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hey this is Leo for actualised org and in this episode I'm going to be talking about mystical traditions around the world and the many diverse names for enlightenment so as we embark on our mission to become more sage like I thought that a very appropriate topic would be to put our work to become sages into a broader context into a historical context what is it that sages have been up to for the last five thousand years and that's exactly it is that sages and mystics have been doing this work for at least five thousand years and probably even much earlier than that we just don't have very good historical records there's not much new Under the Sun here so we're going to take a nice deep look into what's really going on and this can be very eye-opening to understand that the spiritual purification work that you're doing the self actualization work any sort of self-help techniques any meditative techniques any kind of New Age stuff that you're into or that you're reading about you got to realize that this goes back at least five thousand years and that every single culture on every single continent except Antarctica maybe ah has understood these truths and has been engaging in this process of essentially what essentially self discovery and truth realization that's the essence of it so let's take a look at religion and specifically the mystical kernels the mystical cores of every religion religion these days gets a bad rap and understandably so and I'm not a big fan of religion except we don't want to throw the baby out with the bathwater and here's the problem that a lot of rational people make when they talk about religion it's that they forget the mystical core at the center of every religion and it's actually very shocking when you start to study mysticism historically it's very shocking and very eye-opening to see the amount of consensus and agreement between every single mystical tradition on every continent in every country in every city around the world throughout thousands of years of different cultures different political climates different geological activity like there's so much diversity around the world and yet if we take a look and we do a real deep study of mysticism we see that actually there's a lot of common elements here are the commonalities every mystical tradition and every religion is ultimately grounded upon the notion of searching for existential truth truth of the capital t even the idea that there is such a thing and that such a thing is accessible to the human creature that's what all mysticism is based upon and this existential truth is simply the question of what is existence itself how come existence exists this is the most basic and fundamental question that you could possibly ask and you better believe that even though our ancestors thousands of years ago we're living in caves they didn't even have cities yet they didn't even have agriculture but nevertheless they were asking this question what is existence and what's really amazing is that they discovered the answer to this and the answer to this is also common to all mystical traditions and the answer is basically that existence is a unity it's a formlessness it's a pure potential energy it's a void which is what non duality means and it's an absolute infinite singularity now those are just words just ideas just beliefs ah the important thing to understand here is that these are not actually beliefs but this is actually an experience that one can have and that's what all mysticism is predicated upon is having this experience for oneself which is what differentiates mysticism from religion religion is about beliefs and rituals whereas mysticism is about having this experience for yourself recognizing that this experience is fundamentally ineffable and transcendent and impossible to communicate impossible to believe impossible to rationally understand or to write down in a book and this is what leads to esoteric knowledge which is another common element among all the mystical traditions esotericism which basically means a sort of hidden knowledge knowledge that is not revealed to just every Joe Schmo on the street because this knowledge this is knowledge of the divine this is knowledge of existence itself now why is this knowledge kept hidden not because we have some kind of conspiracy theory going on and we want to be elitists and we want to hold this knowledge back no it's not that actually true mystics love to spread mysticism the problem though is what happens when the ego gets ahold of esoteric knowledge when the ego gets ahold of esoteric knowledge it really turns into a lot of bad stuff which is why religion has such a bad rap and also the reason the knowledge has to be esoteric is because well we're persecuted for this knowledge even nowadays it's very easy to get criticized for espousing this knowledge but if you did it a hundred years ago five hundred years ago let alone two thousand years ago you were liable to get crucified burned at the stake stoned to death beheaded tortured raped your family killed and exterminated right or exiled or excommunicated from your community that's the reality and that basically still goes on today around the world so that's why this knowledge had to be esoteric another reason the knowledge had to be esoteric is because by its very nature it's paradoxical and ineffable and so you can't grasp it the way you can normal knowledge you can't just write it down in a textbook