Ep290: Answering Critics & Kriya Yoga - Delson Armstrong

In this episode, I am once again joined by Delson Armstrong, spiritual teacher, meditation virtuoso, and author of A Mind Without Craving. In this interview, Delson responds to criticism and answers questions about his recent renunciation of his attainments and revision of the Buddhist four-path enlightenment model. Delson reflects on the pros and cons of questioning established religious doctrines in challenging fixed views. Delson comments on a recently leaked interview, shares his current position on Bhante Vimalaramsi and his twin meditation method, and compares Buddhism to traditional yoga. Delson also recalls his own training in Kriya Yoga, details the features of the particular lineage which he has begun to teach, and reveals methods of working with karma, chakras, and forgiveness.

So without further ado, Delson Armstrong. Delson Armstrong, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you, Steve. Gosh, the last episode we recorded together, episode 280, I Renounce My Attainment. That's right. That's right. What a title, huh? What an episode. That was quite a bombshell. I'm curious, actually, before we get into our subjects for today, if there's anything about that episode or about the territory that you discussed in that episode, that you'd like to comment on, any further reflections or developments since then? Well, I still definitely am seeing responses and reactions from that particular episode we did together. And much of it has been supportive. I keep getting some emails back and forth about people saying they've seen the video and they feel like, Yeah, it took a lot of reflection to come to that point.

And there's been some interesting reactions where people have taken that and used a lot of the stuff that I've said in a way that might be understood at their particular experience. And that's totally fine. I still stand by everything. And I think since then, I think it's been a couple of months. And since then, it's given me time to kind of reflect on the stuff that I want to convey to people and I want to teach people and provide experiences through my own wisdom and knowledge. I see. I'd like to get onto that: things you'd like to teach. I think we'll talk today about Kriya Yoga in particular, but before we do, I wonder if you've received any criticism about that, any common themes in that criticism that you'd like to address? I can think of a couple of things, but I think you mentioned before we began there's something to do with TWIM as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the criticisms was talking about the attainments and talking about the ten fetter model, for example.

And I would say that there's been criticism from people who don't know me personally either, and that's going to always be there once you're out in internet land. But there have been people who have been critical from the get-go of the way I teach. It might be because of the way I grow up my hair. It could be because of the way I wear my clothes. It could be because of the things I say, or how I behave. It might not be the way they traditionally expect a teacher to be who might be teaching the things that he's teaching. And so the criticisms that I've received are essentially, how could you do away with the ten fetter model?

How could you do away with the four attainments? And I've had a chance to actually take a look at that and say, you know, there's a few ways of approaching this. One is I'm not interested in challenging people who really want to hold on to that model, and by no means am I saying it's an invalid model. What I'm saying is it's just another model. But some people are stuck on being attached to certain ways that things have to be, whether it's related to awakening or enlightenment, or how one should behave or how one should be in the world once they are attained or once they are awakened. And I'm here to kind of say, have you thought about a broader perspective?

And that's gotten some backlash. But by no means am I saying that one is wrong or one is right. It's just that it depends on where you are and what your experiences have been. Aside from that, it's interesting. The video I mentioned in the last interview when I was talking about this interview that was not actually intended to come out did come out, because what happened was that particular interview was done when I was in India. And I had given it to three people who I really trusted. And one of them decided that they would release it without my permission. So it was a breach of my trust.

And they released it, and they gave it to somebody who's been very critical of me. But upon further reflection, I do want to say that at the time, I felt like the video would be disastrous. And I did call another person slimy, the way that they behaved. Maybe it was a mischaracterization of them on my part to call them that, because when I further discussed it with them, they felt quite hurt by that. So I want to apologize for doing that. But the video as it is, is the video. The thing about the video is not the content itself.

People can watch it. They can see what I'm saying and where I'm coming from. Since our first interview together, how that's sort of grown. And I've expressed in that video my frustrations, I've expressed my what others might consider an unawakened kind of approach to things, in terms of being upset by certain people. Now, there was one specific reason why I didn't want that video to come out, because we had spoken about, not you and I, but the person I spoke with. I said that I spoke about a couple of people by name, and that was not my intention. It was just off the cuff that I said it.

And I don't think it was fair for that to happen. And so for that also, I want to take responsibility and say, to those people, I'm sorry if their names have come out, and hopefully we can talk about it offline with those people. But when this video came out, criticized the fact that it was a breach of my trust. Had the video come out where there was an agreement that, okay, you know what? I see what you're saying. There is some merit to the video. Let it come out. Let people see it for themselves. Great. But the fact that it was released without my permission and it's an abuse of my trust, that's what I would say.

It's pretty strong to say, but it is because this person who released the video was a very trusted and close friend of mine. This friend has come up criticizing Dhammasuka, criticizing David Johnson, criticizing Liam McClintock, who is now Venerable Mathananda, and criticizing me, obviously. And so I want to tell that person, if they are watching this video, is, I failed some people as a teacher, I failed them as friends, I could have probably done better. I could have probably taken the situation

in a different way, and so I hope that they'll reach out to me and we can come to some kind of a process of reconciliation. I'm out here, I'm here in public life, and I realize in public life there's a lot of mistakes that can be made, and I'm owning up to them, and I'm saying, you know what, I'm taking responsibility for my part in the harm that was caused. So that's some stuff I would like to say. Gosh, well, I'm glad you've addressed that. Criticism, or it could be a question, I think, that I've seen is to do with your re-examination of the Ten Fetter model and the four-path model, those two pieces of doctrine.

And the criticism, it's a criticism that's been levelled at others too, or a question, maybe. We could frame it that way, which is you're held to a moral perfection version of the ten fetter model whereby you're transcending various negative emotions never to be felt again. Anger, upset, erotic feeling, et cetera. And then you realize, and you came to the realization, actually, that's not the case. And in the face of that realization, which we discussed in the last episode, you have, so now the question begins, a choice. You can say the model is the problem. It needs to be revised or I'm going to look at this differently. Or you can say the model, and this is perhaps a more religious doctrinal view, the model is correct or might be correct.

