Jay Shetty | Club Random with Bill Maher

Skepticism meets reflection when Bill invites Jay Shetty to share about a life that’s spanned the silence of a Vedic monastery and the spotlight of Hollywood. Jay explains how rising at 4 a.m. for cold showers, living under strict celibacy, and sleeping on the floor shaped his views on attachment and purpose. Bill probes everything from traditional therapy to modern dating, pushing Jay to clarify how one remains “spiritual” when fame and success come calling. They trade stories of long-term relationships, debate generational “softness,” and dig into whether the real mind-bender might be a vitamin D deficiency rather than any cosmic quest. There’s warmth in discovering their shared friendship with Arianna Huffington. The result is a candid conversation that balances humor, curiosity, and a surprising overlap of worldviews—one part cynicism, one part monk-like reflection. Go to https://www.zbiotics.com/RANDOM to learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use RANDOM Get 250 Casino Spins on a featured game with promo code RANDOM at https://www.goldennuggetcasino.com Try ZipRecruiter for free at https://www.ziprecruiter.com/random Follow Club Random on IG: @ClubRandomPodcast Follow Bill on IG: @BillMaher Don’t forget to subscribe to the podcast for free wherever you're listening or by using this link: https://bit.ly/ClubRandom Watch Club Random on YouTube: https://bit.ly/ClubRandomYouTube Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:43Speaker 00

  Learn more at gethumana.com. See any doctor who accepts Medicare and is willing to bill Humana. Humana PPOs may not be available in all areas. Benefits and costs share may vary. Humana is a Medicare Advantage PPO organization with a Medicare contract. Enrollment in any Humana plan depends on contract renewal.

• 1:00Bill Maher?

  Hey, check out the new podcast on our network, The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan. Billy, I remember he was here. He was awesome. He's an incredibly insightful interviewer. So this is great. Catch him talking about one of my favorite topics, greatness in music with the legends themselves. And he must know all of them. He was one of themself. First episode is my pal Gene Simmons. Get it on YouTube at Billy Corgan, TMO, and anywhere you get your podcasts.

• 1:31Speaker 02

  Those places where people have meditated for tens of years, hundreds of years, thousands of years.

• 1:35Bill Maher?

  And where is this one? Because I want to avoid going there.

• 1:41Bill Maher?

  I mean, humans, not good people. Am I wrong?

• 1:44Speaker 02

  We're doing all right. We're doing all right.

• 1:46Bill Maher?

  You think we're doing all right?

• 1:47Speaker 02

  No, we're not.

• 1:52Speaker 02

  How you doing?

• 1:53Bill Maher?

  How you doing?

• 1:54Speaker 02

  I'm good, I'm well. Thank you for having me.

• 1:56Bill Maher?

  Oh, please.

• 1:56Speaker 02

  This is such a cool spot. I really appreciate it.

• 1:58Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 1:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:59Bill Maher?

  Even for you?

• 2:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's nice, yeah.

• 2:01Bill Maher?

  Is it spiritual enough?

• 2:03Speaker 02

  Anywhere can be spiritual enough, so...

• 2:05Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 2:06Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:06Bill Maher?

  Then would you like to go to the Spearmint Rhino?

• 2:08Speaker 02

  Let's... I've not tried that. That would be an experiment.

• 2:11Bill Maher?

  You've never been to a strip club?

• 2:12Speaker 02

  I have never been to a strip club.

• 2:14Bill Maher?

  You think you're spiritual.

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:16Bill Maher?

  Brother, I'm gonna rock your world. No, really...

• 2:19Speaker 02

  When was the last time you went?

• 2:21Bill Maher?

  What day is it? No, um... It's been a minute, but, you know, uh, there's something... Why? There's nothing wrong with it, right?

• 2:31Speaker 02

  I'm... I don't think there's anything wrong with it. I think it's about the state of consciousness you wanna live in.

• 2:35Bill Maher?

  Really? Already we're on that?

• 2:39Bill Maher?

  But why can't you... You just said you could be spiritual anyway.

• 2:41Speaker 02

  You can. Absolutely, absolutely.

• 2:43Bill Maher?

  Did you see Enora?

• 2:44Speaker 02

  I did not yet. I've heard about it. I've not seen it yet.

• 2:47Bill Maher?

  She's... was a stripper?

• 2:49Speaker 02

  Okay. I'll have to check it out. I don't know enough about it. I did hear about it.

• 2:52Bill Maher?

  The movie?

• 2:53Speaker 02

  I need to see it. Yes, yes.

• 2:54Bill Maher?

  I think you'd enjoy it.

• 2:55Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 2:56Bill Maher?

  It's just enjoyable.

• 2:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'll check it out.

• 2:58Bill Maher?

  It's a great performance. I love that director. He did another one called The Florida Project. Did you ever see that?

• 3:04Speaker 02

  No, I didn't see that either.

• 3:05Bill Maher?

  You'd like that too. That's an interesting movie. It's about this woman who's a complete train wreck. I mean, she's...

• 3:15Bill Maher?

  Poor, you know, she's like living in a, you know, in a motel. You know, right near in the shadow of Disneyland. And she's got a little six-year-old girl with her. And she's just a terrible mother in a lot of ways. But she's kind of a big kid in herself, and she loves the kid, and the kid loves her. But she does things which, in today's world, we would never allow. Like, just lets the kids roam free, you know, run across the highway. You know, they're begging for free food at McDonald's. I mean, she just... And then she literally like turns a trick while the kid is in the bathroom when she needs money. She's not really a hooker, but, you know... She's terrible. So, of course, social services come. But the kid's loving her life.

• 3:58Bill Maher?

  It's one of those really interesting moral questions. Because the kid does not wanna go, I mean, then the kid just runs.

• 4:04Speaker 02

  And what's the resolution?

• 4:05Bill Maher?

  Well, the kid, I mean, it's great that it's just right in the shadow of Disneyland, where life is perfect, because life is not perfect, I think is one of the great themes there. I just, I think the resolution is the kid runs away and they're gonna have to either catch her, and, but she's like, "No, I love mommy, I don't wanna live, mommy's fun."

• 4:26Speaker 02

  I love it. I've got my homework, so I know a Florida project.

• 4:30Bill Maher?

  Yeah, just did a big plug for this director.

• 4:32Speaker 02

  Nice, I love it. I've got my movie night sorted, that would help actually. Me and my wife are always struggling to find what to watch on movie night, so that's gonna help us out.

• 4:40Bill Maher?

  How long have you been married?

• 4:41Speaker 02

  Been married now for eight years, it'll be nine this year.

• 4:45Bill Maher?

  And how did you know she was the one?

• 4:47Speaker 02

  I don't know if you do ever know, I think you, you figure out more and more every year. So I don't think I ever...

• 4:53Bill Maher?

  Don't put that on the Valentine's Day card.

• 4:56Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't think you ever do really know if someone's the one. I think you, I think you think you know when you meet someone that someone's the one, but it takes many, many more years to actually get confident about that idea. I think we're overconfident in the beginning and we might overestimate what we know and then you get to know someone deeply and you think, "Wow, I'm lucky you turned out the way you are."

• 5:19Bill Maher?

  I agree with every word you said. That is a very realistic, I think, very wise answer. It's not a romantic answer. I don't, I don't feel like it's the answer women wanna hear.

• 5:30Speaker 02

  Right, but sometimes the answer we wanna hear is definitely not the right answer.

• 5:34Bill Maher?

  And your wife's okay with that?

• 5:35Speaker 02

  My, my wife's actually far more, less the romantic than I am, so she loves that answer. She'll actually appreciate that answer. Yeah, she'll actually agree with it.

• 5:43Bill Maher?

  Maybe that's why she's the one.

• 5:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, maybe that's why, there we go.

• 5:47Bill Maher?

  But you were celibate for a while, right?

• 5:48Speaker 02

  I was for three years.

• 5:51Bill Maher?

  I was too, not by choice.

• 5:55Bill Maher?

  That's the difference.

• 5:56Speaker 02

  When was that?

• 5:57Bill Maher?

  You were a monk, I was a Cornell.

• 5:59Speaker 02

  When were those years, colleges?

• 6:03Bill Maher?

  Yes, I went to a college, Cornell, in the seventies. It had only recently...

• 6:09Speaker 02

  Great college.

• 6:10Bill Maher?

  Great education, yes. Not a fun, pleasant experience. Most people who went there would say the same thing, I think. It's kind of a cold place, in many ways. Which is why I never gave them a dime. But, yeah, it had just recently, the Ivy League had just recently, when I got there, just made, you know, integrated with women at all.

• 6:38Bill Maher?

  I think a couple of the colleges when I went, like Dartmouth, I still think was all male.

• 6:42Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 6:43Bill Maher?

  Yeah, this is the mid seventies.

• 6:45Speaker 02

  Wow. That's remarkable to even think that.

• 6:48Bill Maher?

  It is.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  So wait, you were one of the first years where...

• 6:51Bill Maher?

  Well, I think, I feel like the ratio I recall being something like four or five to one. Which would be bad, under any circumstances, but especially when you're a shy nerd with no game.

• 7:02Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 7:02Bill Maher?

  No money, no anything.

• 7:04Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 7:04Bill Maher?

  You know, you're just...

• 7:06Speaker 02

  And the women had more choice.

• 7:08Bill Maher?

  Of course. Well, they're always at that age gonna go for older men. Because people, when you're at that age as a male, you're just, it'd be very, a very rare person who... I saw this other great movie, look all the movies.

• 7:25Speaker 02

  I know, you've been watching a lot of movies.

• 7:26Bill Maher?

  Oh, I always do. This one I'd never heard of, it's like ten years old, it's called Five to Seven.

• 7:31Speaker 02

  I've not seen this either.

• 7:32Bill Maher?

  I'd never heard of it. It's really interesting, it's about, you know, the French have this tradition where they don't ask what the spouse is doing from five to seven. In the day. Because they're very realistic.