the way you can with a mathematical formula or some scientific theorem and so we see esoteric knowledge hidden knowledge the mysteries these mystery schools and sects all around the world from all you different traditions another common element of all mysticism is altered states of consciousness the recognition that there's more than just two states the way we normally think it's not just dreaming and waking consciousness there's something else there's many other states of consciousness and all mystical traditions in one way or another understand this and they actually pursue these altered states of consciousness and they don't hold waking everyday consciousness as the most true and absolute of the states and the way that they pursue this here's another common element of among all traditions is through meditation contemplation and prayer now prayer is interesting most people think of prayer as praying for God to give me something that I need that's not true prayer true prayer is more like contemplation or meditation and you'll see that if you start to study serious mysticism so there's a variety of techniques hundreds if not thousands of different meditation contemplation and prayer techniques have been developed in all cultures around the entire world throughout the last five thousand years and you can go study them and you can use them to attain these altered states of consciousness and ultimately to reach the highest understanding of absolute truth other common elements of mystical traditions really quickly is the purification of materialistic cravings that's a common element why because materialism is the biggest thing that stands in the way of this ineffable knowledge also there's a strong emphasis on ego transcendence why because the ego is the biggest thing that stands in the way between you and this knowledge there's also strong emphasis on mind transcendence again because the mind is the biggest obstacle there is a strong emphasis on cultural transcendence because culture is a very big obstacle there's a strong emphasis on wisdom and intuition / logic and rationality why is that because the deepest truth is not accessible to logic and rationality but only to spontaneous divine insight or intuition there's also a strong emphasis on unconditional love you see this embodied by all the greatest mystics unconditional love this is actually the characteristic that makes them so magnetic and charming and charismatic that they're able to draw crowds of thousands of people around them who are very loyal supporters how are they able to do that not by brainwashing their followers but by radiating unconditional love which is an honest signal you want an honest signal of enlightenment it's unconditional love there is no more honest signal of mastery of the truth than unconditional love when you can love everything in everyone indiscriminately that is the true hallmark sign of a master and that's a very rare thing and this thing cannot be faked easily actually it can't be faked at all it's very easy to see an individual who is not capable of unconditional love individuals who are capable of unconditional love are so rare that if you ever meet one you've probably never met one but if you ever meet one you will understand how religions get started because this is such a powerful and palpable thing that when you encounter it for the first time in your life you will be floored floored at the mastery that this individual has to exhibit unconditional love on the one hand it's a very simple thing on the other hand you're so far from it right now that it almost seems inhuman another common element is happiness bliss and goodness these are commonly emphasized in mystical traditions and here happiness of course is not a materialistic form of happiness or hedonism but a deeper much much much much deeper unconditional form of happiness and all of this is grounded you have to understand is grounded in direct experience it's a big mistake to think that this comes from just blind faith or from belief or from brainwashing yourself with affirmations and with prayer no no no no no you cannot get these things through any of that you can only get a veneer a fake veneer of it through affirmations and through prayer and through faith but not the real deal and the real deal is so much greater than the thin veneer so what I want to introduce you to is the many different traditions that we have around the world that are related to mysticism and that ultimately turned into religions all right so these traditions I have to just gloss over them because I can't go into depth on all of them but the point here is that I want you to get a big picture understanding ah a survey of the land so to speak so that you can see how all of this interconnects that's what I'm trying to show you here the similarity between all these traditions so we have Christianity within Christianity we have many many many different sects and groups and the mystical core of Christianity is agnosticism Eastern Orthodox various monastic orders like the Franciscan monks the Benedictine monks and there are many many many orders of different monks and these people these were the original old-school Christians and they understood what Christianity was really about it's not what it's about these days it's a totally different thing right it's about enlightenment also in India we have everything related to Hinduism we have Hinduism we have a really a diversity this kind of evolution and evolutionary diaspora