← The Telepathy Tapes
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- [00:03]
A
Before we dive in today, I want to announce that the second season of the telepathy tapes will be dropping on October 15th. So mark your calendars and get ready because season two, the consciousness channel, is a month away. Do you have a story, insight or research that belongs on the Telepathy Tapes or Talk tracks? Email storieslepathytapes.com and if you want to go deeper, ask me anything or get ad free episodes. Subscribe at the telepathytapes.supercast.com or tap the Supercast link in the show Notes. Hi everyone, I'm Kai Dickens and I'm thrilled to welcome you to the Talk Tracks. In this series, we dive deeper into the revelations, challenges and unexpected truths from the Telepathy Tapes. The goal is to explore all the threads that weave together our understanding of reality, science, spirituality, and yes, even unexplained things like psi abilities. If you haven't yet listened to season one of the Telepathy Tapes, I encourage you to start there. It lays the foundation for everything we'll be exploring in this journey. We'll feature conversations with groundbreaking researchers, thinkers, non speakers and experiencers who illuminate the extraordinary connections that may defy explanation today, but won't for long. In this episode of the Talk Tracks, Telepathy Tapes coordinator Kathryn Ellis chats with Anu Gupta, an author, civil rights leader and mindfulness teacher who has studied the Eastern Vedic traditions deeply. In this conversation, Anu touches on how concepts like telepathy, expanded consciousness and intuitive knowing are actually normalized in these ancient traditions. And not only that, the they're seen as natural byproducts of being in alignment. When your heart, mind and soul are clear and open. It's a beautiful grounding perspective that offers a lot of hope. There's no phenomena or magic to chase. It's more about tapping into our inner humanity. When we step outside of some of the Western perspectives, we find other traditions that remind us it's about the inner path first and then the rest unfolds. So, so let's get into it.
- [02:14]
B
Well, hi Anu, thank you for coming on the podcast. Do you want to give a brief introduction of who you are and what you do?
- [02:21]
C
Yeah. Well, thanks so much for having me here. So my name is Anu Gupta. I'm a human rights lawyer, I'm a scientist educator, a mindfulness teacher, an author of a book called Breaking Bias and I've for the past two decades I've been really inspired by the idea of mindfulness and meditation based tools to overcome all forms of bigotry and prejudices. And beyond all the work that I do in the world, I'm also a deep meditator and a lifelong student of Hindu and Buddhist teachings, particularly in the Self Realization Fellowship tradition, which is a worldwide organization that was founded by my teacher, my guru, Paramahansa Yogananda in the US in 1920. So, yeah, that's what brings me here today to talk to you about all the exciting things of Scythe and Avanan.
- [03:08]
B
Amazing. That's so exciting. Yeah. So I know that you're very knowledgeable about how a lot of the Eastern traditions for a long time have talked about telepathy. And if we brought it up, you know, maybe in other parts of the world, it wouldn't be as shocking or odd as people may find it here in the US So can you tell me a little bit about what you know about that?
- [03:32]
C
Yeah, well, I think to begin with, you know, in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, you know, they've, you know, long recognized the subtle capacities of the mind, you know, telepathy being one of them, but not as something that's supernatural, but as natural extensions of consciousness which are generally refined. So these are capacities that we build through inner discipline, meditation and ethical integrity. And one of the ways that the Shastras, the Upanishads, the Vedas and others truly talk about this is that mind to mind knowing is actually part of human existence. But it happens when one's mind is fully known and purified and still. And, you know, when I was listening to the first season of telepathy tapes, I was just so awestruck by some of the young people you all spoke with because it so seemed that they had fully known and realized who they were. They knew who they were, right, because they're oftentimes non speaking, non know, autistics. And it's the external world that then projects onto them certain ideas of who they ought to be when they are kind of living in that stillness that, you know, one consciousness, as we would say.
- [04:44]
B
Yeah. In these traditions, when you say a purified mind or like, what does that mean? How. How does one get that? What's the measure of that? You know what I mean?
