Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Do you ever feel like people are judging you, like they're not seeing the real you, that they're judging you today based on who you were in the past, or even just judging you based on their own stuff and not seeing you clearly?
Well, it turns out we all do this on some level, and this is psychological trick that happens in our brain that stops us from actually seeing other people clearly.
So let's dive into this fascinating episode.
Tell us all about it, Sister Shireen.
[00:00:39] Speaker B: You know, the most interesting research I've read on this topic is Dr. Lisa Barrett, and she found that the brain, when you see a face, right, and you see an expression on someone, the brain is not looking at that expression neutrally.
What the brain is doing is it's looking into its past data bank inside and trying to predict what that expression could mean based on its own data bank, right? Its own thing. It's not like it's not based. It's not real time, it's not happening real time. It's happening based on whatever was happened in the past with you, whatever was going on. And then that prediction is coming up and that's what gets predicted.
Isn't that interesting?
[00:01:42] Speaker A: So we're not seeing people. That's fascinating. So that means we're not seeing what's actually happening in front of us. We're seeing some like, filtered version of reality and then judging other people and situations based on this filter, not based on what's actually going on.
[00:02:01] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, when Ancient in the Vedas and stuff, and they said everything is Maya, maybe this is what they meant.
Right. We are totally living in this weird illusion of what's happening because we're not seeing. We are not seeing the present moment.
We are totally seeing a version of our past. That's what it means.
[00:02:32] Speaker A: Yeah. There's a quote from David Hawkins that I like.
This basically says that as far as he's concerned, he's done a bunch of research on this, that I.
An event happens, and then 1/10,000th of a second after it occurs, it goes through a filter of the processing and the ego and all this stuff. And what we see is that processing.
And it happens so quickly, you can't bypass it very easily. Right. So this is just an automatic experience. And no wonder there's all these quotes about everything being an illusion, because it's all filters, filters, filters, filters and more filters. I want to read a quote from George Bernard Shaw. This is such a great quote.
My tailor is the only man who behaves sensibly. He takes my measurements Anew every time he sees me, while all others go on with their old measurements and expect me to fit them.
[00:03:33] Speaker B: Isn't that great? It is a great quote. You know, like even, let's say relationships, right?
Because this is especially true in relationships, because we are really predicting relationships based on our past is we think the other person is hurting us.
It's not true. It's our own predictions about what's happening that's hurting us.
And it's our own past that's really hurting us.
And that really is the real reason why relationships hurt is because of your past.
[00:04:14] Speaker A: Can you explain what that means? Like a practical example?
[00:04:19] Speaker B: So let's say, okay, let's say someone is in a relationship, right?
And they are being distant.
And so there's all kinds of stories you're telling in yourself why that person is distant, right?
And let's say this person who's telling the stories in their head had a father who was absent and who was distant and who just left and never came back, let's say. Right?
And so now what are they seeing in the other soul? They're seeing their father. They see they're not seeing the other soul. The other soul could just have had a bad day at work. Right. But you are projecting whatever happened with your father onto this other soul.
And then you think, oh, this person is distant every time.
Maybe that's their coping mechanism for having a really bad day at work. This person does this all the time. And this is that, and this is that. So what's really hurting you in a relationship?
It's your past that's hurting you in a relationship, not the other person.
[00:05:33] Speaker A: All right? Yeah. A lot of the time these. These extreme triggers have nothing to do with the event at all. You know, like, someone says something, they do something, and it has all this, like, turmoil. But it's not because of what they did.
It's because of all the other stuff that it triggers from everything else that we've experienced.
Yeah, this is a serious problem. It's a serious problem not to be able to see things clearly, not see other people clearly. And also we can just be judge. Projecting things on people. This is really what we're talking about, isn't it? Projecting something on them that isn't even there.
And then we're not having a relationship with the person. We're having a relationship with a projection.
[00:06:18] Speaker B: Absolutely. And that projection is totally based on your past. But I want to go back to this. The brain not scanning the expression neutrally. Right.
I'm looking at your expression Right. And let's say you are frowning, right?
I'm looking at your expression, and you.
What? The brain is not neutrally looking at a frowning expression.
What the brain is thinking is, okay, all the times when I was a child, people frowned, and then I got a beating, right?
It decides. That's what it predicts. Right? It predicts that's what it is. And then now you are just frowning.
And now I am totally predicting that I'm going to get a beating or some version of that beating. Because, I mean, as adults, hopefully you're not getting beaten up.
[00:07:18] Speaker A: There's no being here. Everything's all right.
[00:07:21] Speaker B: Right.
And so.