And it's just simply that you weren't where you thought you were. So in other words, something has to give when you come to that kind of a point. Model or is it you? And I did see a question that came up quite often. I think it's a reasonable question, which is: why turn to the model to revise it? Why not rather say maybe I wasn't as far along as I thought I was in the model? So this is a question. I'm curious what you make of that. Yeah, I think that's a very valid question. Yeah, I'm willing to say that it's quite possible that I'm not as far along as I think I am based on the doctrine of the model, and so by redefining the model in order to fit my experience can be seen as a kind of heresy for the more traditional religious folks out there, but I would say

that I know my experience, and I might be deluded. And I might just be completely false in whatever I'm saying, but I know for a fact what my experience is. Yes, and I also stand by the fact that initially I thought, yes, it had to do with the level of moral perfection. And I didn't experience any of these sort of elements initially with regards to sexual feelings or sensual craving or aversion or anger or all of these things. them present. And I think last time when we talked about some shadow work, which, you know, is going to take a long time to do. But I believe that I've started the process even well before we were talking last time.

And I think that's what I want to say is, look, I'm wrong. I'm wrong in the case of the religious aspect of it or the more doctrinal aspect of it. Yet, I cannot deny my own experience, which is at a level of seeing things in a way that I see as super mundane, in a way that is beyond just conventional understanding of waking up through not just Buddhism, but any other system, really. And that's why I was talking about last time, and maybe I can revisit that, which is there's a cultural aspect where a society comes together and says, There are certain perfections that we should see in the idealized figure of an awakened being, and therefore that is what we should look out for.

But if somebody doesn't fit that bill, but they've still had a valid experience, I think there's a larger discussion to be had regarding that. You know, when it comes to doctrines like the four-path model and the ten fetters and so on, there are a number of views that people take towards them. Some people say, This, and this perhaps is, for better or worse, a more fundamentalist view. This is the truth handed down, you know, revealed by the Buddha, shared by the Buddha for us. And it's a truth that stands outside of culture and context. And it applies to everybody, actually.

Context, this is an attempt from a certain time that perhaps even evolved doctrinally over time from a certain time in a certain place at describing a certain kind of territory for various reasons, and it had various reasons, perhaps a map for yogis. There are other reasons why stages are described too, also as you point out, ways of recognizing and acknowledging certain attainments people have, and there may be reasons why that's necessary to do in certain contexts, especially in the... But in that kind of a more relativist view, this doctrine may not be the ultimate, kind of ultimate, beyond culture, beyond. It's an attempt. And there are other attempts too. And there are other attempts even in Buddhism to map that territory.

And I think, for example, of Shinzen Young, previous guest in the podcast, and he believes that there's more about enlightenment, if we will call it that, to understand them we've yet understood. He has a sort of scientific orientation where he says that he thinks that there's more to be understood, that part of the disagreement among systems points to attempts. None of them quite have got it yet. Of course, this is not kosher to the fundamentalist. This is not acceptable to the fundamentalist who believes that their particular version is the correct one. Fair enough. Of course, that's why they're in that religion. So I wonder if you, when you talk about being enlightened beyond or seeing things or having experience that's beyond the categorizations of systems, I wonder what you mean by that.

Do you mean that you've discovered something new, or do you mean that your experience brings into question these various different maps as being a sole means of explaining things? Could you say a little bit more about what you mean when you say you've gone beyond maps, gone beyond religions? Let me re-look at my own experiences and also see how I've, let's say, evolved through the phases of growing up, which I still have a lot of growing up to do, no doubt. But in terms of the integral system or the integral theory, which I was introduced to by a very close friend of mine and by Andrew Holecek, who I spoke to maybe a couple of weeks after our interview last time.

And he's a good friend of Ken Wilber and he had recommended his book, Radical Wholeness, which I've read. And it has given me a lot more perspective into what are we looking at in terms of these models and what are we looking at in terms of the stages of awakening or waking up. And I will give the disclaimer that I'm just looking into it now. So whatever I give in terms of my insights, it's just based on how I understand it. Regardless, what I will say is when I say that I've gone beyond these models, I'm not necessarily saying I've found something new. I'm saying that, yes, I could probably recontextualize it in some new ways, given a setting in which I can do that, in a kind of teaching setting where there's a discussion to be had about it.

When I say I go beyond it, it's that I am challenging the ideas that one school fits all. That's what I'm challenging, because I think that is an attachment to views. It's one of the things I see when I contextualize the Buddha saying that attachment to views is also an impediment to the path. I see that as well. Using Buddha context, we would say that people are still on the raft and they don't want to get off the raft and they don't want to go to the other shore, and the other shore is not owned by one particular school. We think about, for example, Vedanta. The Vedantins have their own perspective of what that idealized, let's say, awakened person is, the jivan mukta, one who is liberated while living. There's just lists of what that means to be liberated while living.

It means that one has a certain standard of equanimity, a certain standard of calmness. And, but at the same time, it also says they transcend the notions of religiosity and the traditional rituals and things like that. We think about the idea of Christian mysticism. I mean, to say in Christian ideologies that you are one with God, in some cases can get you burned at the stake, and in other cases in the more mystical traditions can be like, oh, they've understood, they've experienced it. Same with Islam. Some people don't believe that Sufism is part of Islam, but it is definitely influenced by it, and it talks about certain experiences, like where one blows out, like nirvana blows out the small self, and comes to fana, which literally means annihilation or extinction. And that is a complete heresy, I would say, against what are traditional notions of Islam, which is we have to be subservient to the greater Almighty.

And we can't say that we are one with that being or whatever it is. So my point here to summarize is essentially I'm saying that what I've transcended, or I have, I'm looking at myself and transcending, are these models that create these doctrinal chains of imprisonment. Because it's like a very cozy prison to be in. Like I am here as a Buddhist, or I'm here as a Christian, or I'm here as a non-dualist. And therefore, I've got it. I have the secret sauce and the magic fairy dust. And now I'm here to tell you what it's all about. Should now look into it, because everything else is somehow wrong. And that might just be at a certain stage of, you know, growing up.

But I think if people start to look at themselves and really take a good look at, does it really make sense to get so attached to these models that it gets in the way of the practice? And sometimes it does. I mean, I've seen with students, not all of them, but a few students where they get attached to, where am I on the practice? Where am I on the path? And it becomes almost obsessive to the point that it's a deterrent to their progress on the so-called path. I'm reminded of an episode we did in dialogue between you and Daniel Ingram. And I know we're hoping to record a sequel to that in the near future.