- [04:55]
C
Yeah. So, you know, in the yoga philosophy, whether it's in the Hindu or the Buddhist tradition, there is a faithful path. You know, it's known as Ashtanga Yoga. And this first two legs of this path are actually what are known as Yamas and the Niyamas. And that's really about building ethical integrity. So this is, you know, ahimsa being the first thing which is nonviolence speaking truth, non stealing. So in the west it's often known as the Ten Commandments for example. So part of that is kind of the foundation and then we move to like asana. So in the world that's a third leg which is posture. So we know a lot about you know, physical exercise and physical practice of yoga. But that's one of one eighth of the path. And then we move to like pranayama breath work and then moving up to the subtle capacities of the mind. And the whole idea is for us to be able to still what's known as the vacillations of the mind, thoughts. So the way we think about thoughts in our world is like oh my gosh, they just happen. But actually thoughts are energy, these are vibrations that we are releasing into the world. And in these traditions, in Eastern traditions, thoughts are understood to be these capacities that we have that we can actually willingly send and receive. But in order for, you know, Yogananda would say for our inner radios to be fully attuned, it needs to be purified or clean. Right. Which is really about living a life of ethical integrity.
- [06:28]
B
Yeah. And that's so interesting to me because it a little bit makes me feel like what some people have issue with, with religions which is that you know, things are work based or you have to be a certain way or do a certain thing in order to, I don't know, have, have good things or be able to do something like this. And I don't know, that's hard to kind of like reconcile with or even believe I think for some people.
- [06:55]
C
Yeah, you know, I want to kind of speak about a few things. You know, there's three personalities I want to bring into this. You know, first is really Paramasya Yogananda who wrote this book called Autobiography of a Yogi. He's kind of one of the most seminal figures in the world. You know, George Howard Harrison, part of the Beatles, was a devotee of his Steve Jobs. You know, at his funeral the only book he gave to everyone was the Autobiography of Yogi. So and he was a, you know, a lot of people believe an awakened master who really came to the west in the US in 1920, you know, when anti miscegenation laws were part of the law. And here's this dark skinned brown man coming here to really show the unity between all religious traditions, you know, whether it's Christianity or Hinduism or Buddhism or Islam or others. And underneath all that he was really speaking about this idea of truth. And for him, like in the autobiography. It's really fascinating because there are so many instances in the book, if folks read, where he describes telepathic experiences. You know, there's a whole chapter, you know, chapter 43, when his teacher actually appeared to him telepathically and gave him a sense of astral realms and all these other realms and how existence and consciousness actually operates. And there's this really one funny example that he cites, which is of this cauliflower thief. This is when he was young and he was a student still learning the path of yoga, Kriya yoga in particular, and they were going out to do something with his fellow students, and he forgot to lock the door to the ashram where he was living, where he was staying. And his teacher asked him like, hey, did you lock that ashram door? And he was like, I think so. But he had forgotten that he'd done it. You know, we do that every day. But his guru already knew that he had not locked it. But within the ashram, he had left a bunch of cauliflowers that he had picked earlier that morning. So to teach him a lesson, his guru actually telepathically communicated with just a peasant who was passing by to go inside and steal one of the cauliflowers, leave his gold watch and all the money he had left, just as it is, but to actually pick up this cauliflower and, like steal it. And it was really funny. I mean, it's a funny incident that he shares about this cauliflower thief. But what he was really trying to show, you know, in this particular example, is that thoughts are no more than the very subtle vibrations moving in ethereum. And just as correctly tuned radios, for example, pick up a desired musical number out of thousands of pertinent radio stations, a mind that is deeply sensitized and that's receptive can actually pick up countless thoughts and be able to see through thoughts of human beings that are out there and particularly as we're broadcasting those thoughts. So when, you know, I listen to the telepathy tapes and listen to the stories of a lot of these young people, I'm like, oh, my gosh, they're basically moving through wild amounts of thought, you know, on a daily basis because they have really refined this capacity. And for them to refine this capacity is really through being humans, being people who are completely truth seeking, who are really are unable to lie or unable to cause harm. And that is kind of the beauty of this path. And the other thing I'll share about this is that in the traditions Telepathy and other capacities aren't desirable. You know, they are not the goal itself. They're just part of the path. So they're known as siddhis or supernatural powers. But if we, you know, what's it's known as, like they can actually become a distraction because oftentimes when people attain these siddhis, these powers, they can become attached to them.