And so we think we are looking at things neutrally. There is nothing called neutrality.
So one thing I want to talk here again is the difference between the brain and the soul.
You want to share with us?
[00:07:43] Speaker A: Yeah. Well, this. This happens all the time in relationships, doesn't it, where someone is triggered about something that someone did and they expect something else to happen, but it's still in their head and it's not really happening at all in real life.
It's. I mean, I've experienced this on. Been on the other side of it, as well as being the one experiencing this many, many times where, like, someone is judging me or expecting me to do something. I remember, like, someone broke my knife, right? I had this ceramic knife, and she was cutting ice cream with it. It was really hard ice cream, and it snapped, right?
And.
And I came in the kitchen, like, later on in the day, and she was like, I'm really. I'm really sorry I broke your knife. And I was just like, all right, well, we'll just get another knife then. I did, like, I was not in any way charged, like. Yes. Do you know what I mean? It's just a knife.
But she was really worried that I was expecting me to get really angry and give her a hard time and blah, blah, blah. I mean, but nothing to do with me at all. But that's. That's the sort of thing that's going on on so many levels all the time. Or I've had someone say something to me and I had massive reaction. Oh, my God. Does it mean this? Does it mean this? And when in actual, everything's fine.
So. Yeah. So tell us, what do you think this is related to with the soul? In the brain?
[00:09:16] Speaker B: So.
So in the soul, right? The soul itself has three faculties. We've spoken about this before. The mind, the intellect, and the impressions. The mind is where the thoughts arise. The intellect is where your reasoning is. And your impression is where you store everything, your memory bank.
So memory is being stored in the impressions and in the soul and in the brain in both places.
But the memory that is being stored in the soul gets projected onto the brain.
Right?
So I feel that the research that was done on that, the brain is not neutrally, you know, scanning your expression, but really predicting from past experiences actually goes not only back into the soul, into our samskaras, into our impressions, but also the impressions come with us from life to life.
Right.
It's not just in this life. It could be from other lives that I am carrying certain impressions. And so there's a huge database in the soul, in the impressions.
And that database is what is driving my experiences today in this moment. That's the database that's driving my experience of this moment. Actually, this moment. I'm thinking I'm just experiencing this moment. Or let's say I go for a walk, I'm just experiencing a beautiful sunset, or I'm experiencing a peaceful walk in the woods. No, the database is making me experience whatever is going on. The database is like hijacked my experience.
Right?
And so it's totally deciding what needs to happen.
Very controlling the database is very controlling My old database is very controlling my old impressions.
And how do we get rid of this? How do we get rid of this, this database?
We can't get rid of it. It's too vast. It's only.
You have to make certain amount of spiritual effort and you have to increase the new patterns, right? Let's say every time in my childhood, someone scowled and then I got a beating. Now I have to change that. I have to fill my. Fill the soul with beautiful experiences, peace and love and beautiful things to be able to override that old database.
[00:12:11] Speaker A: Right? Yes. Programs, isn't it? And it's an interesting point you made about the database or the experiences in the soul, because otherwise people wouldn't be able to understand past lives, would they? Past life memories and past life things obviously don't exist in the brain because there. There was a different brain in the past.
But we're not getting into reincarnation, but it just goes show. This is. This is what's going on. There's all this stuff inside this. The soul is like pure consciousness that has all this stuff inside of it. And then it comes in the body and then it affects the brain, so it changes the brain. Like we would have a different. If a different soul was in this body, the brain would be different. Right?
So we're. We're kind of re.
We're affecting our brain based on all these memories, based on all these tendencies, thoughts, feelings, and this vast database, this massive. I think of it as a huge archive, like a massive library of enormous amount of information in this there. And it's having constantly. Everything we experience is filtering through that in one way or the other, and it's affecting everything.
So we're not seeing a clear window. It's a dirty window that needs to be cleaned.
And the way the window gets cleaned is by remembering we're spiritual beings connecting to God as the purifying energy, our divine friend.
And that. That helps shift the vibrations, doesn't it?
Because otherwise, how is it going to change, you know?
[00:13:49] Speaker B: Right.
The one thing that keeps coming back to me again and again these days is these old patterns, right?
These old patterns. You can't just think them away.
You can't think your way out of it.
You can't read your way out of it, right? You can't watch a YouTube video your way out of this.
You have to understand what's going on. That's the first step, the understanding of what's happening.
And the second step is you have to really practice a. Practice a million times different, seeing. Right? You cannot allow your old database to.
You can't see through the lens of your past. Pretty much that's what I'm saying. You can't see through the lens of your past. You have to practice seeing through peace. You have to practice seeing through love.
