Transcript

Claudia von Boeselager [00:00:00]:
My guest today is Dr. Steven Steve is a distinguished psychologist and bestselling author on psychology and spirituality, having written over 14 books including the Leap and the Calm center. He's a senior lecturer in psychology at Leeds Beckett University and the chair of the Transpersonal Psychology section of the British Psychological Society. Steve's articles and essays have been published in over 100 academic journals, magazines and newspapers, and he blogs for Scientific American and psychology today. Eckhart of the power of now has described his work as an important contribution to the shift in consciousness which is happening on our planet at present. Welcome to the Longevity and lifestyle podcast, Steve. It's such a pleasure to have you with us today.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:00:46]:
Thank you Claudia. Great to be with you.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:00:48]:
I'm so fascinated by this topic of spirituality and consciousness, and I love the fact that your new book that's coming out or has just come out in the US and is coming out, it's entitled the adventure a practical Guide to Spiritual Awakening. Because I know so many people, I don't understand the concept of it, et cetera. So for people listening, that mightn't be that familiar with it. Could you share with us your perspective on spirituality and how you became interested in psychology and spirituality?

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:01:20]:
A lot of people associate spirituality with religion, but that's not necessarily the case. Spirituality, to me, it's something which exists apart from religion, and it's really about an opening of awareness, it's about an expansion of awareness, and it involves connection. It's about transcending separation and intensifying your connection. That means a connection to your own deeper being, your connection to nature, to the world around you. Also your connection to other people. And spirituality assumes that the normal human state is a state of discord and suffering. So when you expand your identity, when you increase your connection to yourself and to other beings, then you transcend suffering and move towards a more harmonious state. So all of the spiritual traditions in the world, like Buddhism, Taoism, Vedanta, Sufism, mystical Christianity and Judaism, they all interpret this movement from discord to harmony or from separateness to connection.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:02:28]:
They all interpret it and describe it in different ways, but it's essentially the same journey. And you can take that journey outside the context of any religion or any spiritual tradition. So for me, there wasn't really a specific moment when I became interested in spirituality. It always seemed to be inside me from being a teenager. When I was a teenager, I started to have what I now understand to be spiritual experiences of connection to my surroundings, a sense of harmony with the world, moments when everything around me would become alive and radiant and full of meaning, and I'd feel connected to everything around me. But at the time, I didn't understand those experiences. I thought maybe I was crazy, which I probably was by normal standards. So it was only a few years later, when I was in my early twenty s, that I began to read books about mysticism and spirituality.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:03:31]:
And then I began to understand my own experiences. I began to build up a framework to make sense of my own experiences. And that ultimately led me into psychology because I wanted to understand these experiences, my own experiences, and other people's experiences from a psychological perspective.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:03:48]:
Steve, can you share how your understanding of spirituality has shaped your life and the world around you?

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:03:55]:
When I was younger, I absorbed a materialist view of reality from my education and from my family. So I believed kind of without thinking about it, I took on this belief that human beings are basically machines, kind of genetic machines. The world is full of mechanistic objects. And there was nothing spiritual about reality. Reality was just materialistic. It was just physical. And even when I thought about my own mind or thoughts, I assumed that everything about me was created by the brain. But once I began to study spirituality and have my own spiritual experiences, and I realized that that's a false view of reality.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:04:35]:
I realized that in reality, everything is sentience, everything is full of spirit, everything is sacred, including the human body and including all natural objects. And I began to realize that everything is interconnected. There are lots of objects around us which seem to be separate, independent things. But there's a level on which everything is interconnected, and there is a level in which I am connected to everything around me. So once I absorbed that worldview, then the world became a much more meaningful and beautiful place.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:05:07]:
And can you share a bit? Because some people listening or hearing about these spiritual experiences happening, would you say that actually, most people would have spiritual experiences, but they don't always recognize that, or they don't always listen to it, if you will. And could you share a little bit more what was happening? Were they triggered by a certain event, or they just came naturally?