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A
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- [13:33]
B
What other ones are there?
- [13:34]
C
There's actually so in the Buddhist path, I mean this is both Hindu and Buddhist path. The, the Buddha was really clear and he actually described five categories of supernatural abilities or siddhis as they're known. So telepathy being one of them, which is knowledge of states of minds of, you know, others being able to read or transfer thoughts to others, telepathy. Then the other ones are knowledge of one's past lives and the past lives of others. The third one is what's known as divine eye or ability to see into the future, to see things near and far on earth and beyond. Just things like time travel, bilocation, visitations to other realms for those people that believe that stuff. The fourth one is divine Earth ability to hear sounds, near and far on earth and other realms. And the last one is actually the ability to transform one of the four basic elements in the physical world from 1:1 element to another. So earth, air, water and fire. So like being able to cook without fire or dematerializing one's body or doubling one's body. So those are kind of the five supernatural abilities.
- [14:51]
B
That's. Yeah, that's so interesting. I mean, why would we not just be born with that ability, do you think?
- [14:58]
C
Well, I think that's the thing. So there's several answers I have around this.
- [15:02]
B
Or do you think we are and we.
- [15:04]
C
We are. Yeah, yeah, we are. So in the Eastern traditions, you know, we look at time from a very, from like a deep space and time perspective. So there's a book called the Holy Science by Paramahansa, Yogananda's teacher. So he was a Vedic scholar, lived in the late 19th century. And in this book he really shows the unity between Christianity and Hinduism, Hindu Ved Vedas in particular. And what he says and what he's described is that time is actually cycles of 24,000 years and there's 12, and it's divided into two. There's a descending cycle of 12,000 years and an ascending cycle of 12,000 years. And these cycles are divided into four stages. And the first of these stages is what's known as the Kali Yoga or the Dark Ages. So the reason why, you know, like to question why don't we, a lot of us know about this? Well, because the last, until you know, the year 1700, we were actually living in what's known as a Kali Yuga, which was, you know, which was all about, you know, we think about the medieval ages and just so much bigotry and enslavement and genocide, all of that occurred during that time. But since the 1700s, you know, we've moved into the second age, which is Dvapara Yuga or the age of energy awareness. So this is when we're beginning to grasp subtle forces, particularly energy. And we kind, we see that, right? And since 1700 the advances in science have been so vast and some people, telepathy is still rare, but it's emerging, right? Particularly with telepathic tapes. We're beginning to bring this information out into the world. And now this age is supposed to be 2,400 years long and we're like in year 300 something. So that's why. But then the third Yuga is a Trata Yuga or mental awareness. So that's where the capacity of intuition is fully developed within human beings and mind to mind communication is actually possible. And then last is Satya Yuga, which is the age of truth, where one is just one with the divine, you know, as one would say, and there's instant knowing. So I think in the Eastern tradition that is how they begin to explain some of this stuff. And the beauty of this for me has been in the introduction of that book, just as you know, how does this time space continuum actually exist? So just as our planet is revolving around a sun right around the star, which basically gives light the understanding that a lot of these ancient sages were able to bring to the earth. Is that our, our star, our sun is actually revolving around what's known as Brahmanadi. So it's. And the farther it is from the Brahmanadi in that 24,000 year long cycle, that's when we're in the dark ages.
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B
Wait, is the Brahmanati.
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C
It is basically a central point around which many, many stars are revolving around. And that's basically one can really think of it as the supernatural, like divine consciousness, love God, what have you, but that's at the center of it. The farther one is away in this 24,000 year long cycle, that's Based in the Hindu tradition. Yeah. In the Vedic tradition. Yeah.