• 7:47Speaker 02

  Right.

• 7:48Bill Maher?

  About how.

• 7:49Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 7:50Bill Maher?

  Passion wanes and people need a mistress or a lover.

• 7:53Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 7:55Bill Maher?

  So, uh. This twenty five year old kid in New York. He meets this thirty three year old French woman and he's totally besotted. One day they're walking along and what else don't I know about you? She's like, well, I'm thirty three. I have a husband, a two. It's what? You have a husband? She's, yeah, why do you think we meet from five to seven?

• 8:15Speaker 02

  Oh, my gosh.

• 8:16Bill Maher?

  And it's it's a really interesting movie, except that they put in the mouth of this twenty five year old.

• 8:23Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 8:23Bill Maher?

  Words that would never come out of a twenty five.

• 8:25Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 8:26Bill Maher?

  He's it's obviously a writer twice his age.

• 8:28Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 8:29Bill Maher?

  Nobody twenty five is that cool, that confident, that wise, that good with women.

• 8:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 8:36Bill Maher?

  But other than that, it's fun if you if you suspect, but that's much less easy to swallow than Avatar.

• 8:42Speaker 02

  Now, the sad thing is that so much of that is, I mean, you know, that's five to seven in that era with some culture. But I'm hearing some horror stories right now of people dating. I was talking to someone I know and they were saying that they were seeing this guy. He was kind of going in the right direction. It was a bit of long distance across the States. And she was hoping that it was going in a more serious direction. They're in their thirties. And so she'd reached out to him and messaged him and said, hey, I'm coming to see you this weekend, obviously, as we planned. Just wanted to make sure that we're we're on the same path, that this is.

• 9:13Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 9:14Speaker 02

  Serious. It's going somewhere. Very, very, uh, you know, acceptable way of messaging at someone. And she didn't get a response for a day and she thought, okay, well, maybe something's up. It's okay. Didn't get a response for three days, texted again, just checked in, didn't get a response for seven days. She goes online and she finds this online space where she starts talking about her experience, posts it. Next thing she knows, she gets a message from another woman who says, hey, can I chat to you? I read what you wrote, realizes that this man's actually in another relationship. He's getting divorced at the same time from another relationship and he's dating this woman. And it's mind blowing that someone has the audacity and the ability to navigate that many people at the same time. I don't even know how you how you keep up with that.

• 9:59Bill Maher?

  It's it's actually something that I'm sure always went on. What's amazing to me about the story is that someone thinks they could get away with it today.

• 10:07Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 10:08Bill Maher?

  Before the internet. You know, before that era and social media and tracking people in every possible way.

• 10:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:16Bill Maher?

  Same thing with criminals. I feel really bad for criminals. It's hard to be a criminal now because they got cameras everywhere. It's the same thing. I mean, if you're a husband cheating and your wife knows where your car is at all times because it's on her phone.

• 10:31Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:32Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 10:33Speaker 02

  You've thought through this, Bill.

• 10:34Bill Maher?

  No.

• 10:36Speaker 02

  You're speaking from experience.

• 10:37Bill Maher?

  I don't have to because I'm not married.

• 10:39Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 10:39Bill Maher?

  And one reason is I never want to cheat. I never want to have to, you know, lie in a relationship. And that's very hard because, you know, I think a lot of people, and you'd be a great one to ask this, but I think the common idea in people's minds is the longer you're in a relationship, the more honest you get and maybe in a great one. But actually, it's the reverse. The longer you're in, the more you start lying, muchly to protect your partner, who areas get sensitive. Do you still want to fuck me as much as always? Absolutely. Okay, well, it's a lie.

• 11:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 11:19Bill Maher?

  But you got to tell it.

• 11:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I think it's hard because we all say we want the truth. I think if you ask the average person, they'd say, I want people to be honest with me. I wish people told me the truth. But then when someone says it, the old cliche, you can't handle the truth. Like, we don't, we can't actually handle it. And I think it takes a lot of maturity, a lot of openness, a lot of self-work to be able to say, hey, you know what? Actually, I'm happy to hear what you actually have to say. And, you know, it takes a lot of courage to hear the honesty and it takes a lot of courage to say it. But I think a lot of people are scared to say it because they're scared of how it's going to be received.

• 11:53Bill Maher?

  Did you ever see Tootsie?

• 11:55Speaker 02

  No.

• 11:55Bill Maher?

  I got to get you a streaming.

• 11:56Speaker 02

  You need to get, you need to get me a.

• 11:58Bill Maher?

  I need to get you a.

• 11:59Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't watch a lot of stuff. I watch a bit of stuff. But I obviously don't watch enough. I thought I watched enough.

• 12:03Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, you're probably on to other bigger, deeper spiritual things. But for us normal people, you've heard of the movie, right?

• 12:11Speaker 02

  I have not, I have not at all.

• 12:13Bill Maher?

  Never heard of Tootsie?

• 12:13Speaker 02

  What year is that?

• 12:14Bill Maher?

  Tootsie is a, is a super classic. I mean, it's, it's 1982, it's Dustin Hoffman.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  I wasn't born.

• 12:21Bill Maher?

  So what? I wasn't born for the French Revolution, but I know about it. Really, Doc? That, that excuse is really, your generation should lose that. It's a stupid thing to say, it really is. You were bored for it. Yeah, I saw a lot of movies.

• 12:37Speaker 02

  No, I just meant I wasn't aware.

• 12:38Bill Maher?

  I know, but I wasn't born for Citizen Kane, but I've seen it.

• 12:41Speaker 02

  That's fair, that's fair.

• 12:42Bill Maher?

  Okay, so Tootsie is, you know who Dustin Hoffman is?

• 12:45Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:46Bill Maher?

  And Bill Murray?

• 12:46Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 12:47Bill Maher?

  Okay, so the movie is, it's, I don't know if you can make it today because it has to do with gender, but he's a, he's an actor in New York and he can't get work. Uh, and there's an ad for, in the, like, you know, the, where there were open auditions for a soap opera, but it's for a woman. And he dresses in drag and he gets the part as a woman.

• 13:09Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 13:09Bill Maher?

  Michael becomes Dorothy and an older woman, you know, he, it's very funny. And, uh, speak, and the, the audience loves him and he becomes a big soap opera star.

• 13:23Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 13:23Bill Maher?

  So he's at a party one night as the woman, because he's invited as the, and he's, he's very hot for this other girl who's on the soap opera. And he says, and they're talking and she says to him, here, thinking it's a woman. You know, guys are so full of shit. I wish one of them would just be honest and come up to me and say, I think you're the most beautiful woman in the world and I'd like to go to bed with you. And he hears it, later on, he's at a party as himself, as Michael, and he goes up and he tries it and she throws a drink right in his face.

• 13:57Bill Maher?

  It's a great movie moment.

• 13:58Speaker 02

  That's awesome. I need your movie list, this sounds like a, you're gonna make my life a lot easier. I feel like nowadays, all my generation does is spend hours and hours and hours trying to find something to watch and then give up eventually, so. And these movies don't make the lists, like you look at IMDb and you start looking at all these lists and...

• 14:14Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, you know, that movie is 40 years old, but it is, I mean, certain classic movies, you don't have, um, I guess maybe you don't even have like the old DirecTV where you, I still have the 50 movie channels.

• 14:26Speaker 02

  Right, right.

• 14:27Bill Maher?

  Because if you flip through that, they're playing all sorts of movies from all sorts of years.

• 14:31Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm a, I'm a big Nolan fan, so...

• 14:33Bill Maher?

  Christopher Nolan, sure.

• 14:34Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I've spent, I've spent my time probably diving most deeply into Nolan's movies, starting with Memento, The Prestige is probably one of my favorite, favorite movies. Have you seen either of those?

• 14:46Bill Maher?

  Uh, I don't remember those.

• 14:47Speaker 02

  So Memento is the story about the man who uh forgets every morning when he wakes up. And so he tattoos his memories onto himself and he's on the search for who killed his wife. It's a brilliant, brilliant story.

• 14:59Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I have heard of that. I don't think I did catch up to that.

• 15:02Speaker 02

  Highly recommend it.

• 15:02Bill Maher?

  I'm gonna watch that one.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, one of the best. And The Prestige is Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Scarlett Johansson. It's beautiful. It's it's such a great movie.

• 15:12Bill Maher?

  What's it about?

• 15:13Speaker 02

  It's based on two magicians.

• 15:15Bill Maher?

  Oh, yes, I did see that. Yes.

• 15:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:17Bill Maher?

  That's his most, that's early on.

• 15:19Speaker 02

  Two thousand and six, I think that is.

• 15:21Bill Maher?

  Right, and that's that's more of his um mainstream phase. Just the way Stanley Kubrick, you know Stanley Kubrick?

• 15:28Speaker 02

  Yes, yes, yes.

• 15:29Bill Maher?

  I mean, he did so many innovative movies, but he also did Spartacus to start his career. A very mainstream movie there. And uh there's two that Christopher Nolan did that I I don't know what they're going, what's going on.

• 15:41Speaker 02

  Which one? Tenet?

• 15:43Bill Maher?

  Yeah, that's terrible.

• 15:44Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 15:44Bill Maher?

  And and then what's the other one with Leonardo DiCaprio and?

• 15:49Speaker 02

  Oh, which one is it?

• 15:50Bill Maher?

  You know, it's.

• 15:50Speaker 02

  Oh, Inception. That's one of my, that's an amazing movie. That's incredible. That's a beautiful movie.

• 15:55Bill Maher?

  I'm sure it is to you.

• 15:56Speaker 02

  I love I love the concept of the idea of we're living in a dream within a dream within a dream.

• 16:00Bill Maher?

  Yeah, but it's kind of hard to follow.

• 16:02Speaker 02

  It's, I think it's, it takes a bit of reading, but I'm that kind of person who wants to watch a movie and then.

• 16:06Bill Maher?