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:05:28]:
Most people do have spiritual experiences, but they may not understand them in that context. I prefer to call them actually awakening experiences, because they are experiences in which we wake up a little bit and reality becomes more real, and we feel a sense of connection to our surroundings. Most people have that from time to time, even if it just happens once or twice in their whole lives. It may happen when they're walking in the countryside on a beautiful day, looking at a beautiful landscape. It may happen when they fall in love, it sometimes happens when we're listening to music at a concert and we feel uplifted and the music seems to enter our being and take us to a transcendent place. It sometimes happens during meditation while we're doing yoga or some other kind of psychospiritual exercise. So I think most people do have those experiences. But I think one of the issues is that because a lot of people don't understand these experiences, they forget about them or they even repress them.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:06:28]:
They have them and think, oh, that was nice, but I don't really understand what happened there. So they put it to the back of their minds and sort of forget about it. And as I say, sometimes people, maybe people not religious, and they have these experiences and they think that these experiences are somehow they're not kind of viable because they're not religious. They don't know how to interpret them. But in my case, these experiences, they were and they still are because I still have them quite often. They're usually connected to nature. When I'm walking in the woods or walking in the hills or also swimming, I love to swim. Especially I love to swim in the ocean.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:07:06]:
So I get these experiences of oneness when I'm in the ocean and I feel that I am part of the water and I can sense my oneness with the whole of the ocean spreading over the surface of the earth. So nature is a great way to have these experiences, but they often happen in any situation when we become very relaxed. What seems to stop these experiences occurring is when our minds are too busy, when our lives are too busy. The monkey mind. Yeah, but when we step off the treadmill of activity and we just lie down or sit down in quietness without listening, without sort of looking at screens or without conversing with other people, when we just have a few moments of silence and solitude, that's when these experiences are more likely to occur.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:07:54]:
So can you share, in your view, what is the beauty that lies within having these awakening experiences for people maybe unfamiliar or who haven't identified that they potentially have been having them as well? And then I'd love to dig into your practical guide to spiritual awakening. Right. So what are modalities people can do to cultivate these states of being, these experiences?

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:08:17]:
They show us that the world is a meaningful and harmonious place. They show us that our normal vision of reality is somehow limited. These experiences like a glimpse into a transient reality. And once you have that glimpse, you know it's there. You never forget that it's there. So it gives you a more optimistic vision of reality. Even if you don't have access to it, you know it's there and you know that there is a possibility of gaining access to it again. And a lot of people have these experiences.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:08:50]:
They start to meditate. They live a healthier, more holistic lifestyle because they sense that's the way to return to these experiences. People have an intuition that it is possible to return there. And you can even cultivate these experiences on an ongoing basis if you follow the right practices, if you live the right kind of lifestyle. So people intuit that. So it gives them hope. It gives them hope and meaning for the future. One of the myths about spiritual awakening is that it's only possible if you're a monk or a mystic living in a monastery, living detached from everyday life and all of the activity and stress of everyday life.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:09:35]:
Well, that's not the case. As long as you're a human being, you have the potential and the possibility to go through a process of awakening. Another issue is that the idea of enlightenment is quite vague and obscure for most people. People don't really know what it means. So in my book, I try to highlight exactly what it means to be enlightened or awakened. I highlight eight essential qualities which awakened people demonstrate in their lives, and I create a lot of exercises and meditations to cultivate these qualities. So by cultivating the qualities, you can actually cultivate awakening in itself. I call my book a practical guide to spiritual awakening.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:10:20]:
So I think of it as a travel book. You have these travel books which tell you how to get to certain places which tell you the best places to visit. So I think of it in those terms. We're exploring the landscape of enlightenment, which is quite terror incognita for most people. It's obscure and unfamiliar. But if you have a guidebook, you can explore the landscape in a productive way. You can cultivate the qualities that are needed to survive in the landscape, and it will take you to a destination within that landscape. And the destination, although it's not a fixed destination, because I don't think enlightenment is an endpoint, but if you follow the right instructions, you will arrive at that destination.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:11:05]:
And it's almost, would you not say a destination inwards?

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:11:08]:
Right?