I think that would be very excellent indeed, having the two of you talk. Daniel has also been criticized by certain parties, for revising maps, revising definitions. In other words, it's fine, so the criticism goes, to have a different experience to a doctrinal position. That's fine, but don't call it that. That's a criticism. Now, of course, Daniel's rejoinder to that, part of Daniel's rejoinder to that, is historical, in fact, and he'll say, well, actually, throughout the history of the tradition, there's been debates about, for example, what is an arhat? It was part of some of the early Buddhist schisms was to do with definition of arhatship, some details about that. And certain doctrines emerge over time in the suttas.

You could make of that what you will. Maybe the Buddha just taught it a bit later on, or maybe it was a sort of something that was developed later. It depends, of course, on your view, how you take this. In any case, Daniel points to that and says, well, there's a precedent for offering revisions of certain doctrines and definitions and so on. What value do you see in revising and recontextualizing certain doctrines over, for example, and you could equally do this, you could say, I'm abandoning that, I'm jettisoning that, here's the new Delson Armstrong, you know, six-step model, whatever. And you know it's not a stream. You keep referring back to different traditions, Vedanta, Christian mysticism, Sufism and so on.

What is behind that impulse to engage with these traditional forms rather than say, sweep it all away and make a new thing, which some people have done? So if I'm hearing you correctly, Steve, you're saying I should now introduce Delsonism. I'm not advising you at all. This is certainly not an advisory thing. I'm presenting two possibilities. But now you mention it, Delsonism does have kind of a ring to it. I'm not, of course, saying you should do that, but some might do that. So why re-engage with the traditional models? Why offer your perspective and revision on them? What's behind that? Because I think that part of that is that's part of what upsets certain who hold a more fundamentalist doctrinal position.

And of course, of those people who hold fundamentalist doctrinal position, there's disagreement between them, of course, as to which one is correct. It's not like it's a monolith of people who hold traditional doctrinal positions, even on something like dukkha. But nonetheless, it's like, this is our term. Leave our term alone. Don't try to redefine it. So sometimes this reaction can come. Yeah, I think that's a very interesting perspective because, you know, I think it only helps me, as someone who would love to keep talking about these things. And I do talk about them in a traditional sense because, you know, I grew up learning and studying Vedanta, as you know, and yoga and Sankhya and all of these other traditions.

And so it's something that I fall back on in terms of the terminologies or the understanding and things like that. For example, even in the Bhagavad Gita, the thing is, I find great wisdom in all of these traditions. I find great essence of truth. Like I just mentioned, the Bhagavad Gita, I was reading it the other day, a really good translation by Bibek Debroy, where it takes away all of the religiosity. It takes away all of the idea of, it's the atman and the brahman and it's this and that. It's just a straightforward conversation between Krishna and Arjuna, and I was reading it the other day and I said, wow, this is great.

This is something that people should probably have a look at. And I think the way I would look at it is every generation, or at least series of generations, have had something to hold on to as a tradition, whether it's Theravadan Buddhism, it's Mahayana, it's Tibetan Buddhism, whether it's Advaita Vedanta or Vishishta Advaita Vedanta, it's within the category of yoga, it's bhakti yoga. It's again the cultural norms of what people are seeing. But there's always been people who are on the precipice of seeing something or recontextualizing things. And I might be as arrogant to say that I could be one of those people, which is to say that I can help recontextualize a lot of the old religiosity and say, understood them as stories to learn from and not to take them literally, along with the models, which is to say that the models are helpful insofar as giving you some kind of motivation, but your own experience is individualized.

So I find myself in a position now where I can be syncretic towards my approach in how I teach. Initially when I started off teaching, it was through the TWIM methodology. It was through Dhammasuka and Bhante Vimalaramsi's understanding of the suttas. He too recontextualized some of the things that are mentioned in the suttas and he got his, let's say, fair share of criticism or questioning about these things. And I'm saying that TWIM is a great practice insofar as how it helps people to relieve stress level of understanding life and the universe and existence and so on.

But, and this is a big but, which is, it doesn't mean that I'm going to say that it is the absolute truth, it's the universal truth and everybody should follow it. No, I'm not going to say that, because I see undercurrents of that truth, for lack of a better word to make it sound magical, but the understanding of reality, through all of the things that I've learned. And so what I'm doing now, or I found myself doing, is starting to take all of those ideas and use them in a way to help people understand. Because I'll understand if somebody's coming to me from a Vedantic perspective, I can use that languaging to further converse with them and come to some level of experience, walking with them on the path.

And then finally being like, we are on the cliff. Now it's time to jump. Now it's time to let go of all of that. Question will arise: why do that in the first place? I'm reminded of a conversation between J. Krishnamurti and a Theravadan monk. And Krishnamurti kind of asked the same question. You're talking about doing all of these things and then finally you transcend them. So why do that in the first place? Why not just transcend all of that? My perspective on that is that some people do need it. Some people need the training wheels of going through these support systems until it comes to the point where they contribute to this ocean of knowledge.

Because I believe this ocean of knowledge continues to ebb and flow depending upon culture and society. And so if someone is up to task to contribute to that ocean of knowledge, that and add to it your value to it. At the end of the day, the way I see my whole experience with regards to teaching, but also in terms of my life experience, is basically this. I have been challenged more and more often in so many different ways, not just within my teaching practice, but in life in general. And I see all of these as opportunities to essentially keep abandoning the societal, cultural, and life conditioning that has continued to be there in the brain, in the mind.

And so all of these are all conditions to come to the realization that I need to transcend them. I need to let them go. Not saying that they're bad, not saying that they're useless, not saying that they have no value, but saying that if I continue to keep being in those conditions, I'm not going to grow any further.

So perhaps I might take some time for myself to come up with other terminologies. But at the same time, I don't want to come into that place where there is now a Delsonism. Therefore, now there are these six steps that you need to do. And these are, as you said, I love that word, stream surfer. I got to come up with other things, stream surfer and whatever else it is, that now you go through these processes. Indeed, actually, in the article that I shared with you, I talked about sort of my model. But I did that in a cheeky way because I wanted to say that, look, these are the things that are kind of universal that people will go through at some point or another in their lives.

Very interesting. You know, Nagarjuna said, and this won't be much used to the term, unfortunately, but Nagarjuna said, the absolute can only be taught by relying on the conventional. Yeah. I love that guy, Nagarjuna. Cool guy. So what about TWIM then? Where do you see TWIM in this bigger picture? You've talked to her about stress reduction and gaining insights into, I think you said life, the universe and everything. So that's quite a range. Where do you see TWIM fitting into all this? So the way I look at it, in my humble personal opinion, is that TWIM is a response to the experiences that the founders had, and let's say the TWIM elders had in regards to Vipassana, whether it's the Mahasi tradition or the Goenka tradition.