  No, no, I I am not um movie bright. I'm like, I'm not stupid, but like uh some people are much more movie bright. Very often, like a young girl.

• 16:15Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 16:16Bill Maher?

  Uh, I need to watch a movie with.

• 16:17Speaker 02

  Got it.

• 16:18Bill Maher?

  Because she can explain to me.

• 16:20Speaker 02

  Got it.

• 16:21Bill Maher?

  Like what's going, like, okay, um, yeah, I I I and and Inception, I was just completely lost.

• 16:27Speaker 02

  Well, anytime, call me up, I'll I'll explain the plot and uh we'll walk through it. But uh but no, you're reminding me of, I remember I was at a wedding, uh maybe like four years ago. And it was, you know, people in entertainment and everyone were, everyone there was a writer, comedian, uh, you know, every speech was a Netflix comedy special and perfectly delivered. It was amazing, super entertaining. But I remember I was sitting with a group of people who were all asking me what my favorite movie that year was. And of course. With my naive and unrefined movie knowledge, I said Marvel Endgame. And everyone at the table had all these, you know, indie movies that they were in love with and everything. So

• 17:05Bill Maher?

  I don't know.

• 17:05Speaker 02

  I've had that experience before as well.

• 17:07Bill Maher?

  I'm worse than you with that. I mean, all of those kind of popular movies, any spandex movie. I don't, I've seen hardly any of them. The ones I have seen, I didn't see any difference between, I don't know why. Catwoman is the worst, but Spider-Man's the greatest. To me, it's all the same movie.

• 17:25Speaker 02

  Oh, no, there's some good movies. I'm a Marvel fan.

• 17:28Bill Maher?

  Oh, you are?

• 17:28Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm a Marvel fan. So there's, there's some good ones in there.

• 17:31Bill Maher?

  I just tried to watch, well, I did not try. I watched, well, sort of Dune.

• 17:35Speaker 02

  Mm hmm.

• 17:36Bill Maher?

  The second Dune.

• 17:36Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:37Bill Maher?

  Now, I have to admit, I did not see the original Dune.

• 17:41Speaker 02

  Got it. I haven't seen the original.

• 17:42Bill Maher?

  I didn't see the first Dune.

• 17:44Speaker 02

  I've seen that one.

• 17:44Bill Maher?

  And I missed the first 10 minutes of this one.

• 17:46Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 17:47Bill Maher?

  And I was watching it in the kitchen while I was making food. So I'm not really sure what's going on in Dune.

• 17:53Speaker 02

  Got it.

• 17:54Bill Maher?

  Uh, it's something about they're on another planet.

• 17:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 17:58Bill Maher?

  It's 10, I think it's the year 10,000. And yet, everything is just eerily the same, like they still have helicopters. And they're still fighting and running really fast. And, you know, there's one tribe that has this thing on their nose.

• 18:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:12Bill Maher?

  Seen that?

• 18:13Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:13Bill Maher?

  Do you know what that is?

• 18:14Speaker 02

  I, I think, I suppose it helps them breathe. I don't know.

• 18:16Bill Maher?

  I guess so. It's very dry.

• 18:18Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 18:19Bill Maher?

  And yet, Zendaya's skin is perfect. I mean, really, I've been to Vegas for a weekend.

• 18:24Speaker 02

  It's a great observation.

• 18:24Bill Maher?

  And my skin got worse than what's going on here on

• 18:28Speaker 02

  That's a great observation.

• 18:29Bill Maher?

  The planet. What is it?

• 18:32Speaker 02

  I don't know the name.

• 18:33Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 18:33Speaker 02

  I don't know that dude.

• 18:34Bill Maher?

  Anyway, I know, I could tell there is some very bad people because it kind of goes to black and white when they show them. It gets very Lenny Ruff and Stall and, um, and of course, the, the bad, the real bad guy is a huge fat fuck. And you can always tell, you know, worst thing you do in this world is fat shaming unless you want to show he's a bad guy. Then it's completely okay.

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• 19:57Bill Maher?

  And I didn't get to the end that the real bad guy is Austin Butler. But they shaved his head and I was like, oh, that's awesome.

• 20:03Speaker 02

  He gets killed in a great fight scene.

• 20:05Bill Maher?

  Oh, so you have seen it?

• 20:06Speaker 02

  I've seen it, I've seen that one, yeah, I've seen the movie. I don't remember the name of the planet, but I know the movie, I've seen both of them.

• 20:11Bill Maher?

  So if you don't watch movies, like, what do you do?

• 20:13Speaker 02

  Oh, I watch movies, I watch movies, I think we just watch different movies.

• 20:18Bill Maher?

  Well, what else do you do for fun?

• 20:20Speaker 02

  I definitely love, I'm a huge soccer fan. So I grew up, I'm born and raised in London.

• 20:25Bill Maher?

  Watching or playing?

• 20:26Speaker 02

  Both, I don't play as much anymore, but I used to love playing and watching soccer. It's still one of my favorite things to do.

• 20:31Bill Maher?

  Where'd you grow up in England?

• 20:32Speaker 02

  I grew up in North London. So it was, yeah, soccer's my first love, football's my first love, and it's something that I can do every day.

• 20:41Bill Maher?

  I don't know London well enough to know, what does that mean, that neighborhood, North London? What kind of neighborhood?

• 20:46Speaker 02

  It's a bit in between, it's a bit rough, it's a bit, it's definitely a little rough. I definitely grew up in a neighborhood where there weren't so many Indian and South Asian people, and so...

• 20:56Bill Maher?

  There weren't?

• 20:56Speaker 02

  There weren't, there weren't that many when I was growing up.

• 20:59Bill Maher?

  There are now.

• 21:00Speaker 02

  There are a lot of South Asian people in England and in London, just in that particular area.

• 21:05Bill Maher?

  I read this in Andrew Sullivan's column, he said, like, 50 years ago... Uh, with something like, I don't know. I forget the stat, but it went up by fifty percent. The number of non-white people.

• 21:18Speaker 02

  Okay, that makes sense.

• 21:20Bill Maher?

  Which is amazing when you think.

• 21:21Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, growing up in.

• 21:22Bill Maher?

  I'm not lamenting it, I'm just saying.

• 21:23Speaker 02

  Oh, for sure.

• 21:24Bill Maher?

  It's just, you know, acknowledge change.

• 21:26Speaker 02

  Oh, it was amazing, you know, I mean, I remember in our primary school, elementary school. Part of our studies was visiting every religion's place of worship. That was really common because there was someone from every religion in our class. There was such a great exposure to other cultures. We celebrated every religious holiday. It was pretty incredible to have such a diverse upbringing. And I know a lot of my friends here didn't have that, so that was, that was a real positive.

• 21:52Bill Maher?

  I did that, and I made a movie called Religulous. It's about, it's a documentary, it's a comedy. About, and we went to all the different religious sites.

• 22:02Speaker 02

  For the, for the documentary?

• 22:03Bill Maher?

  Yeah. And I made fun of them all. But we never got to, now you're not officially a Buddhist, or are you?

• 22:12Speaker 02

  No, no, no, no.

• 22:13Bill Maher?

  But you did, you were a monk, right?

• 22:15Speaker 02

  I lived as a monk, but in the Vedic tradition, which is more aligned with Hinduism. If you had to put it into a category.

• 22:22Bill Maher?

  And what's that like? I mean, the life of a monk, I'm sure we all have an image in our head that's very Spartan.

• 22:29Speaker 02

  It's, it's hard. It's definitely hard and challenging.

• 22:31Bill Maher?

  Are these the celibate years?

• 22:34Speaker 02

  Yes, correct. So you're waking up at four AM. You're having cold showers. You're meditating for around four to eight hours a day. You sleep on the floor. You get two sets of robes, you wear one, you wash one. And it's, it's a really challenging lifestyle. But at the same time, talking about what we're speaking about, what was really profound to me when I think about it is that it was three years of my life where I didn't have to pursue anything. I didn't have to pursue a woman, I didn't have to pursue a job, I didn't have to pursue a promotion. And I feel like there's something really powerful about a period of our life where you're not pursuing anything external that allows you to actually go inward to. Have a go at mastering your mind, not that you ever will, and pursue that perspective.

• 23:18Speaker 02

  And so when I looked at the science of it, because I've always been fascinated by the parallels between spirituality and science, I was looking at a study that was saying that most of our life, we live it in pursuit. So we live it in anticipation, reward, and then crash. So you anticipate something, you get the reward or you don't, and then you crash after it, whether you're happy and then crash, or sad and then crash. And that keeps us in that cycle of anticipation, reward, crash. But when you actually don't pursue something, there's almost a sense where your dopamine stabilizes and you actually get the ability to focus on being present for small things and getting to appreciate the things that you would usually miss, or things you wouldn't see. And so now when

• 24:01Speaker 02

  I look back at it, I look at that as one of the biggest things I learned there, because I don't know any time in my life, before or after, where I haven't been pursuing something. And so that was the most magical thing when I look back to think, wow, what a period of life where you're not pursuing something.

• 24:16Bill Maher?

  It must give you, with your vast audience, a lot of cred, kind of like the revolutionary who has spent time in prison. You know, a lot of the people who wound up presidents of countries, Malcolm Begin was, you know, some people would call him a terrorist, he went to jail, you know, fighting the British for Israel's independence, but, you know, Mandela, you know, Martin Luther King, you go to jail, Castro, I think, before he... You have a kind of a credibility with the crowd that like, yeah, I walked the walk

• 24:54Bill Maher?

  for this. I didn't just talk about it. I, you know, in your case, got up at four in the morning and took the cold shower. And are you allowed to masturbate when you're...

• 25:08Speaker 02

  No, not at all.

• 25:09Bill Maher?

  No, not even, so when you say celibate, even from yourself.

• 25:11Speaker 02

  Yeah, fully celibate, yeah.

• 25:13Bill Maher?

  Wow. What do you do about that?