Claudia von Boeselager [00:11:08]:
So it's that roadmap as well.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:11:11]:
Yeah, it's inwards, but it's also outwards as well. It's a place where the inner and the outer merge and become one. But I think one of the essential issues is that most people, this is the way we're conditioned. We're conditioned to think that happiness and fulfillment are external things that we can gain through following certain external ways of life, through accumulating possessions, through accumulating achievements, through meeting certain people or having certain experiences. But the lesson of spiritual development is that happiness is not an external thing. It's not something that you can gain through doing or having certain things. It's an internal quality which you can only cultivate in the mode of being. I sometimes talk about in terms of different modes of seeking happiness.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:12:03]:
You can seek happiness by doing or by having. But really, the most essential way to cultivate happiness is through being, through changing your state of being. On a surface level, that could be changing the way you think. But on a deeper level, it's entering into your inner being and learning to rest within yourself, developing an equanimity and self sufficiency and a sense of harmony.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:12:28]:
Within yourself, which is, yeah, I think so. Beautiful when one can do that. And what would you say? I mean, we know it's the ego, right? But why is it that the ego gets in the way so often? And how can people raise awareness? What is driving them? Is it the ego and that voice and telling them? Or is it coming from a deeper, more spiritual place? How does one differentiate between the two and raise that awareness of that inner talk, that dialogue that's going on?

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:12:57]:
One of the most serious issues with human beings is that we tend to live at the surface of our mind. A lot of us experience a surface thought chatter, a kind of restless voice within our heads, replaying conversations, thinking about the future, replaying events from the past, projecting events in the future, or just random associations which happen to pass through our minds, we live amongst that voice. That voice is our normal sense of identity. But when we identify with that voice and live at the surface of our minds, it's always a discordant place, because the voice is so restless. And the voice tends to generate negativity, tends to generate worries and fears and resentments. It just tends to gravitate towards negative processes and negative aspects of our experience. So if you identify with that voice, it's always a place of suffering. Your life is always uneasy and uncomfortable.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:13:58]:
So what you need to do is to either, well, you got two ways you can go about it. You can quieten the voice. You can make it calm, or, and you can dive beneath the voice to a deeper level of your being. Like a diver who dives beneath, beneath the surface of the ocean. There's always discord on the surface of the ocean. But as soon as you dive beneath the surface, then you're in a place of harmony and stillness. So that harmony and stillness is always inside us. It's just obscured by the surface restlessness within our minds.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:14:30]:
And so that's essentially what we need to do, calm the surface of our minds so that we can dive beneath it and center ourselves from a more harmonious, more still place within us.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:14:43]:
And so some people listening might be like, okay, well, easier said than done. I've tried and made. I've tried yoga, I've tried this, and I'm stressed and I have to do this and I have to take care of my elderly parent, whatever the case may be. Right, there's always. The excuses are always there for us as well. And I'm sure you've spoken to many, many people on this topic as well. So what are some modalities or practices you recommend people start with to start cultivating a practice that will help them? Obviously, everybody's a bit different and everyone, maybe some person needs to walk and different modalities. But what do you see as some helpful practices that can help to cultivate this path?

