Jeffrey J. Kripal holds the J. Newton Rayzor Chair in Philosophy and Religious Thought at Rice University. He is the author of Comparing Religions (Wiley-Blackwell, 2014); Mutants and Mystics: Science Fiction, Superhero Comics, and the Paranormal (Chicago, 2011); Authors of the Impossible: The Paranormal and the Sacred (Chicago, 2010); Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion (Chicago, 2007); The Serpent’s Gift: Gnostic Reflections on the Study of Religion (Chicago, 2007); Roads of Excess, Palaces of Wisdom: Eroticism and Reflexivity in the Study of Mysticism (Chicago, 2001); and Kali’s Child: The Mystical and the Erotic in the Life and Teachings of Ramakrishna (Chicago, 1995). He has also co-edited volumes with: Sudhir Kakar, on the history, science, psychology, and analysis of psychical experiences, Seriously Strange: Thinking Anew about Psychical Experiences (Viking, 2012); Wouter Hanegraaff on eroticism and esotericism, Hidden Intercourse: Eros and Sexuality in the History of Western Esotericism (University of Amsterdam Press, 2008); Glenn W. Shuck on the history of Esalen and the American counterculture, On the Edge of the Future: Esalen and the Evolution of American Culture (Indiana, 2005); Rachel Fell McDermott on a popular Hindu goddess, Encountering Kali: In the Margins, at the Center, in the West (California, 2003); G. William Barnard on the ethical critique of mystical traditions, Crossing Boundaries: Essays on the Ethical Status of Mysticism (Seven Bridges, 2002); and T.G. Vaidyanathan of Bangalore, India, on the dialogue between psychoanalysis and Hinduism, Vishnu on Freud’s Desk: A Reader in Psychoanalysis and Hinduism (Oxford, 1999). His present areas of writing and research include the articulation of a New Comparativism within the study of religion that will put “the impossible” back on the table again, a robust and even conversation between the sciences and the humanities, and the mapping of an emergent mythology or “Super Story” within paranormal communities and individual visionaries. Rice University LogoJeffrey J. Kripal • Department of Religion 6100 Main, Houston, Texas 77005-1827 | Mailing Address: P.O. Box 1892, Houston, Texas 77251-1892

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Practical Advice and Spiritual Wisdom to Achieve Anything You Want in Life BY PHYLLIS KING – NEW PAGE BOOKS – JULY 2015 Known as the “Common Sense Psychic” and a “Psychic Comedienne,” Phyllis King has for decades mentored and advised individuals, businesses and audiences throughout the world. Her lighthearted, yet profound, approach to helping people realize their greatest desires makes her new book a pleasure to read. The Energy of Abundance: Practical Advice and Spiritual Wisdom to Achieve Anything You Want in Life lays out an enjoyable new way to achieve abundance in every aspect of life, from relationships to income, peace of mind to emotional health. Founder of the King Mastery Institute and an intuitive, popular coach, speaker, and radio host, King brings a fresh, humorous attitude and common sense to the achievement of our deepest desires. Press Materials, Links and Downloads News Release Book Summary Author Bio Interview Questions Article: 3 Reasons Why the Law of Attraction Isn’t Working for You Review by Renowned Dr. Joe Vitale Request an Interview, Review Copy, Excerpt or Article Fill out the form below to make your request. After you submit this form, you’ll receive an email to confirm we received your request. If you have any questions please contact us directly. Your name (required): Email (required): Phone (required): Website (required): Your requests: Ask the author for an interview Request review copy Request article or excerpt (specify in comments) Comments: Back to Publicity Campaigns 18340 Sonoma Highway Sonoma, California 95476 Questions? Contact us today. Like us on facebook: Office (707) 939 – 9212 Fax (707) 938 – 3515

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Fred Andrle is a poet, playwright, and journalist. His current poetry collection is “What Counts,” (XOXOX Press, Gambier, Ohio, 2012). His first collection was “Love Life” (XOXOX, 2008). Fred’s poetry was featured in the anthology “Prayers to Protest: Poems that Center and Bless Us” (Pudding House Press), and his poem “The Book”, was read by Garrison Keillor on his public radio series “The Writer’s Almanac.” Fred has received playwriting and poetry fellowships from the Greater Columbus Arts Council. His one-act play, “The Eternal Brunch,” was staged by CATCO, the Contemporary American Theater Company (Columbus) in 2000. He is a member of the “House of Toast,” a Columbus poetry writing and performance group. Fred was Executive Producer and Host of “Open Line,” a daily public affairs talk show on WOSU, a National Public Radio affiliate in Columbus. He retired in May, 2009, after 20 years hosting the program. Prior to that, he was Executive Producer for WOSU-TV. He has received Ohio Public Broadcasting and Regional Emmy awards for his radio and television programs. Fred currently writes as an independent journalist. His opinion columns have appeared in newspapers nationwide. Fred is an Associate at the Ohio State University Humanities Institute, where he produces and hosts public humanities forums held in locations throughout the Central Ohio community. The Ohio Humanities Council gave Fred their 2010 Bjornson Award for Distinguished Service in the Humanities. He is a member of the Medicine and the Arts Roundtable at the Ohio State University. He co-directs the Hospital Poets series, which brings readings by Ohio poets to hospitals at OSU and across the community. Fred received a 2015 Sir William Osler MD award from OSU for collaboration in the Medicine and the Arts initiative. Fred taught courses in mass media at Ohio Wesleyan University, Ohio Dominican University, and Northern Arizona University. He holds a Master’s Degree in Communication from Stanford.

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V. Airisun Wonderli Author/Artist/Photographer/Composer This lifetime for me has held many blessings as well as various health challenges. My formal education at university culminated in an Art degree, but those years were also some of the most challenging years with diverse health symptoms. After 15 years of searching with allopathic medicine, these handicaps brought me to alternative holistic healthcare and a conscious journey to my spirituality. This led me also to beginning family timeline healing and a search into my Cherokee lineage, with working closely with Nature and Native ceremony. I spent 5 years as a clan chief for one of our state chartered tribes, and spent some years working as a health consultant. I have studied and used many different healing modalities such as Applied Kinesiology, chiropractic, various supplements, organic nutrition, herbal therapy, massage, Life Counseling, Reiki, Reflexology, Past Life Regression, crystal therapy, Essential Oils, Native Ceremony, and have worked closely with a spiritual holistic healer for 21 years. I keep returning to many of these modalities for continued balance of my mind, body, and spirit. Living in the mountains as I do and being surrounded by Nature is as essential to me as breathing. Always I was seeking for self-actualization and my Life Purpose, but realizing the spiritual journey was paramount and had the shifting power for renewal within. One of my greatest methods of healing also was creative writing, and I worked several years on compiling my first book of transformational poetry. Writing was a way to finally express what I was suppressing in many aspects of my consciousness. This poetry began emerging as music composition by the turn of the Millennium, and I work also with music and lyrics in channeling through energy. Before the discovery of my roots, following a year of conscious transformation, I had the privilege of meeting Lao Russell, a conscious illuminate living nearby at an historic estate called Swannanoa Palace (in Cherokee, Swannanoa means “The Beautiful Trail”). I had the honor of meeting Ms. Russell twice before she passed over, and I began studying her and Dr. Russell’s spiritual books and Message, and their Home Study Course from their established institute the University of Science and Philosophy (at website philosophy.org, where my book Swannanoa Palace: A Pictorial History-Its Past and People can be purchased). I realized that all my talents were coming together to renew their Message and write about and teach their work. I now work at Swannanoa in season from May to October, and spend my fall and winters writing and giving speaking engagements. Swannanoa in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia holds several energy vortexes and I thrive with my spiritual family here, as we grow and expand with studying and sharing in conscious community during this global transformative time. I am presently open for attracting funds to present to the world a photographic volume and philosophical history of as much of Walter B. Russell’s massive created Art as we can locate; (he was referred to as a modern genius, the “Leonardo da Vinci of the 20th Century”, and the most “versatile man in America”). I have begun this work but am also seeking to fund a screenplay and miniseries of the Russells’ extraordinary lives. I can be reached at visionairi@ntelos.net.

