Ep280: I Renounce My Attainments - Delson Armstrong

In this episode, I am once again joined by Delson Armstrong. In this interview, Delson renounces all of his previous claims to spiritual attainment. Delson details recent changes in his inner experience that saw him question the nature of his awakening, including the arising of emotions and desires that he thought had long been expunged, and reveals his redefinition of awakening and the stages of the four-path model from stream-enterer to arahant, and challenges cultural ideas about enlightenment. Delson offers his current thoughts on the role of emotions on the spiritual path, emphasizes the importance of facing one's trauma, and discusses his plans to broaden his own teaching to include traditions such as Kriya Yoga. Delson also reveals the pressures exerted on him by others' agendas, and shares his observations about the danger of student devotion, the hypocrisy of spiritual leaders, and his own mixed feelings about the monastic Sangha.

So without further ado, Delson Armstrong. Delson Armstrong, welcome back to the podcast. Thank you for having me back. Well, I'm so pleased to see you again. It's been a little while, too long, I think, since we last spoke, and I'm delighted to chat with you again. You've made a declaration, a written declaration, and you've recorded it on your new Delson Armstrong YouTube channel. And this is quite an interesting declaration indeed. And so you suggested we have an interview about it, and I agreed. I think it's remarkable what you've written here, and I'm looking forward to exploring it with you.

The thing to do would be to put up your declaration as it appears on your YouTube channel now, to insert it now, and then we'll comment on that. Yeah, so perhaps that's how we ought to start. Is there anything you want to say to introduce it before we go over to your pre-recorded declaration? I think we should just go ahead and play it, and then we can discuss the context and the contents after that. All right, so here it comes. To my students, friends, and well-wishers, first, I want to thank you for taking the time to watch this. I welcome all comments and responses to my statements below. For those who would like to clarify any questions or concerns relating to them, please email me directly at dhamanomad9 at gmail.com.

video reflects my current understanding and supersedes any statements, interviews, comments, podcasts, or other communications that have preceded it or are not released and endorsed by me. Let me be very clear about this. I have been interviewed in a way that has made me feel pressured and pigeonholed by the agendas of others. I will proclaim my own narrative and speak to you directly from my own heart using my own platform and my own words. Due to my series of interviews on many podcasts, including Guru Viking, there has been a growth in my popularity as a teacher. I did these interviews and taught in the way I did, targeted specifically to the TWIM community, because it reflected my understanding of the time.

arose and the strong feedback of my teachers and mentors working from that model of evaluation. I suspect many of you may have come to me with the hopes of meeting with an arahant. I have never directly made this claim in public, and now I want to set the record straight. Owing to significant friction from people who are peripheral to my life and my professional activities, I have come to believe that the entire concept of attainments and gurus is causing more suffering than good at this point in time. For this reason, I renounce any claim to specific attainments in any spiritual system, whose parameters my teaching going forward may not be limited to. I am not any guru of any lineage.

TWIM teacher. I question some of its tenets and its interpretations of the teachings of the Buddha. But this message is not meant to be a condemnation or endorsement of this practice or any other practice. In fact, I would like to say that I subscribe to all practices that allow for the release of suffering. I do not believe TWIM or any other tradition has a monopoly on that. I am wary of anyone who claims such things, and I urge you to apply the same level of healthy skepticism toward me as a teacher. I take full responsibility for all my words and actions, which have, to the best of my ability, always reflected my understanding at the time.

If anyone feels hurt or misled by my expressions of my evolving journey, greater freedom of mind, I apologize for that. What I teach is what I've experienced myself. Experience is by definition subjective and not easy to verify empirically. So I offer you this caveat. If you feel inspired to, then come to me as a person seeking guidance from another person. I am imperfect. A human who has their own challenges, flaws, and concerns. teach is what I directly know. I may, from time to time, use the past traditions and their ideas as references for what I teach, but not as verifiable truth. I wish everyone who listens to this or reads this does so in good health.

I wish everyone happiness and awakening, whatever that means for you. Any comment you'd like to make before we get into a back and forth discussion? Well, maybe I'll just provide a little bit of context behind why I did the declaration. I've had time to kind of reflect on the last three years of teaching, specifically within, let's say, the TWIM methodology. And this last year, 2024, I actually took some time off. I tried to spend the entire year on sabbatical as much as I could, traveling and doing a little bit of writing. And I got in touch with some students, and they discussed, let's say, their challenges with TWIM, but more than that, discussing the aspects of the community and what is it exactly that I'm teaching?

And what is it that I really want to teach moving forward? And that was the impetus of my reflections. And I realized that when I first came on to your podcast, which was, I guess, 2021, it was a different context. It was a different time. And I was experiencing the things that I was experiencing at that time. Change, and you start to grow. I believe that stagnating as a teacher is not good for anybody, especially the teacher himself, but also the students. So my intention with this has been to be upfront about this whole process, and that's what kind of brought up this declaration, up front about this and thinking this through in such a public way.

I admire that a great deal. Perhaps we can, well, one follow-up question from what you've just said is you had, and maybe this ties in with one of the sentences in your declaration, that you encountered some students who had some challenges with TWIM, and you also said here, to quote you, I have been interviewed in a way that's made me feel pressured and pigeonholed by the agendas of others. Now, you emailed me actually after this declaration came out, and you said to me, you didn't mean me, which is a great relief. So who are these others? And what is this agenda? And what do you mean by this pressure? And does that link in to these conversations you were having that led up to the declaration in the first place?

In part. I don't want to necessarily go too much into detail about this particular person because they might probably want to remain anonymous. But I will just say, it was a time when I was up in the mountains and I invited various students to come spend some time with me in meditation and reflection. One of them wanted me to actually create a series of videos with them and talk about my experiences with TWIM. But as we started discussing, they realized that a lot of my thoughts about TWIM, a lot of my thoughts about the four awakening states, ten-fetter model, all of these things had changed. And so in their mind, they felt betrayed because they were so inspired by the very first video where I had talked about my experiences and the way I see life.

at that point in time and so on. And so the video was done in such a way that I felt very uncomfortable with it, because it made me feel like they were psychoanalyzing me. It felt like they had an agenda to basically, in some sense, destroy TWIM. And that's why in my declaration, I also said, I don't have a condemnation of TWIM. I don't have an endorsement of TWIM either. know works for me. And if for whatever reason, because of my experience at that time, I might have misled people into TWIM, I take full accountability for that. Yeah. I would apologize if they felt that way.