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:15:24]:
The first quality we need to develop is what I call disidentification from the ego. Disidentification is quite a long word. It's quite difficult to pronounce, but it's quite simple, really. It just means realizing that you are not the voice in your head, that your real identity is the person who actually observes that voice. Because if you think about it, there's always a place inside you which can watch or observe your thoughts passing by. And once you find that space between you and your thoughts, then you become free of the influence of your thoughts, and your thoughts begin to slow down. So I have an exercise which I sometimes call the riverbank exercise, which is where I ask people to visualize themselves sitting on a riverbank on a warm summer's day. And they watch the river flow by a few meters in front of them, and they're aware that they are not the river.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:16:20]:
The river is just flowing by where they were, in a place of stillness, observing it. So I asked them to take the same perspective with their thoughts. So they sit in a still place within them, within their being, and they watch the stream of thoughts pass by, aware that they are not their thoughts. And obviously, sometimes it's bound to happen that our thoughts carry us away again. We find ourselves a few meters downstream, but then we just sort of gently step out of the river again and place ourselves back on the river, sit down on the riverbank so you have to do that a few times. But eventually you become aware of this space between you and your thoughts, and you cease to identify with your thoughts. And that practice itself has its own momentum. The more you do it, the easier it becomes and the more fulfilling you feel.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:17:17]:
A greater sense of ease as you realize that. I recommend a couple of other practices, too, which we don't tend to go into here, but it is a process. It's not easy, especially in the beginning. But once you begin it, as I say, it picks up momentum, it becomes easier the more you do it. Once you realize that you are not your thoughts, you never become them again.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:17:41]:
I mean, I have that awareness I'll share with myself, and I've done different meditation practices, and I find sometimes I'm much better at the awareness and cultivating. And sometimes if I'm in that doing and a lot of long to do list and all this action, then it's much more in the mind and it's much trickier to kind of come back to center and obviously through breath and different practices as well. It's very helpful. But the quality of life, I agree, is just such exponentially different. If those practices are built into my day, into my life, and to take a step back, and I believe it's a journey for me, 100%. As you said, I don't think there is a destination, but it's just remembering to keep in the practice as well, because the monkey mind is just very powerful. Steve, I'd love to, if you could take us through the eight qualities of wakefulness that you described and you mentioned before.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:18:33]:
The first one, which we've already discussed, is disidentification from the ego. And I sometimes describe that as the essential initial quality in the journey of awakening, because you can't undergo awakening unless you go through that initial process of disidentifying with the ego. So it's the gateway into awakening, if you like. After that, I ask people to develop the quality of gratitude. And a sense of gratitude is one of the essential differences between awakened people and the normal human state. When you awaken, you become free of the taking for granted syndrome. So you see blessings all around you in your life. Then there is presence, which literally means living in the moment, living in the now, rather than thinking about the past and the future.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:19:32]:
It means giving all of your attention to your experience in the present moment, then altruism, or giving to the world in kindness and generosity and benevolence to the people around you. Then the fifth quality is acceptance, which means accepting your life situation, accepting the activities, the challenges which life throws our way. Then I discuss integration with the body, living in harmony with the body, which is very important, because some spiritual traditions have a rather negative attitude to the body. They see it as something to be transcended or something which opposes spiritual development. But I think it's really important to be aware of the spiritual aspects of the body and to develop the body alongside our inner being, in harmony with our inner being. Then the 7th quality is detachment, which means not being dependent on external things for our well being and identity. External things like possessions or achievements, or beliefs and ambitions. And finally, the 8th quality is embracing mortality, which means being aware of the temporary nature and the fragility of our life in this form, in this world.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:20:53]:
I know from some people when they hear presence sing, they think, well, I need to get things done, I have to move forward, I have to make a plan. I can't just be in the present moment. What is your view on how to apply presencing in everyday life so that you can make plans, you can do things, but you're still able to be present, at least at regular intervals during the day.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:21:17]:
Interestingly, presence is not opposed to activity. Doing and being are not necessarily in opposition to each other. You can actually be present when you are fact, you know, activity becomes much more fruitful and much more enjoyable when you're present. There was a spiritual teacher called Krishnamurti who said that he didn't like the idea of meditation, because the idea of meditation was that you spend 15, 20 minutes sitting quietly in the morning and then you sort of run around all day, causing chaos, being stressed out just because you've had these 20 minutes in the morning. So his idea was that, which is my preference too, is that you integrate presence into your daily life. And it's great. The great thing about presence is you can do everything in a state of presence. You can have a shower in a state of presence.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:22:05]:
You can brush your teeth in a state of presence. You can eat breakfast in a state of presence. You can walk to the subway station, you can do anything in a state of presence. It just means being aware of your surroundings, being aware of your own feelings, your own being in that moment. And as I mentioned before, when you do these things in a state presence, they become much more, much richer. You begin to savor things much more. Eating is a great example. If you rush your lunch, you don't really taste it, and maybe you don't digest it very well because you're eating too quickly.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:22:45]:
But if you eat in a state of presence, the food tastes great, the act of eating is much more enjoyable and your digestion is a lot better because you're eating slowly and mindfully. So that plays everything. One of the things I say in the book is that everyday life can be a spiritual practice. Every aspect of our lives can be part of our spiritual practice, which is.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:23:07]:
A much better way to live on many fronts. And you actually enjoy your lunch then as well. But just to see the beauty in the moment, I think it's that sort of stop to smell the flowers. And I think children are always such young children are always such a beautiful example because they're so present and they see things that otherwise, typically we as adults, if we're running around or if we're not in our present mode, right, we just don't even notice as well.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:23:31]:
Exactly. I remember when my first son, I've got three kids. When my first son was a toddler I used to think of him as my mindfulness teacher because like you say, he was stopping all the time to picking up leaves and empty crisp packets from the ground, picking up stones and stopping to look at trees. And I thought, yeah, this is the right thing to. So I just joined in with him and it was wonderful. Exactly.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:23:56]:
Steve, I'd love to touch on psychedelics and how do you perceive the role of psychedelics in fostering deeper connection with one's surroundings and oneself?