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When people meet Gregory and Gail Hoag, they sense a rare relationship, full of consciousness and love. Gregory, scientist and leading expert on Sacred Geometry, along with Gail, artist, intuitive and business woman, founded Metaforms 30 years ago. They create energetic tools that support people to evolve into higher awareness with Source and Heart consciousness. They are recognized as leading experts on Sacred Geometric technologies for improving health, raising consciousness, reducing stress, manifesting purpose and clearing electromagnetic interference. Longer combined: Gregory Hoag, scientist, best selling author and artist, has researched Sacred Geometry and consciousness for over 40 years. Following a major spiritual awakening (Kundalini) in 1982, he started creating energetic tools that provide transformative experiences to foster spiritual evolution and the expansion of Source. His land in the Colorado Rockies has numerous energy vortexes and strategically placed geometric forms for the purpose of activating the planetary grids and energizing some of the tools produced by Metaforms. He is recognized as one of the leading experts on Sacred Geometric technologies for improving health, raising consciousness, reducing stress, manifesting intent and clearing emotional and electromagnetic interference. Gail Hoag is a health consultant, educator, artist, intuitive, and spiritual advisor. Her study of light, color and energy in motion in her paintings, launched a deep understanding for creating transformative fields to expand consciousness. In1985, Gail and Gregory married and founded Metaforms Sacred Geometry Tools. They live in Lyons, CO with their 2 daughters.

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J. Stewart Dixon is an unorthodox nondual-advaita-zen spiritual awakening teacher. He is founder, author and creator of Blue Collar Enlightenment. He has been interviewed by Rick Archer on Buddha at the Gas Pump, is the meditation editor of the popular mind/body/spirit blog All Things Healing and is the owner/founder of a communications business called Audio Video Services. His first book 21 Days, A Guide for Spiritual Beginners (2011, PIE Publishing / Amazon) continues to help spiritual awakening seekers worldwide become spiritual awakening finders. To find out more about his teaching and course visit: www.bluecollar-enlightenment.com Header 7 1000 340 72dpi WEBSITE/BLOG/VIDEOS/BOOK/COURSE- www.bluecollar-enlightenment.com “No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” – Albert Einstein Welcome. You’re listening to Sancit. Where you’ll find everything to do with spirituality, life lessons, holistic living, and medicine to become your true self. We all have stories, journeys, experiences, and love. Here’s your host, Aron O’Dowd. Erin: Hello, and welcome. You’re listening to Sancit. On today’s show we have Jeffery Dixon. He is a spiritual seeker who went to sit with gurus around the world to understand their teachings. In 2010, he had this experience where he felt like he was awakened and enlightened. After that experience, he wanted to create a company called Blue Collar Enlightenment to teach people about what and how they can become enlightened as well as awakened. He is the author of Twenty One Days: A Guide for Spiritual Beginners. His website is www.bluecollarenlightenment.com. Welcome to the show, Jeff. How are you, today? Jeff: I’m good, Erin. Thank you, very much for having me on your show. Erin: You’re very welcome. At what stage of your life did you adventure into spiritual seeking? Jeff: I was eighteen. I’m 46 now. I began pretty early. I was a freshman in college. I’m a walking spiritual cliché. The first book that I ever read was Shirley Maclaine’s “Out On a Limb”, which was one of the hallmark books of the New Age when it began in 1987. I read that book, and I wanted to have what she was describing in that book, which was an out of body experience. That began my spiritual seeking adventure. Erin: What made you adventure into this area? Was it the book or was it something someone told you? Jeff: Good question. For me, when I was 18 … I guess it even started earlier than that … There was a general sense that something was missing. There was a sense that there was something more. I was unhappy. When I got to college and was a little more open minded and adventurous to exploring more things, I put that on the plate. Is there anything to religion? Is there anything to spirituality? Is there a soul? Is there something more? This seeking came right from the beginning from that sense of lack of … there’s gotta be something more to this life. That was really the … my own work today … what I call the invitation. That was the primary invitation of life that I heard from an early age. That same invitation continued all the way up through when I was 40 something and had a spiritual awakening. Erin: At the age of 18, did you have a sequence from 18 to 48, or was it just explore while you go? Jeff: Absolutely. I had a sequence. I think it’s fairly typical sequence. When I was in college, I was what I call an intelligence seeker. I was looking for answers. I was looking for proof, and also some sort of social millieu that I could be a part of that was supporting. I could have friends that understood who I was. It began there and it began specifically with investigations into yoga, meditation, out of body experiences, something called hemi-sync. I was very much attracted to Robert Monroe’s Monroe Institute which offered courses and classes, and products that allowed you to meditate using a type of technology. Throughout college and a few years after college, yoga, meditation, hemi-sync, et cetera, I did indeed prove to myself to a satisfactory degree that there was something to spirituality. There’s something about it. There’s something more. I had numerous out of body experiences. I had a lot of kundalini experiences, et cetera. Enough to say okay there’s something to this. Then, I progressed onto another level of seeking which was after more experience. I would essentially have these experiences and they were really beautiful, and then began a cycle where I would have experiences, and then I would go do more spiritual seeking and read more books, do different techniques. I was always … this is typical of a lot of individuals who begin seeking … Of course, you want to feel better. You want something more positive in your life. You want to have all of the feelings last and all of the darker areas in your life that you’ve been running from to heal and be fulfilled. So, I did this. The problem with it is that any experience comes and goes no matter how small or sophisticated or large that it is. I did this for a number of years, and I began to smell a rat. I began to sense that this is just a cycle I’m going to be continually doing. Then, I moved on to another sequence in my own seeking that instead of adding an experience to the individual, I began taking away pieces of the false parts. I began a dismantling process. This area of seeking has more to do with non-duality advaita vendanta. Some of the teachers that I was involved with at the time, and over the years … Some of them will be familiar to your readers. Some of them won’t. These are individuals like Eckerts Holy, Adi Da, Gangaji, Samuel Bonder, Andrew Cohen, Nick Arjuna Ardagh … A whole slew of teachers when I was … This was when I was in my late twenties, early thirties. The whole Neo -Advaita Vendanta Movement, which includes all of those teachers, had begun in America. I began to seek these teachers out, read their books, and seek their company. This was in the early nineties. In the last two and a half decades, the landscape in this area dramatically changed because of the internet and because of the abundance of those teachers. Back then, there were still just a handful. I made trips to California and had teachers come out to the east coast where they stayed in my home. We did workshops, and I offered programs to people in my area. This went on for quite a few years, then I began to have what’s traditionally called non-abiding awakening. A non-abiding awakening is when you have a grand aha moment. You realize something deeper, something truer about yourself. It sticks for a day, a week, an hour, or a month even. Then you’re back to being separate ego personality individual. This went on for a number of years. It was quite painful. There’s something very painful about … The metaphor that I always like to use is a UFO picking you up, zipping you across the far side of the galaxy, showing you their home planet and galaxy and seeing all these beautiful, amazing, and wondrous things. Then, in the blink of an eye, you’re sent back down on the streets of Baltimore. It’s quite painful to have that experience. This is what non-abiding awakening is like. However, it’s part of the process. It’s part of the … there’s a natural sequence of events that I believe in and I teach that are part of the awakening process. It’s almost required that you have these beautiful releases and moments of freedom then you need to integrate it and experience separation again, and wash back and forth. This went on. We’re now at about … I’m going through a really rapid-fire report of these years. When I was in my late thirties, early forties, you think you’re so … The awakening that I had which was the final … What I call the last seed of doubt, the last