of spirituality happening in the Indian subcontinent we have Hinduism we have many different forms of yoga and by yoga of course I don't mean the physical yoga that you see here in Western gyms you know mostly women working out not that I'm talking about old-school serious contemplative yoga there's many forms of yoga there's also the advised Vedanta tradition which is all about enlightenment very direct method for enlightenment there's a shy of a Tantra tradition which is pretty old it's about a thousand five hundred years old goes back to ancient India and there's a Sikhism which is a smaller sect also found in India and there's a religion called Jainism which is actually a very beautiful spiritual tradition if you study up on it most people don't know what Jainism is but the founder of it was Mahavira actually predated the Buddha and a really amazing remarkable mystic so that's going on in India primarily of course we've also got Buddhism which you should probably be already familiar with and in Buddhism we have many different strands and sects we have Zen we have Tibetan Zog ten there's Theravada there's Mahayana there's Vajrayana and those are just the big categories then within each of those you have a lot of different subgroups and sub sects and so forth so of course Buddhism is from northern India but mostly then China and southern Asia and Japan we also have Taoism which has some remarkable sages and mystics in it I mean that's sort of similar to Buddhism although different then interestingly what a lot of people don't know about is Islam so Islam is most definitely founded upon true mystical insights and the mystical core of Islam is Sufism Sufism then we have the Jewish traditions and the Jewish traditions Mystikal kernel is Kabbalah then we have the Greeks I'm talking about the ancient Greeks and you better believe that the ancient Greeks knew a thing or two about non-duality not all of them but many of the ancient Greek philosophers knew a little bit about non duality if not a lot Heraclitus for example was truly enlightened plottin as' obviously enlightened then we have the illusion mysteries which were happening in Greece and in Rome for over 2,000 years imagine this 2,000 years the illusion mysteries were revealing mystical secrets to initiates that were joining this secret cult and there were all sorts of other cults throughout Europe and throughout that area of the world in that time of course we've got the ancient Egyptians and they really took spirituality to a whole new level in fact I mean we don't know that much about the Egyptians but just based on speculation you better believe that the Egyptians knew a thing or two about non-duality in one way or another there's also even dating further back than that we've got various forms of paganism and shamanism which is still found around the world especially in the Americas in the South Americas in the North America's we have all sorts of paganism shamanism we have various Native American traditions which you know are very spiritual spiritually oriented and so the shamans and pagans and the Native Americans they all had their own little twists on things and they definitely had some sort of mystical insights upon which they developed their rituals and practices and their beliefs and then more modern times in more modern times we have the New Age and the New Age movement you can think of it starting like with the transcendentalists a couple hundred years ago then there was theosophy teachings of people like Aleister Crowley which get into more occult subjects and then you have people like kerchief Spence key and so forth so there's a lot of reinventing of the wheel happening in the last 200 years in Europe and in America because well this is a perennial thing right it never dies out this is an evergreen subject matter what is the nature of existence and everybody puts their own little twist on things sometimes it seems like all these traditions and all these different people and all these different teachings are all so different and they're all so conflicting and so contradictory but if you take a look and you study this and you really zoom out and you ask yourself what's going on on the highest elevation perspective you clearly see that there's actually a lot of convergence and the convergence is actually very shocking you would think that people in India have nothing to do with people in South America have nothing to do with people in North America have nothing to do with people in Africa have nothing to do with people in China have nothing to do with people in Europe and that their cultures are so different that they would come up with all sorts of crazy different theories and stories about what existence is and yet that's not the case it can seem that way on the surface but deep down actually they all say exactly the same thing which is that huh it's all one thing it's all a unity it's all infinity it's all void it's all emptiness and that's what I want to get into a little bit here because see I'm not a scholar of all these different traditions and we don't have time frankly right here right now to get into each of these traditions and to show you all the different stuff that's there what I want to point you to is doing the research and doing the study I want to get you kind of interested and aware that this field of study exists and you can go and you can do lots of research on your own you can buy books you can read and in fact I'll give you some resources at the end