And thereby, as the story goes with regards to Bhante Vimalaramsi, who I know you've also done a conversation with, he was alerted to going back to the original suttas canon by Bhante Punnaji, who you know I deeply respect as well, because Bhante Punnaji also has kind of helped recontextualize a few of the ideas that are mentioned in the suttas. But at any rate, he was inspired by Bhante Punnaji, Bhante Ramsey, to go back into the suttas and then he took that one understanding of tranquilizing, which is really now contextualized as

relaxing. It's a great way of doing it. I to go through the dark night of the soul. I don't know if it's necessary for everybody to do that, and so I think it's a great sort of sidetrack or bypass to go through, go beyond all of that and just go straight to relaxing, tranquilizing, coming to a state of bliss, coming to a state of jhanas, which in the TWIM tradition they're known as the tranquil aware jhanas, and then from there you experience certain states of the, and then from there you experience the cessation of perception and feeling. Bhante Vimalaramsi called it the cessation of perception, feeling, and consciousness.

And it's a more nuanced discussion, but what I'll get into is basically, I see that as a valid experience or non-experience for people to have, from which they do see into the nature of self. So at the very least, what they're seeing is that there is anatta. There is this process where there's a smaller self, which we have been conditioned to take as me, mine, or myself. And it's nothing more than a construct that's dependent upon all of these interrelations. And we call these interrelations dependent origination. I love this stuff. And I continue to teach this stuff because there's a lot of validity in it. I want to say to the TWIM community personally that, hey guys, I'm not abandoning you.

All I'm saying is, yes, I'm teaching TWIM, doesn't mean that I'm abandoning the precepts or the quote-unquote doctrines of TWIM, which I see as essentially very similar to the Theravadan models. Yes, Bhante Vimalaramsi himself has said publicly that he is a fundamentalist. So by that understanding, he will obviously take a lot of things quite literally. And I respect that. That's totally fine. And there will be people in the community who want to do that, and that's totally fine. So I will continue to teach TWIM the way I see fit, which is essentially the way it's always been done with a few tweaks, which is to introduce other learnings that I've had, not to corrupt the system, but as a way of helping in terms of practicalities, dealing with some levels of fear and resistance that might come up in the meditation.

And the things that I'm using are borrowed from my experience with kriya yoga so that's why you know i feel there is a great synergistic quality to bringing in some aspects of kriya yoga into twin none you know they might be philosophically incompatible but in terms of the practical meditative aspects i see a lot of great uh things that can be benefiting both or each other okay that's interesting let's talk a bit about kriya yoga then in that case For those who don't know, I wonder if you might say a little bit about what Kriya Yoga is and your involvement with it, which has been quite extensive, I believe. And then perhaps we could go on to talking about the ways in which you see it interfacing with a system like TWIM.

So I was inspired with the idea of Kriya Yoga by, I think, in many ways, a lot of people who come to Kriya Yoga by the book, Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahansa Yogananda. And I was about, oh, this would have been 2007 probably. So I was about 16, going on 17, somewhere around that age. That was around the time when I went to Rishikesh and Uttarkashi and all of these, the foothills of the Himalayas, with a very good teacher of mine who has become a very good friend of mine now. And we've known each other now for the last 16, 17 years. And he was reading Autobiography of a Yogi back then.

And I got my own copy and I read it and I was like, oh, what is this Kriya Yoga? What are they talking about here? So I was very interested in doing that. And so I signed up for these classes with the Self-Realization Fellowship, which was founded by Yogananda. And then also by YSS, which is the Yogoda Satsang Society, based in India. That's sort of the sister organization in India. But the idea of Kriya Yoga is that Lahiri Mahashaya, who was in no ways a yogi in the first part of his life, was somebody who lived a very normal householder average life. But as the story goes, he went to a place called Ranikhet, and he went to, he was called by this individual named Babaji, or what the Kriya yogis call the Mahavatar Babaji.

I'd been to that cave, by the way, where Lahiri went in the last year, and it's a beautiful place. You meditate in there, and maybe being conditioned by the story, you get it, but there is some kind of great experience there to be had. Anyway, so the story is that Lahiri Mahashaya relearned these techniques from a past life in which he was still a student of this individual named Mahavatar Babaji. Babaji. And Lahiri then went on to teach it. Now, back then it was not called Kriya Yoga. That's just now the branding that we have. But he just called it the work, the process or the practice. And it's a set of...

Just moving back a little bit. In the Yoga Sutras, we have also these eight limbs. We have Yama, Niyama, Asana, Pranayama, Pratyahara, Dharana, Dhyana, and Samadhi. And so Lahiri, what he did was, based on the stuff he learned, he took that so that you could learn the asana, which in this case is sitting in a comfortable position, using a technique called Mahamudra, different from Mahamudra in terms of Mahamudra Dzogchen. It's a technique to stretch the entire body so that there is a great level of relaxation throughout the body. And that is the asana part. And then you go into pranayama, which is the general Kriya pranayama that we talk about. And there are variations of this, which I have learned from different schools, or people who've learned from different schools, or lineages as they say. And right now the one that I'm primarily practicing and helping people to go into is the lineage of Lahiri to Panchanan, who was actually a monk, or who was a sannyasin.

And Lahiri said, I will teach you Kriya, or I will teach you this practice, provided you go back into the householder life. So he did, he became a flower seller and he was a householder and he learned it. And he became one of Lahiri's foremost students. Each school has its own variants of what the Kriya pranayama is and how. So we have certain four or five fundamental, key components in terms of what the practice is. And it takes you through asana, pranayama, pratyahara, which is to withdraw the mind's attention from the externalities and bring it back to itself. Dharana, where you remain collected around a particular object. And then Dhyana, where you're now in jhana, right?

Dhyana, jhana, it's the same thing. And then Samadhi, which in the yogi context is a super mundane experience. You have Savikalpa, Nirvikalpa, and so on. So Kriya Yoga, if you were to summarize it, is a set of practices that are targeted towards going from the sympathetic nervous system, where one is anxious or flighty or whatever, to a parasympathetic nervous system, where one is calm and collected and can now be more focused.