movement of this non-abiding awakening was in 2010. It’s been about five or five and a half years. Erin: Did you feel like you were running from something when you met these gurus and people that were on a different level than you? Jeff: Sure. I was running from … There was a lot of running. There’s always a lot of running. What happens naturally in this process is you … There’s no escaping going through this process without running into your own shadow. To your own pain. To the pain and separation itself. So this includes a lot of fear, heart ache, soul investigation that digs up a lot of stuff that you’re not always interested in meeting. Very much so, Erin, yes. There was one particular thing that I ran from for quite a few years. It was just a huge amount of existential fear that would rear it’s head and really rip me. I would tremor in it’s presence in a way that’s just beyond words. It would make my tail go between my legs and me want to run. This would happen. Then, six months later it would come again. I would need that six months to recuperate from this encounter. This isn’t true of everyone’s experiences, it’s just my particular experience. So, yes, absolutely I was running. It’s very paradoxical path. It’s a … Instead of adding anything to you again as I’ve mentioned before, it’s more of a dismantling and letting go. That’s a uncovering how we are in denial of so many things. Uncovering that and seeing that truth definitely has it’s painful moments that we all tend to run from. Erin: Through your meeting all these people, did you find that the dismantling took you longer to get to the next level, or to figure out where your awakeness was coming? Jeff: Yeah, there’s always a frustration at times. There’s always a … it’s natural process. There’s always a frustration that you want to get this thing over with. It just seems to drag on forever and ever. Then, you have an opening and it’s … I was just thinking about this this morning. There’s no part of organic life that doesn’t unfold organically. Human beings are born. We’re not hatched. There’s nothing immediate about it. Often, in enlightenment schools or in spiritual awakening schools, there’s this myth that in one moment you don’t have it and you’re lost then in the blink of an eye bang, clear and neat and clean, in the next moment there you are. You’re awake. You’re enlightened. I really don’t agree with that myth. Maybe, one in a billion of us, that’s going to happen. I’m not shoving it completely aside. For most of us blue collar folks, or normal people, there’s going to be a very organic time involvement, messy biological, psychological process that unfolds in the spiritual awakening process. It definitely took longer. The good news is, for those who are listening to this right now, is I think evolution and humanity has gotten better at it. Even in the last two decades has gotten so much better at it. The number of teachers, the amount of authors, the availability of this teaching; just peruse spiritual awakening or enlightenment videos on YouTube and there’s a ton of them. There’s a lot more resources that are available to a lot more individuals. My work is a part of those resources. I think we’re headed … here’s the beautiful news about time … I think we’re headed to a point and I hope to be a part of this where just like a college or university four or five years maybe from the beginning to the end where you can really dive deep into it’s study in a practical way and include all of the mystery and paradox simultaneously. I think we’re at a point in evolution of humanity where we put our foot down and say this shouldn’t take decades. This is our birth right and it’s now we’re capable of this happening in the course of several years. Erin: Out of all the people you’ve met and you’ve sat down with, person to person, who stood out the most to you? Jeff: That’s a great question. There were in my particular path, about twelve very influential teachers. You look at those as a funnel. At the top of this big funnel were the gurus who you would go sit and there was no way in the world you were going to have a one on one with them. They were too big and too public. Nothing wrong with that. You would go to their sanctuary and there would be five or six hundred people if not more. You go further down into the funnel and the numbers start to get smaller with the teachers. I found that the teachings and the teachers that were most influential were way down at the bottom of the funnel. You would go to a weekend workshop or you would work with these teachers, and there were twenty people in a class. You could have one on one sessions with them. Just like anything … Violin lessons. Sure you can take group violin lessons, but you’re going to get a lot more out of it if you’re doing one on one. This is not true for everybody at all stages of seeking. For me, personally, that closeness and proximity that intensity that was garnered from being with those teachers was the most influential. You asked specifically who those teachers were. There were a handful. One was a student of Gangaji’s. Her name was Solenae. She came to my house a number of times and workshops. I was living in Washington, D.C. at the time. I was part of being very intimate and helpful and getting a lot out of her work. There was another teacher named Michael Regan who was nondenominational essentially, but awake and also a really great guy. Same thing. He came to our house and I did a lot of work with him out west. He’s from Arizona. I think one of the great teachings that’s available today is Awakening Now. This is a teaching by Samuel Bonder and his wife Linda Groves Bonder. They’re the same thing. A smaller teaching, more intimacy and intensity. Then, I’ll throw in Nick Arjuna Ardagh. He has a great teaching at work, as well. In the grand scheme of things, Erin, and to anybody who’s listening, really this evolution of your own spiritual awakening includes all teachers and teachings and life itself. There’s no … You can’t just go … the little list I just made there … Going and thinking that just because you go sit with them, isn’t necessarily going to be part of your path. It’s more of the whole ball of wax that is important. This leads me to another element of the work that I do. I think it’s so vital in this process if this is something that you’re interested in, relative spirituality to hear from more than one teacher. In the online courses that I offer, I always have a co-teacher from another different school. What’s really beautiful about this is I make it very clear that this teacher is not to parrot my own teachings, but it’s actually to give their own point of view about the spiritual awakening process. The class that I’m teaching right now is with a woman named Fiona Robertson. She’s with Living Inquiries. It’s really great because not everyone is the same. It allows you to hear, see and feel different angles of this work. This is what I did with the teachers that I sat with and hung out with. I think that’s a very important part of the … Here’s a phrase I love to say … It’s a very important part of democratization of spiritual awakening. We’re in an age where we no longer have to hear it from just one teacher. Erin: In 2010, you experienced this awakeness. How were you able to transmit the awakeness experience to the public in order for them to be awakened themselves. Jeff: In 2010, I had a very ordinary day. I walked down into my ordinary office and sat at my very ordinary computer. I have a business of audio/video services. I was working on a quote that I really didn’t want to do and got bored with it. Then, I started surfing the internet and being a spiritual seeker. I was searching spiritual websites. I ran into an article online. The article really spoke to me. It was the right article at the right time for Jeff Stewart Dixon. After I read the article, the energy and feeling state and the calmness and peace and clarity, and the unity of awakening overtook me. I knew it was important, but also I had experienced this state many times before. There was something quite different about it this time and I sensed it. What I did, was began a journal. I kept a journal for 21 days immediately after this awakening. What’s it like … because I sensed that this was it, but I wasn’t quite sure. That’s very odd, I know. When you go through non-abiding awakening you begin to … When it comes and goes and comes and goes, in a very healthy way, you always allow any experience to run its course and see what happens. This is what I was doing. For 21 days I kept a journal of this experience, of what it was like to get up and go to work in the awakened state, of a marriage and a mortgage, and a house and a son. My son was 3 or 4 at the time. What is it like to interact normally with the rest of the world in the awakened state? You go to the grocery store, you go fishing, go hiking, go visit your high school. I did quite a bit during those 21 days so I kept a journal of it. T hat’s my first book. It’s called 21 Days: A Guide for Spiritual Beginners. That’s how I began my teaching, to answer your question. It’s just simply a … In many ways, the book was written for myself and for my friends and family as a way of explaining what I had gone through, and to purge myself of it. I didn’t use any of the usual spiritual non-duality the advanta vidanta religious terms. That just wasn’t my cup of tea. Since the book, it’s been a … and I wrote that book in 2011 … It’s been a slow, evolving evolution of teaching. I’m teaching publicly. Refining the process of assisting others through mystery and paradox and what I call non-doing exercises and doing exercises. There is, in a general sense, and this is what I tell everybody who comes to my work, who comes to blue collar enlightenment, this work can take you 90 percent of the way. There is a lot of things that one can do to facilitate spiritual awakening. A lot of this has to do with self-inquiry, mindfulness, with noticing the body and being present in our emotions, the mind, the thoughts, the physical sensations, and allowing all of those elements, and really noticing and fine tuning. There are exercises and techniques that one can do. Then, there’s a whole other part of this work, which is easily seen online. A lot of other teachers teach this as well. This is the non-doing work where you’re just simply in the room and present and this type of resonance goes on. It’s a type of being with the truth that goes on. That’s 90 percent of it. The last 10 percent of it for any individual going through spiritual awakening is out of any teachers hands, and it’s also out of the hands and control of the student. This last 10 percent is grace. This last 10 percent is mystery. This is what I know. This is what I experienced in my own process of awakening. Quite naturally, and normally this is how I came to teach. I always think when I’m creating anything … a course or a book, or a blog post, it’s like going back in time and speaking to myself, what would I have wanted to hear 15 years ago when I was unhappy, suffering, seeking fulfillment, not getting it, lost, confused … what would I have wanted to hear from some regular guy about spiritual awakening and enlightenment? Not from somebody who’s a rocket scientist PhD. Not from someone who’s a guru or a famous author, and not from somebody who’s special and seems to be all the way at the top of the mountain, and I’ll never get there. What would it be like to hear it from somebody who’s your next door neighbor? Who is your coworker? Who is your friend? What is … How is spiritual awakening taught from that level? That’s become my modus operandi in helping people. It’s not to stand on top of a mountain with a bullhorn and say you can do it. To actually go down the mountain with the cramp-ons and the tools and the ropes, and to help individuals in one small step at a time, and to be right there next to them. I just don’t think that it can work any other way. That’s not to say that the big teachers that are doing this … that speak to hundreds of people … that’s awesome and great and there’s a necessity for that. At this point in my own teaching work, that’s where I am coming from, is this intimate and intense personal teaching. Erin: Is that why you call it blue collar enlightenment? Jeff: It is, yes. That name comes from … there’s two reasons for that name, Blue Collar Enlightenment. It points to who this work is for in one sense, and I’m using that term Blue Collar very loosely in this regard. Of course, it includes … it’s not really pointing to where you are relative to your work. It’s just saying normal folks, blue collar folks, white collar folks, however you want to look at it. Then, the other side of it is very much a way of … this term Blue Collar Enlightenment dismantles and defuses the whole specialness and uniqueness and what seems very rare about the term enlightenment, and brings it down to Earth. As that name, it represents everything that this work is about, which is to say that yes, for you this is possible. Enlightenment is no longer in the category of being available to yogis and gurus in some mountaintop in India. It’s B.S. It’s available to us in the way that evolution is offering it to us today. It’s completely available. It’s not this super extreme aesthetic, impossible thing that it once was. It’s actually attainable. It’s actually not super duper seventh stage million dollar enlightenment. It’s just blue collar enlightenment. Try it on first. Once you experience spiritual awakening in all of it’s ordinariness, you will find that it’s absolutely beautiful and amazing. This is what I found. I found that it was plenty enough. This is where the term Blue Collar Enlightenment is from. Erin: How would a person know if they have reached spiritual awakeness or spiritual enlightenment? Jeff: It’s completely 100 percent self-evidence. There’s no … I mean, I did mention earlier … Wow, is this awakening or not? There is somewhat a paradox about it. You really have to boil this work down to one thing: whether or not you’re on a de-existential level, and whether or not you’re okay and happy and whole. This is how you know. You sensitize yourself to this element of separation and fear, and you begin to see how it’s been hijacking and not making life so pleasant for you. What goes away with awakening and with Blue Collar Enlightenment, is this sense of separation. Now, it’s not going to manifest for everybody, but for me it manifested as a sense of existential depression. For me, that was gone. Then, simultaneously was this … This needs to be mentioned, too, because this was very much talked about and part of it. There’s a non-dual connection and experience to the one consciousness that is living, breathing being this whole existence. This connection never ever goes away in good moments and bad moments; in moments of trial and tribulation, in moments of joy. It’s always there. There’s this deep, deep rooted connection, and you’re no longer separate from it. It’s right out front and there all the time. This is spiritual awakening. That is the marriage part of spiritual awakening. That’s how you know. When you look out and see someone else, and you see some other thing, you have an experience and you realize fundamentally that they are not separate from you. They are you. That’s how you know you’re there. Erin: Earlier on, you described about mindfulness and all the elements that you teach on the Blue Collar Enlightenment. What is the building block? Where should an individual start to progress their spiritual progress to be awakened or enlightened? Jeff: Awesome question. It really does begin with mindfulness. For those who are listening who might already know about non-duality or advida adanta, mindfulness and self-inquiry are exactly the same. I gravitate towards mindfulness. Right now in America and in the West, there’s a beautiful movement. It’s a scientific term called mindfulness-based stress reduction. It’s based in neuroscience, and there’s a whole technique and process where one gets in touch with non-judgmental awareness. It begins here to answer your question. If one is feeling stressed, separate, unhappy or unfulfilled, there is … this is on one half of the spectrum of the whole spiritual awakening stuff. There is this condition or this sense of lack of fulfillment or depression or separation or just unhappiness. There’s a whole beautiful neuroscience and teaching or technique that’s out there that’s available to help those individuals. This is where I start. I think this is where … You cannot arrive to spiritual awakening without self-inquiry or mindfulness. Without knowing about self-awareness, without being self-aware … Instead of trying to perfect the body and perfect the mind and trying to completely rein our emotions in, it’s more or less about all the work or steps that one does in the beginning. Simply about realizing, being aware of awareness itself. If I could just for one second, simply point in this particular moment. Any of the work that I do begins with three deep breaths. Anybody that’s listening, take a minute, and inhale once, exhale, inhale twice, then the third time. Then, what we do, is we take a moment to notice the body and to notice all the parts of the body, and to allow anything that’s there to be there. Then, the next movement in this exercise is to notice motions and to allow them to be. Then, the next movement is to notice the mind and thoughts, and simply allow all of them to be there. These thoughts and emotions, or the physical sensations both good or bad, just allow them to be there. Then, we see who is the one, what is the one element that is actually witnessing, that is aware of all of these emotions and thoughts and physical sensations. Who is that? What is that? The more … It’s a muscle. The more one does this, the more this sense of awareness, this background emptiness of this witness position comes into focus. You see that there’s in effect, an island, a ground of mystery of emptiness, of consciousnesses, of awareness, that is untouched at all times by the parade of physical sensations, emotions, and thoughts that are ongoing. That parade never ends, even with awakening, it doesn’t end. Thoughts and emotions continue. This is all fine, all good, nothing wrong with any of it. What is noticed, then is this awareness. Again, back to your original question. It starts here. What’s really great about this … Mindfulness is taught in something like 250 to 300 universities, at least in the United States alone, that there’s this whole beautiful movement that is part of the spectrum of spiritual awakening and enlightenment. What I teach in my work … any of the courses that I give, the first half of it is about mindfulness and self-inquiry. The second half gets into the more paradoxical and mysterious elements of spiritual awakening further up the spectrum. That’s where it begins with