• 25:14Speaker 02

  Well, it's a great question. There's a... So there's, I think what was really fascinating is before I did the life, I always thought it would be suppression or repression. But actually, I found that that engagement that we had there with the meditation, with the clean plant-based diet, with the focus, I'm not kidding, at least at that time, it was a thought that evaporated. It was a thought that disappeared. And that didn't happen immediately. It probably took months to even feel that way. It was months of dedicated practice that allowed you to get to that point. But I found that that environment was almost protected by like some incredible shield, which I've never experienced anywhere else. And I was actually just back there. I go back to the monastery every year. I was back there this January.

• 25:58Speaker 02

  And I traveled there with my wife now. She comes with me as well. And we were there for a week. And I was spending time with my teachers again and the monks again. And again, I felt this force-filled energy while I was there. And the moment I left, I felt all the other allurements and all the other attractions come right back. And I was thinking, wow, there is, there is something special about locations in which, kind of like this room that we're in right now, right? Like this has a certain vibe, it has a certain energy.

• 26:24Bill Maher?

  Absolutely, it really does.

• 26:25Speaker 02

  It does, right? This location has an energy. I walked in and it-

• 26:27Bill Maher?

  Not for what you're going for.

• 26:30Speaker 02

  But, but locations do have energy.

• 26:32Bill Maher?

  They really do.

• 26:32Speaker 02

  They really do. And, and I think that those places where people have meditated for tens of years, hundreds of years, thousands of years.

• 26:39Bill Maher?

  Well, and, and where is this one? Because I want to avoid going there.

• 26:44Speaker 02

  You don't want that force field, yeah? You don't want that force-

• 26:46Bill Maher?

  No, I'm not as strong as you.

• 26:47Speaker 02

  I'm not strong, I'm not strong.

• 26:49Bill Maher?

  Oh, please.

• 26:50Speaker 02

  I'm actually very, I wouldn't consider myself strong.

• 26:52Bill Maher?

  Okay, well, you're stronger than me. Because I, I couldn't last, I mean, let me, let me ask you. I'm just so curious about this. Let me break it to, so you're there for three years, thirty-six months. I'm guessing that the first month must have been the worst, the hardest.

• 27:05Speaker 02

  It is the worst.

• 27:06Bill Maher?

  Because you're, obviously, because you're transitioning.

• 27:08Speaker 02

  It is the worst.

• 27:08Bill Maher?

  And you, you, I can't believe I'm doing this. Why did, what am I, crazy? What the fuck am I doing? I only lived so many years on this earth. Why am I not enjoying it?

• 27:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 27:17Bill Maher?

  There's things going on. I could go see Tootsie.

• 27:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 27:20Bill Maher?

  I mean, there's movies, there's lots of fun things. Okay, but where are we like after six months?

• 27:28Speaker 02

  Six months in, it's changed because first month you're thinking while you're sitting on the floor. God, why am I sitting on the floor? It hurts my back. It hurts my leg. I can't even meditate. I can't focus. That's that's day one, week one, month one.

• 27:38Bill Maher?

  So you don't even get a chair?

• 27:40Speaker 02

  You don't get a chair there. No, there's no meditating on chairs.

• 27:42Bill Maher?

  You don't get a chair?

• 27:43Speaker 02

  Not for not for meditating.

• 27:44Bill Maher?

  What about a bed?

• 27:46Speaker 02

  You sleep on the floor. You have a thin little yoga mat and a little bed sheet. And when you're in India, you have the mosquito nets. So you're sleeping in this really tight tent because the mosquitoes will eat you at night. I remember one of my-

• 27:57Bill Maher?

  Shouldn't you welcome that?

• 28:00Speaker 02

  I remember one of my friends went to sleep with his head, you know, because your head shaved. He had his head shaved at the net. And we woke up and his head looked like the moon because they had craters all over it from the mosquitoes eating it alive.

• 28:10Bill Maher?

  So do you have a roommate?

• 28:12Speaker 02

  You have communal living, so there's twenty, thirty, sometimes a hundred people in a room, depending on the size of it when you're traveling as well.

• 28:19Bill Maher?

  Okay, so sleep on the floor, no amenities, a hundred people in the room. Sounds like Club Med.

• 28:26Speaker 02

  Sounds like Club Med.

• 28:26Bill Maher?

  Have you been to a Club Med?

• 28:27Speaker 02

  I know what Club Med is, but I've never been.

• 28:30Bill Maher?

  I did a movie called Club Med, believe it or not.

• 28:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, okay.

• 28:33Bill Maher?

  And we stayed there for a month.

• 28:34Speaker 02

  Right.

• 28:35Bill Maher?

  It's I shouldn't.

• 28:36Speaker 02

  This was a doc or a-

• 28:36Bill Maher?

  This isn't like, no, no, this was a movie. This is a movie of the week. And you know, the idea behind Club Med is for people on a budget who who are, it's actually a brilliant idea because it's for people who are going to enjoy the outdoors anyway. They just want to swim and fuck. They don't need, so you go to this place and it's very Spartan. It's it's, you know, it's like a monk's thing. You get a bed and a, I mean, it's no locks, I seem to remember. You get beads.

• 29:05Speaker 02

  No way. What do you do with the beads?

• 29:07Bill Maher?

  Because to buy drinks, but there's no money because we want to, you know, it's kind of smart, you know? So it's just, let's get up. We're gonna be at the beach all day. We don't need an eight hundred dollar a night room.

• 29:19Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 29:21Bill Maher?

  So I feel like that would be a good halfway-

• 29:23Speaker 02

  That's your experience of, that's your monastic-

• 29:26Bill Maher?

  I'm gonna get.

• 29:27Speaker 02

  That's your monastic experience. I love that.

• 29:29Bill Maher?

  But you are stronger. I mean, that is an amazing amount of strength. I mean, let's not kid ourselves.

• 29:34Speaker 02

  I think it's strength that we built up over time. I don't-

• 29:36Bill Maher?

  Yes, of course.

• 29:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't think it was it was something I went in there with.

• 29:39Bill Maher?

  Okay, so where are you after a year? Is there a point where you're like, you're digging it?

• 29:44Speaker 02

  After, after, yeah, yeah. I mean, six months in, I was having the best time of my life. I was like, I'm gonna do this for the rest of my life.

• 29:49Bill Maher?

  You really, so what brought you out of it?

• 29:51Speaker 02

  What brought me out of it was my body breaking down. I- Literally couldn't hack it like.

• 29:58Bill Maher?

  You mean from sleeping on the floor?

• 29:59Speaker 02

  From sleeping on the floor, from waking up at four AM, from eating what you're given because you don't get to choose. There's no menu. Everyone eats the same thing. I'd have friends of mine, monks who were waking up at two AM and I'm being woken up and I'm a light sleeper and if someone's sick, I'm getting sick and my immune system's getting rocked. And so I realized very quickly that I didn't have the physical ability to stay there. And then at the same time, there was this, if I'm honest with you and honest with myself, there was this rebellious spirit of wanting to share what I'd learned in a way that resonated with all my friends back in London.

• 30:34Bill Maher?

  You sure did.

• 30:34Speaker 02

  And in a way that I felt would help people that I grew up around. And not that that was discouraged, but it wasn't encouraged. That wasn't the goal of being there. And there was far more of this regimented, fall in line, which is really important for that sacred life. And I respect it. I think it's needed. I just didn't fit in. It's a strange thing to say, but almost after three years of trying to become a monk or being a monk, I realized I wasn't one. And that's almost like the hardest thing. So the first month was the hardest, but the last month was even harder. Because you've kind of used all this self-awareness training to come to the conclusion that I don't think I belong here. But there are things I've learned here that I think are so profound and powerful.

• 31:16Bill Maher?

  This may be a stupid question, but why do you need the torturous physical part? If really what's going on in the mind, you know, why do you have, has it be, has to hurt? I mean, if you don't hurt your back, you wouldn't get to the mind. No, I'm asking legitimately.

• 31:32Speaker 02

  It's a great question. No, it's a great question.

• 31:33Bill Maher?

  Because I mean, couldn't you do it at the Radis?

• 31:37Speaker 02

  You could now, definitely. I do now. I would say that there's a beauty in it because that helps you go beyond the body. Because your body is such an uncomfortable place to live at that point, that you have to go inward into the mind and further deeper. Whereas if you're in the full comforts, you don't actually ever have to go that deep. You don't have to, you're not forced to go and challenge to see what lies beyond the body. And so there was a beauty to it. And while I was there back in, uh, when I was there in January this year, I go back to trying to live as close to that as I can. I'm waking up at four AM. Yes, when I go there now, I'll have a bed because I'm staying uh in quarters that are a bit more

• 32:15Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 32:16Speaker 02

  for visitors as opposed to monks.

• 32:17Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 32:18Speaker 02

  But I'm waking up at four AM, I'm doing the practices. And there's a beauty in it. I'll tell you, Bill, it's, it's so powerful because it just takes you back to realizing how little you can live with, how little you need for that period of time. And it does give you special access to go deeper and go beyond the body. There is a power to it.

• 32:37Bill Maher?

  Are there people who start the program like you did and, and, and flunk out? Just like in the Marines, you know, I mean, they're the people who think they can do the Marines and then it's like, you know.

• 32:50Speaker 02

  I feel like that guy. Yeah, I feel like that guy. That's why when you say I'm strong or whatever, I, I feel like it's the other way around.

• 32:56Bill Maher?

  Were there people who did that, who just went?

• 32:57Speaker 02

  There were more people who stayed than left.

• 33:00Bill Maher?

  But some did leave.

• 33:01Speaker 02

  Of course, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. For different reasons. And, and it's not discouraging.

• 33:05Bill Maher?

  I think I know the reason.