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:24:06]:
Psychedelics can be very useful for people who've never had an awakening experience. They can give people awakening experiences. And as I said before, once you have an awakening experience, the world is never quite the same place. You know that there is this transcendent dimension to reality which you can gain access to again. So psychedelics are fantastic in that regard. They can open people to this wider reality. And psychedelics can be very therapeutic too. There's a lot of research coming out.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:24:39]:
It's been going on, been going on for about ten years now. There's a new wave of research into the therapeutic potential of psychedelics. Yeah, you're probably aware of it. They can be very therapeutic for people suffering from deep depression or addiction, PTSD. But I'm somewhat dubious about the long term effects of psychedelics. I don't think you should regularly take psychedelics as a way of, as a tool of creating enlightenment. I don't think it works. I think once we have that initial glimpse through psychedelics we should turn to more organic forms of spiritual practice like meditation or contact with nature or altruism, because the regular use of psychedelics has some risks as well, particularly if it's not in a controlled environment.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:25:24]:
You're buying psychedelics from off the street. That can be quite risky. You've probably heard of Alan Watts, the spiritual teacher from the. He was asked about psychedelics and he said, in his very posh english voice, he said, once you get the message, hang up. That's kind of how you know it's great to get the message, but you don't need to get the message again once you've had it.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:25:52]:
As you were saying, as well, for the therapeutic benefits, I've been reading research and speaking to doctors who treat war veterans, et cetera, particularly in the US. And I mean, the impact is very profound, but. Exactly. I think if you're looking for an external crutch, almost for internal awakening or spiritual awakenings, you're not necessarily getting the practice right. So it's more tuning into what are you running away from and looking for inside and understanding yourself, I guess. A bit better with it, too.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:26:22]:
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. I think they can be very useful, but I think they show you the place where you should need to get to, but they don't necessarily give you the means of getting there.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:26:34]:
Yeah, I mean, they say a lot that the integration piece is so essential. That's like 90% of the work for a lot of people who do have psychedelic experiences, that they think it's not just once and done right. It's then all the processing and understanding, et cetera. And I'm curious to hear your view. I mean, there's different sort of forms of, you had these spiritual awakenings, you said, as a teenager, et cetera. But I know a few people who've had more of a kundalini awakening sort of out of nowhere. And then it took one, two plus years of repurposing and transitioning to a new state of consciousness. Can you share more about these type of experiences? Why, in your view, do they happen? So start in such a startling way for certain people?

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:27:19]:
I found in my research that spiritual awakening, it can sometimes be a very gradual process, particularly if you follow a certain path or a practice. It can be quite a kind of calm and gradual process that takes place over years or decades. But in other people it can be a very sudden experience. Usually it's connected to psychological turmoil. So when certain people go through intense turmoil or trauma, they may experience a very sudden and dramatic awakening that sometimes comes after a diagnosis of cancer, after a long period of addiction, a period of intense stress, or maybe after a bereavement. It's not uncommon. After a bereavement, any kind of major shock to our mind and body can bring about a sudden awakening. It's almost as if sudden shocks and trauma, they break down our normal identity.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:28:12]:
They break down the normal ego just in the same way that a tidal wave breaks down a building or an earthquake. But sometimes when the normal ego breaks down, a new self arises in its place. In some people, it's almost as if there is a kind of latent, higher self waiting to be born inside them. It's like a chick which is ready to hatch from an egg. But it can only do that once a normal ego has faded or has dissolved away. But because it's so sudden and dramatic, it's often an explosive experience which causes disruption, almost like an earthquake. It can be like an earthquake to a whole mind and body system. It can cause psychological issues.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:28:59]:
It can take a while for the mind to restructure itself again. People may have problems with memory, with concentration, with functioning in their daily lives. It can also cause physiological issues, sudden pains in the body, a kind of explosive, energetic feelings that rise through the body, which are described as kundalini awakenings. So, yeah, it can take a long time for all of that to settle down again. Just like I sometimes describe it, compare it to a slow motion earthquake, it takes a while for the ground to settle again after an earthquake. So a sudden kundalini like awakening is like that. In some cases, it can take years for it to settle down properly. But I found in my research that it does always settle down eventually.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:29:46]:
People always do manage to integrate their new state of being eventually. In the worst case scenario, that takes years. But it does happen in the end.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:29:57]:
To be able to reintegrate them as well. Yeah, I'd also love to look at diet and hear your view on diet and the connection between spiritual awakening. So what do you need to change in your diet? Is there any certain foods also that you think are limited? Or for example, one friend was asking, after having a type of kundalini awakening, the body just wasn't looking for certain meats and certain foods as well. What is happening?