awareness itself. Surprisingly, too … This may be surprising to a lot of people, there are exercises that one can do to allow this awareness to come into focus. This is exactly what the Blue Collar Enlightenment course that I offer teaches. Erin: If you could look back in everything you’ve done so far to today, would you change or adjust anything? Jeff: I would, actually. Thank you for asking. This is a funny one. In my own seeking and in my own path to awakening, there is nothing that I would change and nothing that one can change. It is what it is. In that regard, I don’t have any regrets, or anything that I would want to change. As far as my teaching work, yeah. Funny enough, about a year after the awakening that I had, I had published my book. I did an interview on Buddha at the Gas Pump with Rick Archer. It’s like your program. He has video, so … Most if not all the teachers or individuals that he interviews are about non-duality and advaida vendanta. What’s very odd about spiritual awakening, is that it essentially dismantled your ego and the personality, and the identity personality project. You basically just crushed it. You’ve realized something truer and deeper. What’s very odd about awakening is that then in order to navigate and to live a midst life, essentially this cloak and this clothing that you’ve just shed, you have to pick it back up a bit and put it back on so that you can be a normal human being and go to work, and pay bills and do all these things. At least, this is what my preference was. My preference was not to go sit on some mountain top somewhere and to hide away. My preference was to okay I’m awake. Awesome. I also live and work, and have a family, and I want to engage in the world, still. You end up putting this personality cloak back on. Here’s the odd part. You don’t necessarily know what kind of cloak back on. You can kind of choose. You can choose to … how was it that … as far as being a teacher, and doing this work, how do I want … what is it that I want to say? What is that like? I wasn’t so blue collar in this interview. I had a really nice sport coat on, and my hair slicked back, and I didn’t know who I wanted to be and how I wanted to teach. I was very new at this. I was strangely at odds with the book that I’d just written, 21 Days, which is very much a blue collar experience. It’s not that big of a deal, and Rick was really awesome. It was a great interview. I guess I wish I’d held off for another year or two on that interview before I settled in to who I am now as a teacher, and to how I help individuals. In many ways, I’m sort of goofy in regards to this. I have ultimately no regret about doing that because it served it’s purpose. But I wish I could rewind the clock and sit there with Rick again with a t-shirt that says bass fishing on it in my baseball cap, and re-do it. It’s so funny. It’s all good. To answer your question, Erin. Erin: You talk about awakeness, enlightenment, the elements and getting there. Do you still experience anger, sad, happiness, joy … all those emotions? Jeff: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Another awesome question. Spiritual awakening does not lobotomize you. It does not preclude you from having any of the normal range of emotions. What is does, however, is it removes the … let’s say I get angry. I still do. I get angry and stressed. It removes the fangs. Your resiliency to the emotional up and down, again, completely normal … Your resiliency you bounce right back. Let’s say my dog … I have a Pit Bull and she’s really loving and sweet, but high energy. She gets off of the leash and she’s running through the neighborhood. That pushes my button. Then I gotta go get her at 6 am in the morning, or at night. Then, I get angry. Great. I get angry. I puff up and I go get the dog, and I bring her back and “bad dog”, you know? Then it dissipates. Let’s say I still have my other work; my audio/video services company. There’s a lot that I do there. I purchase and install audiovisual equipment for large corporations and churches et cetera. There’s a lot of coordination there. There’s a lot of things to do and details. The body mind gets stressed. What doesn’t happen is … because consciousness is so far forward with the awakened state, that is sees it all, views it all, says oh yeah there’s stress, allows it to be there. It comes and goes, then it dissipates quickly. Absolutely, Erin. There’s no … I think that’s another myth about enlightenment that somehow you’re immune to all of these things. I say that, again, with what evolution is offering the world today, relative to spiritual awakening and enlightenment, it comes with a full range of human emotion thought, and physical sensations. In many ways, this is one of the terms that I use for this work, you can replace the word enlightenment, with humanness. It’s about fully embracing your humanity and being here present 100 percent. This includes all emotions and your thoughts. To be clear, the difference is there’s more of an equanimity, more of a sense of peace and fulfillment as you ride the waves of this life which includes these thoughts, emotions, and sensations. Erin: Out of everything that you learned, and experienced, is there anything that you would like to offer as a gem to the audience? Jeff: The one single greatest aspect, tool, element, whatever you want to call it that allowed J. Stewart Dixon to arrive to awakening was honesty and the courage to be honest in every single moment. This honesty of what I was feeling way back when I was 18 years old, then the honesty to experience many beautiful spiritual experiences, but to say still not enough. Having out of body experiences, psychic phenomena, knowing about reincarnation. It’s not enough. To be honest there, and then further on down teachers and experience their energy and say it’s not good enough. I don’t want to just sit and be with teachers and be part of some club. I’m going to be honest here and say I want something more. Then, deeper honesty fears honesty. You arrive to this point where all of this dark night shadow, hard stuff comes from. To be completely honest with it and say this is part of the process. I can do this yet it hurts. It’s painful to be honest about that. Finally, to be completely honest about the subtlest little degree of separation that you feel. After you’ve been doing this for years you’ll have many beautiful moments and ins and outs, and you can fool yourself. You fool yourself and say I think I’m there. I think I’ve arrived there. Yet, there’s one tiny little part that if you aren’t completely honest about, so I was honest there, too. It takes courage to have this type of honesty; this type of deep, deep what another teacher called radical honesty. That’s the one thing that I would share. No matter where, for those listeners, no matter where you are right now, what are you honest with? One of the questions is how’s life? How is life? Answer that honestly to yourself. Take a look at your life. Is it what you want it to be? Are you happy, or is there something more to be discovered? Do you feel unfulfilled? Answer that question. Do it really honestly. Find the courage to really investigate it. If something relative to spiritual awakening or Blue Collar Enlightenment, seems like the good thing to do, then excellent. Then you have answered this honestly and you’ve begun to take the steps to follow through. That, Erin is the one element of my own path, which I now teach. It’s part of my course. Let’s get honest, here. Erin: Jeff, where can we find you? Jeff: You can go to BlueCollar-Enlightenment.com. There is a free course at that site. It’s a free course that is with Fiona Robertson, as I mentioned with self-inquiries. It’s one those pages where email exchange, and then you get access to the course and a free book. If you go to that web site there’s a very non-commitment way of investigating spiritual awakening, investigating Blue Collar Enlightenment, and for you to begin to see if this is honestly for you. To see if this works. For those who are listening, go check it out. The course that I’m teaching right now is filled, and you can no longer get into it. In January, February, and March is the next course date, so if you subscribe by going to BlueCollar-Enlightenment, then you’ll find out all the details about the next course. I think that’s probably the best way to find out about this. Erin: Fantastic, Jeff. I just want to say thank you very much for taking your time and sharing your stories, experiences, and knowledge to us. Jeff: Thank you, Erin. It’s been great. I’ve enjoyed your really beautiful questions and your presence and your equanimity. I’m grateful to be on your show, and I hope that more than anything, that your work and my work combined reaches a few hearts in this world, and makes one more individual become a little saner and a little happier. Speaker 1: Thank you for spending the time to listen to the show. If you want to learn more, check out davidw573.sg-host.com. That’s S-A-N-C-I-T dot com. Join Sancit group on Facebook, and contact us if you have any questions. Until next time, have an awesome day, and rock on. Erin: Thank you for listening to the show. If you find the show very interesting, or want to listen to more, please subscribe to iTunes Holistic Therapies by Sancit, or go to Sancit.com to subscribe there. If you really like the show, please leave a review or a rating on iTunes, or a comment on Facebook.com/Sancit.