• 33:08Speaker 02

  And you're not discouraged to leave. It just, it feels like a personal failure. I think that's how I felt when I left. There was a, there was definitely a depression hanging over me because it felt like I'd aspired to do something in my twenties, I'd built it up and then I'd failed. And that's how I felt at least internally, so.

• 33:23Bill Maher?

  I was, I was this close some nights, freshman year at Cornell, like wanting to just pack it up and go home.

• 33:31Speaker 02

  Because it was so hard?

• 33:32Bill Maher?

  Because it, because it was so shitty.

• 33:35Speaker 02

  What part of it?

• 33:36Bill Maher?

  Not the academic part. That was what saved me. I did have academic epiphanies at Harvard, at Harvard, uh, Cornell and uh.

• 33:47Bill Maher?

  That was worth, that's what you're going there for. But I did not have the fun college experience. It just wasn't a fun place. And of course, I got myself sort of ostracized in the dorm first year because the kids were like really immature.

• 34:02Speaker 02

  Right.

• 34:02Bill Maher?

  And I was telling them, you know, enough with the shaving cream fights. It's not amusing me anymore. And then, of course, I just made myself a pariah. So like, there was lots of reasons.

• 34:12Speaker 02

  What made you stay?

• 34:14Bill Maher?

  It's what made me think of this. Pride. You know, just you don't want to be the guy who, something in me was like, you know what? If you put your tail between your legs and you go home now and you can't even hack college, your life's not going to turn out well. You, you, this is, something in me knew that this was a trial by fire. My version. Look, people went to Vietnam not that long before this happened. So there are way worse trials by fire. And what you did, I mean, I mean, I just can't imagine the fact that it got to the point where you had to quit because physically, it was, that's, I just don't, but again,

• 34:58Bill Maher?

  connect me to why that makes your mind better.

• 35:02Speaker 02

  Which part? Oh, the, the physical challenge? Because there's, well, first of all, the simplicity of it removes all feelings of I, me and mine. So when you don't have your bed, you now are rolling out a mat anywhere in the room. There's a detachment to that.

• 35:18Bill Maher?

  You got a mat?

• 35:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, with the little yoga mat, like a little thin yoga mat with, with a bed sheet. But like, you don't have a place that's yours. It removes that feeling of ego, that idea of this is my space. This belongs to me.

• 35:32Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 35:33Speaker 02

  It gives you a sense that, hey, this is ours. We, we belong

• 35:35Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 35:36Speaker 02

  Uh, to this space. This is something we all have to maintain because you don't know where you're going to sleep. When you have two sets of clothes, you wear one, you wash one. It again creates that simplicity of independence of taking care of yourself. So all of those physical limitations or simplifications allow you to access these modalities that you wouldn't. Like, you'd never think of detachment if you didn't have anything at all. If you're constantly surrounded by things, it's harder to understand that principle. So I think the extremes help us learn the lesson so that when you're not in the extreme, you can actually find the balance. And so to me, even the, for example, when I'm sitting on the floor and my, my legs hurting, my back's hurting. I'm now having to go beyond the body

• 36:19Speaker 02

  to see if there's something inward to go toward to find peace within. I'm having to find peace in my breath. And by the way, that's true for anyone who bodybuilds today. If someone's working out, it's not fun lifting that weight. You've got to go to your breath to get through that last rep, to push through. That's how it works. So that resistance is a healthy resistance. It's just that I pushed it way too far. I was, I was a bit too, uh, I was a bit too excited to see how far meditation could go and how much I could push my body. I was a young man, I was 22 years old and, you know, not being as mindful as I probably should have. So it wasn't that it had to hurt as bad as it hurt me.

• 36:55Bill Maher?

  But see, this fascinates me now because you see, now you have so many things in your life that beyond what the normal person have, has, which we would consider things that really feed an ego. I mean, you talk to some of the most important, celebrated people in the world, right? Oprah and Obama and who else? You've had every, you know, okay. And you're very successful as money is coming in. I'm sure you're done, you're not burning it in a pile, are you?

• 37:30Speaker 02

  No, no, no.

• 37:31Bill Maher?

  All right. So like, it's just, you must have gotten the bends from coming up from the no chair to Obama, you know? So these things that are ego gratifiers, shall we call them? That most of the world is like with their phone, please like me and see me and give me this shit.

• 37:55Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:56Bill Maher?

  And you got it.

• 37:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 37:59Bill Maher?

  Does it not affect you? Does it, are you, what, what's going on in the, in the two parts of your mind? Where it's like, you got it, some part of you is going to be like, this is cool.

• 38:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm very, I'm very fortunate and grateful that I've got to live two very opposite lives. And it's been extremely, extremely difficult for me to wrap my own head around it. And I mean that.

• 38:21Bill Maher?

  I'm, so I'm saying, I, I can't.

• 38:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, and it's, it's a, and it's, it's a battle every day is the real answer. The, it's a battle every day. Your ego is something that you are. You are working with every day. It's if you.

• 38:37Bill Maher?

  Why are we saying it's a bad thing?

• 38:39Speaker 02

  I'm not saying it's a bad thing.

• 38:40Bill Maher?

  Oh, you're not?

• 38:40Speaker 02

  No, no, no. I'm saying that there's.

• 38:43Bill Maher?

  Some ego is good, right? Don't you need some ego? I mean, that's what Freud says, you know?

• 38:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, there's, well, in the in the Vedic literatures, it's described as real ego and false ego. So the difference is that false ego is when you identify your worth with the thing. False ego is I am worthy because I have.

• 39:02Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 39:03Speaker 02

  Whereas real ego is I'm worthy because I live and breathe and I'm here.

• 39:08Bill Maher?

  Or maybe did something good as opposed to.

• 39:10Speaker 02

  That that would be even the second. The first would just be that I've been given an opportunity to do that. There's worth even in that. There's worth in just living and being and breathing.

• 39:20Bill Maher?

  You you're helping a lot of people now.

• 39:22Speaker 02

  I'm trying to. I'm trying to.

• 39:23Bill Maher?

  Yeah, I think people would say they you have helped them.

• 39:25Speaker 02

  Definitely, yeah.

• 39:26Bill Maher?

  So doesn't that like make you feel good?

• 39:29Speaker 02

  Of course it makes me feel good and there's nothing wrong with that.

• 39:31Bill Maher?

  There's nothing wrong with it.

• 39:32Speaker 02

  No, no, nothing wrong with that. I think I think what it is is it's almost like when you buy into your own hype. I think it's if you walk into a room. I remember watching an interview with Robert Downey Jr. That I loved. He was being interviewed at the Cambridge Union. And he said, when I walk into my house, it's not like my family goes, oh, my God, it's Iron Man. Like, let's, you know. He's like, it's not like that. It's like my wife will be like, can you take the trash out? And I think if you're walking into every room and you're like, oh, yeah, I interviewed this person. Look what I did and look at who I am. I think that is an unhealthy sense of ego. It's an unhealthy sense of self-worth. It it actually will make you extremely lonely and it will actually depress you eventually. So I think that's the kind I'm being cautious of.

• 40:14Bill Maher?

  But now you waded into my area, Jake.

• 40:19Speaker 02

  Go ahead.

• 40:19Bill Maher?

  Because now you talk about celebrities. They're all full of shit. Robert Downey Jr. Does not, his wife does not tell him to take the trash out. Somebody else takes the trash out in that house. He's a fucking movie star. He's got a lot of money. Is all his life rose petals? No, of course not. And he's married, so he's gonna have to, you know, you gotta serve somebody, as Bob Dylan said, you know. Okay, but his life is cushy and lots of people everywhere he goes. Deserved, he's a brilliant actor. Done some amazing work. We could go through his movies.

• 40:54Speaker 02

  Yeah, I love his movies.

• 40:55Bill Maher?

  You know, when he goes out to dinner, you know, he doesn't wait, he gets the best table. He, what I'm saying is, his ego is fed constantly. He's always at award shows.

• 41:05Speaker 02

  And that's where you gotta battle it. That's the point, that's my point. It's harder.

• 41:08Bill Maher?

  If occasionally, you know, at home, he's gotta eat some shit with the, you know, he's, he's not, it's not as simple as my wife tells me to take the trash.

• 41:20Speaker 02

  No, for sure.

• 41:21Bill Maher?

  Celebrities really like to play that up. That I'm just like you.

• 41:25Speaker 02

  But, but no, I, I don't disagree. And I think that's why for me, that's why I'm saying it's a battle. Because if life has become easier and more comfortable, you have to be more cautious, you have to be more aware. Because it's so easy to get lost in that journey. And so I relish the battle, I enjoy it every day. I prefer being in a place now where I'm challenged, where I'm questioned, where I have to think about these things. If anything, it forces me to take more shelter. It forces me to surrender more. It forces me to take my practices more seriously. Because it's almost like, if you're training every day, if you're a, if you're a warrior and you're training every day, but you never go into battle, you don't know how strong you are. So when you're on the battlefield every day and your ego is being pushed up and you're being given all this praise

• 42:10Speaker 02

  and you're given all these accolades and then you have to stay grounded, then you're really figuring out how strong you are. So I think I'm realized or reminded of how weak I am every day. And that's a beautiful reason why I focus on taking so much shelter in my practices.

• 42:24Bill Maher?

  What would you say is the most indulgent, materialistic thing you have in your life?

• 42:29Speaker 02

  Oh, gosh.

• 42:30Bill Maher?

  Right now.

• 42:30Speaker 02

  So many now.

• 42:31Bill Maher?

  Really, so many?

• 42:32Speaker 02

  You mean things?

• 42:33Bill Maher?

  Well, anything. I mean, it can be anything. It can be, you know, I don't know what, I don't know what your tastes are. Maybe, you know, it's a vintage record player. I don't know what you.

• 42:41Speaker 02

  Oh, that's, how did you know? That's a good shot. I have a vintage record player. That's great. That is amazing.

• 42:46Bill Maher?

  Would it give you pleasure?