- [18:27]
B
So who came up with that? Who decided that?
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C
Well, we don't know. Right. A lot of this because of the Kali Yuga. Right. A lot of this has been passed down and written down, but a lot of this was through inner inference. And this is the sages of the Vedas and the Upanishads and a lot of Eastern wisdom traditions. So folks think they know, like, the yoga sutras was written by Patanjali, and. But no one really knows who the author is or who came with it. These are. That's why, like, Hinduism is like, a name that was given to this tradition because Hindu is basically the word for the Indus Valley or the Indus River. And the Persians were referring to people of this land as those people that live by the Indus Valley. But the true name for it is actually Sanatana Dharma, which is the eternal law or for the eternal truth. So. So that's kind of. It's really interesting. Right. And one example that really came to me, so I shared with you the five supernatural capacities, or siddhis. There was a saint, a woman saint who lived in the 20th century. She was the teacher of some of the most prominent Western Buddhist teachers. Her name was Deepama. So this is her Deepama. And she taught Sharon Salzburg, Jack Hornfield, Joseph Goldstein. Whole list of teachers that have really popularized mindfulness in the west in the last 40 years, some of whom are my teachers, too. So she's kind of my teacher's teacher. Right. In a way. And she, you know, particularly in her biography that's written by Amy Schmidt, she was someone who had all five of these capacities. Like, she had attained youth capacities within her lifetime. And there's so many stories of her. Of her just going to see her teacher walking through walls.
- [20:18]
B
Wow.
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C
You know, being able to. And, you know, one would, if you read her stories, you know, these are Western teachers that were. Her students were like, oh, my gosh. She, like, exuded this energy. She was able to cook, you know, with her hands. So without needing a fire or convert various elements from one place to another. There are these other funny stories. They're not funny. They're supernatural stories of her spying on her teacher by building a house in the air and just, like, peeking inside. And, you know, here was this woman. She was a widow. Like, she lived a very, very difficult life. You know, she lived under. She lived in Myanmar. She was of Indian origin, didn't speak Burmese. How she lived there, you know, was a widow, hadn't meditated ever. But in the. In her 40s, she lost her husband, two of her kids. She was completely alone, but somehow found a meditation path and then was just, you know, the only explanation is because of her past karmas from previous lifetimes, she became such a, what would say, like she was a prodigy, a spiritual prodigy, that within a couple of years, she reached, you know, the four stages of what's known as Chanas or Dhyana in Sanskrit. And these are the stages of attaining these supernatural powers and abilities. But even after receiving these abilities, she actually abandoned them because she said, she practically stopped practicing them because she said they involve the ego and a hindrance to liberation, to final, you know, freedom from this cycle of birth and death. So in the Eastern traditions, when we think about human existence, you know, the first noble truth in the Buddhist tradition, for example, is that we suffer. There is suffering in life right there. We can get all the money in the world, all the power, all the same, you know, and yet we switch. There's this, like, sense of unsatisfaction. And what the Buddha really came here to teach, you know, through self realization, through attainment of freedom, is that the cause of the suffering is craving. But there is another path, which is Nirvana. But one can actually reach that state through the novelizational path. And for her, when she received these siddhis, she was like, wow, like, these are distraction from this final state of freedom.
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B
Well, I just would think it would connect her more closely with this state of Nirvana to be able to have these abilities.