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size-medium wp-image-917″ /> Tomas Loarca grew up in the San Francisco art scene of the 1980’s and 1990’s with his mother and father the artist, Carlos Loarca. Tomas learned to appreciate the arts when he understood the transformation that took place when expression and creation became one. Tomas has worked with foster children and families over the past 10 years. This experience has taught him about human behavior, trauma, and healing. Tomas has become intrigued with the dichotomy, that exists universally, he experienced growing up in San Francisco, contrasted by religion, art, and his work with foster youth. Tomas co-authored, A Possible Reality: Carlos Loarca – Artist and Muralist. Tomas’ articles have been featured in several Southern California Magazines. Follow Tomas @TomasLoarca Welcome. You’re listening to Sancit, where you’ll find everything to do with spirituality, life lessons, holistic living, and medicine to become your true self. We all have stories, journeys, experiences, and love. Here’s your host, Aron O’Dowd. tening to Sancit. On today’s show, we have Tomas Loarca. He grew up in a very creative family. His father was an artist, and while growing up in San Francisco in the art scene in the 1980’s and 1990’s, Tomas did not think of the art and the artist, and wanted to run away from that scene, but later on, he discovered how art can transform the creative process in the viewer and the artist. Tomas works with foster children and families in how he can create a better environment for the family and the child. He has been working in this area for the last 10 years. It provides great joy for putting families and children together, but yet, he talks about that in his very hard work on the physical, mental, and the soul. He is a co-author of “A Positive Reality” and “Carlos Loarca: A Portrait Artist and Muralist.” Hello and welcome to the show, Tomas. How are you doing today? Tomas: I’m doing great. Thank you. Aron: Brilliant. Did you have a creative family that inherited creativity? Tomas: Yes. I came from a father who was a professional artist and from a mother who was a thinker, who … very both musically inclined, and so I didn’t pursue the arts professionally, but I feel a lot of creativity in my life. Aron: Excellent. Was it art? Was it music? What was the creativity? Tomas: My father was an artist, painter. He’s done murals around the world. He’s done paintings around the world, and so my … I went anti against that growing up as my father. I did some street art with graffiti, and I did writing and also drawings my own. Aron: Where was your passion? Where did your ideas lie? Tomas: I think more my ideas lie with creativity with people. I’m good at reading people and working with people, and that’s guided me into where I work now as a social worker with families and children. Aron: Describe what creativity is. Tomas: I think creativity is creating your own universe. Creativity is … there’s a set of laws that govern everything, and creativity is learning the law within. Once you learned the law, making it work into your own circumstances that work for you. Everyone is different, and what works for one person doesn’t work necessarily for me. Creativity means being okay with unknowns and creating that forward to create a space that you enjoy, that you like, that allows you to draw upon abundance in universe. Aron: What are these laws? Tomas: I think law is different from dimensions and realities, so on earth, we have what we call “a common set of laws.” Gravity, that’s one law, but if you go out, outside of the earth, the laws of gravity change, and so the laws that I’m more familiar with these earthly laws than … for opposite … for an action is opposite an equal reaction. If I punch the wall, it’s going to hurt me back. Those are laws that pertain to me here, but I think in other dimensions, other realities, different laws apply, and perhaps, creativity is tapping into those other laws that exist in different dimensions that aren’t necessarily known to us at this point. Aron: Watching your father do art and everything through your childhood and in your life, what were you able to observe? Tomas: I’ve learned a lot through that. Art painting was the number one thing to my father. That was his religion. That was his passion, so what I learned through that is that it’s possible to receive peace in life through different ways, so he was able to receive peace in life through his art. He was able to chase out inner demons of childhood, the pains and struggles of childhood through his art. I also saw how the art allowed him to relate to people that it was something to bridge a gap with, so it was an instant relationship builder. If someone said, “Oh, you’re an artist? Tell me more,” he could go on for hours about that, and people are interested in him. It was something that was interesting about him. It was something that allowed him to express himself in ways that he couldn’t do verbally or communicate it with another person, but through his art, he was able to share his insight, his mind, and his way of thinking. I felt like it translated for me into my own life that I could do the same things, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be painting. It could be through relationship building. It could be through public speaking. It could be through working with other people. It could be transmuted into being an author. The people that I see in my life who are successful are happy. It’s the same concept that carries over the passion, following what they feel is right according to that passion, and they often find success and happiness in it, so I think that’s what it really did to me through his art. Aron: How were you able to implement those observations to your own life? Tomas: I’m a person who gets down on myself a lot, and I get very easily intimidated of thoughts. When I think of this art that’s been done, it helps me to remember that anything is possible. The only one that stands in the way for me achieving what I want is myself it seems, and my self-doubts, my fears, my inhibitions is what prevents me, and so it helps me to relate that creation is possible at any moment. I don’t have to wait for something to happen to me. I can create something now, and that higher level of thinking is what really energize me and gets me going, but to me, it’s interesting because I don’t know how it is for someone who’s super successful. You look at a billionaire such as Bill Gates or Zuckerberg. You don’t know the creative thinking that comes and goes. They’re always on the higher elevation of thinking of it. They’re always almost alpha waves or they come from lower down to the lower waves, I think. I find that in my own life, that’s the only one I can really speak upon is that it comes and goes, and so it’s interesting that I’m not always on the alpha wave and why that is, and I think it’s because we need to have a duality. We need to have a contrast of being to where we have almost the angel and the devil on our shoulders always pulling us back and forth. I think that’s maybe the design, the [purpose 00:07:55] of it, to go back and forth between being very creative, and then becoming very destructive, creative and destructive coming to a dance that bring those into harmony with each other. Aron: I see, and you think with the alpha wave that creates the harmony? Tomas: Yeah, I do. I think I’m still in the stage of my life where I’m learning to control those. I found with my father and his art … he’s in his mid-70’s, and he’s saying he’s just beginning to understand art. Someone who’s done art for 50 years and just saying they’ve beginning to start to understand art really shows to me that we need to really be humble in our life and not be so closed off to think that we know everything. I think part of the life’s journey is learning to control and wield our mind to reach that higher state of thought. Aron: When you hear your father say that, how does that feel for you? Tomas: That was pretty humbling when I heard that. It’s like a football player at their prime saying they’re just learning to understand football or a magician just saying … who’s been doing it for 56 years just saying they’re just now understanding it. It’s very humbling because I’m 36 at this point. I think I got life pretty well-figured out, but to show that someone with the wisdom of double my life to say they’re just beginning to understand delivers a great amount of humility and [inaudible 00:09:23]. It humbles me and teaches me. Aron: What’s your work at the moment? Tomas: Currently, I’m an adoption social worker, so I work with children in the foster care system who aren’t able to return home for whatever reason due to abuse and neglect. I help them to get out of the foster care system either through adoption or through guardianship of some sort. Aron: I see. Through your work, do you feel it suffices you or it creates a humbling effect to help these people find families? Tomas: Definitely. What I see is that the work of adoption is hardly equated to almost as a doctor who’s helping a baby come into the world. You’re working with a family to receive a child that wasn’t actually born into them, and it’s a work that I’ve seen that is led. Whether you believe in God, whether you believe in universe or higher power, whatever you belief is, I feel it’s a work that is led, and so to that, it shows to me that it has purpose. It has merit. It’s very hard, and it’s one that I would say I also struggle with going up and down because it has a lot of rewards, but also, you see a lot of pain and suffering that takes place, and that can wear really thin on people. I would say I had to be careful with the balance to make sure I’m not getting too much negativity and not to dwell on the pain and the suffering, but rather, to dwell on healing and on a completion of being in a government system that’s very rigid and very hard to maneuver. Aron: You being in the system, do you get frustrated with the struggles? Tomas: Yes, I do. Definitely. It’s hard when you lose control, when you have the ability to not control your destiny. For a child in the system, they’re completely dependent upon who is ever making the decisions, and so the person making the