So the whole video felt like they were trying to bring up a certain tradition or a certain kind of way of looking at things. And I wanted to address that on this podcast, which is like, there is, I think, in different communities, this idea of like, we are right, and we are the ones who have the magic formula and the secret fairy dust to awakening or enlightenment or whatever. And because of my travels, because of my actual process of teaching in the last three or four years, it's really shown me a different side of things.

Being pressured and pigeonholed is because I realized that video or any other kind of interview where they're looking for me to, in some sense, validate their own viewpoints or, in other ways, to denounce another tradition, that's not me and I wouldn't want to do that. I see. So when you write here you've been interviewed in a way that's made you feel pressured and pigeonholed, you're talking about a specific interview that has happened, and I don't think it's released yet. I had requested them not to, because it just didn't come off the way I would have wanted to, because it made me seem like I was the sort of manipulator or villain, and I felt manipulated in the video itself because of the way it was done. It was very, very slimy, really.

It felt very slimy. In our previous interviews that have been published on the channel, you have talked about your experiences in various traditions and what you've gained from them and so on. And at the time we talked, you'd had profound benefit from all of the traditions you listed, in fact, including TWIM, actually. But there wasn't necessarily a sense of exceptionalism that you were towards TWIM or any other system, or indeed denigration of any other system. I don't think in our conversations you've ever betrayed a hint of that, actually. Nor was that my intention. Definitely not. You've been teaching now for three years, right? Or you had a three-year span, anyway, of teaching. I wonder if you might talk a bit about that span, about how it began, about the sorts of activities you were engaging during that period, what you learned, and what you encountered.

You've written here that you've traveled all around the world, and you've noticed things, and you've been exposed to different things, and you've made some observations that are informed to sort of change in the way you think and present. I wonder if you might tell a bit the story of this teaching period, the arc you went through, and some of the things you learned along the way. Yeah, definitely. Since our very first interview back in 2021, teaching proper. Before then I was kind of doing some online retreats using the TWIM methodology while I was in Cambodia. And then I was invited to visit Dhammasuka by Bhante Vimalaramsi, who's now Aston.

But it was to meet with him and kind of get a sense of where I was with the practice and get a sense of whether I wanted to teach or not. Continue teaching or not. And actually, my very first talk at Dhammasuka was upon his invitation. He actually asked me to do a talk on dependent origination. And it was a very, very surreal experience for me because I didn't realize that when he said to talk about it, that we would be, I thought we would be teaching together in the sense of we would be sitting together. But in the Dhamma hall that we were at, he actually sat with the rest of the audience.

And so it felt really interesting. And I think it was a perception shift for a lot of the members of the community at the time that here, Bhante is basically saying that, hey, listen to this guy. And so that was really my first foray into teaching TWIM at Dhammasuka. And then after that, I started teaching in Europe. I went to the Netherlands, went to the UK and so on.

And while I was teaching at Dhammasuka, what I noticed was there's definitely an emphasis on the benefits of TWIM because they're obviously espousing that. But I also was not comfortable with necessarily, like, I wouldn't say denigrating, but just putting aside other practices. And I noticed, if I talked about other practices or somebody else mentioned in the audience about other practices, there would be a sort of tension there, a little psychic tension about that, which I for myself was like, if a person wants to talk about that practice, that's fine. But it's just dependent upon how they want to spend their time on retreat. So that was in Dhammasuka. And I will just say my time at Dhammasuka has always been like a lot of fun.

The staff over there are very, very, very supportive of me. David, who I think you've interviewed a couple of times, David Johnson, he's become a very good friend of mine and he remains a very good friend of mine and a very good supporter of mine as well. And with the rest of the staff. And so he and I have a very personal relationship. He helps me with a lot of my planning and scheduling of retreats, but that's on the professional side of things. But on a personal level, we're really great friends. And I have great respect for him. And he's somebody who's seen it all, at some level with regards to Buddhism, at least.

And he and I traveled through India, and he got to see another side of India when he went to Rishikesh, Varanasi. And he came actually to my mother's place, had lunch with us, and so on. I've had great connections in the TWIM community. I've had some wonderful people who have had their own ideas of what TWIM is and how a teacher should be. So I did see that part where there was sort of a distinction between who the student is and who the teacher is. And people wanted to really be definitive on that distinction. I didn't think much of it because I was just going with the flow and just to see how this whole process is.

it an experiment. I mean, if I look at it in hindsight, that whole process of teaching was sort of an experiment to see how it goes, because I had no intention of like this being my career, let's say. Then I went to India, and in India, it was very interesting. I was not, okay, so I was not really fully welcomed by, let's say, the twin community, or at least the elders of the twin community. in india there was a bit of a hesitation there was enthusiasm within the board but one particular person was kind of like suspicious or doubtful of what i could do and at the time when i was teaching that particular person was going to be teaching with me but then they fell ill so they you know they basically had to opt out from co-teaching with me so there was another person who would have been teaching with me.

And I suggested that they teach with me. And it seemed like it didn't go that well because there was already some tension there. And I could sense that. And I vouched for this person. And so they did co-teach with me at a couple of retreats while I was in India. The thing I noticed in India is this whole process of real reverence for the teacher, real sort of almost deification of the teacher. And I admire their genuine and sincere reverence for this, but I also saw a danger in it, not necessarily for myself, because I could see through the fact that these people are very, very humble, very respectful, and they truly, honestly wanted to learn.

But I could see how their sincerity, almost innocence in the way that they were so giving of themselves to the teacher. They would bow down and touch your feet and all of these things, which you see in other traditions as well in India. And that's what I wanted to point out, with my declaration and upcoming article, that this idea of guru worship can be to the detriment of the student. And I have seen for myself how people who are other teachers take advantage of that. They ask for different kinds of favors, and they ask for different kinds of, for money or resources or whatever it is.

And, you know, my experience with the monastic community has been so-so. I don't have anything against the monastic community, but what I have seen is that there is no real difference between the monks and the lay people in terms of their imperfections. There's a tendency for the mind when it starts off to see monks as somehow they have something that we don't and they are maybe more evolved than us in some way because maybe they have had time for practice and all of that. And so my experience with them has helped me to see them without those rose-tinted glasses. I've seen a few situations where they talk about the fact that they walk barefoot and they won't touch money.

and they're not about becoming a big leader in the community and all that. And then push comes to shove. I see them getting upset when money is not given to them and them creating this community around them where they become sort of a cult leader. And I've seen this more than once. I've heard of situations where monastics are fighting amongst each other on principles of the dharma, on principles of what the Buddha said or what he didn't say, or just criticizing each other or getting into even fistfights. That has left me kind of disillusioned with the spiritual community. So I was, let's say, wet behind the ears when I first did the interview with you.