• 42:47Speaker 02

  That's impressive. I do have a vintage record player. That's what I'm laughing. That's what I'm laughing. I have a, I have a love for design. I have a love, love, love for design. And I love, I love how design can transform spaces.

• 43:02Bill Maher?

  If I find out you have a shark tank, I'm gonna punch you right in the fucking nuts.

• 43:06Speaker 02

  I do not have a shark tank. I have a vintage record player that I love. It's, um, it's a 1960s brawn that a lot of Apple's initials products were designed based on that. And I love it. It's such a beautiful piece that inspires me daily. I was a huge fan of Steve Jobs and so.

• 43:23Bill Maher?

  Really?

• 43:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, big fan of Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs spent a lot of time in India and spent a lot of time, or at least what he did spend time with monks. And so he has quite a spiritual explorative side.

• 43:37Bill Maher?

  Run this one through the spiritual grinder for me. Like, he seemed like the last type, type of guy to die from what he died from.

• 43:48Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:49Bill Maher?

  Like, that's pancreatic. Usually somebody who strikes obese, you know, diabetes. He was skinny.

• 43:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:55Bill Maher?

  You know, he seemed.

• 43:56Speaker 02

  Skinny doesn't mean healthy, though.

• 43:57Bill Maher?

  No, no, not, absolutely not. It's much more complicated than that. I mean, this just shows, we don't know what the fuck.

• 44:04Speaker 02

  Well, at that time too, I think we had very little insight or conversation around gut health, very little conversation about the microbiome, very little conversation about the impacts of sugar, very, you know, we weren't talking about all these things.

• 44:17Bill Maher?

  We were in my life.

• 44:18Speaker 02

  You were?

• 44:19Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 44:19Speaker 02

  Oh, that's amazing. I just didn't know a lot of people growing up.

• 44:22Bill Maher?

  But not, I mean, I, I met, oh, a guy you probably would like a lot because he's a guru. I mean, a literal guru.

• 44:29Speaker 02

  What's his name?

• 44:30Bill Maher?

  Whatever. Dr. Neil, he's, I'm gonna give you his shampoo here. He makes, you know, the only clean shampoo in the world.

• 44:36Speaker 02

  Very cool.

• 44:36Bill Maher?

  Neil Naturopathics and.

• 44:39Bill Maher?

  Uh, he, I've been my holistic doctor for twenty years. Before I went to him, I really wasn't that aware. I was always kind of interested in health. When I was in my twenties, I was too poor to do anything about it. Really? You gotta eat fucking three cheese subs.

• 44:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 44:55Bill Maher?

  When that's all the, you only got a dollar ninety for lunch.

• 44:58Speaker 02

  Totally. I used to eat a Mars bar and drink a Sprite every day.

• 45:01Bill Maher?

  You did?

• 45:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, I grew up eating four chocolate products a day.

• 45:03Bill Maher?

  You're talking about in England as a kid.

• 45:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, in England, I used to eat a chocolate bar, a chocolate yogurt, a chocolate ice cream and a chocolate biscuit every day. My mom was like, I got addicted to chocolate. It took me years to curb my addiction. Years. I was like, that was, that was something that was hard.

• 45:16Bill Maher?

  What, what did you eat? What was the meal planned in the three year?

• 45:20Speaker 02

  So you're, you're eating plant-based and so, and it's all generally Indian dishes. So in the morning, you're eating sometimes a dosa, which is like a thin savory crap. Is the closest I can compare it to. If you've ever had a dosa, it's like South Indian food. It's very like.

• 45:34Bill Maher?

  I, I love Indian food.

• 45:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it's like a thin savory crap.

• 45:37Bill Maher?

  Is it good or is it?

• 45:37Speaker 02

  It's great, it's great.

• 45:38Bill Maher?

  No, even in the, in the monastery?

• 45:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's not indulgent in the sense that you're not, you know, but it's, it's healthy. It's, it's great. It tastes wonderful. Then there's, um, there's upma, which is another Indian delicacy, which is simple. Kichri, which is like mixed vegetables and rice. So you're eating very simply, but you're eating healthy. And it's good, but we'd, we'd be traveling, so you'd be eating things on the road sometimes and it wasn't so great. Sometimes you didn't know when your next meal was gonna come if you were traveling for quite a while. So there would, you know, you'd always try and eat what you had.

• 46:09Bill Maher?

  So you don't ascribe Steve Jobs demise to something woo woo?

• 46:13Speaker 02

  I, I wish I knew, I wish I knew. I don't, I don't know enough about how he ended up with his health challenges.

• 46:18Bill Maher?

  No, but do you think there's some sort of plan or, you know, like, was it always destined that he was going to only live that long? Or, you know, is there a bigger picture to that? Or is it like atheists like me believe everything is fairly random, like club random?

• 46:33Speaker 02

  I mean, I, I would.

• 46:34Bill Maher?

  I literally named the club after it.

• 46:36Speaker 02

  Yeah, I've always found the middle to be where I find my home in that. I think life is both free will and fate. And what I mean by that is that free will creates.

• 46:46Bill Maher?

  You're right.

• 46:47Speaker 02

  Free will creates fate. And so our actions do have an impact. But then there are certain things where we have limited amount of actions to choose from. And so you've got an interplay between fate and free will at any point. I I didn't get to choose where I was born. So there were, there was a limited set of choices. So when I grew up, you could either be a doctor, a lawyer or a failure based on my parents. Those are my three options. And I would, I would never have imagined having a career in media or entertainment or obviously podcasts didn't exist, but I could never imagine being a host. That wasn't even in my vocabulary growing up. And so you start seeing how these intersections of our life kind of limit us and then allow us to flow. So I've always seen this interplay between free will and fate.

• 47:30Speaker 02

  So I live as if my actions matter. I think that's a good way to live. Uh, but then I also accept that my actions matter, but that I can't be deciding of the result. I can't choose where they go.

• 47:41Bill Maher?

  I think you should host Saturday Night Live. I do. I think it'd be really funny.

• 47:47Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 47:47Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 47:48Speaker 02

  Because?

• 47:49Bill Maher?

  Uh, you know, the Swami sketch. You know, uh, you know, just to have a whack at spirituality and, and stuff like that.

• 47:58Speaker 02

  Well, if you encourage it, maybe, maybe from your, uh, when your lips do as soon as yours is.

• 48:02Bill Maher?

  Would you do it?

• 48:03Speaker 02

  I would do it.

• 48:04Bill Maher?

  Yeah, see?

• 48:05Speaker 02

  Definitely I'd do it.

• 48:06Bill Maher?

  Exactly. You're out of the, yay, the monastery's in the rear view, baby.

• 48:10Speaker 02

  I think it's great to laugh at ourselves.

• 48:12Bill Maher?

  We're going full throttle.

• 48:14Speaker 02

  I think if we can't laugh at all the idiosyncrasies of every establishment, it's a, it's a bad, it's a bad idea.

• 48:21Bill Maher?

  Go for it.

• 48:21Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 48:22Bill Maher?

  I want to see you in a Cardi B video. I, I want the whole thing for you.

• 48:26Speaker 02

  It's funny you say that. I always said that Cardi B would be one of my ideal guests on the show because my joy is in not speaking to people that are like me or that look like me or act like me. And my joy is in finding mindfulness within each person I meet.

• 48:40Bill Maher?

  Well, I'm so glad you mentioned mindfulness because she just had a stud put in her ass crack.

• 48:47Speaker 02

  Okay, I didn't know this.

• 48:48Bill Maher?

  No, I.

• 48:49Speaker 02

  Where did you learn that? Ah, how do you come across that on your TikTok algorithm or your, I don't know, your newsfeed or the New York Times newsletter? I don't know.

• 48:59Bill Maher?

  No, one of my writers tried to make a joke out of it.

• 49:02Speaker 02

  And it didn't work?

• 49:03Bill Maher?

  What's funny about Nicki Minaj? I mean, uh, Cardi B, having her ass crack pierced.

• 49:11Speaker 02

  That sounds uncomfortable.

• 49:12Bill Maher?

  Bring me something that's naturally funny. No, uh, I, I was like, it's almost too obvious. And I, you know, and also it's a bad taste and I'm just, well, wait a minute, I am all about bad taste. Anyway, uh, but yeah.

• 49:24Bill Maher?

  Cardi B, you, I could see it.

• 49:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, I could see it. Maybe on my tour, I'm about to go on tour with the podcast.

• 49:31Bill Maher?

  I know.

• 49:32Speaker 02

  So I'm excited for that.

• 49:33Bill Maher?

  You know, I blame the pot. I forget the plugs.

• 49:36Speaker 02

  Oh, no, you don't need to unplug it. It's fine.

• 49:38Bill Maher?

  That was, but really, that was, that was so good, the way you did that.

• 49:43Speaker 02

  I'm excited about it. I'm really looking forward to it.

• 49:45Bill Maher?

  I don't blame you, and you should be. And tell me all about it. I hear you're going on tour with the podcast.

• 49:50Speaker 02

  Thank you for the plug. I really appreciate it. That's so kind of you.

• 49:53Bill Maher?

  I never forget anything.

• 49:55Speaker 02

  No, I'm really excited. We're taking the podcast on tour for the first time ever. So the podcast is over six years old now. It's been an incredible journey and this is the year I thought it would be nice to go.

• 50:04Bill Maher?

  Incredible success.

• 50:05Speaker 02

  Yeah, it would be nice to go and meet the community. We've had millions of fans that have been so loyal over the six years.

• 50:10Bill Maher?

  What will be different about it live or nothing?

• 50:12Speaker 02

  I think what will be different about it is I'm gonna get to interact with the audience. The audience is gonna get to interact with the guests, ask questions. I wanna open it up.

• 50:19Bill Maher?

  When you say interact with the audience, so they'll like do the thing where they pass the mic around?

• 50:22Speaker 02

  I'm gonna love to go out there and see people, give people hugs, meet people, hold hands. I'm like excited to get out there and look people in the eyes and thank them for this.