decisions has to be really, really … I guess like we are talking about earlier, humble and that they’d be really humble because there’s a lot of power that it has, and it’s easy to misuse that power unknowingly. I don’t think it happens maliciously, but you have to be very cautious of what you’re doing and really take into account people’s lives and all factors. You can’t really make a decision based on one moment in the timeline. You have to consider their life from birth until now and possibly, what their life will be in the future. I always say it’d be great if we were fortune tellers in this profession, so we could tell the future. Unfortunately, none of us … none of my coworkers have claimed to be fortune tellers, but I think by being … trying to forecast and predict what may happen in the future, we’re able to help children navigate and find some peace and healing. Aron: Can you explain the process of how a child becomes … into the adoption program and how they are able to find a family? Tomas: The children we work with, they come into the foster system due to neglect, or abuse, or something has happened to them that required them to leave their home. When that happens, families have a certain period of time to work to return to their families’ homes, but usually due to substance abuse. That usually prevents the children from returning home. Substance abuse is really difficult to kick. It’s hard to give up that habit, and so it results in, sometimes, the parents losing their children. At that time, by law, we have to make a plan B to where children have a family because as we know, everyone needs a parent. Someone needs us to raise us. We found that it’s best to be raised by a parent rather than a foster home or rather by the state. The children I work with are those who are unable to return home to their families. Sometimes, they’re already … maybe there’s a relative already who was able to adopt them, but sometimes, if they’re not with a relative and they’re not with a foster parent, we would like to keep them. When that happens, then we need to find a family who’s interested in adopting the child. There’s agencies that work with them who’s registered an adoption, and we work with those agencies to try to match kids best with their needs, and with their desires, and things of that nature to try to make the best match possible. Aron: Do you get to integrate with the child, or learn or get to understand who their characteristics are, or is it just … excuse the pun, but passing the parcel in some way? Tomas: Right. What’s really nice about my job is that it’s very critical job. We really utilize skills. Rather like I said before, we want to know about when you are born, if you were born to substance use in their system. We want to know how they were raised. We’re looking at their attachment style. The first year of life is … that’s a time of changing diapers. It’s a time of feeding. It’s a time of [inaudible 00:14:44], and babies cry when their needs aren’t being met. The first year of life, when the children’s needs are not met, if a parent is not constantly getting up when a child cries, they learn that the world is not a safe place, and that causes unhealthy attachment or a broken attachment. We really, really look at that part of it. A child who has a really unhealthy or broken attachment is going to be hard … hard for that child to develop a relationship where they are trustful on their parent, and so we really need to consider then our assessment. If we’re working with a family who wants to adopt and their needs are for the child to fulfill their happiness and to love them, we often times see that’s not going to be a successful match because it’s more about the parents’ needs rather than the child’s needs, so when we find a family who puts the child first and their needs first, we find them to be more successful with the child who is in need of reassurance, who’s in need of healing their broken attachment. Those are the things that we really try to look at, and so what’s nice when we have that information and when the children are a little bit older, it might seem weird, but they’re a little bit to match in the sense that we understand them better. We have a better history to look at. Whereas a newborn, it’s just starting life, and so there’s not a lot of predictors that we can predict. Of course, everyone wants a younger child, but with the older child, you get a little bit better picture of what you’re getting in the future. Aron: In working in this environment, you must find a strain. How do you personally deal with the strain of your work both physically, emotionally, and mentally? Tomas: Man, that’s a great question. There’s a high turnover of social workers in our business, and I think a lot of that has to deal with … they call it the “secondary trauma.” As social workers, we’re not the ones experiencing first hand this trauma that occurs to these children. We’re hearing the stories. We’re seeing the outcomes. We’re seeing what happens later on in life through abuse and neglect, and so like we’re saying, what’s really important is to deal with those situations. For me, what I do, I find that the creativity is the thing that heals me the most. When I’m being creative, when I’m working on projects, when I’m working on articles, when I’m working on [both of my friends 00:17:16]. If I’m working on stories, connecting with my friend, that’s when I find I’m able to overcome those hurdles, and so that’s why I feel myself really drawn to creativity. I also like to spend time with my family. That’s who I spend a significant amount of time with, and it’s really refreshing to see my children. They are wonderful, they’re awesome, and they really cheer me up. There’s nothing better than coming home and having all 3 kids run up to you right away, “Daddy,” and that almost lets me forget work for a little bit, but I do find that it pops up when I … after that. I’ll be home, and I’ll get frustrated because of something that happened at work. I really have to be mindful of that. Otherwise, I get reactive in my reactions with people. Instead of being thoughtful, I’ll just … I get in the lower response of mind, the lower brain of the reactive mind. I think just being thoughtful and mindful at all times is what really helps me deal with that because when I just let my mind run loose in reactive mode, that’s when I’m unable to deal with those issues that come up from work. Talking. I think talking with those who understand what I’m going through is very beneficial, so my coworkers and I, we try to go out at least one time per day of work, and then really brief each other and support each other because not many people understand what it’s like to do that work. Aron: I see. You wrote a book about your father. Was it a collection of art? Explain a bit about that to us. Tomas: Sure. In 2013, I got to work with my best friend, Ariel Martinez, who helped me produce the book. My father, like I said, he’s been painting for over 55 years as professional, and I’ve seen the magical creations he’s done. I’ve seen the amount of people who have respect [for it 00:19:19]. I’ve seen him travel to Russia, Guatemala, New Mexico, and to murals in different venues. To me, my father who I consider maestro, he’s the master of the arts. Unfortunately, it’s really hard to get recognized in arts, and so I really wanted to help my father to have in his life come … have some success and recognition, so I asked my friend if there was a way we could create a book about someone’s art, and my friend who studied new media, and that was his profession, that’s his passion, he’s very creative as well, said, “Yeah, let’s do this,” and so we spent about 3 months gathering several art pieces. The book contains maybe about 50 different pieces of art. He has thousands of paintings, so it’s just a small sample of his paintings, but we just organized it into a book, and we asked my father to make some quotes, and I did some quotes as well. We put it together, and it allowed him to have something intangible that you can give to someone real quick. We found it to be really successful, not monetarily, but more to where we actually have a creation on our hands that we can give to someone as most people aren’t able to purchase this one due to the cost of it, but this is something simple that we could give away for free, we can … someone can purchase which allows them to take a small piece of my father’s life into their life. Aron: How did it feel to look at his entire collection and compress it into 50 pieces? Tomas: Most of his art is … people have bought it through the years. It’s in museums and galleries, and so the easiest access that we have was going to be the pieces that he had done within the 5-year period of 2013. Basically, what we asked is for my father to pick out 50 pieces that he wanted to highlight in there, and so the ones he had access to and the ones that were recently painted, so he selected those that were in his studio, and we were able to do it that way. He had about maybe 200 in his studio, and so it came from really those 200 … 50 of them. Aron: We talked about creativity and we talked about how the brain functions to creativity, but how do you like … do you meditate, or do you go through the source or through divine? What is your … who do you read, or who …? Explain a bit of like … Tomas: Sure, that’s a great question. I have an interesting background. I grew up as a Mormon in San Francisco, California, and San Francisco, California I would say is pretty opposite of the Mormon lifestyle. My father was not … or he is a Mormon, but he doesn’t attend church. His religion was more of universe, the Maya thinking, the Maya Indian thinking, and his art, and so I had 2 different opposing ways of thinking relating to creativity and source. Then, growing up in San Francisco, which was very anti-religion or very nonreligious, so I had 3 different things pulling in me growing up. What was great about that is I had a traditional religion, I had a new way of thinking through painting, and then I had the San Francisco culture, [all teaching 00:22:52], and so my upbringing was very, very weird you can say, very eclectic, exposure to many different things, which really allowed me to have a … I guess what I