Didn't realize that this could all happen. But then also being exposed to the doubts and the questions of students themselves. And this is what I mean when I say that teachers should never stop learning. An ideal teacher should continue to learn from their students. And a student never stops teaching, because a student should hold teachers accountable. And what I'm talking about in terms of doubts of students is that, within the TWIM community, we have, for example, a subscription to the 10-fetter model, which I question into that. But the reason I question it is because it creates so much psychic tension for the student where they feel like there's this narrative of success that they need to get into when they're doing the practice.

And at that point, the idea is if you're an anagami or an arahant, that means you no longer experience sexual feelings or you no longer experience desire for sense pleasures. Of our students, my students especially, 99 of them are in the lay life, they're non-monastics, and I realized that for them it's actually a source of pain and suffering rather than a source of liberation, because they have families to take care of, they have relationships that they want to evolve into marriages, they want to build a family. If it means that if I want to build a family it gets in the way of my to have awakening, there's a disconnect there.

That's made me question that whole process in how to teach and what those models actually do for a person. And the other thing that I would say in terms of my experience has been, there are some universalities that I've seen amongst the students that I've helped and the participants of my retreats, is not only this particular thing about becoming an anagami or an arahant or whatever, but also that ultimately there's this level of, how should I put it? There's this level of sincerity in the way they come to the teacher. And there's a level of total open-mindedness in terms of what this practice is. And I find that very beautiful because they're so humble in their approach.

But I also question the actions that are taken by some teachers. Not that I'm saying that any teacher within the community is like that, where they might take advantage of the student, but that there's a potential for that possibility to happen. And so I want to even bring that forward out into the conscious so that people are aware of this and they can be wary of it if something like that does happen. That's very interesting indeed. I wonder if we might talk a bit more then about this ten fetter model and your reflections on this prompted by these discussions with students you've had.

Would you be able to explain briefly what the ten fetter model is and then what your reflections are about it? Yes, so I would say the traditional understanding of the ten fetter model is that it's linked to the stages of awakening within at least Theravada Buddhism. You have the first three fetters, which are dropped when you stream enter. The first fetter is doubt in the Buddha, Dhamma and Sangha. The second fetter is attachment to rites and rituals, and the third is self-view, intellectual belief in a personal self. The fourth and fifth are related to sensual pleasure.

I'm saying traditionally they talk about sensual desire that's gone away, and aversion that's gone away, when somebody becomes an anagami. And then the last five are gone completely when you become an arhat, which are conceit, restlessness, and remorse, craving for jhanas, for formless jhanas, and ignorance. But I think it's more helpful for people to understand that these are all models and these are all structures that might help for specific cultural projections. So what I mean by that is every tradition has a certain level of identity idealization of what it means to be awakened. In the Theravadan perspective, it's the arhat. The arhat is the foremost in terms of the practitioners.

He or she has perfected the practice. In Vedanta, Advaita Vedanta, it's Jeevan Mukta, somebody who's liberated while living. And there's all kinds of ideas about what that means. There's in the Bhagavad Gita, the sthitaprajna, who is one established in wisdom and what that means, or the gunatita. There's different names for these things or these ideas. And so what I want to shed light on is actually, why do we have these structures in the first place? I believe that these are all the cultural projections of the time, or what their idea of a perfect person was, what it meant to be fully awakened. But what I've noticed now is those very same structures create an imprisonment, or create this sort of pigeonholing of, this is the only way that it's possible.

I truly believe that if somebody is fully awakened, they transcend all models and systems. They might traverse through them and they might use them if it makes sense and as it would seem appropriate for situations. But if it is used in a way of a goal-oriented process, which is what I've seen in a lot of retreats, not just mine or TWIM retreats, but in any retreat where people have a certain orientation towards achieving something, that orientation then turns into obsession. And that obsession then turns into questioning one's own self-worth, questioning whether one can even actually do this or not. So I think redefining and recontextualizing the ten fetters might be one way of going about this, but that's just one step.

Ultimately, understanding some very basic principles, in my view, which is that if you have genuine connection with people, if you have the ability to be an ethical person, because I still stand by that, that we need ethics, we need morals, in order to do this practice or any other spiritual practice. And there might be a level of, I wouldn't say perfection in ethics, but a level of standardization of ethics, which is that do no harm. Don't harm yourself and don't harm others. If you can do just that, I think that being the first step and that being enough to get to the next step, in mind. And then from there, having the wisdom and understanding of what that means, what is your place in the world, who you are in the world, and what existence is.

And that can mean many different things, depending upon the tradition and the culture. So ultimately, what I'm saying is, the ten fetter model is something I think we should look into as redefining, if that would help, and stop obsessing over it to the point where we are looking for perfection, because in the pursuit of that perfection it creates all kinds of conflict in the mind, all kinds of conflict within the community as well. This brings to mind something you wrote in your declaration, in which we heard earlier you say, owing to significant So I have a couple of questions about this. You're talking about the ten fetters here.

A traditional view that they're tied to these four stages of awakening on the way from stream entry to arhat. You've recounted your own experience of those fetters being dropped in that traditional way, and here you're renouncing any claim to specific attainments. So I wonder if I might clarify with you: are you renouncing those attainments because you think it's unhelpful to declare them and that they're causing problems for others, or are you renouncing them because you no longer believe in those structures or believe in those attainments in the way that you previously described them, or both? In this case it's both. So let me explain what I mean by that. In the first instance, I have found them unhelpful because of the fact that they become sources of obsession for students.

Now, yes, you did mention, I think in our first interview, I did talk about this, and in my experience, how I felt, even related to the sexual experience. And at that point, if I remember correctly, you did ask me, do you still have sexual impulse? And at the time, I would have said no. And it would have been the truth, because of the fact that in that moment, or not even in that moment, those months, those weeks, those whatever time that I was doing this process, I didn't feel it and I didn't have any urges and I didn't have any experience of wanting a relationship or connecting with someone on a romantic level or whatever it was. But things have changed, and that has changed for me, not only with that but everything else, and I'll get into that, but said with regards to both.

One is I don't see it as being helpful, and that's why I'm renouncing it. And second, I don't believe in it because of my own experience with it and the experience of others as well. I think to try to believe in something is helpful only in so far as that being training wheels. But at the end of the day, you have to be available to your own experience, which could be good, bad, or indifferent, which could be enlightening, which could be your shadow self, which could be all of these aspects. And that's why I believe that the journey to awakening is a very personal one. And the models that we use, whether it's Jungian archetypes, whether it's Joseph Campbell's monomyth, whether it's the Vedantic tradition, or other traditions, whether it's deity worship in Tibetan Buddhism, in Vajrayana, whether it's Tantra.