• 50:29Bill Maher?

  I don't think that's a good idea.

• 50:31Speaker 02

  I, I love it. I enjoy it. I like being with you.

• 50:33Bill Maher?

  I mean, there's gonna be a lot of people.

• 50:34Speaker 02

  I know, but it'll be fun.

• 50:36Bill Maher?

  It's gonna take a long time to get through the whole crowd.

• 50:38Speaker 02

  No, no, not through the whole crowd. I'm not gonna get through the whole crowd.

• 50:41Bill Maher?

  Who gets selected for that?

• 50:43Speaker 02

  I don't know. We'll find out.

• 50:44Bill Maher?

  I know, but then, see, now we're, now we're breaking down into, you know, the VIPs and the people who don't get the hug. You see the problem?

• 50:52Speaker 02

  Well, no, but it's random choice. It's club random. There's no, there's no rhyme or reason. It's random.

• 50:57Bill Maher?

  Anybody who buys a ticket to your show is gonna wanna give you a hug.

• 51:02Speaker 02

  Okay.

• 51:02Bill Maher?

  And either you're gonna give 6,000 hugs.

• 51:05Speaker 02

  I can't do that.

• 51:05Bill Maher?

  Exactly.

• 51:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, it would be impossible. I'd love to.

• 51:08Bill Maher?

  And now what we're down to is some people get it and some people don't. And now you're in the worst kind of areas of ego and division and all the stuff that you.

• 51:17Speaker 02

  You think so?

• 51:19Bill Maher?

  If you do something where there's a VIP experience.

• 51:22Speaker 02

  No, that's not what I'm saying. I'm saying, as in, I would just go out into the audience. I'm not saying in a second.

• 51:26Bill Maher?

  Okay, but you just said you're not gonna do all 6,000 of them.

• 51:29Speaker 02

  No, of course not. But here's, here's the thing.

• 51:30Bill Maher?

  Then who gets it?

• 51:31Speaker 02

  Here's the thing, the, the community I have, and I, I know this because I went on a, a one-man tour on my own show two years ago. Uh, when my book came out in 2023, I went on a tour, but it was just me. It wasn't a podcast. I'm not kidding you, Bill, and I really hope that you'll get to come. I really, I would love for you to be there. One thing that everyone said, so part of my event was me bringing people up on stage, asking people to do uncomfortable things that I believed were powerful for growth. So we had everything from setting a couple up randomly on a date on stage, through to me putting a person inside a solitude cave to meditate for 15 minutes during the show with a question.

• 52:10Bill Maher?

  And then sawing them in half?

• 52:11Speaker 02

  No, no, no, I wanted to do that bit, but they said it was legally difficult, so we missed that one. Yeah, that would have been amazing. Yeah, that would have been amazing. And then we, you know, to the point at the end of the show where I asked people to call someone in their life that they hadn't told they loved for a long time. And they did that live on stage. It was really beautiful, but here's, the reason I'm telling you all that is my community rallied behind each of those people in a way you've never seen before. And I saw the audience, you saw 5,000, 6,000 people rally behind this one person who was having this experience. Whether they were in that solitude cube, whether they made the call, whether they told the whole audience about a breakup that they just went through or a tough divorce. You saw the whole audience run and hug that person.

• 52:56Speaker 02

  So I believe that even if I can't hug 6,000 people, 6,000 people will walk away with a hug from someone else in the audience. And it'll be that much more powerful because my audience and my community is all about building that rather than it being around me. It's not about me making something incredible happen, it's about them feeling that from each other.

• 53:14Bill Maher?

  Are we sure not, we're not becoming a mega church?

• 53:17Speaker 02

  That's a great question, and uh...

• 53:21Bill Maher?

  Are we sure? I'm just, I think you're doing great. I'm just trying to watch you, the guardrails, because I'm in this business, and I know I've seen, you know, you don't want to end up like Britney Spears. You don't want to be shaving the head, hitting people with the umbrella.

• 53:36Speaker 02

  I already shaved the head. That's good, yeah, I got the head back, so no more shaving my head now, I like my hair.

• 53:42Bill Maher?

  Frank, you're not allowed to have hair there.

• 53:44Speaker 02

  You're not allowed to have hair because...

• 53:46Bill Maher?

  Just like the Marines, the first thing they do.

• 53:48Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's great detachment and you...

• 53:50Bill Maher?

  And you have such a nice head of hair.

• 53:52Speaker 02

  Thank you, I appreciate it.

• 53:53Bill Maher?

  You're gonna love this shampoo.

• 53:54Speaker 02

  Really? I'm looking forward to using it. Great plug. That was, that was good.

• 53:57Bill Maher?

  No, but it's true. It's the only truly natural shampoo there is in the world.

• 54:01Speaker 02

  Really?

• 54:01Bill Maher?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:02Speaker 02

  I love a new shampoo.

• 54:03Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 54:03Speaker 02

  I'll try it out tonight.

• 54:04Bill Maher?

  This guy's been in India a million times.

• 54:06Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 54:06Bill Maher?

  He fucking loves India.

• 54:08Speaker 02

  I love it.

• 54:08Bill Maher?

  George Harrison loved India.

• 54:09Speaker 02

  Oh, really?

• 54:10Bill Maher?

  I mean, that kind of-

• 54:11Speaker 02

  George Harrison loved India. I know that.

• 54:12Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah.

• 54:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah.

• 54:14Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah. I mean, he got the whole Beatles to go.

• 54:16Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 54:17Bill Maher?

  I mean, Ringo left after two weeks. Ringo was like, "I'm not staying on the floor." And he missed his English food and, you know.

• 54:26Speaker 02

  Yeah, of course. It's, it's, it's different. It's hard, but-

• 54:29Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, I don't know if you believe this. Certainly people from that, shall we say, realm of religious thinking believe this, that we're all at different stages because we've been reincarnated different times. And you can't hate people like me and Ringo. We just haven't been reincarnated that many times. I mean, like, it's very doubtful that at the almost at the age of seventy that I'm gonna suddenly have this.

• 54:56Speaker 02

  Who knows? Who knows?

• 54:58Bill Maher?

  Who knows? Never say never, but I don't think I'm gonna go and do the three year on the floor thing.

• 55:03Speaker 02

  No, not three years. Not three years.

• 55:04Bill Maher?

  Not three minutes.

• 55:05Speaker 02

  Maybe three days.

• 55:06Bill Maher?

  I mean, but, but maybe after I've been reincarn- and this is what they would say. Maybe if, after I've been reincarnated four or five more times, I will be at- Do you, is that the way you see it? Like, you think you probably have just been reincarnated more times? So you're at a, you're closer to where we're getting, where we are a being beyond our, our, you know, burdensome, physical body.

• 55:30Speaker 02

  I don't, I don't claim to have any of that evolution. I, I think that there's a- We're living at a beautiful time where the greatest gift of spirituality is available to anyone and everyone. Because it's so talked about.

• 55:44Bill Maher?

  How do you define spirituality?

• 55:46Speaker 02

  Uh, the ability to learn about the self. That's as simply as that.

• 55:50Bill Maher?

  The self?

• 55:50Speaker 02

  The self. Yeah. The, the ability to learn about the real, true self. I think that conversation is so widespread today. It's so accessible today. There's podcasts, there's books, there's social media pages. It's- Everywhere, so the ability for anyone and anyone.

• 56:05Bill Maher?

  See, I think I know myself, as most people my age do. If you haven't known, yeah, haven't caught on by now.

• 56:11Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:11Bill Maher?

  Uh, but I think you're talking about a different kind of knowledge. Maybe I don't know myself at all. That, that's, I, I am absolutely open to entertaining that possibility.

• 56:21Speaker 02

  I think it starts there, right? I think it starts there. It starts with, I mean, the one thing you do know is which movies you love. And, and, and I often, it's funny you said, and, and I'm not, I'm just being serious. I think sometimes I ask people, I'm like, hey, what kind of movies do you like? And we don't know what we like to eat. We don't like, know what we like to watch. We don't know what we, you know, we don't really know that much about ourselves, even starting there.

• 56:40Bill Maher?

  No, those are things we do know.

• 56:41Speaker 02

  I, I would hope so, but I would tell you.

• 56:43Bill Maher?

  We do know what we wanna eat.

• 56:44Speaker 02

  Most couples argue every night about what they should eat.

• 56:46Bill Maher?

  No, they argue what the other one wants to eat. They don't know, they know what they wanna eat. What they argue about is their, they ask their wife.

• 56:55Speaker 02

  And they don't agree.

• 56:55Bill Maher?

  Where do you wanna go? And she says, I don't care, you pick.

• 56:58Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 56:58Bill Maher?

  And then the first six ones, she vetoes.

• 57:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, it's over. But, but I think that self-awareness has many levels. And I, I think what I'm saying is that I think mental is important. I think physical is important. I think emotional is important. And then I'm saying spiritual on a soul consciousness level, it's important.

• 57:13Bill Maher?

  But that, that's not easy, but it's available is what I'm saying.

• 57:16Speaker 02

  So I don't believe that I'm more evolved or I've lived more lives, therefore I know more. I believe that it's accessible today. I got very lucky. I met some remarkably compassionate and kind people. And they opened up the doors for me. And I believe that that's all I'm trying to do for anyone else, so.

• 57:33Bill Maher?

  Swami, can I ask you this one?

• 57:39Bill Maher?

  All right, um.

• 57:42Bill Maher?

  I'm with you on all this, but psychiatry, kinda bullshit, right? And this is why I say, like, on the level that I'm talking about, knowing myself.

• 57:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 57:51Bill Maher?

  Not on your level.

• 57:52Speaker 02

  Have you been to a psychiatrist or therapist or?

• 57:55Bill Maher?

  Briefly, under duress.

• 57:59Speaker 02

  Talk to me about this situation.