perceive or my friend, [Michael Angeline 00:23:08], says is a unique perspective that he hasn’t really met in that situation. For me, I pray, I pray to God. I also think of art, so I’ll think in my mind, perceive something that I want to see and wanted to happen, and I also use the [life’s methods 00:23:29]. I really enjoy the book “Think and Grow Rich.” It talks really a lot about the power of intention, and I think that whether you believe in God or not, it doesn’t matter because I think the intention is the same power when we talk about the mind and the brain, and the health or whatever it is, the higher level of thinking. It’s when you really focus and put that intention. You can call it “pray,” and you can call it “meditation.” You can call it “pondering.” You can call it “thinking.” I think those all achieve the same result. I spend time reading. I like to read different books. Recently, I’ve read some books on … just different quotes of thinkers, and then praying, and then also just consulting with my mother who also is very philosophy-minded. She likes to read sources from India, from The Dao, and from the bible, and the book of Mormon, and also Easter philosophy, and try and mix Eastern and Western philosophy together as one. Aron: Is your family open to have this kind of conversations, or are they narrow? Tomas: They’re pretty open. They’re pretty open, so we discuss a lot of like the dichotomy that exists in the world, in religion, in politics, the dichotomy. There’s no just one way of being. There can’t be, and so it gets really interesting when you start thinking of the possibilities that way ahead. If you get really into one mind and one focus, you’re really living yourself to one way of being, but if you look at the universe, there is so many different infinite possibilities. If you think about the stars, the planets, the moons [inaudible 00:25:26], and so I don’t think there’s just one way to achieve an answer. I think all methods can lead to the same answer if that make sense. Aron: In exploring this area, do you take it piece by piece and add it to your work, or is it separate? Tomas: I think I consider it in my work that I view … is that what you mean like with my professional work? Aron: Yes. Tomas: Yeah. I utilize that in my work because there’s so many different personalities, so many different needs of each child. Each child is so completely different. If you look at child development, there’s a lot of similarities between children, so if I look at my own son who’s 10 months old and I look at a foster child who’s 10 months old, they are doing similar things, and that makes you think that, “Well, if they’re doing similar things, then maybe we’re all the same.” I think there is a similarity that we all share, but I also think that even though we have a lot of similarities, the one … that one, the difference that makes us all unique, whether it’s a different strand in the DNA or a different neural network, whatever it may be, even that just one difference makes us all completely unique and our experiences unique. Sometimes, if you look at that movie that James … I think it was James Cameron. Look at the blue people who walk around and look into the trees. I can’t think of the … Avatar. Sometimes, I wonder if our existence is like that in the sense that we’re all plugged into one great neural network perhaps, and we all are in need of different experiences to be able to grow the universe’s or God’s understanding, and so by us, all have uniquely different experiences. It almost builds like you can say an encyclopedia of all the different ways of living and learning. I hope that I will be able to tap into that experience in the future. Maybe it’s after death or the future. I don’t know when that would be, but I’ll be able to tap into you and see the world through your eyes and from that ladder. It’s almost equivalent to reading a book and really learning the author’s mind, learning what they’re thinking, what they’re doing. I’ll be able to do that with you or with someone else and have a whole new perspective because based on where I was born, when I was born, the money my family had or didn’t have, my gender, whatever it may be, that experience is going to be so unique and so rich in knowledge that it … it’s no wonder that the amount of abundance [inaudible 00:28:24] universe based on all those different experiences. I didn’t answer [how I plan 00:28:31] my work, but … so I really value where my family has been, where the children have been, and that that makes me very unique, and so I’m seeing the uniqueness and I’m able to see [the best people around 00:28:44] a case and work with them to try to find them the best possible outcome. Aron: Looking back in everything you’ve done so far, would you change anything, or you’re happy enough with this? Tomas: That’s a question I have pondered a lot. There’s things I’ve done that I greatly regret in my life. There’s things that I love, and that’s something that I actually think about a lot because I think if one thing would have been different that I would’ve done at any place of my life, I probably would be in a different spot where I’m at. I’m very fortunate, very blessed to have the family that I have. There were some decisions I made in my past that if I hadn’t made, perhaps my outcome would be different now, and I really can’t imagine my life being different. I grew up with the philosophy that things go the way they’re meant to go, and so I don’t see you could’ve gone any different, but when I do it again, it comes the dichotomy where I struggle too where I’m like, “Okay. I know things go the way they’re meant to go,” but at the same time, “I wish I would’ve done this because I would be rich or I would be powerful.” You get those greedy thoughts in your mind. When I’m [high on a plane 00:30:05], oh man, it’s great. I’m like, “Wow, this is great. I wouldn’t change anything.” That’s why I’m really saying that I’m a really dichotomous person that I go back and forth so much. Whether I want to raise my kids in San Francisco? I’m not really sure, but for me, growing up in San Francisco, and experiencing the violence, experiencing sexual things, experiencing all sorts of different ways of being have really shaped who I am and have really given me a lot to draw on in the world and to share that with people. Whereas some people haven’t experienced those things. Aron: Everything you experienced, and everything you read, and everything you learned, is there something that you could share to myself and the audience that is valuable to you? Tomas: Yes. Thank you. That’s a great question. I’m privileged to answer that. I think what has really served me the best, when I’m able to read people that is nonjudgmental, when I’m able to look at someone based on their whole life, and react to them on their whole life rather than on the current moment, but I mean, someone who’s short with me, or upset with me, or very rude to me. It’s really easy to judge them in that moment to say they’re a horrible person, or their a B-word, or whatever it may be, but there’s a reason that that’s happening, and when that’s happening, they’re in their lower brain. They’re in the reaction state. They’re in the flight-or-fight mode. They’re not being rude to you. They’re just reacting to you rather. If you think of that reaction compared to thought, there’s no wonder why there’s crime. There’s no wonder why there’s … those are all reactionary states almost. We’re not excused in the behavior by saying that, but it helps to understand … and that you can come to … I talked to a murderer in a prison, and the conversation we had was a very nice pleasant conversation. You’re looking at them. You’re looking at … “Why did this person kill this child?” But at the same time, on the phone, they’re very pleasant. It seemed like just a normal person you would meet on the street, and so we have to be very careful to not get into that reactionary state. We have to be very cautious of that and to use our mind to overcome that to be strong, and so when we meet with people, rather than take it personal or out of context, we look at them for who they are and where they come from, and that will help alleviate a lot of the problems we have with war and a lot of the problems we have with anger, a lot of the problems we have with self-doubt because when we know that someone is acting the best that they know how and they’re acting on [somewhat various 00:32:58] experiences through their life, it allows us to give a lot of forgiveness, a lot of allowing to be okay. I think that’s helped me a lot in my work that I’m able to just treat people the way I don’t want to be treated and to help them and allow them to grow. It’s not something that comes overnight, and I still work on it myself, but I found that to be very helpful. Creativity. I think we all have creativity in us. Whenever I talk to people about art and creativity, they [inaudible 00:33:31], “I can’t draw,” but I don’t think painting, sculpting, music is the only way of being creative. I look at people on the street who are homeless who create these tent cities who were able to make these bicycle car apparatuses that allow them to transport cans and bottles to the recycling center for money. It’s very creative. No one sees that as art, and you can see … you can debate if that’s art or not, but just the fact that you see them creating, that they have this intellect, and they’re often … we often think of homeless people as not very smart, scary, or criminals, but they too have creative outlets. Business owners have creative outlets. Teachers. It’s all creation. It’s all creativity. I allude creation and creativity as the same thing. Whatever you want out of life, you could create, and be creative. I really want people to remember to be creative in their own lives. Aron: That is fantastic piece of knowledge shared to us. Tomas, I want to say thank you for coming on to the show and sharing. I would love to learn more and hear more from you, but the time is … as you know, we’re all compressed into a certain length of time. Tomas: Sure. Thank you very much. It was quite a pleasure, and I’m very honored to be on your show, and I thank you for your time. Voiceover:

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