All of these things are, I would say, equally valid insofar as the intention is the alleviation of suffering. Because that is ultimately what I do believe in, is teaching as the Buddha would teach, according to the suttas, suffering and the end of suffering. And there has been a tendency to go towards the end of suffering, which is great. But what about the suffering part? I've noticed that there's a kind of glossing over of that. And I believe that that journey to understand what that suffering means to you, or to me, or to anyone, is limited to that particular individual. And so one's enlightenment, one's awakening, is very personal. And the outside world is the outside world.

It's the conditions that lead you to questioning, beginning the questioning process of why am I suffering? How is this suffering arising? What do I do with this suffering? And so the Buddha will tell you, according to the Pali Canon, there's a way out of the suffering using the Eightfold Path and the Four Noble Truths and so on and so forth. So these are all models of awakening. The Vedantin will tell you it's all about understanding your place, especially Advaita, it's all about understanding your place as being one with the existence, one with Brahman. Atman, I am Brahman, which means the Atman is Brahman. Tatvam Asi, Aham Brahmasmi, right? I am the universal self. Or any other practice is ultimately for the alleviation of suffering.

And I would say that if it is not leading to the alleviation of suffering, why are you doing it? I would ask that to a person, why are you doing it? And I believe that is the motivation behind everybody's journey here. Or if not everybody, most people's. So just to simplify that answer, I'm saying both, right? I'm saying that it has helped maybe in the past, but I found it to be something that is limiting, not in tune with how I'm experiencing things, and also I don't believe it to be useful in the ultimate sense. And you said that your own experience, or changes in your own experience, also challenged your previously held ideas about that system, and you'd said that you'd be willing to talk a bit about that. Could we discuss a bit of that?

I must say, Delson, I do admire your frankness and openness about your experiences. From the first interview, I've admired that. I think it's a great, it's to your credit, actually. And you're displaying the same trait here, even though your experience has changed and some of your thinking has changed, even about your own experience. I admire that a great deal. I'll just say that for the record. In any case, are you willing to talk a bit about these changes in your own experience and how that's caused you to reevaluate the model of attainment that you previously held? Yeah, of course. I think it'll be really important for the viewers to understand more about that and explore what those changes are.

I can talk about the fact that in my experience with regards to the faith in the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha, which is the destruction of the first fetter. Yes, I realize that, but I also might say that, well, whatever the Buddha has taught is whatever the Buddha has taught. But I've noticed that there is an almost like a Christianization of Buddhism. And what I mean by that is that the Christianization ideal is: Jesus is your lord and savior, and therefore when you believe in him you go to heaven. And I've seen that happening in some traditions of Buddhism, where if you believe in the Buddha, that's more than enough. If you give your devotion to the Buddha, if you have total unconquerable faith, unshakable faith in the person, that's the way I'm looking at it. People are mistaking this, and I'm going to point this out here, which is, I think they're, in my opinion, mistaking what the Buddha represents.

Because there is the person that is Siddhartha Gautama, and there is the Buddha, which is the experience of awakening. And so there is a kind of a worship of the Buddha as the person. And I would even point out in the Sutta, it talks about, one of the Suttas it talks about, this in the Vakali Sutta, where, you know, Vakali is this old guy who wants to see the Buddha before he dies. And in fact, actually, he wants to end his own life because he maybe has a terminal illness or whatever it is. And he goes to the Buddha and the Buddha says, how are you feeling? Are you feeling better? He says, no, I'm not feeling better.

He says, do you have any regrets? Do you have any remorse over anything? And he says, I do. And so the Buddha says, well, is it regarding anything you did in relation to virtue and ethics? He says, no. He says, then why do you have that restlessness and remorse? He says, because I was not able to see you and I wanted to see you. And the Buddha basically then just says, why are you taking this foul body to be the Buddha? One who sees the Dhamma sees the Buddha, and one who sees the Dhamma sees the Buddha. perspective on what it means to have faith in the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha has changed. I see it as the possibility of awakening, right?

That there is a possibility of awakening. So I trust in that. The Dhamma as the set of teachings laid out from the Buddha and other practitioners, and the Sangha as your friends and fellow practitioners in the Dhamma, monastic or otherwise. That's what's made me see it in this way. I don't believe in creating some kind of devotion to the personhood of the Buddha. I think, first of all, that totally negates the idea of all is empty. Then that's like you're creating, you're reifying the Buddha as a person. When it comes to, let's say, the latter fetters, like, for example, a sensual desire and aversion, it's commonly referred to as or translated as, I think there's a different way of looking at it, which is, let's say I'm somebody or there's somebody who loves pizza and apparently they're an anagami.

So does that mean that they no longer like pizza? Maybe they have a preference for pizza rather than Chinese food or whatever it is. So this idea of like no more craving for sensual pleasures, I think it means not being obsessed by sensual pleasures. And that's different from saying, hey, I enjoy a good piece of pizza once in a while, or I enjoy watching this movie, or I enjoy whatever it is. And I would even go as far to say that relates to even sex or having romantic partnerships. Because it's a biological instinct. I don't think the end of craving of basic biological and emotional instincts. If you get pissed off, if you're angry, fine, in that moment you are angry, but what do you choose to do with it?

The ruminating of it, the bashing of yourself for getting angry or getting angry and then exploding out and then doing all these things, does that mean that you no longer, does that mean then you have aversion? I would say that when we talk about aversion, it doesn't mean the elimination of anger or frustration and so on and so forth. Rather, the way I look at it is the elimination of aversion is essentially that that arises. I see it as two sides of the coin. You have sensual desire and you have aversion. Now I'm calling it the obsession around some kind of desire to possess something sensual, whether it's a relationship, whether it's money, whether it's food, whether it's a house, whether it's whatever it is.

And when that is not met, the experience that one has is aversion. That's the way I see it. However, I'm not saying that somebody can completely eliminate anger either. I don't think that that's possible. You need some of these so-called unwholesome emotions to sometimes protect yourself. And in that moment, when you're in a fight-or-flight situation, you can't just be like, I'll just let them walk over me. You can't do that. That's ineffective. There is the simile of the saw, which is a very interesting sutta, through this whole process of anger and so on. And the Buddha talks about how even if someone were to be chopping your limbs or sawing off your limbs cut by cut, you would still have loving kindness.