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C
Well, it could be misused, right? That's one of the things these, when you have these powers. Like, just imagine so many people in our world who say that, oh, if I have. If I had all the money or if I had all the influence, you know, I would build charities or, you know, solve for poverty or hunger. But so many of people get distracted by all the things that power and wealth really bring into our life. And that's the same thing with these supernatural abilities, and which is why she abandoned them. You know, there's a sutta. There's a sutta, actually, that Buddha talking about telepathy, it's known as the Kevata sutta. So this is actually from the Buddhist text. And he basically says that, oh, telepathy is totally possible. But he then said that ethical insight and liberation from birth and death are the higher aim. And telepathy is something that can distract one from reaching for those higher aims. And in the sutta, it's really, it's interesting because, you know, it goes like, you Know what is the miracle of telepathy? You know, there's a case when a monk reads the mind, the mental events, the thought and the ponderings of other beings, and says, this is your thinking, this is what you're thinking, and this is your mind, so you can read minds. But when. Then he goes on to say, when someone who has faith and conviction in this person, who can telepathically read, they'll believe him. But then when you go to a person without faith, without conviction, they would say to the person with faith and conviction that there's a charm called Monica charm by which the monk reads this mind, reads other people's minds. So that's similar to what we've been seeing in the 20th century, particularly some of the science around telepathy. Right. There's always been people planting doubt, saying that, oh, this can't be possible. This is not humanly possible. And this is why, you know, even the Buddha said that, you know, this is the drawback of the miracle or this power of telepathy, because we then use all of our energy trying to prove that we have this capacity versus working on this larger goal, which is to purify our hearts and minds, to be free from suffering altogether.
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B
Right. I guess I'm just like, why would we even come to Earth and not be purified? You know, it's almost like, what's the point?
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C
Yeah, well, this is. What do you think the point is?
- [25:26]
B
Yeah, I mean, that's a good question.
- [25:29]
C
Yeah.
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B
It does feel like maybe we come here to. To do some refining, some soul refining.
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C
That's right. And so I think in our. In our traditions, right. In self realization, the reason why Yogananda named this global organization Self Realization Fellowship is because self realization really describes the goal of what life is, which is to realize oneself, realize that we're one with everything and everyone, that we're. There's, you know, Thich Nhat Hanh popularized this phrase of interdependence or interbeing. You know, the African tradition is known as ubuntu, and one can realize that through purifying one's hearts and minds. But there is. The root cause of why we suffer across the board is what's known as ignorance or delusion. Right. And the Sanskrit tradition is called Aditya. So that is basically, that's a distraction where we think that we're separate from one another, from nature, from other beings, and therefore we need to accumulate more things. You know, we need to be the best in our profession or have the most number of followers. Or likes. And there's, you know, we fall into. And that those are the defilements of the mind, you know, and this is why, you know, the practices in Eastern traditions really bring mindfulness as a way to still the mind, to be able to see and know for ourselves how these defilements are distracting us and taking us away, away from our ultimate goal, which is to find freedom within.
- [27:08]
A
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- [28:15]
B
It is. You know, everything that the world tells you is going to satisfy you. I think that's right. Leads to emptiness. It's like the. What is it, the Oscar Wilde quote? That's like there's two tragedies in a man's life. One is not getting what you want, and the other is getting what you want.
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C
Because it's never enough. Right. Because we can get the most amount of money and it's never enough. We want more and more and more. And this is what I think the, the young people you've interviewed are trying to teach us. Right. We think that we'll find happiness through these external measures, but actually happiness is something we find within.
- [28:50]
B
Yeah.
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C
And that is the state that a lot of them are living in day in and day out.
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B
Yeah. I mean, and you said you were like, you know, I think that's how these non speakers are living in this pure way. Why do you think that's true? What do you think it is about being non verbal or having apraxia that would make this more possible for them to tune into this and have this kind of pure mindset and heart?
- [29:18]
C
You know, it's really, it's an interesting question because I don't know, I am not enlightened in any shape or form or claim to be, but I do think that they're operating at a higher frequency than most of us. And I think for me, like when I reflect on this and you know, really move to a space of, well, why is it that these young people, and they're not the only ones or people that communicate with them, that believe them, some of their parents and teachers and colleagues, they have developed some of these capacities particularly to communicate with them. Like what is it about these humans versus others? And I think they are, it's not about them, it's about the rest of us. So they're here to teach the rest of us to have more confidence in them, to trust them, to have faith in them. And that's something they repeatedly say, right? They're saying that you can trust us, that we're not defective in any way. You know, we're differently abled. Right. And I think they're teaching us to test the extent of our own compassion and our own empathy and our ability to believe that this is possible. You know, one of the things that, you know, professionally I've been working on issues of breaking bias and overcoming prejudice. And in the Vedic traditions there are eight meanness of the heart. There are eight kinds of meanness that they've listed. I mean, Eastern tradition loves lists. It's, it's just like makes like people who just like, like lists to like understand.