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:30:24]:
I wrote about this in my new book because one of the things I've noticed about people who undergo spiritual awakening is they do change their diet quite radically. This is true for me, actually. I was probably in my late 20s when I shifted into a kind of ongoing, calm, spiritual state, rather than my kind of crazy up and down experience. But up till that point, I'd lived a very unhealthy lifestyle. I never really cared about diet. I used to smoke. I never used to do any exercise. I used to drink quite a lot.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:31:01]:
When I shifted to this more ongoing spiritual state, I realized. I just sensed that something had to change. I had to change my diet. So I became a vegetarian. I stopped smoking. I cut down on coffee, on alcohol. It just felt right. I had to attune my body towards my spiritual state.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:31:23]:
And everybody who undergoes awakening undergoes that shift in attitude. A lot of people start exercising. They start eating organic food. They often become vegetarians or vegan. They realize that the body is sacred. And they realize that they have to attune to their body. They have to bring their inner being into harmony with their body. I think it's a question of sensitivity.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:31:49]:
When you undergo some degree of spiritual awakening, you do become much more sensitive to food. And the idea of, I have nothing against anybody who's not a vegetarian. But when people undergo spiritual awakening, they sense that it doesn't feel right to eat animal flesh. Somehow it doesn't feel. They become sensitive to the impurities. Maybe the wrong word, but it suddenly doesn't seem right about it. The same with alcohol. So overall, they live in a much simpler and healthier way.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:32:21]:
Because in some sense, they want to feel pure. Their purity of their inner being needs to be in harmony with some degree of purity in the body as well.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:32:30]:
And of the mind too.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:32:32]:
Yeah.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:32:33]:
So would you say that with the development of the spiritual awakening process that there's more better connection with the body and more intuition, if you will, of understanding what serves one? And is this a practice, we would think, that people should check in with regularly? Check in with what? Your intuition? What is your body saying? Because I know where a lot of us, and I used to be very much cerebral, my mind thinks this. So let me do that. What are modalities people can do to understand and to tap into listening to the body a bit better to protect it?

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:33:09]:
It's a lot to do with no longer being separate to your body. It's about being connected to your body. I think to some degree, in the normal human state, there is a sense of duality with the body. We feel like we're living up here in our minds. And the body is a kind of vehicle which we happen to carry around, which we happen to occupy. But ideally, and this is something which arises naturally in spiritual awakening. There is no disconnection between you and your body. Your body is part of your being.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:33:40]:
It's a manifestation of your spirit. There's no question of the body being other to you. Or to your spirit. So you, so you do naturally begin to attune to your body, and you begin to trust your body. And I think overall, the body becomes sacred. In spiritual awakening, all the material world becomes sacred. Everything around you becomes spiritualized. You see the beauty and the meaning in all the things around you, and that applies to your body, too.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:34:12]:
You also become aware of the millions of microscopic processes that take place every moment of the day within your body to help you, to help you stay healthy and alive and conscious. So you no longer take the body for granted. You become aware of how precious and how valuable it is. And all of that manifests itself in a much more positive relationship to the body.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:34:34]:
What are some misconceptions or common challenges that people may encounter on their spiritual journey, and how do you address them in your teachings?