I've read this a few times to different students, and you can see the looks on their faces is like, is he really expecting us to just let people walk all over us, let alone have somebody just, you know, cut off our limbs and still be smiling and having loving kindness towards them. So that's what I question. I think there's a balance to be had about these things. The deeper fetters, the higher fetters of restlessness and conceit and these things, I've recontextualized them from my own experience, which is the way I see conceit is it's the mind that compares between what you have or what you think you are and the outside world. There's a certain separateness, and therefore things are either better than your situation, worse than your situation, or the same as your situation.

But that's only surface level. The way I see conceit now is that it is essentially the mind that is seeking security in an otherwise unsecure and insecure existence. thrust into this cold world and we seek that same level of security. And that is the process of conceit. Ignorance I see as just a lack of mindfulness in every moment. Now, that's why I think this whole process is very fluid. And I think to say that awakening is something that's static and that only that it's achievement-oriented is a reflection of the times of the Pali Khanda, let's say, or whatever tradition is talking about these things. And I think over a period of time, that idealization has only become more and more dense, much heavier, much more ingrained in spiritual communities.

And it's almost like there's a desire to escape from the mundane and go into the super mundane, the shadow stuff that you have to deal with in order for you to actually fully integrate. So I would redefine awakening as a process of going through that journey, going through the pain and the sorrow, maybe you start off with that, going through the process of meditation, going through the process of insight and understanding. And then there comes a point where all of that becomes your reality. But then there's a call back to home where you still have to deal with all of the inner stuff that might still be there in the subconscious. I don't believe that awakening just totally erases the shadows of the unconscious, the traumas of the subconscious.

I believe there's still work to be done there. And even if, let's say, in an ideal world, somebody was to do that, does that mean that they're awakened? No, that's not how I would define awakening. Because to define awakening as anything creates conflict in the mind, because now there's a goal to achieve. What I believe now is that liberation is possible in every moment and that people are already liberated. Underneath all of that, the mind is already liberated. Underneath all the subconscious trauma, underneath all the unconscious desires, underneath all the conscious beckoning and chasing around and looking and seeking. If the mind were just to remain still for a moment, all of that disappears. And in that moment, the mind is liberated.

And I think then, once that realization comes, the task at hand is to see that as much as one can see without ignoring or trying to gloss over the darker aspects of the mind. That's very interesting indeed. How, if you have thoughts as to how to work with that material, that shadow material, that subconscious trauma, et cetera? And I'm also curious to throw in another question, at the risk of asking two questions at the same time, which is this four-path model then of Stream-enterer, Once-returner, Non-returner, or Arahant, have you thought again about those waypoints? Presented as permanent watershed points you've passed that you're never going back, something fundamental changed, you're a stream-enterer, and now of course you move to the next one, etc., going through the cycle of insights, has your thought on that four-path model changed? Actually, this is a good question, because it was a recent conversation I had with a couple of friends, maybe a few weeks ago. We had gone up to Manali, and this whole conversation came up about the four awakening stages model.

And I said, maybe we can redefine it a certain way, a different way. Again, what I wanted to point out to them and to everybody else who's watching now is that, again, these are models. In other words, these are the rafts that help you to take you from one shore to the other shore in some sense. But there's a tendency in the communities that I've seen, and I think general spirituality, to create rafts upon rafts upon rafts. So at a, let's say, higher elevation point, we can say that these stages of awakening are ultimately nothing in the absolute sense. So I've even helped to redefine those models from my experience and my understanding. And I completely accept that this can be, wrong.

This could be totally my delusions, completely fine. But the way I would redefine these levels of awakening is this. If you look at somebody who's stream-enter, in my experience of observing people who claim stream entry from the community, or who are claimed to be stream-enters, or even Dhamma followers for that matter, they're very passionate about the Dhamma. They will try to get every book, every video, every Dhamma talk, everything that they can get their hands on because they're so passionate about the Dhamma. It's like they've sought something and now it feels to them that they have found something that really works. It clicks, everything clicks in their mind. In my mind, the once-returner is somebody who, let's say, a stream-enter has to keep coming back to the Dhamma until they have to return one more time.

And then there's an establishing of the mind in being in the Dhamma. They now know for a fact that this works, and not only that this works when they become a stream-enter, but that it actually helps them relieve suffering whenever it arises in the mind. And they have some level of experience in the meditation practice, in the wisdom practices. A non-returner, in my mind, is someone who doesn't have to go elsewhere to seek refuge in the Dhamma. It's come to a point where their mind doesn't waver away from the Dhamma. They, in essence, see the Dhamma in everything. So it's like the mind doesn't have to return back from that point or that point.

It's always the Dhamma. Everything is contextualized through the Dhamma. And the way I see the arahant is somebody who actually transcends all of that. And at the risk of sounding cryptic, the way I define someone who's an arahant is someone who sees the non-Dhamma in the Dhamma and someone who sees the Dhamma in the non-Dhamma. So what that would mean to me, to explain that, is the difference between somebody who's an anagami and an arahant is essentially a certain level of bias with regards to the Dhamma. Like for an anagami, they would see nothing but their bias of what they see as the truth, and everything else, you know, outside of that is secondary to it. Whereas I think somebody who is an arahant is able to explore every facet of reality and still be able to come to the Dhamma in some sense, and they don't have any qualms. They don't have any hesitation to explore things that are seen as outside the Dhamma. That's fascinating indeed. You know, well, that was the second question. The first question was about the material: how would you deal with the subconscious traumatic material?

So let me address that as well. I think the way to look at this is there are all kinds of modalities that can help with this process. And you just have to find what works for you. And so I can provide what works for me. And if it works for you, then you try it out and see for yourself.

And in my view, in my experience, what has worked for me is essentially my journey, which has been personal to me. The yoga philosophy, the practices that I've done, Kriya yoga, the TWIM practice, Dzogchen, Mahamudra, all of these things have really helped to bring this out. But for some people, maybe it's therapy. For some people, maybe it's talk therapy. For some people, maybe it's ayahuasca. Whatever it might be for you. And so what I would just say is when it comes to facing the shadow, one of the things that is very helpful is to lean into it. Whatever it is that you're afraid of, whatever it is that you're anxious about, whatever it is that you find anger towards, whatever you find resistance towards, the more you resist, the more the shadow grows.

It sheds light onto the shadow, and therefore it becomes more manageable and easier to navigate through. Thank you very much. One of the shadows of spiritual attainment, I think, classically, or ideas of spiritual attainment, is experiencing something that you thought you'd left behind a long time ago. So therefore, sometimes somebody who considers themselves to be spiritually attained or occupies a social role of holiness, a cleric of some type, for example, has great difficulty seeing in themselves unholy things, okay, for example, because it goes against their identity. It goes against who they must be. And that can come from, in a sense, it can come from a very good place. it confessed her and it could become a blind spot, sort of the definition of a shadow in a sense: something about yourself that you can't see. Yeah. And so in your case, on the one hand, like we discussed in the initial interviews, you wrote the you was your experience that you had transcended these fetters and that you were unable to experience some of these negative emotions, sort of quote unquote craving, attachment, et cetera, aversion.