And it is a preparatory practice for deeper aspects of meditation. And that allows the person to actually go into non-dual states, jhanic states, formless attainments, and even nirodha and so on. Practice like TWIM, quite accessible to the average person, I think. Doesn't require, as far as I understand, a particular posture or any particular abilities, really. I suppose talent takes you further, as it does with everything, proclivity and so on. What about Kriya Yoga? Is that sometimes associated with a great deal of rigor and almost a sort of virtuoso path to some? Or is that a misconception drawn from reading books like Autobiography of a Yogi and The Eternal Quest, and books like that? Yeah, yeah, that's a good question.

Yeah, and I wanted to address that also, since you mentioned TWIM, like how do I see the synergy between the two? Before I get into that, just say with Kriya, just like TWIM, you don't necessarily need any kind of foundation or you don't need to be an adept at anything, because you could start off with not knowing a thing about yoga and still do the practices. I think the beauty of Lahiri's approach was that he apparently, as the story goes, learned many different kinds of kriyas, that is to say different techniques, from this deified figure of Mahavatar Babaji, and he distilled them into six or seven levels, which you graduate through.

And each level has its own sort of building upon the lower. And so the idea here is the very first level of Kriya, you don't need any kind of prior knowledge. You don't need to sit in a certain posture, like you don't need to sit cross-legged or you don't need to sit in the lotus. you don't need to sit in a lotus you can just sit on a chair as long as your back is straight and you're able to stay alert while doing these practices um so the learning curve you know it's very short i mean you can immediately get into it and start experiencing these deeper layers of relaxation getting into and touching upon the the hem of you know these levels of samadhi and things like that and then as you do them further and further the great thing about these practices that i see like with twim is that they build upon each, upon the previous sort of experiences.

And so, because of that, the more you practice, the deeper your experiences become. And so, you know, the levels of Kriya are essentially there for a person to access these states of Samadhi even faster. At the end of the day, it's really about coming to that level of calmness and collectedness, that the mind... So you think about it like this, the division of the mind, you could say, is the thinking mind and just the mind itself. So now I'm just going to bring in what Ramana Maharshi said, which is Mano-Nasha is the liberation of the mind. It literally means destruction of the mind. So if you're going to destroy the mind, what does that actually mean?

And what he's referring to is the arresting of the thinking mind, the mind that proliferates conceptual reality, the mind that proliferates the ideas of me, mine, or myself with regards to a smaller sense of self. And by silencing that, you actually come to a grander, deeper whole, whole of an all-encompassing reality. People have called that Brahman, the Christ consciousness, cosmic consciousness. Some people call that the great emptiness. Some people call that the great void. Some people call that Nirvana, whatever it is. But essentially, with TWIM as well, what you're doing is you are relaxing your nervous system by going through this process of tranquilizing, so that when you go through the jhanas, this is the other thing I want to address.

There's been a lot of emphasis on jhanas lately. I mean, it's become one of those terms like mindfulness. We have now mindfulness, we're going to now have mcjhanas at some point. But basically, these jhanas are just stepping stones towards the greater reality, the greater experience. So let's not take the jhanas as sort of the experience to be had. The jhanas are essentially helping to silence and calm down thinking mind and that's what i've told my students as well is like we're only doing this in order to keep the mind busy enough to think like it needs to do something the thinking mind until it's satisfied and it relaxes and it goes away so that you are now front and center with the deeper aspects of mind that are not relaying information in terms of conceptualizing and creating a reality it's not now deeper work literally, I say this to my students, not doing anything.

Because we talk about, in some traditions, we talk about grace. You can't experience Nirvikalpa, you can't experience awakening without the grace of the goddess or the grace of the mother or the grace of the almighty. But even in the TWIM practice, I say it's grace. But the way I translate that is it will happen when you least expect it. There's a certain point where you cannot go any further with your own efforts. You literally have to do nothing and allow the grace of the Dhamma, or the grace of enlightenment, or whatever, to fall upon you. And so the techniques of Kriya Yoga, in that sense, are relating to TWIM because they both have this pacifying effect on the system, which eventually sets the stage, in a sense, for this grace opening.

What in Kriya Yoga is done beyond that? Because I think Kriya Yoga, especially the books you mentioned, is associated with siddhi powers and various other possibilities of attained holy men. This is the sort of thing that's described in books like Autobiography of a Yogi, right? So how does that come into the whole thing? And what's beyond? Is there anything beyond this grace opening into whatever it is, Brahman? No, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I think for that we should probably get into a discussion of the chakras, because I think another way of looking at Kriya Yoga is that it's rooted in tantra. And I'm not talking about neo-Tantra and things. I'm talking about Tantra from the medieval times of India, where it's associated with using techniques to invigorate these energy systems or energy centers within the energy system, which are known as chakras.

And it's interesting, because you find the beginnings of these chakras in some aspects of the Vedas, which are probably the primordial sort of scripture for that whole branch of Hinduism: Vedanta, Tantra, Yoga, and so on. And then at some level in some of the Upanishads. But it wasn't until much later that it was systemized into an understanding that there are multiple energy centers, and this happens through the spine. Now, this is the understanding of the medieval period yogis, who could only possibly discuss this in mythical or magical statements or perspectives. Each of these chakras, there are seven, or there are six plus a seventh center. We start with the first, which is Muladhara, which is at the base of the spine. We move on to the Swadhishthana, which is the sexual center, and then there is the Manipura, which is all to do with our power, self-worth and influence. The Anahata, which is the heart center, which by the way TWIM works with. And so TWIM, what it's actually doing, is it works with the heart center.

And you come to a point where eventually you move up into the other chakras, like the throat center, which is related to our intellect and our ability to communicate and digest information and give it back to the world. Then getting up into the head, into the third eye, which isn't literally over here, as I've understood it through the schools of Kriya, but it's actually associated with the medulla oblongata, from which you get these bursts of insight raining down as intuition. And then the crown. Now, each of these centers also has certain deities associated with them. For example, depending upon which model you use, again, they're different models. With the Mooladhara, it's associated with Ganesha.

With the sex center, it's associated with the water element, so Varuna, the god of water. Or sometimes in the Sri Vidya tradition that's related with Bala, Tripura, Sundari, and so on and so forth. Like each one has a deity. And thereby having deities in these chakras, they also bestow upon the individual, or can bestow upon the individual, when they're focusing on these particular chakras, certain siddhis. So each chakra, when you start to work with them, will give you some insight and understanding into the nature of what it's dealing with, whether it's related to attracting money, whether it's related to becoming more charming with the opposite sex or the person that you want in your life, or to have more influence or to be able to connect with other people on a different level, or have what's known as vaksidhi, the ability to communicate in such a way that people are completely enamored by what you say, or have a great divine intuition where you can see into the nature of karma, see into the past lives and future lives, and so on.