- [30:49]
B
I like, I like lists. I appreciate.
- [30:52]
C
Yeah. So. And these eight obstacles, these eight meanness of the heart are obstacles to freedom, to finding alignment. And three of these eight are actually having to do with bigotry and bias. You know, one is, you know, race or caste prejudice. The second is pride of pedigree. You know, so when we think that we're from a certain family or certain background or certain abilities, we have that like sense of entitlement. Well, that's actually keeping us from getting free. And then this last one is a narrow sense of respectability, the smugness that we carry around. And the other five, for those who are curious is hatred, shame, fear, grief and condemnation. So for me, when I think about the, you know, I've been reflecting a lot after listening to many of the Episodes. And I reflect on these young people. I'm like, oh, like, they don't have these eight obstacles at all. You know, the external world oftentimes, like, institutionalizing them and not believing them is often putting them in circumstances to have those things arise within them. And yet they have so much patience and compassion still for these, you know, institutions that are basically torturing them one way or another. I know.
- [32:11]
B
Yeah.
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C
And this is where I'm like, wow, like, they're free.
- [32:14]
B
Totally. Yeah, I. I totally agree. That's like, you know, if you listen to season one and you heard from Libby, John Paul's mom, like, she loves.
- [32:22]
C
That's right.
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B
I loved John Paul's. She'd always say, like, you know, John Paul just would just say to her mom, just love them. Like, they don't realize, you know, and. And this is someone who was bullied in school and never take, you know, people were irritated by him and, you know, everything that was just so difficult about his life. And he would always just say, just love them. And you're right. It's like, what total freedom that is to be living in that higher frequency all the time. I do want to ask, do you think that. Because maybe we do all have this potential capacity. Do you think that we pick up on people's thoughts without maybe realizing it? And it. This has just made me so much more aware of my thoughts, and even my thoughts towards myself are about myself. I'm realizing if those are negative, that's actually also a disservice to other people. You know, it's such a responsibility to have thoughts and realize that the power that they hold. And it's not just about you and your own mind. It's affecting this whole ecosystem around me.
- [33:34]
C
That's right. And, you know, for me, you know, having studied and practiced in the Hindu and the Buddhist traditions, what we think of thoughts and thinking is actually one of six senses that we have. So we often think of, like the five senses. Sense of sight, smell, taste, touch, and hearing. But it's actually a sixth sense which is thinking. So in the Buddhist cosmology, thinking as a. As a, you know, as one of our senses has really helped me understand. Oh, thinking is just happening. And what we are then asked to do is become aware of what's happening in the moment. And once we become aware of it, we can acknowledge and we can notice it and then begin to place our attention, our consciousness, on something that is of higher frequency and that is the habit that we need to be in. And for me, this really helps Me understand that, oh, we've been moving through these dark ages, the Kali Yuga, and now we're moving into the second age. And that's what's being asked of us. You know, we're constantly focused on war and division and polarization and misinformation. That's okay. Right. And, you know, ultimately, if we continue to put our thoughts in that direction, we are going to suffer. Right. And likely cause other people's suffering. But we can actually then extract our consciousness from those places and to put it on something more skillful and wholesome, like love, like compassion, like generosity and forgiveness.
- [34:56]
B
Yeah, yeah. It's. I mean, in some ways, it feels like the Earth is more than ever going in this direction of violence and anger and selfishness and individualism. And then maybe it's just because I've been working on this project for a while, but it really does feel like there is another movement happening right now.
- [35:16]
C
That's right.
- [35:16]
B
That's so dedicated to love and connection and a higher frequency and in a way that I've never seen or experienced before in my life. And that feels really hopeful and exciting.