But now you've changed your mind. You've said things have changed. Your experience has changed. I'm curious about that moment of change. Was there a moment when you experienced something that you thought you'd left behind a long time ago? Something sort of in the realm of the fetters, according to that old model. And what was that like? Did it take you some time to recognize that? Was it instant recognition? about that whole model? Yeah, I don't think there was one moment as such that made me realize this. It was a few things. For me personally, it was the realization that I had continued to keep seeking and searching, one. And second, the realization that

Actually, I did desire, and I still do desire, to have a family, to have a relationship, and to be in the lay life in all its facets. That's the main thing that really made me question this whole process. And also my interactions with people in general, my friends or whether it was with people who I was talking with, I could notice how there were still some projections of what I thought about them or how I saw them that came from my shadows, right? Maybe I was looking for an authority figure or a father figure in someone, or maybe this person was sort of representing my relationship with my mother, or whatever it is that came out.

And that made me question my whole process. So it wasn't just one thing. It was over a series of events that then culminated into real, true reflection over this last year. The other thing I would say is those shadows that do come up, they helped me to actually go back and see where am I in my practice? Am I able to actually use the practice to deal with those shadows? For example, the TWIM model of the 6R's. And I came to the realization that sometimes you need something more than just one methodology. And there's a tendency to use one methodology as a way of glossing over these things. And so at the surface level, let's say at the time when we had our first discussion three years ago, it would have felt that way because everything seemed wonderful.

Everything seemed great. And you go back into the world and then you not only deal with conflict, but you see your reactions to those conflicts. You project ideas of perfection on other people. I'm talking for myself. I projected ideas of perfection on other people, like monastics. And I became disillusioned with that. I projected this idea that perfection meant that you no longer experienced the desire for certain things like wealth or money, power, and sex. I think these three things are so misrepresented and made into a fetish by so many of the different spiritual organizations and communities that it has created more problems than the desire to solve. So for me as a teacher, you know, part of your question was also about the fact that you do have people in spiritual circles who are leaders in their community and they need to maintain the image.

And therefore they might notice these shadows coming up, but they might just put them aside and try to still maintain that image. I can't do that. You know, if I'm considered to be a leader of the TWIM community, then I want to be upright and forthright with this. So what I want to say about that is, first and foremost, I don't see myself as a teacher anymore. That doesn't mean that I'm going to stop teaching. I see myself as like a mirror. I see myself as being a reflector, reflecting the things that people are giving to me. The way I teach is, people come to me for interviews, in their practice during the retreats.

And what I've noticed is I was just following the protocol, which is, okay, you ask these five basic questions, and that's in order to fit into the narrative of success of what this practice can do for someone. But then I was not really being true to being a teacher, which is really being that mirror. Like a teacher is not someone who says, you know, do as I say. It's more like, let's walk on this path together. That's the way I would see it. And that's the way I would like it moving forward. And that's the way I've been trying to make it for a lot of people. So we need to humanize our teachers.

We need to bring them off the pedestal. But teachers themselves also have to realize that. And I think it takes time. It takes some, and it takes a real good look in the mirror to assess that. Because the pride of being a teacher or the identification of being a spiritual leader, if anything else is corruptive in this world, I think that's it. Because that not only corrupts your own soul, that doesn't just corrupt your own mind and heart, but that corruption leaks out into the students as well, in all kinds of errant behaviors. When you say errant behaviors, what's in your mind when you refer to that? Well, I mean, sexual abuse for one is a big one. Money laundering. You name it, any kind of thing that's going on. I mean, spiritual leaders will talk about, don't be celibate, don't get married, don't do this.

And then a few years later, you find out that they've raped someone. This happens in India. Almost every spiritual leader I've heard of has gone through that and has just basically besmirched the whole idea of spirituality or their particular tradition, because it's the hypocrisy, really. And I'm not trying to condemn them in the sense that they're bad people.

Maybe they are, maybe they're not. I'm not to judge that. But I'm saying, spiritual community leaders should take a very hard look at themselves and notice if what they're saying matches with their internal state. And if it doesn't, then don't say anything. Just for the sake of it. Because if you have troubles with sex, then why would you tell someone, be celibate? If you have issues, if you have desire for money, why tell someone, give me all your money? That's really what it is with some spiritual leaders. In the community that I've led, in the community that I've worked with, I've never heard of any allegations of any kind of sexual abuse. But in my experience with certain monastics, they might be very happy-go-lucky.

They profess loving kindness, and they're very smiley, and they say, I don't touch money. But I've seen them behind closed doors, and I've seen how they react when it comes to money. I've seen how they react when they backbite about other people and so on. So be human. I'm just saying for any teacher who is a teacher, just be human. Be authentic. Be who you are instead of serving what is really selfish desires to be seen as a certain way. And I think I would love, because of this platform I want to use, to tell everybody who is watching this: do not see perfection in me. I'm saying this now.

Everything else I have said in the past was a reflection of my experience at the time. But now, having gone through this process and grown through it, I would love to tell everybody that do not seek perfection in me as a teacher and do not seek perfection in any teacher at all. See them as human beings. See them with their own challenges. And anybody else who tells you otherwise is either, at the very outset, manipulating, or they just are not aware or afraid to face those shadow aspects of themselves. Is this what you mean in another article, which I believe you're going to publish soon, that you sent to me, Kill the Buddha? Yes.

Yeah, the subtitle of that article is Ending Guru Worship for True Spiritual Liberation. And in that article, what I really touch upon is a couple of things. One is, if there was a goal for me as a teacher, again, as I'm saying, as a teacher, quote unquote, as a leader of a practice or somebody who's guiding people, is self-empowerment. And the idea of guru worship is to be humble, is to humble yourself in front of the guru. I kind of see that as a power play more than anything else. And it's a reflection of the culture, whether it is in ancient Indian times or whether it's now or whether it's in any country, any culture, there's always that power play.

And there's always, you must respect your teachers, you must respect your elders and all of that. There is some credence to that insofar as basic decency and respect, of course. as God or greater than God, even sometimes, diminishes the value of the student's experience. And not only that, it disempowers the student. So my intention behind that article that will come out soon is to show a couple of things. One is, when it comes to a responsibility of a teacher, they should hold space for a student themselves. And I think now more than ever, when we are getting into the territory of artificial intelligence, I'm telling you, the next couple of years, things that are going to happen are going to reflect the consciousness of the entire world in a way that we might not be happy with.