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:34:43]:
One of the misconceptions is that spiritual awakening is something extraordinary and rare and kind of earth shattering, but there's something kind of ordinary about it as well. You can definitely have earth shattering moments when the world seems like an incredibly beautiful place and you feel blissful and attuned to the whole of the universe. But there's also something kind of very everyday and ordinary about it. Sometimes when you get into an awakened state, it feels like coming Home. You feel, oh, this is the way things are supposed to be. You know, we're not supposed to live in our minds, chattering away about the future in the past, thinking about our problems and our fears and worries. That's not the way that life was meant to be. So when you experience this state of having a fairly quiet mind, feeling attuned to your body, being aware of the reality of your experience in your surroundings, it feels kind of natural and right.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:35:47]:
So it feels kind of Ordinary in that sense. I guess it is ordinary in a sense, because it's the way it's natural. It's natural and right to be in that state. And another misconception is, we've touched on this already, the idea that it is a Goal, that there is this Goal endpoint of enlightenment, which we're meant to be heading towards. I once met a young spiritual seeker who was very kind of determined. Yeah, he said, I'm going to be enlightened by the time I'm 35. I'm going to meditate 6 hours a day. I'm going to read every spiritual text, listen to every spiritual teacher, and make sure I'm enlightened by the time I reach my mid thirty s.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:36:36]:
But of course, that's not, I've not seen that guy for a long time, but I'm sure that he's not reached enlightenment yet.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:36:44]:
If he said that like that, maybe he learned something on the way, who knows?

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:36:47]:
Yeah, unless he changed his approach. But it's not a goal in that sense. It's not a Goal like becoming a millionaire or owning a mansion. That's when the ego takes over the path of enlightenment. Yeah, but it's a process. So it's a process which our whole being, which is in some sense natural to us. So when we latch onto the process, when we embark on the Journey, it feels natural and that there is a kind of an impetus which guides us in the right direction. But even when we follow a more fruitful path of Awakening, there is no endpoint, there is no point where we think, now I'm enlightened, now I can relax and enjoy myself.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:37:36]:
It continues forever. It's an endless adventure. It's an endless process of expansion and opening and deepening.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:37:45]:
And do you find even within your days, like some days, you feel much more attuned and others less so? I mean, obviously this is your space and you're quite the expert in this, but do you also notice ebb and flows within it as well?

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:37:59]:
Certainly, yeah. It depends on what's happening in my life at certain times, I'm quite busy. And life always brings up challenges from time to time. Sometimes. Occasionally I find myself getting caught up in thought chatter. But there was always a sense that underneath that, there was this kind of ongoing spaciousness underneath that. I never take my thoughts seriously. And when I'm immersed in activity, I'm always aware that the activity will only last for a certain amount of time, and then I'll be able to return to myself.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:38:32]:
So it's kind of always there in the background, like a kind of undercurrent behind all of my experience.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:38:38]:
Beautiful.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:38:39]:
Steve.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:38:40]:
For people interested in finding out more about what you are doing, what you're up to, where would you send them to?

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:38:46]:
The best place is my website, which is stephenmtaylor.com. Stephen with A-V-M for Mark stevenmtaylor.com. And on my website, I have links to my social media pages, links to articles and videos and so forth. So there's lots of information on my website. Beautiful.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:39:10]:
And your new book, so you said it's out now in the US, is that correct? And it's coming out in other places in the world soon. What's the schedule for that? And it's the adventure. A practical guide to spiritual awakening. When can people. And where can people find it.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:39:26]:
It's just come out in the States, and it's coming out in the rest of the world over the next two or three weeks. I'm having a launch event in London for it on February the 13th, and it'll be available from all major online booksellers. You can preorder it, even if it's not available right now.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:39:46]:
Do you have a final recommendation or any parting thoughts or message for my audience today?

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:39:51]:
I'd like to remind people that even when life is stressful and busy, and even when our minds are turbulent and full of discord and busy contemplating the future and the past, beneath that surface restlessness, beneath that stress and discord, there is always an inner harmony. Just in the same way that there is always the stillness of the deep ocean beneath the surface of the ocean, it's always there. So whenever your life becomes a little quieter, whenever a space opens up in your schedule, whenever your thoughts slow down, you can take the opportunities to dive into that deep inner stillness. So it's comforting to know that it's always there and it's always accessible.

Claudia von Boeselager [00:40:38]:
Beautiful. Steve, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today for everybody listening. Thank you so much for listening to the very end. And yeah, it was so beautiful to have you with us.

Dr. Steve Taylor [00:40:47]:
Thank you. Thank you. It's a lovely.