graduates or so. So if this is something that speaks to you and resonates with you, and you're ready to do intentional work to uplift yourself and uplift your life, I think we've created something really profound. So if you feel the call, head to riseabovetheherd.co, and you can submit an application and join the program through there.