And there has to be a way to deal with that. And I think I'm urging, this is a message for all spiritual teachers, is to hold that space for the next generations to come. To empower themselves and to come out of that fake idea of human connection, which is only through technology and social media and artificial intelligence and so on. Because I see that happening more and more. And I think people should become aware of that. When it comes to modern dating, for example, or having just any relationship with a person, it has been so undervalued, diminished, because it's seen as like, if you don't serve what I want then there's something wrong either with me or there's something wrong with you. And I want people to question themselves and question their own intentions and question their own ideas just as I have as a teacher and just as I have as a human, as a person. And so I think a teacher's responsibility is to show that, hey, I'm here with you, I'm going to take you on the path.

I will help you as far as I can. But you need to walk your path as well. And that path might not be the same as my path, but I'll be there to help you empower yourself. So if anything, I am the anti-guru. I don't want to be the guru. I want to be the anti-guru, right? And so that's the intention behind this article, Kill the Buddha and Leave No Trace, is to let go of the cultural a teacher and a good student and empower yourself. One of the pieces of feedback that I received quite a bit from our previous interviews was, well, a general admiration for your willingness to share your personal experience so directly and openly. And I think, on top of that, you're willing to share your experience when it changes, and I think that's even more admirable.

But also it was that there was a sense of inspiration, a sense of, oh, fantastic, somebody is talking here about getting somewhere with this and having broken through to all kinds of experiences. And practitioners, long-term practitioners, some said to me, I feel reinvigorated and re-inspired by this episode, by what Delson said. And so I'd like to return to that for a moment. And it doesn't sound to me like you're saying awakening is not possible. But to set up a question, I'll say that. Are you saying then that awakening is not possible or that it's not possible through Buddhism or TWIM?

Are you opening up more possibility, or denying or shutting down that previous possibility? How do you relate to this whole idea of people's, if you want, where people can go with this stuff? Yeah. I'm saying that the notions of awakening that I had through my previous experiences, whether it's in TWIM, whether it's in Vedanta, whether it's in Kriya Yoga, has always been motivated by the desire to be released from any kind of emotional and mental suffering. And I have found great benefit from that, but I don't believe that that is permanent. What I'm saying is those notions of awakening, which I also actually point out in the article, is that awakening is not a static thing.

I see awakening as a process that happens all throughout your life. And they might be defined by various stages, not necessarily reflecting the experience of someone like the Buddha or Jesus or any other wonderful spiritual teacher and figure, or not even necessarily reflecting the experience of your peers. And I say that because everybody has their own karma. Everybody has their own mental makeup and their own trauma to deal with. Everybody has their own experiences that they have to go through or have gone through that shape that process of awakening. What I would say awakening is, is being awakened to the true nature of what everything is. But at the same time, there's still work to be done in terms of how do you live in this life?

To that extent, you could say awakening, or I would say awakening is awakening to your shadow self, awakening to the aspects of yourself that you're running away from, awakening to the fact that you're still suffering when, in fact, you did experience the end of suffering temporarily, let's say. But awakening to or awakening from the cultural dream and idealization of awakening. So I would say awakening is very personal to everybody, but it's awakening to all of these things. And there are levels of awakening to that extent. You awaken to the fact that here you are as a mind and as a body, and then you awaken from that fact where you have more self and greater self-awareness.

And then you awaken from that and you see, all of these are causes and conditions. And then you awaken from that and you realize, this is maybe my path. And then you see how this path works for you or not. So I'm not saying that I denounce awakening altogether, but I am definitely redefining what awakening actually means. The fact of the matter is, if you think about the word awakening, it's a verb, it's a continuous process. And you're awakened at one point, and maybe you're not awakened at another point. And the way I see, in my experience, the true nature of existence and the true nature of reality is that it is empty of any kind of personal projections of self.

The world that we make around us exists in here. Our mind is samsara. But once we're able to let go of the mind's grasping and the mind's desire to make sense of things and stop projecting a meaning onto it for the sense of mental and emotional comfort, then we come to a different level of awakening, which is the realization that everything is interconnected. And that indeed, the entire universe is brimming with aliveness.

And this I've seen in my own experience, and I've seen from other students' experiences where they experience a level of intuition and synchronicity where it's freaky. It's like they see something and they thought about something and they make the connections. And what I tell to them and what I do for myself is you go deeper into the rabbit hole of these synchronicities, because these are messages from your intuition, which is nothing more than a mirror reflection of the aliveness of the entire universe. And in that aliveness of the entire universe, the entire drama of life that is consensual amongst all of us as beings, but also the internal drama that we project out due to causes and conditions.

First of all, that interview we had, Siddhi Tales one, that was from my prior experiences through not only TWIM, but even prior to TWIM. We talked about the cobbler, we talked about my past lives and all kinds of interesting things. And I stand by them, and I know that they're helpful for some people. But I've also seen that when people come and approach me as a teacher, or they come to my retreats, they come with this desire to know more about those things. Which is, I mean, wherever a person is, they're interested in that particular thing, and that's okay. But it's sort of, for me as a teacher, it's like, hey, let's leave that aside and let's talk about your practice. What's going on, what are you up to, where are you at, and all of these things. And that gets in the way of talking about siddhis and talking about Bhante.

I did a talk a few days after Bhante passed on. It was not recent, but it was a few days after he passed on. I talked about Bhante's life and about where he is, or where, you know, what he's experienced, and the stuff that I understand it to be from my own intuition and from my own experience. And I got a lot of flack for that, rightly so, because people were probably expecting something else. They were like, what is this guy talking about? And why is he talking about this? So I'm not saying that I wouldn't be talking about these things, but I realized where their value is, which is at the level of curiosity, and at the level of perhaps inspiring people to be like, hey, how do I get there?

Or is this possible for me? Sure, it is. Maybe it can happen, maybe it can't happen. Do you want to stay in the territory of these kinds of things as a practitioner? Or do you want to also explore? See, I'm saying also, because I'm not saying you need to forgo those. They have their space. They have their place. That's what I'm saying, in a different context of sharing. But if the approach for a person is to go into awakening, there are other things to explore there. That's why I'm saying I want to be more careful about these things, not because it's unhelpful for people. Ultimately, I think it's unhelpful for people. It might inspire them in the beginning, but I think it's something that just gets in the way of my teaching process and gets in the way of people truly wanting to see what awakening is, or what is possible for them.