So that's where Kriya Yoga can help, but that's just one aspect. With the model of using loving kindness, you think about the perfection of loving kindness, the perfection of compassion, the perfection of joy, and the perfection of equanimity, which are all mentioned as siddhis also in the Yoga Sutras. They help and benefit the individual. In fact, in the Yoga Sutras, in which Kriya Yoga also keeps its foundation, there's a whole section which is called the Vibhuti Pada. And what that is, is essentially the different siddhis one can acquire by using something known as samyama. Samyama is a combination of dharana, dhyana, and samadhi, which means now you come to a level of collectedness. And if I contextualize this with the TWIM or the Buddhist model, you come to the fourth jhana, where siddhis can occur.

And you put your attention on a specific aspect of life or the body or something, and you get a greater attainment of understanding, wisdom, or some kind of psychic faculty or power. And so the samyama on different things is mentioned in the Vibhuti Pada, and they can take you into the knowledge of past lives. They can take you into the knowledge of astrology and astronomy. Doing samyama on the Manipura, that is the navel center, you get an entire view of the entire circulatory system and all of the energy centers and systems and everything that's there in the body. And you can immediately know what's wrong with the body. So there are different ways of utilizing the fourth jhana, whether if you're using the language of Buddhism or samyama, if you're using the language of yoga, towards awakening these siddhis, which can be lodged in these different energy centers known as the chakras.

Something else I've heard associated with these energy centers and circuitries and so on is pain, physical pain, emotional turbulence, sickness, etc. that can arise in working through those, including mental illness, in fact. One hears that sort of report. And sometimes that's said to be to do with karma, some negative karma in the past that's purified somehow by this accelerant. It's one of the promises, I think, of systems like Kriya Yoga, that there's some sort of karmic accelerant. I wonder if you might talk a bit about that and whether I've understood that correctly, and how karma and accelerating or purifying karma, transforming karma, how that feeds into this way of looking at things. Yeah, yeah. So one of the things I definitely want to address is that people think that with Kriya Yoga or Kundalini, which I don't see as necessarily one and the same thing, but there are some sort of inspirations from Kundalini that Kriya is taking, but it's not working directly with Kundalini to invigorate it.

The one thing that I want to address, which I think people might want to redefine in their own mind, is this idea that we have to activate the chakras or that we have to activate the Kundalini. From my perspective, the chakras are already active and the Kundalini is already present and active. If it were not, this body would just be a corpse. We'd not be alive and breathing and moving and talking and speak, you know, and all of these things. So the body in general is also a storehouse of karma, like our mind is, because mind and body are interconnected. And so I look at chakras as storehouses of karmic tension. That's what I call it, karmic tension.

That's why, in terms of the way I teach Kriya, where I've been empowered to teach Kriya, and the way I teach TWIM as well, is addressing those karmic tensions. And how do you address tension? By relieving it, by tranquilizing it, by relaxing it, by letting it go. So instead of working with this chakra system by continually accelerating the karma, which is not helpful in many approaches, because then what it does is now you're dealing with, oh, I just lost my job. You know, I broke up with my girlfriend and my dog died. And then, you know, I have bankruptcy and all of these things that happen, which people can associate with, you know, this acceleration of karma that might happen.

What I'm saying is, with regards to the chakra system, when you are relieving karmic tension, you're not trying to invigorate it to come out. You're basically dealing with it as and when it comes up as a hindrance in the body, present as tightness or tension, or as some kind of mental condition like greed, hatred, or delusion. And you're dealing with it by relaxing into it. So there are ways to deal with our karma. We are always experiencing karma and we're always beholden to some kind of karma arising if the causes and conditions are right. But if we choose to behave with that karma or react with that karma by pushing it away or trying to accelerate it, all it's doing is creating more fuel for the fire for it to continue to come up over and over and over.

But if we deal with it in the way of having equanimity and relaxing and observing and recognizing, and then saying, okay, I'm choosing to redirect my mind in a gentle way. You can come, you are experienced, but now I'm choosing to let go of any notions of clinging to it, thereby reducing the intensity of the karma. Doesn't mean you've completely let it go, but now when it does come up again, it's less detrimental to your mind and body and it's less having an effect on your mind and body. Eventually, as you keep doing this process of relaxing and engaging with it in an equanimous manner, it goes away on its own. It completely goes away because there's no more fuel being added to it.

The methodology of Kriya that I'm teaching and the methodology of TWIM are addressing that in their own ways. TWIM addresses it by looking at tightness and tension as a manifestation of craving. Kriya addresses it by looking at it as karmic tension points in the chakras. That's using each chakra as a point of attention, an anchor for attention, and then using what's known as japa, where you're basically chanting Om into the chakra to relieve that karmic tension. So it might manifest a little bit as pain or discomfort, but when you relax into it, it just dissipates. The other thing I want to add about this is that, when we think about forgiveness also, because that's a part, that's a process that's mentioned in TWIM.

I have taught people forgiveness that is different from the way Bhante Vimaramsi first introduced it. What I've said is, if you have tightness and tension in the body, anywhere in the mind or body, you can actually go to that place and use a forgiveness method of saying, I forgive this pain for being here. And eventually, instead of the pain, dealing with the pain directly, you're dealing with maybe some emotionality associated with the pain. You're dealing with perhaps some negative memory or some traumatic experience associated with the pain. And now you're addressing that with the method of forgiveness. could use these tensions or pains as entry points through the process of forgiveness or whatever else we use in twim or kriya as a way of addressing the deeper underlying um causes for these more surface level pains and knots and and so on you mentioned that there's a philosophical incompatibility between tournament or buddhism perhaps

and Kriya Yoga. But here you're pointing to correspondences between the practices. So I'm curious then, how significant or relevant are the philosophical differences between these two systems? Well, what are the key incompatibilities, first of all, and how much of a deal breaker are they, if at all? Yeah, I think this is something that, you know, people have to look for themselves. But what I'll address is, yeah, the philosophical incompatibilities are essentially... Okay, before I say that, I want to say one thing. Yoga and Buddhism, you know, there's not always, but I've come across circles of both groups where they say somehow, you know, Buddhism was influenced by yoga or yoga was influenced by Buddhism. And therefore, you know, one is better than the other.