You have to practice seeing through that. Right? Then the question arises, what if people take advantage of me?
What happens? What do you say to that, Michael?
[00:15:12] Speaker A: Well, I think higher states of consciousness lead to better outcomes.
We can see more clearly.
If I focus on, instead of trying to figure everything out, surrender to God, connect with God, receive the good vibrations, then I'm able to see more clearly.
I actually feel the only real way to see clearly is to leave everything, go into the infinite light, our spiritual home.
And then what does it feel like to be in God's presence and higher states and then come back?
And that helps purify the brain and all these patterns, and then we can see more clearly what's going on here.
It's very, very difficult to see clearly what we're dealing with when we're in it.
And that's the big problem that we all have, is that we're stuck here in a way, dealing with the same thing over and over again, repeating patterns without realizing it.
And if you want to see what's going on, you have to go higher, you know, like if, if you're unstuck in a forest somewhere and you have no idea where you are, you want to go up a tree if you can, and see what, where the boundary of the forest is and where you are.
If we don't get some, some height, some space, then we're stuck, you know, so if we have that awareness and then we come back, people won't be taking advantage of us because we can see clearly, you know, it's not going to be. I don't see how if you're in a. If you're in an elevated stage, like, for example. I'll give it just as a ridiculous example, but the Internet company, right, they keep raising my bill again. I'm like, how many times do I have to call them about this, right? I get it back down to the regular proper price and then, then few months go by and then they jack it up. And then they jack it up. I'm like, oh, my God. And I don't want to talk to them. I'm not sure it's even worth talk. The time, my time is so valuable per hour. I don't know if it's worth talking to them actually, but.
But they could, but just. I mean, like, I have to decide whether or not that's worth my while.
So the more clear I am, the more I can see things and I can make a decision about it. So I'm not sure being in a state of love and peace is.
It means that we're going to be taken advantage of.
They're going to get a phone call from me or I might get my VA or someone else to do it for me if they can.
Why is my bill raised again? Oh, my God.
[00:17:56] Speaker B: Right. You know, I was thinking about this advantage, right?
The advantage is only as much as I allow myself to feel bad about things.
If I'm in my original stage of peace and power, if people want to take a few shots at me, go ahead. It's not going to affect me, right?
So we forget our original stage of peace and power, and then we get down off that seat and then we start, you know, thinking, oh, everyone's taking advantage of me. This is happening. That's happening. We just need to come back and sit on that state, seat of power and peace. That is my original state and right. If I see the world through that lens of this is my power, this is my peace, and this is the way I'm going to look at it, imagine how differently the world will look, right? I mean, we are looking at the world very distorted because like a billion past memories are dictating how we are seeing the world right now.
And it feels like such a criminal waste of our time right now.
A criminal waste of our life. Right.
Life is so valuable, and it's such a criminal waste of a life to see from a billion past experiences instead of looking at it with fresh eyes.
And people always say, oh, life is short. Right. I always say, life is really long to be doing this nonsense. Right?
For a few hours. If I can do this, okay, fine. But if I have to keep doing this nonsense for 10 years more, isn't that a terrible, criminal waste of time and waste of life?
[00:20:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's. We don't want to be seeing endless filters.
It's. I think, personally, the only way out of this is to go beyond. And. Because we can't see clearly unless we leave it. That's the whole issue, isn't it?
When we're stuck, we don't. We. We are unable to see our filters clearly. We can't just sit here and say, let me not see any filters. Let me. Let me not see what's going. Because it's happening by itself.
We have to get.
[00:20:37] Speaker B: And I think of you think your way out of these things.
[00:20:41] Speaker A: No, you can't. And just knowing about it, reading a book about it, having a podcast, isn't going to do the job. It's. It wakes it up. It kind of. You realize I'm not seeing reality. I'm not seeing clearly. There's something beyond what I'm aware of. Just knowing that there's something else going on. Just knowing that there are these filters is actually quite liberating by itself.
But then we have to ask, how would God see this situation? I think that's one of the best questions.
How would God see this situation? How would God see this person?
How would God see this problem?
How does God see me?
These are. This is like a reframe, isn't it? Seeing it from a place far beyond what we usually experience life from the other. What would it be like to be in there and come down?
[00:21:37] Speaker B: I like that. The other thing I was thinking, even soul to soul, right? You're a soul. The other person is a soul. Seeing soul to soul, seeing peace to piece. Not their past to your past. Right.
Seeing their peace to your peace.
[00:21:58] Speaker A: Yeah, it's. It does take a bit of refocusing to get out of these things because it happens unconsciously. The. The big problem we all have in spiritual work and just in life is that everything that we're dealing with on some level is unconscious patterns that we are unconscious of.