of this episode for doing just that so I'm not going to cover in depth all these different traditions but what I do want to do is I want to talk about the different names for enlightenment and God that the traditions have I think that this is valuable because once you see that they are all basically talking about the exact same thing using just different labels and different symbols then that's an important step in your evolution to Sage hood very important step now one caveat when I talk about God all right now this word God I really in a sense don't like this word I have a love-hate relationship with the word god when I talk about the word God don't make the mistake of thinking I'm talking about some bearded man in the clouds who sits in judgment of you and is somehow separate from and distinct from reality no that's a childish notion of God I'm talking about the original mystical notion of God God is simply another word for reality or existence so that includes you and that includes me and that includes the whole world but not just that God specifically refers to an understanding or a direct experience of what the nature of existence or reality is fundamentally why does existence exist and believe it or not it is possible to answer this question and this is not an intellectual matter this is not a belief that you have that you read in a book this is something that you discover through the right contemplative and meditative practices right so keep that in mind so what I'm going to give you here now is a list of over 50 names that I have assembled I've been assembling this list for months now cross all the different traditions that I've studied so obviously we have enlightenment we have God we have truth that's true to the capital T we have the absolute we have infinity consciousness awareness presence no self the true self oneness nothingness non duality ego death self transcendence self realization now remember that all of these words are just labels that are essentially pointing to the exact same thing but you're not quite sure what it's pointing to yet the whole idea behind this is that these words are pointers pointing to something ineffable something that other human beings have discovered that you have not yet discovered for yourself and these human beings are telling you hey there's something very powerful ineffable that can be discovered that I'm pointing to with these words and if you want you can go and discover for yourself okay so keep that in mind as I'm going down this list so I said self-realization we also have awakening liberation revelation illumination ecstasy rebirth cessation Holy Spirit gnosis which is defined as knowledge of the mystical that's where we get Gnostics the Christian Gnostic sfrom you know the word knowledge itself where does that come from well it starts with acknowledge know to know see the gnosis to know that's the same root word and you know the word ignorant ignorant what does that mean that literally means a lack of mystical knowledge ignorant is a lack of true understanding of reality we also have the word Godhead which specifically points to the impersonal essence of God the what of God what God is that's the Godhead also have words from the Christian mystical tradition like theosis which is defined as a transformative process whose goal is union with God we also have kenosis which is defined as an emptying of oneself and freeing yourself of your own will so that you have room for God's will there's agape which is a Greek term that means divine love as distinguished from erotic love or the love that our Father has for his child let's say or brotherly love this is divine love agape from the Hindu tradition we've got atman and brahman these are classical terms I love these terms Atman basically means the I am or the individualized self true self and Brahman means the universal self or the unchanging reality amidst and beyond the world it's the ground of everything we also have terms like the void emptiness Nirvana which literally means a blowing out or a quenching yoga which literally means a union with God or with reality moksha which is defined as a deliverance from the wheels of birth and death a sort of liberation from the illusion of life Buddha mind kensho which is a Zen term which means seeing into one's true nature Satori also a Zen term which means a lasting realization of the true nature of existence stream entry that's a popular Buddhist term for one who has had a first glimpse of the nature of himself our hot which title given to a fully awakened master fruition which basically means the fruition of all your meditative and contemplative practices which is enlightenment then we have words like progeny ah which means the highest and purest form of wisdom intelligence and understanding we have a word called gianna which means insight or pure awareness free of any conceptual encumbrances we have sunyata which means emptiness or voidness we have a Hindu term Turia which means the pure background consciousness that is the stage for all of existence we have a Tibetan term rigpa which means knowledge of the ground the ground of all being what is being grounded in that's rigpa we also have Bodhi which is the root word that we get Buddha from the Buddha means an awakened one and Bodhi means awakening to the true nature of things bood means to wake up to awaken from the Taoist tradition we have wuji or womb which means basically nothingness the ultimate boundless infinity that is reality from the