- [35:31]
C
That's right. You know, can I read something, actually? Because this relates to the question you asked around, if we have the ability to read other people's minds. And I'm going to read from the autobiography itself because these are Paramahansi Yogananda's words. And it's so clear because he defines telepathy. And this book was written like the 1940s. Right. And really kind of synthesizing a lot of ancient wisdom that's thousands of years old. So it's on page 256 for any listener who wants to go back to it. So he writes that in telepathy, the sign vibrations of thoughts in one man's mind are transmitted through. Through the subtle vibrations of astral ether and then through the grosser earthly ether, creating electrical waves that in turn transform themselves into thought waves in the mind of the other person. Wow. So this is all scientific. Right. Part of the beauty of this path of ancient Eastern wisdom traditions is that it's all science. And, you know, the Buddha said this famous word, ehipasako, which really means in Pali, come and experience it for yourself. So don't just believe me for it, don't take my word for it, but follow this path and then experience it. And that is the invitation here, is that, oh, like, it's hard for folks to believe me or Yogananda or any of the other people, but the more we practice, the More we're like, oh, whoa, it's working, you know?
- [37:00]
B
Yeah, it's working.
- [37:01]
C
And that's why people are hooked onto yoga and meditation and breath work. And because they're like, oh, something's shifting in me that I don't even know what it is. But at a very subtle level, it's happening.
- [37:11]
B
Yeah, yeah, it's so cool. Gosh. And that quote even further sort of validates what I was saying about having such a deep responsibility for your thoughts.
- [37:22]
C
Yeah, exactly.
- [37:23]
B
Because they really do affect other people. And yeah, I want to be sending out love and good and peace with my thoughts, you know?
- [37:32]
C
You know, and one of the things that's really important around that and oftentimes we can put a lot of pressure on ourselves and shame ourselves that, oh my gosh, like, why is it that I can't think, you know, more loving thoughts and compassionate thoughts. But one of the things that I've learned through my work is that our brains are plastic and they're also conditioned. So where we place our attention is where, you know, our thoughts are going to go. Right. But oftentimes our products are. Our thoughts are also a product of the company we keep. So that's really important for us to begin to notice and acknowledge that. Oh, like who are the friends and the family members that I'm surrounding myself with or the colleagues I'm surrounding myself with? And what is, what is the op, what frequency are they operating on? What are they constantly talking about or thinking about or how are they showing up in the world? That's one thing. But then also what is the media that I'm consuming, Whether it's social media or, you know, entertainment media or news media. Because that's also thoughts. Right. At a subtle level, we're taking in these stories and narratives from these external inputs and that is what's creating the thoughts that are generated in our own brain.
- [38:45]
B
Yeah.
- [38:45]
C
And I think that is what we can begin, begin to become more mindful of. And you'll see that, you know, that's why oftentimes like, oh, yeah, I just went on this like awesome all inclusive vacation where I didn't do anything and it was on a media fast. And I feel so great. Why is that? Because I purified myself and I was, you know, in the natural world, I was kind of listening to birds or whatever. So that's where I think we can begin to become more mindful of what we're concealing and what energies we're concealing. And of course that's a, that kind of Reflect in how we're thinking day to day.
- [39:17]
B
I would maybe even argue that our past experiences also would influence our current thoughts. And that is hard to change and get past. It's sort of like you have to force yourself to realize like the past, it doesn't exist, you know, and, and how to sort of like rewire your brain to not continue thinking in whatever pattern that's made you think in.