And because we're unconscious of them, they're just going on in the background.
And so no wonder this is difficult to do, right? So we're trying to shine a light on something, but just. But the fact that it's unconscious means even if we try and shine a light on it, it's still not really shining it in the right place because it's all happening in the background.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: You know, I was talking to a brother of mine, a spiritual brother, and about three and a half years ago, when there was no even chatgpt, at that point, nothing. Right, good.
[00:23:00] Speaker A: How did we manage?
[00:23:01] Speaker B: How did we manage? Right. Anyway, three and a half, four years ago, I remember this so well. Three and a half, four years agoS he told me, AI will disrupt everything, it will change everything, right?
And I didn't take him seriously at that point. I was like, okay, whatever.
And now I was telling him recently, I was like, you know what you said, it keeps coming back to me, what you said about AI.
And you know what he said.
[00:23:34] Speaker A: A.
[00:23:34] Speaker B: Couple of days ago? You know what he said?
He said, we don't know 90% of how it's going to disrupt.
We don't know 90% of how it's going to disrupt or how it will take over your life. Right? 90% of it is totally unknown.
And so when you were saying about what we don't know, what we don't know, I was thinking, this is what it is. It's totally unknown.
And the worst mistake we can make is look at a video and think, oh, now I know.
[00:24:17] Speaker A: It's hilarious. Yeah. I think one of the best things is to have a beginner's mind where we just humbly admit we don't know anything.
And another thing I remember years ago, I was studying about this, the unconscious and the conscious mind. And apparently if you put your feet on the ground, right? Put your feet on the ground and just tune into the amount of space underneath your feet, how much space that is, right?
[00:24:44] Speaker B: I mean, all the Earth's core or just.
[00:24:47] Speaker A: No, no, just, just, just, just the, just the, just like your footprint, right?
And now imagine 11 mile radius, a big circle. 11 miles. So just think, where is 11 miles from where you are? There's probably another town somewhere or there's certain things that are 11 miles away, right? 11 miles is quite a lot.
11 miles. Just tune into what is 11 miles around you on all directions, What you're aware of under your feet. Is your conscious mind, what you're actually knowing about.
And the 11 miles is all the unconscious stuff that we don't know this is there, but we can't see any of it.
That's how big it is. You know, it's. It's this huge amount of, of information that we don't experience. And the reason they mentioned this in psychology is that we, what we experience in our conscious mind. In other words, what we're experiencing right now is the equivalent of that footprint compared to the 11 miles of information. So there's huge amounts of information right now going on internally and externally.
Like even the colors and the things were like the universe is full of information.
We are looking at it through this tiny, tiny, tiny filter and thinking we know what's going on.
But it's like it's this tiny little thing and we think what we're dealing with is, is reality.
It's quite funny really.
So no wonder we get in relationships and get upset about things, but we don't even know what's going on.
[00:26:34] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
You know, this whole what you're experiencing under your feet is what you're experiencing versus the 11 miles. Right.
Even what you're experiencing under your feet, filtered by your past.
What you're experiencing under your feet is everything you've experienced in the past before.
It's not fresh. Oh, this is what I'm experiencing under my feet. It's not fresh.
[00:27:08] Speaker A: No. It's like looking at the stars and seeing the past. You know, it's. It's fascinating.
So we, this is why we need, you know, profound levels of humility in a beginner's mind and realize we don't know what we don't know.
Because I already know that is the four most dangerous words that shuts us off from having any, any growth.
[00:27:31] Speaker B: Right?
[00:27:32] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I heard it all before. I read a book, I read a book on psychology when I was in college.
[00:27:40] Speaker B: Nowadays.
[00:27:40] Speaker A: I did it. I saw a tick tock about it. I saw a tick tock about it.
So I'm an expert now.
[00:27:46] Speaker B: Yeah. Nowadays so bad. Not only I've seen. I was the same brother.
He was saying that people nowadays see one video and think they're not only experts, but they can start a whole channel.
[00:28:00] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:28:02] Speaker B: And give other people advice on it.
[00:28:04] Speaker A: Yeah, it's funny. Like in my business, like I've. I kind of created spiritual life coaching as a, as a thing. When I was learning med, doing meditation like back in 2000, 2004, it's been like over 20, 20 years now, so many people, they come up, they get some like weekend certification now they think they can certify others in all these deep methods. It's, it's hilarious what's going on? Or they just use. AI could just tell me, I'll do this thing real quick.
So, yeah, we're living in a real mess thinking we know what's going on, when in fact we don't have any idea what's going on. Thinking we know everything when we know nothing.