Or whatever. I would rather say that actually yoga and Buddhism both take inspiration from Sankhya philosophy, which talks about the purusha and prakriti. So yoga took that even further by talking about what yoga means and coming to a level of kaivalya, which is translated as being alone, but it's a freedom. Freedom from what? Freedom from prakriti. So in other schools of Hinduism, they'll talk about Shiva and Shakti. Shiva is the underlying current, the Brahman or the substrate, which is unmoving, unchanging, unqualifiable, and so on. And Shakti is the intelligence that dances upon it and creates all of these things that we see as the proliferated world that we have created for ourselves and our mind.

Buddhism, as far as my experience with Buddhism is concerned, is addressing the idea of suffering and the cessation of suffering and using, in the Theravadan model, the Four Noble Truths, the Eightfold Path, and so on. The philosophical implications here is that Nibbana is outside of the scope of ordinary time and space. And therefore, it's also seeing the Anatta aspect, which means you're letting go of the conventional notions of self. The only thing is, Buddhism doesn't necessarily address this: if you're letting go of the conventional sense of self, what are you coming to? Because Theravadan Buddhism is very careful to say even Nibbana is anatta, even Nibbana cannot be considered a self. Whereas in other branches of Hinduism and yoga, they say you come to Purusha or Shiva or Brahman, Vedanta is the one and the same thing.

It's like the water in the pot is the same as the water in the ocean. The pot, the jug, the jar is essentially just the body-mind complex which holds the Atman. Once this body goes away, or once the Atman realizes that it's one and the same with the universal notion of Brahman, then it's free. These are the philosophical differences.

Actually, what I've tried to do is reconcile them in my own little way through this book that I just recently wrote, the book on craving, on tanha, which is in that series of dependent origination, where at the very last parts of the book, I talk about how I see Nibbana or the Nibbana Dhatu as the substrate, and that it's not consciousness itself, but rather the intelligence that arises, emanates from the substrate, is what gives rise to consciousness. I go into different levels. Level zero is Nibbana, just the absolute. We call that Nibbana, we call that Brahman, we call that Shiva, whatever you want to call it. And then from there is level one, where there is a vibration that arises, and then there's an intelligence of that vibration, because it reflects back onto the substrate and it sees itself separate from the substrate, and now there is a sense of separateness. And then there's a level

two, when there's a virtual particle that arises, or however we want to call it, and now there's a multitude of different energies and vibrations and waves that are coming and interacting with each other, which then gives rise to dependent origination at level three, and here we are with the world. So that's what I'm trying to do, is to reconcile them. Maybe I failed at doing that, but what I'm saying is there will be people who hold on to the idea that no, there is a self, there's

a supreme self, and this is what it is, and it's consciousness, and it's Brahman. Whereas there's the other school which says no, we can't say that there's an absolute sense of self, it's all interdependent and so on. And I choose not to engage in those dialogues, because it's a goddamn headache for the mind. Why do I want to go through all of that? I just want peace. I want cessation of suffering. I'm okay with being there in the absolute, you want to call it this, you can call it the fairy godmother, all I care about, it doesn't really matter. It is what it is, and I've come to it, and that's all that matters. So I understand that you're now introducing more of this Kriya Yoga, these Kriya Yoga techniques, and this way of teaching, into your activities. So how's that been going? Have you been teaching some Buddhist practitioners this? What have you been doing, how have you been deploying that, and what have been the results with the students? Yeah. So very recently, even before our previous interview,

I had been incorporating certain Kriya techniques that engage with the fear reaction that might come up in deeper states of meditation, that might be the beginnings of a dark night of a soul or whatever, but it helps to bypass that even further using this particular model, or I'm sorry, this particular technique. I've helped students with that who are doing TWIM, and it has really helped with the fear that might come up, so that they can let go of that sense of self just before the cessation of all things, that is still clinging to that, like I'm going to die. And so it's much easier to kind of let go. So I have been teaching students, not because I'm planning to do that or I had planned to do it,

that I know of, this, and I'm introducing it in some of my retreats, that some students have requested initiation from me, but I have to admit, I've been kind of lazy in trying to initiate people, just because I can only give so much of my time and energy and attention. But if there is a greater growing interest, which I've been seeing that there is, then I will formally start doing retreats that are strictly or exclusively Kriya Yoga, without any of the philosophical implications, just pure and simple technique. And I might, if the other teachers are willing to, within the school of Kriya Yoga, collaborate with them on doing maybe a twin Kriya collaboration where, for example, in Kriya Yoga, it can use the models of jhana to understand where they are on their spectrum of experiences, and TWIM can use the Kriya as a way of dealing with the smaller or more nuanced intricacies of certain fear-based responses.

I've been teaching it very informally, not really creating any retreats as of yet, but time will only tell what happens and if there's a growing interest in something like that. But the students that I have taught, their experiences have been essentially: they've had very slow heart rates, which is a factor, or I should say a sign, that the mind and the body are relaxing to a very great degree, so that the mind is prepared for samadhi. And some students have also had non-dual experiences. And Nirodha from it as well, that is complete cessation of all experience. But I think it's only a handful, a dozen at the most, of students that I've taught Kriya to.

But what I want to say is, I would love to teach everything that I have learned in my experience that I found useful. So it could be Kriya, it can be TWIM, it can be Vedanta, it could be Mahamudra or Dzogchen. It could be my understanding of what compassion and wisdom are, and so on. You mentioned initiation, and I wonder if you might say something about the role of initiation in Kriya Yoga. I understand it's quite crucial. Yes. Actually, if you think about a lot of the tantric teachings which Kriya finds its ancestry in, there is this level of secrecy, necessarily find in Theravadan Buddhism. You don't find that in TWIM at all.

It's all open and you can learn whatever it is that you want to learn. But it's all graduated. So first you learn this, then you learn this, then you learn this. But with Kriya and certain tantric models like Sri Vidya, you need initiation, because the whole process is that it's less... Before, it was all about the magical aspect of it and the mystical aspect of it, and that there is this relationship between the guru and the shishya, that is, the teacher and the student. And there is this kind of unbroken bond between the two, which is continuing through the lineage of all the past gurus before you, who are now using you as the teacher, as a conduit for the shakti to flow through.