Zen tradition we also have the word mu mu is a common a response that Zen masters give to kelan's to send Cohens and what does mu mean it means nothingness or the original non being that is existence we also have nirvikalpa samadhi which is an indian term which means the ultimate form of samadhi and absorption without self-consciousness to such a degree that a distinction between the knower the act of knowing and the object known becomes dissolved and one is left with an undifferentiated cognition there's also sahaja Samadhi which is a very deep advanced level of Samadhi when you have a recognition that all of identity the identity of spirit and of matter of subject and object is one in that there is no more sacred or profane there's no more spiritual or material but that everything lives in a pure void then we have the word Shiva Shiva refers to a popular major Indian deity it's like the god is Shiva but what is Shiva Shiva is not some avatar or some man living in the clouds in heaven Shiva means nothingness that's literally what Shiva is God is nothingness I love that word Shiva when you actually experience it all these words will make sense to you right now it might seem a little crazy but wait till you actually experience Shiva for yourself that's an amazing thing speaking of that Satchidananda is another word which is a new beautiful phrase that perfectly describes the experience of God or Shiva sat-chit-ananda is defined as existence consciousness bliss it's a three-part description of what it feels like to experience ultimate reality and I found in my own experiences of ultimate reality that it's a very apt description that's exactly how you feel at the same time you understand existence consciousness and you're overwhelmed with a feeling of bliss and love there's also a popular favorite phrase of mine rather I'm self which comes to us from the Kabbalistic tradition Judaism and ein sulf means the zero the absolute zero that which has no end or infinity I love how the Kabbalists talked about zero and infinity it's very beautiful of course from the Islamic traditions we have Allah and Allah possesses a quality called tau he'd what is tau he'd it's the indivisible oneness that is God that ineffable oneness of God that can't be encapsulated in any form and then another very beautiful phrase that I love from the Sufi tradition is fauna all fauna which is defined as the passing away of the passing away it's a non duality so deep that even non duality falls away it's a complete and utter annihilation of everything of the self and of everything that remains after the self and have any ideas that you are enlightened or that you are God or that you've experienced the ultimate truth is a complete passing away of everything it's to die before one has died fauna all fauna and that's what we're all altima after here is fauna all fauna so this is the list over fifty different labels all talking about the same thing essentially now we could split hairs and we could say well nirvikalpa samadhi leo nirvikalpa samadhi is technically different from rigpa and Ric Patek nicly different from faunal fauna and that's technically different yeah um we can get into those debates and once you reach higher levels of attainment spiritual attainment then maybe it will be worthwhile for you to make those distinctions but right now for most people that's not important right try to see the commonality here rather than the little differences so what I want to do now is I've selected three mystics from three different traditions that you've probably never heard of that I want to quote to you from so that you can get a little taste of the similarity here and how we're always talking about the exact same thing just using different styles and different language and I specifically selected sticks that you've probably never heard of before probably from traditions that you've never even known existed why because I want to show you how much breadth and depth there is to this and that it really is worthwhile for you to dig in a little bit deeper to do a little bit more research on your own it's fascinating stuff so without further ado let me quote to you firstly from Rabbi Israel of gorona who is a 12th century kabbalists Jewish mystic here's what he writes quote if a questioner asks who can compel me to believe in I and Soph what do we say and he says quote know that everything visible and perceivable to human contemplation is limited and everything that is limited is finite and that everything that is finite is insignificant conversely that which is not limited is called ein Soph and it is absolutely undifferentiated in a complete and changeless unity and if he is without limit the nothing exists outside of him and since he is both exalted and hidden he is the essence of all that is concealed and revealed and quote next I want to read to you from pseudo-dionysius the areopagite a sixth century Eastern Orthodox Christian mystic here's what he has to say quote God is therefore known in all things and distinct from all things he is known through knowledge and through unknowing of him there is conception reason understanding touch perception opinion imagination and name and many other things on the other hand he cannot be understood words cannot contain him and no name can lay hold of him he is not one of the things that are and he cannot be known in any of them he is all things and all things and he is no thing among things he is known to all from all things and he is known