- [39:41]
C
Well, thank you for bringing that up. I mean, trauma is a big part, right. Of how so many of us, particularly right now with vicarious trauma, where we're seeing so much pain and cruelty around us, which also reminds us of the things we may have experienced. That of course, keeps us small and keeps us in a place of feeling like a victim. And that's where some of these practices come in. But in addition to talk therapy and EMDR and somatic based practices, that's where we can begin to heal our minds and our hearts. And that's basically the invitation of a lot of these practices. Because, you know, from an Eastern perspective, getting identified with our trauma is also, you know, a delusion. Right. It's basically unskillful. And it, it totally makes sense from a psychological perspective, you know, because ultimately the being that's within is hurt. He's wounded or she's wounded or they're wounded. Right. And they just want healing. So part of it is like bringing compassion and awareness to that and then being on that journey of healing is. Yeah. Ever more important now than, you know, it has ever been.
- [40:52]
B
Like, I do want to say too about the non speakers is that you're right that they are living, I think, in this like more free state. And you know, so many of them talk so much about love and peace and understanding and. But they also still talk about things that like kids talk about, you know, it's. Yeah, they're still enjoying life and they're sort of maybe living in this elevated state, but still present here on Earth. And I think that is still important to be like, I'm still here on Earth and I'm having a human experience and I can be grounded in that.
- [41:33]
C
That's right. And that's the beauty of, you know, so that's. And as a result, there are teachers. So when I think about a lot of these enlightened masters and teachers that we've had, you know, you know, like Yogananda love to go swim and, you know, crack jokes and like eat all the ice cream in the world. Same for Deepama. Like she visited the US and she was at, you Know, Inside Meditation Society in the early 80s. And she would try all the different foods and, you know, just, it was more about they're not special in any way. They've kind of been in this incarnation, but they can see through some of the daily struggles that we're having because we're so attached to getting to a place and thinking that, you know, external things are going to bring us happiness. And some of those things are important. Like we have worldly responsibilities. We have obligations to our family members, to our work colleagues. But that is not all we're here for. Right. So there is that. There's, I think in the Eastern traditions there is this idea of dharma which is duty. Right. So we have a dharma that's more external. Right. Where like you are right now has someone who's one of the creators, producers of telepathy shows, that's one of your dharmas, to really bring this out into the world. But then each of us also has an internal dharma. Right. Which is this idea of realizing, you know, self becoming one with the ultimate, the sublime. And oftentimes that is what gets missing and we get lost in the external and forget the internal portion.
- [43:04]
B
Yeah, yeah. No, I think it's just a great reminder and a great place to put yourself in is to, to try and live every day through that sort of like larger lens and paradigm, but still be okay with the fact that you're here on Earth and you still have to do things like pay your bills and clean your dishes.
- [43:25]
C
That's right. That's right.
- [43:28]
B
Well, this has been so insightful and it's really interesting that just that this kind of phenomenon has been around for so long and validated in so many ways throughout history.
- [43:42]
C
Yeah.
- [43:43]
B
All over the world.
- [43:43]
C
And I'm going to. Exactly. And I'm going to encourage listeners to read Autobiography of a Yogi or I'm going to encourage readers to read Autobiography of a Yogi or listen to it actually. Ben Kingsley narrates it on audibles. It's actually a lovely listen. Also check out Amy Schmidt's Deepama, the Life and Legacy of a Buddhist Master to really learn more about these supernatural abilities, telepathy being one of them, and to see, kind of with curiosity, you know, how this human form that we have has so many capacities that, you know, we were never taught to even know or believe and how some people amongst us, like, you know, non speaking autistics, you know, have those capacities.
- [44:34]
B
Yeah, yeah. It's so cool. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
- [44:40]
C
Thank you so much. For having me. It's been such a delight.
- [44:44]
A
That's it for this episode of the Talk Tracks, but new episodes will now be released every other Sunday, so stay tuned as we work to unravel all the threads, even the veiled ones that knit together our reality. Please remember to stay kind, stay curious, and that being a true skeptic requires an open mind. Thank you to my amazing collaborators. Original music was created by Elizabeth pw, Original logo and cover art by Ben Kandora. Design the audio mix and finishing by Sarah Ma. Our amazing podcast coordinator, Jill Pesnik, the Telepathy Tapes coordinator in my right hand, Kathryn Ellis. And I'm Kai Dickens, your writer, creator and host. Thank you again for joining us.