And now you can show this individual what that means. There's something called Shaktipat, where you're transferring that initial primordial energy from all of the lineage, from all of the gurus of this lineage. And now you're giving them a preview of what that looks like. That's one aspect that can happen in Kriya or any other tantric practice. But the second thing is really, I think it's basically that if everybody got to know about Kriya and did it, there would be so many different interpretations of it, that it would water down what was the initial intention of what this process is. In fact, we've seen that already happening with Kriya. We have so many different so-called lineages, from Yogananda through Sri Yukteswar to Baba Hari Harananda to Satya Chan Lahiri, and all of these different teachers who've said they have the original Kriya.

And so I do see that happening as a deterrent for people to know what exactly is the original Kriya. So it's basically creating a certain kind of model of exclusivity, being like, okay, this is how it's actually done. These are the steps that you have to take and you have to follow these particular instructions, because they will allow you for these particular experiences and situations. And because I, as the guru or as the teacher, have experienced them before, to me, and we can have a discussion about it, so that I can walk with you hand in hand and take you on this journey. But if it was more of a commercialized process of, I'm giving it to everybody and you can have it, and so on, there is something to be said about when the student is ready.

Not everybody is ready for something like this. There's a certain level of growing up people have to do, which is like, okay, do you still want to remain in the mythical, magical aspects, which again, I'm not putting down, I'm just saying it's one level of understanding, or do you want to see it from a different aspect, which is the more rational, scientific, let's say so-called scientific approach, which is what the school of Kriya I'm teaching from is doing. It's basically saying that what we're doing with the breath, what we're doing with the energy centers, are all components of the vagus nerve, the parasympathetic nervous system, and so on. I think a few things.

One is to protect the lineage and make sure that the information is not watered down. Two is to create this energetic bond, for lack of a better word, between the lineage and the student who wants to enter into that lineage. And number three, I also think it's a great marketing tool. Everybody loves the exclusivity factor. This, I wonder if you might say a little more about that last point? Yeah, I think that happens with everything really. Whether you talk about it in Vajrayana or whether you talk about it in Tantra, you talk about it in Kriya, it creates this mistake, right? Like, I'm going into it because I need initiation, and there's something that I'm getting.

And when that happens, the student is further motivated. It's like, I am doing this and I'm getting something of immense value. Therefore, I'm going to do this as much as I can. Like I'm not, I'm going to commit to it as much as I can. It's like, you know, the more modern adage is, you know, if I get something for free, I'm not necessarily going to pay attention to it more than if I pay for it. for it, then I've actually used my hard-earned time, energy, attention, and money to look at that. And therefore, I'm definitely going to do it. I'm going to make sure that my investment is having some level of return. Yeah, very interesting.

Well, thank you, Delson, for this conversation. I wonder, as we, I think, perhaps bring this interview to a close, if there's anything else you'd like to say, any other remarks you'd like to make? I just want to reflect on what you were mentioning earlier, which is, I think I would love for people to understand that ultimately, one, is as a teacher, I'm still relatively young. I'm still actually very young. I haven't even taught for more than two years or three years. In fact, I've taken a one-year gap where I just wanted to focus on writing my book and going into the mountains for seclusion.

So I would like to let people know that, yeah, initially, I too had these, you know, grandeurs of perfection and ideas of all of these things. But I want to, you know, show people that this is my evolution as well. And, you know, take it for what it's worth. But I do have something to offer you guys if you want it. And if you don't want it, that's okay too. human. And if I've made any claims before then that have created this, and there's a reason why I'm saying this, that has created this sense of perfection in me. I've said this last interview as well, do not seek perfection in me. I've seen the repercussions of that, right?

With the stuff that's happening with the criticisms, but also the larger aspects of my friendship with this person and the way things ended and so on. So the last thing I will just say is ultimately, see me as a friend on the path. See me as somebody who can guide you, give you some friendly, brotherly advice. And so I'm just humbling myself in front of everybody and saying, hey, I'm one of you guys. I'm here to help if you'd like it. But at the end of the day, we're all on our journey.

Something else I've heard in response to our last episode was people were saying, well, submitted yourself for study in holland and in fact we did an episode about that we had uh scientists involved uh came on to the episode and shinzen and jay sanguinetti and chelsea passano and we had a whole group of scientists there to discuss the results of a study which you'd demonstrated uh neurodismapathy in under laboratory conditions in holland and uh i from what i understand you've been some other other other studies too which um you know until they come out of course i think you're not really supposed to talk about that um one's not supposed to talk about that but in any case how does your renouncing of attainments as we as we put in the episode 280 title you know how does how does

your how does that affect these things are you saying that oh no i haven't done neuroticomapathy after all or um you know are you still able to meditate at the level you thought you were or how How does it interact with those, if you could say, we could say sort of concrete examples of your meditation prowess? Yeah, yeah. So this is actually a good question. I think I want to address that because there have been concerns about that within the scientific community, because if you renounce your attainment, so you're also renouncing the experiences that you've had, specifically with Nirodha Samapati. No, I'm not renouncing that. I can experience, I can go into Nirodha Samapati. I'm doing a couple of other things where I'm talking with a microphenomenologist, microphenomenologist, yeah, however you say it, with regards to what happens just before the process of Nirodha and what happens right after Nirodha.

And in that process, I have to go into Nirodha at some point before the interview and then come out of it. And then there is a one or two hour process of going second by second, moment by moment into what happened here, what happened here, what happened here. So I'm still engaging with the scientific community. Now, there have been questions about, will I do a six-day process? Because I've done six days before. I realize that's a tall claim, and it's not something that can be believable, and that's totally fine. There have been people who have asked me, why don't you just do that for the scientific community? Well, one, we have to see if that's even feasible to do.

Perhaps it's feasible. I want to do it. I'm plain and simple. I just don't feel like I want to do it. Now, people can choose not to believe me, and that's totally fine. But as far as I'm concerned, and my experience is concerned, I am able to go into Nirodha. I am able to go into Nirodha Samapatti. I'm able to do all of these things in terms of the meditative accomplishments and attainments. But that doesn't mean somehow that now, you know, I'm perfect. That's another thing. Like I have some level of moral superiority over other people. Absolutely not. So therefore, as a teacher, I want to be more of the practical, friendly teacher who can say, OK, I've done it. Let me show you how I have done it. And you can decide for yourself if you want to walk that path. And then I'll show you. That's it. Well, Delson Armstrong, thank you very much. Thank you. podcast. For more interviews like these, as well as articles, videos, and guided meditations, visit www.guruviking.com.