to know from anything and quote I love that I love the paradox of that how about that for confusion and lastly let me quote to you from eben attaullah 13th century Sufi Islamic mystic who writes quote how can the heart be illumined while the forms of creatures are reflected in its mirror or how can it journey to God while shackled by its passions or how can it desire to enter the presence of God while it has not yet purified itself of the strain of forgetfulness or how can it understand the subtle points of mysteries while it has not yet repented of its offenses while on the way to Allah one can experience flashes or illuminations but only when one has accomplished fana al fauna the passing away of the passing away only then can one see in the light of Allah Himself the real is not veiled from you rather it is you who are veiled from seeing it for were anything to veil it then that which veils it would cover it but if there were a covering to it then it would be a limitation to its being every limitation to anything has power over it but he is the omnipotent above his servants end quote I want to give credit to Professor Luke Timothy Johnson of Emory University who is a professor of mysticism and religion from whom I pulled three of these quotes so there you have it you're getting a little bit of a taste of the diversity of styles and ways of communicating about the ineffable source of all of reality so you might wonder well why am I telling you all this what's the significance here sounds just like interesting trivia it's more than just interest trivia though what I want from you is I want you to become fluent in non-duality to such a degree that you have a integrated holistic understanding of this entire field so that you see the ultimate picture so that you are able to converse fluently with a Christian or a Jew or a Muslim or a Buddhist or a Hindu or an atheist or an occultist or if you got into a time machine and you travel back in time 5000 years ago to the ancient Egyptians you would be able to understand where they're coming from and so that you see how all of this interconnects and how all of it basically points to the exact same thing of course allowing for a lot of diversity and a lot of stylistic differences you have to understand that all of these mystics and all these traditions um were started in totally different corners of the world on different continents different climates different geopolitical situations different city-state situations wars factions famines different cuisines you know different ways of storytelling different languages so that accounts for a lot of the differences but even still if you overlook the differences you see the incredible similarities and this is something that you need as a sage and this is something that you need to really master this field of non-duality because you know what I've met enlightened people I've even met enlightened masters who are still ignorant of one or more of these traditions and who react in a petty sectarian sort of way against Moslems or Buddhists or Hindus or Christians or Jews because they don't see haven't really studied the that tradition and so they can't see the interconnections that it has to their enlightenment and so therefore they actually are not fully masters I don't consider the Masters I consider them only having partial understanding of the entire field right this is one of the things I mean when I say enlightenment is way more than just about enlightenment right because it's very easy to get enlightened and then look at the entire world from your little corner of your little perspective from your little culture it's like you become enlightened then it's like the Buddhist way of enlightenment is the only way it's the highest way and then if you're a Christian then it's it's your Christian way that's the only way and if you're a Hindu what's your Hindu way that's the only way and this to me speaks of ignorance right just downright ignorant because you can tell that these people even if they do have some kind of higher spiritual realization or insights that's great but also it's important to put it into proper context and to see that okay I discovered the truth but you know what nobody has a monopoly on the truth no culture no religion no one mystic not the Buddha not Christ not anybody and a truly enlightened master will not claim to have a monopoly on the truth if they do that's how you can tell that they're still ignorant and they still don't have the most integrated biggest picture perspective possible and that's one of the traps that I see people falling into when they listen to me talking about enlightenment is that they get on board they start to do some meditation techniques they maybe even have an insight or two maybe they do some psychedelics or whatever and then all the sudden they get cocky and they think that they understand non-duality and they think that their particular method was the one right method and then they start criticising and bickering about how oh no that teacher over there he's wrong and Leo what you're saying here is egotistical and this over there and that over there and so you start to fight with everybody and believe it or not this happens to even enlightened people is that because they are ignorant of the bigger picture they can go on a crusade just spread their enlightenment because you know why yeah it feels like you've got the truth and maybe you do got the truth but you got understand that there are many different paths