And having ego about it as well, that's even worse.
So it's better to say we don't know what's going on and everyone deserves our blessings, you know, because they're all good souls. What helps me get out of this, this situation is to have a little bit of space and then say, I don't know what's going on with anyone else. So I'm not going to project my knee jerk reaction on it, you know, because that, that kind of calms it down a bit rather than saying, oh, why do they do this thing? It's not fair. I say, I don't really know what's going on.
So let me wait, let me wait till I find out a bit more before I even have an opinion.
[00:29:32] Speaker B: So, brother Michael, if we recap, right, how do we not see people through our past? Right? We see them as a soul and we see them through our lens of being peaceful and powerful, right? Peace, power, purity, that's who we are. And we're seeing them through that lens.
And then second one, which I loved, what you were sharing is you go up, you go to the infinite light and then you see everything. And then you see properly because you're with God and you're seeing whatever is going on down here.
And that's the second one. And the third one is you're really seeing soul to soul. They are also beings of peace, power and purity, Right? And so your peace, power and purity is seeing their peace, power and purity, not their past is not seeing your past and your past is not seeing their past. Right?
And so that's number three.
So there's a number four I wanted to mention.
[00:30:35] Speaker A: Oh, Serene likes her four steps.
[00:30:39] Speaker B: Number four is we need courage to experience the present.
Courage to experience the present.
Deep amount of trust and deep amount of courage to experience the present.
And how are we doing that? How is the trust happening? Where is the courage needed? Right. The courage needed is we have to let surrender the past.
We have to surrender. I'm right. We have to surrender whatever happened in the past. You have to think it's fine it happened. I'm not saying it was beneficial or this or that your traumas or whatever happened. Like, let's say to go back to the original example of this lady whose father left and she was alone and didn't have money or whatever, right?
So let's make that story up. And I'm not saying it was beneficial your dad left when you were little or this happened or that happened. I'm not saying that.
Just have the courage to let it go.
Just have the courage to let it go and embrace that. At the core, you are peace, you are pure, and you are powerful.
Because many times we cling and cling and cling, which I'm not diminishing what happened.
All I'm saying is have courage to experience the present moment, because we are wasting the moment. We're wasting our life.
[00:32:28] Speaker A: Yeah. See, if you can just be here as a. As a witness from somewhere else.
It's easier to do it when you go somewhere new, because you actually try. And you can try and see it more clearly when it's new, new, but when it's same old thing again and again, that's much, much more difficult, isn't it?
Like, if you go to a totally new place you've never been before with totally new people, your mind can't put everything in a box straight away because there isn't a box for it. You know, it will end up putting it all in a box pretty quickly.
But initially we can't do it. So this is.
This is a big deal, actually, to see things, things as they are rather than through all these filters.
It really is.
And just knowing we're filtering things and knowing how limited our perception actually is is a big step forward, you know, because thinking I know what's going on and I know what's right and I should be the way I think it should be is really extreme arrogance, actually, rather than saying, I'm in discovery. And there's a whole bunch of processes going on here that I'm not aware of.
And let me try and ease my way out of it gently and calmly.
[00:33:45] Speaker B: You know what I'm beginning to notice about myself?
The biggest disease I have is ego.
It's the worst disease.
Disease about control, disease about hanging on to the past, just totally.
So much of it. Is that all right? Should we have a blessing on that wonderful note?
[00:34:19] Speaker A: Yes.
So this is. This is a sort of unresolved episode in a way, because these. These are. But if you realize you don't know what's going on in any detail and everything's very different from what we think it is. That's a good start.
All right, 20. You go ahead. Whatever you want.
[00:34:41] Speaker B: You said 20.
[00:34:42] Speaker A: 20.
[00:34:44] Speaker B: I picked 20.
[00:34:46] Speaker A: Oh, well, there you go. You actually pick 20?
[00:34:50] Speaker B: I actually pick 20. See?
[00:34:52] Speaker A: Oh, well, there we go. So we're on. So this is what happens when you let go unconscious. New Go ahead.
[00:35:02] Speaker B: This is God's blessing for you.
Contentment.
The turbulent seas of your life are navigated under God's love.
You found shelter in embracing peace and your real identity in every storm.
Letting go of comparison with others.
There's joy in trusting your unique path.
[00:35:33] Speaker A: Fantastic.
Yay. Thank you, Shirin. And thank you everyone for listening. It's very deep topic.
Let us know in the comments what you think about this or what you've learned. Or maybe you're more confused when you started, but that's how it is sometimes. Thank you so much. Lots of love.
Many, many bless.