It's been a bit of a challenge to weed out, let's say, the serious practitioners, for lack of a better word or term, from the ones who are just curious. I see this a lot in India, for sure. When I was in India, I am in India now, but in teaching in India, almost every other question was, oh, so what are the devas like? And what is this Ram like? And all of these things. I would have to redirect them and say, you might be able to experience it for yourself. Why don't we talk about how that can be possible for you, and try to redirect them towards the practice? So for me it's been a, let's say, misutilization of my time, energy and attention, where I might want it to go. That's very interesting, thank you.

I'm wondering, in this period of reflection, have you sought out other teachers or other teachings, had fellowship with people in that kind of a context, in other traditions perhaps, or within Buddhism or anything else? I'm wondering if you've done any of that. Oh yeah, for sure. Earlier this year I had a really wonderful trip to South India with some very close friends of mine, and we had gone there for doing some temple tours based on some astrology that was done for me and for my friends. And this is a very interesting kind of astrology, actually. I just said I'm not going to talk about the more esoteric stuff, but this is really interesting.

This is actually really cool. There is this thing called Nadi Astrology, N-A-D-I, Nadi Astrology. And in there, what you do is they only take your thumbprint, your thumb impression, with who you are as a person, and give you certain details that only you would know about. It's very interesting, that whole process of understanding who you are, what you're here to do, and all of this. And in India, when you do an astrological reading, there are always these kinds of remedies that they give you, like go to this temple, or offer this to the monks, or whatever it is. So I said, let's go to the temples, let's check it out.

I've always wanted to explore South India. It'd be really interesting to do that. We went to something like, I think, 11 temples in the span of 10 days or two weeks. It was quite a journey, and it was a very satisfying journey. But as we went to these different temples, one of these temples was called Chidambaram. It's in South India. So there are these five Shiva temples, which are related to the five elements. The Chidambaram Temple is said to have been constructed by Patanjali and another particular deity, half man, half beast kind of thing. And it commemorates the time when Shiva and Shakti were coming together and dancing, the dance of creation and destruction.

So the main deity there is the Nataraja, which is the dancing Shiva. And there's also something called the Akasha Linga, which is a Shiva linga made out of pure crystal. Before we even entered into the annex of the temple, I could feel this vibrant energy coming off of it. It was very blissed out. It was just amazing. And I remember sitting in the bus on our way back to the hotel, just amazed by this whole process. I had amazing, let's say amazing, but really crazy dreams. I remember seeing myself being in an airplane and witnessing a huge atomic explosion that went off.

And then I felt that reverberating throughout my entire body, from my navel upwards. And then I remember entering into the cave. And the next morning at breakfast, this intuition arose in me: explore the divine feminine, explore the goddess energy, the Shakti. And that stayed with me. Because of that, and then the discussion with my friends about it, there was the idea that that was probably about going back into the womb, the cave, going back into the divine feminine. So I sought out traditions like Sri Vidya. Sri Vidya is a very interesting tradition. It's very tantric based, which means it uses different kinds of prayers and chants and techniques.

I sought out a guru and I got some initiations into a couple of different practices, which I can't really talk about, but basically what it is, is a practice for Ganesha and a practice for what's known as Bala Tripura Sundari, who is the child version of the divine goddess in all her glory. This has really been something I've been interested in since January, since that trip. So I've been exploring things like that. But ultimately, I would say that I continue to seek, and not for any other reason than to learn and to understand for myself, my own experiences, but also, in some sense, as a teacher, to understand where other students are coming from.

Because the more I understand, the more ocean of knowledge that I have, not only for my own curiosity, but for my own understanding of where a student is coming from, the better I can assist them according to the context that they understand. That's quite a cool story, Delson. It's almost like the old days, hearing you tell that. Yeah, exactly. What's next for you then? At the end, I'll ask you if there's anything else you want to comment on that we haven't covered, but I think naturally I'm thinking ahead. What's next for you? What are your plans going forward, and where do you see things going? Yeah, it's going to be interesting, because I know for 2025 I'll definitely be teaching TWIM, but I'll be teaching it, let's say, in a different context, because I don't want to make it into a certain kind of protocol that we've always followed before, in order for this narrative of success, as I call it.

But I'll teach it as I understand it. And I don't necessarily want to have to teach from the suttas all the time. I have been developing my own way of teaching and methodologies, which I will be experimenting with through students who are willing to come and see me. Like, you know, I've been empowered before to initiate people in certain schools of Kriya Yoga. I might do that, I might do Kriya Yoga initiations for people. I'm developing something which I call the optimal mind system. It's just a catchy name, because it's got O and M, it's OM, you know, the OM system. That's the only reason. But it's sort of a distillation of all of the things that I've learned related to the mind, body, and energetics of the body and the mind.

So I might go into that and whatever I have learned. For me, I see myself as a conduit for various teachings. And I think there's so much more that I can give and offer to the world based on people's curiosities. But of course, there's seriousness in wanting to engage with these practices. What I know, and it's not just TWIM, it is anything that I've learned in the past, and I'm empowered to show people. In the future it'll be interesting, because I know in 2025 everything is sort of already planned out. And I will tell you, from that declaration video within the TWIM community, I've had a wonderful amount of support. I think there's a certain kind of sigh of relief in the psyche of the community, where we don't need to be so perfect.

We don't need to do these things. And also, there are other things that we can explore. And I'm available to those people in the community and at large to show them what they want. I also see that 2026 is a very vital year for everybody. In terms of the consciousness of people from 2026 to 2027, I believe there will be a thinning of the veil when it comes to what we see as this reality. And I think there will be a larger interest and a serious investigation into the more esoteric aspects of life and into trying to understand what the hell is going on when whatever is going to happen in 2026 happens. I think there's going to be interesting phenomena that's going to happen.

It's just my intuition and my understanding of how I see things. And for that reason, I think I'm kind of primed to help those individuals to better understand their place in the universe and how this whole process works. Well, Delson, this has been a tremendous discussion. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast to discuss your latest reflections on all that's gone on. Is there anything you'd like to say in conclusion, or any way you'd like to sum up our conversation before we bring it to an end? Yeah, just to sum up our conversation and my personal message to everybody is this. Your journey is your own and make it your own.

Use the tools and the teachers that you have as vehicles for your own empowerment. And in the most silent moments of your life, when you can just relax into that moment, then you realize that you are already liberated. Delson Armstrong, thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you for listening to another Guru Viking podcast. For more interviews like these, as well as articles, videos, and guided meditations, visit www.guruviking.com.