up the mountaintop it's the same [ __ ] mountaintop just because you took one path doesn't mean that's the one path that everybody should take different people resonate with different paths different people are from different cultures what I want to help you to do here is to become sort of a cosmopolitan non duelist rather than a parochial non duelist it's sort of like you're becoming a citizen of the world and this is actually very important because otherwise if you don't do this what will happen to you is that you will get triggered one day you'll be discussing non-duality with somebody and they'll be from a different culture from a different tradition have different preferences and stylistic differences from you and then you guys are going to get into some heated debate when in fact there's nothing to debate you both agree on the fundamental truth but the ego loves to debate doesn't it the ego loves to play sectarian games the ego loves to say Oh leo you just said you know the Sufis the Sufis discovered the truth and you're I'm Islamic so Leo does that mean that Islam is the one true religion that's what it means that's what you said and that's not at all what I said yeah it's true that there are some people in the Sufi tradition who have discovered the ultimate absolute truth of existence and so that's a part of Islam it's also true though that there are Buddhists who have discovered the ultimate truth it's also true that there are Hindus who have discovered the ultimate truth there are Jews who have discovered the ultimate truth there are Christians there are atheists there are cultists there are African there are Native Americans okay and I want you to be comfortable with that so that you don't cling to your little corner of the world and then try to proselytize everybody to follow your style you have to leave room open for stylistic differences in the same way that you know when you travel to another country you accept that they have different cuisine different customs different culture different etiquette right and the wrong way to travel would be to say like you know what islands of America so I'm gonna go to Asia and when I'm in Asia I'm gonna try to impose all the American values American culture American cuisine on the Asians because the Asians got it wrong no see that's a that's just a lack of worldliness that's something that happens to somebody who's lived in America his whole life and then maybe travels to Asia once and then he looks like a [ __ ] fool right so you don't want to do that with your non-duality you want to be much more accepting and also it's important because this actually leads to a lot of suffering and damage when you don't have this cosmopolitan big-picture perspective why well just take a look through the last five thousand years history what has it been it's mostly been history books are filled with what with a spiritual Crusades and all manner of evil in the name of spirituality wars ah torture inquisitions trials persecution segregation like all these things why because our ancestors didn't have the big picture cosmopolitan perspective now we can forgive them though why because frankly you know 2,000 years ago what was happening there was no internet there were no airplanes there were no airports there were no trains no automobiles so if you became enlightened in your little corner of the world you didn't even know that the world was freaking round and that there were other races on the other end of the world you didn't know that and there weren't very good books in print there wasn't the Internet where you can go and learn all this stuff so it was very difficult to get a big picture cosmopolitan perspective back then so we understand you know society had to evolve to where we are now but you are different you are alive in 21st century we now have the luxury of the Internet and so forth and it's very easy to learn about these things so you really have no more excuses to be sectarian you need to be cosmopolitan because that's ultimate non duality non-duality is not about saying oh I'm a Buddhist and the Buddhists are right everybody else is wrong no that's antithetical to real non duality real non duality is embodied not just known or spoken and to embody it means that everything is one and if everything is 1 that means the Buddhists the Muslims the Hindus the atheists the Egyptians the Jews the everybody they're all your neighbors they're all your neighbors and as Jesus said treat your neighbors as you would treat yourself that's very important it's very important that you understand this this is not just a philosophical pedantic philosophical or like a scholarly point ok all right so enough of me ranting about that let me sum up just by saying what your biggest takeaway here should be this is a good start but what I need you to do if you're on board with becoming a sage is to go and research this stuff a little deeper because this was just a really quick overview I want you to become familiar with the language of non-duality all the different labels and words that I mentioned all the different traditions at least have a cursory overview now don't get me wrong I'm not saying that what you need to do is to become a master in every single tradition and field there's virtually no way that you'll be able to do that nor am I saying that you need to pursue all the techniques in all the different fields to become enlightened that would also be misguided you need to select one or two or three sets of techniques and just work those and the most important thing that I want you to take away here is that this is all about having a direct experience for yourself the practical benefit that I can see to understanding this bigger picture and to studying these traditions is that actually it produces motivation within you because here's what will happen you start to study and read this stuff you start to make all the interconnections between all these different traditions and then it hits you like oh my god all these people over the last 5000 years on every continent around the world have all been talking about the same damn thing and it's an experience they're talking about an experience they're not talking about a belief system it's an experience and I don't have a reference for all these labels I'm missing this reference experience I don't have an experience I don't know what the ultimate nature of existence is if I'm honest I don't know that's what I want you to experience is that state of not knowing that realization that there's something bigger something esoteric about life that you don't yet know because that is the true beginning of the spiritual path is when you get to that point and we need a lot more people getting to that point okay so you can think of this as an exercise in building your motivation as also opens your mind and makes you more cosmopolitan and then the most ultimate takeaway is that after you do this research and you study these traditions is that here would be the mistake is if you did that and then you became the academic scholarly know-it-all trying to impress your friends with trivial facts about these different traditions it's like oh did you know the Hindus and did you know the islamics and did you know this and this and is that that would be a mistake the point here is that you study all this stuff and then you recognize that now I need the direct experience of what the [ __ ] all these people are talking about I need to know it's almost like you know if your friends went to see some great new movie that came out and they just loved it it's like the best movie ever the best movie of the year right and they all talk about it at work with you like oh man you gotta go see this movie guys to see this movie it's like it's so funny they start telling jokes from the movie and they start making a little little um allusions to oh this happened and that happened but you not having seen the movie you kind of get it but really you don't right you can't laugh the jokes you can't really appreciate the things you're talking about you just get a little outsider's perspective so what does that usually do well that gets you excited to go see the movie right and then you go see the movie so that's the idea here the mistake would be to get caught up in all the stories about the movie go read online reviews about the movie and then say oh yeah you know I've read all the online reviews so I don't need to go see the movie that would be the deadly mistake and I don't want you to make that mistake here right so be careful all right so that's it but I'm gonna leave you with the following homework assignment I have some Wikipedia links a couple dozen of them that I'm going to post down below below this video go peruse these links these links point to many of the words about enlightenment that I talked about in this episode they also point you to different specific mystical traditions that I want you to research because I don't think you've ever studied them they didn't teach you this stuff in school they didn't teach you this stuff in college most likely so you just don't know right so go and spend a couple hours at least perusing these links reading through them and as you're doing that look for the commonalities the commonalities and that will create a really nice foundation for you then to go out and pursue enlightenment in whichever way you want and then you can select you know which methods and techniques you want to use and you're going to be much more likely to find the tradition and the methods and techniques that will appeal and resonate with you alright so that's it if you do this a whole new world will open up to you non-duality is an entire field it's a very rich and beautiful field to study it's the most meaningful thing to study that's why mankind has been ranting and raving over spirituality since the dawn of time that's why because this is what you're here to understand so now is the best time to begin all right I'm signing off click the like button for me please post your comments down below share this ups with a friend and lastly come check out actualize run right here it's my website sign up to my newsletter it's free stay tuned with me as in the future I will be releasing more and more topics about how to become a sage and it's going to be deeper and deeper topics like this if you dug this topic you're going to dig a lot of the stuff I'm gonna be sharing with you in the future and it's going to be a mix of sort of abstract philosophical intellectual stuff but then also practical stuff and when you blend the theory with the practice that's when you get the strongest combination just doing the practice with no theory that is not the strongest combination you'll discover that as we go along because you'll see some of the topics the very conceptual topics that I'll share with you in the future will be absolutely instrumental to your success on this path and in your life so I hope you stick with me and I'll see soon with more you