• 58:00Bill Maher?

  I want to, you can help me. Okay, so, but in general, my view was always like, because my, well, I shouldn't say that, that's too personal. But somebody I know. Went and I know fooled them. Because I know myself. And when somebody who just met me is like telling me about my life. It's all I can do to stifle a laugh. Like you think you could possibly know me better than me? I have all my memories. Now, I may be wrong about some things and. But basically, I think I'm gonna trust my judgment about me more than you. That may not be true for all people. To me, that's. My problem with psychiatry.

• 58:44Speaker 02

  Yeah, I don't think a guru, a therapist, a coach, a teacher should be telling you about.

• 58:49Bill Maher?

  I think those are different things that you're lumping together.

• 58:51Speaker 02

  I'm lumping them together because I think they're all positions of authority in someone's life and can become. That's why I'm lumping them together that there isn't the ability, like a guru, a teacher.

• 59:01Bill Maher?

  A guru doesn't do what a psychiatrist does.

• 59:03Speaker 02

  No, they don't, but they but I don't think anyone should be telling you about you. I think everyone should be inquiring and asking you questions that help you learn about yourself.

• 59:12Bill Maher?

  Well, that's exactly what a shrink would say they do.

• 59:14Speaker 02

  Which is not a bad thing.

• 59:15Bill Maher?

  It's not a bad thing, but it's also kind of a bullshit thing.

• 59:18Speaker 02

  You really believe that?

• 59:19Bill Maher?

  I do. Well, I did have an experience.

• 59:21Speaker 02

  You've never been asked a great question by someone that you felt helped you learn more about yourself?

• 59:25Bill Maher?

  I'm telling you, bro, it was everything I could do to not laugh out loud.

• 59:31Speaker 02

  Maybe, but it's like dating, right? That's like a bad date. That's like a bad.

• 59:34Bill Maher?

  You're right.

• 59:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:35Bill Maher?

  There are good and bad in every profession.

• 59:37Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly. That's a bad day.

• 59:38Bill Maher?

  And maybe this person is good, but for me, it was just a joke.

• 59:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, it's like a bad day. And if you didn't pick the person to go on a date with and you were forced to go on a date with them, that's even worse.

• 59:47Bill Maher?

  It just got to also just asking me. I felt like no matter what I said, no matter how arbitrary what I said.

• 59:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 59:54Bill Maher?

  To this psychiatrist.

• 59:54Speaker 02

  They would find something profound in it.

• 59:56Bill Maher?

  Correct.

• 59:56Speaker 02

  Right, right, right, yeah.

• 59:57Bill Maher?

  I mean, I literally listened to this. I don't remember the details, so forgive me, but we went into the. My family history, as they always do. My mother and father were both in World War II. My mother, an army nurse, was in London during the Blitz.

• 1:00:15Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:00:16Bill Maher?

  Yeah, and some nervousness or anxiety that I'd carried from my mother being in that situation into me, even though it was 12 years later that I was born. And again, just could almost not stop from laughing out loud.

• 1:00:31Speaker 02

  Right.

• 1:00:31Bill Maher?

  Like, it just made me think. Some of this is valuable. There are people who really, you know, their minds are messed up and they do need therapy and it can help and it does. But for all those people on the Upper West Side who are just having normal fucking Upper West Side problems, it's just an indulgence that you could never entertain if you were poor. It's a rich man's indulgence. Talk about white people's privilege, going to hiring a friend to listen to you rattle on about your fake problems.

• 1:01:06Speaker 02

  But isn't that the challenge that we need friends? Isn't that, isn't that the real call to action here where?

• 1:01:11Bill Maher?

  Yes, but the answer is not to hire one who calls themselves a shrink.

• 1:01:16Speaker 02

  Sometimes that's where people start, right? Like they, as in that's sadly where they're at.

• 1:01:21Bill Maher?

  I feel like anytime you're hiring someone, whether it's a prostitute or in a personal position, you're going down the wrong road.

• 1:01:31Speaker 02

  I, I, I look at it this way, I mean, it's, it's simple. It's, it's, it's a simple assessment, but I think it makes sense that there, there are some parts that are really useful and important and skills that will help people. And like you have a holistic doctor, like you said.

• 1:01:43Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:01:44Speaker 02

  Some people will be like, oh, holistic doctors are BS. Like that's what they would think and but you've seen great value from them.

• 1:01:50Bill Maher?

  There is things he said, there are things he's talked about, which I do think are BS and he knows that, that's okay. I also have Western doctors. I think you need both.

• 1:01:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, you do and I fully agree.

• 1:01:59Bill Maher?

  And, and you know, I mean, we're very good friends, so it's, I'm not insulting him, but yes, parts of what he believes and, and he has enveloped in his practice, because he's very serious about that part of his life, I think are too inflected with things that are based in religion, based in Buddhism and, you know, I mean, some of it, chakras and, you know, emotions in your organs. I don't discount anything because I don't think people know shit.

• 1:02:31Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 1:02:31Bill Maher?

  I mean, that's my main above the. Above the credits title for everything I think about medicine is we don't know that much.

• 1:02:41Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:41Bill Maher?

  We know so much more than we used to and people conflate that with we know pretty much everything now.

• 1:02:47Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:47Bill Maher?

  And it's like, no, in not just a hundred years.

• 1:02:51Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:02:51Bill Maher?

  Maybe with AI two years.

• 1:02:53Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:02:53Bill Maher?

  We'll be going, whoa, that's what we thought in 2025?

• 1:02:57Speaker 02

  Yeah. Well, that's why I want to encourage a more nuanced conversation with what we're saying because I think we're so good these days of labeling something as useless or relevant or useful or, you know, irrelevant. And I think it's so much more nuanced than that. It's like therapy can be incredible and it can be challenging or it can be condescending. It can be whatever it is, just like anything else. And so it's like having a nuanced conversation and going, yeah, actually, well, you know, my like, I agree with you. I like having Western medicine and Eastern medicine in my life. I value both. And I think both have value. And I think the challenge becomes when we go, well, oh, that's just, you know, whatever. I think when you throw something to the side like that, it's kind of the easy way out, actually, because it is easier to just discount something without actually.

• 1:03:41Bill Maher?

  To me, the main contribution, although there are many, I could break down specifics in the hundreds of Eastern medicine is the idea that there is a mind-body connection.

• 1:03:53Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:03:53Bill Maher?

  And that when you just diagnose by the numbers on the, on the blood work you just did, you're getting a part of the picture.

• 1:04:02Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 1:04:02Bill Maher?

  But it's so not all of the picture. And until Western medicine recognizes that, don't ask me for my blind obedience.

• 1:04:12Speaker 02

  And the second brain, the gut. The gut is such a core part of Eastern health. My, my wife's.

• 1:04:17Bill Maher?

  I mean, do we even know where the immune system is?

• 1:04:20Speaker 02

  I'm not sure. Yeah. But the gut and the brain.

• 1:04:22Bill Maher?

  But probably the gut.

• 1:04:24Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:24Bill Maher?

  Because. Humans will fuck anything and put anything in their mouth. So the place where you need like the most awesome kind of defense is the gut.

• 1:04:38Speaker 02

  Is the gut.

• 1:04:39Bill Maher?

  Cause they will put anything down their gullet.

• 1:04:41Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 1:04:42Bill Maher?

  I mean, humans, not good people, am I wrong?

• 1:04:45Speaker 02

  Ah, well, yeah, we're doing all right, we're doing all right.

• 1:04:47Bill Maher?

  You think we're doing all right?

• 1:04:48Speaker 02

  No, we're not, we're, we're, we're not doing all right.

• 1:04:51Bill Maher?

  Gee, that didn't take long to break you down.

• 1:04:53Speaker 02

  I was trying to be encouraging, I was trying to be, no, I, I mean, the challenge is we keep repeating the same mistakes.

• 1:04:58Bill Maher?

  No, actually, we are.

• 1:04:59Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:04:59Bill Maher?

  Actually, it's amazing.

• 1:05:01Speaker 02

  It's amazing we've survived most of all of our mistakes.

• 1:05:03Bill Maher?

  Considering how nuts people are.

• 1:05:06Speaker 02

  Totally.

• 1:05:06Bill Maher?

  That the lid stays on and it could fall off tomorrow.

• 1:05:09Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:05:10Bill Maher?

  But in America, I mean, don't get me started on the people who just don't understand because they have no perspective of what the rest of the world is like, what their life could be like, what their life would have been like a hundred years ago. They have this dumb idea, the kid, a lot of the kids that, um, we're living at the worst time in the worst country. No assholes, you're living at actually the best time. And even with our flaws, go ahead, try it.

• 1:05:38Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:05:38Bill Maher?

  Live in Mauritania, which I believe is a steamship.

• 1:05:41Speaker 02

  But that's a psychological challenge, isn't it? It's like we can only see as far back as we can see and that rear view mirror is just smaller and smaller as we.

• 1:05:51Bill Maher?

  So you grew up in what town?

• 1:05:54Speaker 02

  North London. Yeah, North London.

• 1:05:55Bill Maher?

  And your parents were together?

• 1:05:57Speaker 02

  Yes.

• 1:05:58Bill Maher?

  And what do they do?

• 1:05:59Speaker 02

  My mother was a financial advisor and my dad was an accountant.

• 1:06:04Bill Maher?

  And did they bring you up with a religion?

• 1:06:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, I grew up in a Hindu household.

• 1:06:08Bill Maher?

  Hindu?

• 1:06:09Speaker 02

  Yeah, in a, what I would call a ritualistic household. And what I mean by that is you follow the rituals, you don't know why, you do the practices, you don't know why. There isn't a depth to that practice, there's a ritual, traditional aspect to it.

• 1:06:21Bill Maher?

  Well, you must have seen Slumdog Millionaire.

• 1:06:23Speaker 02

  I have seen Slumdog Millionaire, I was older.

• 1:06:27Bill Maher?

  I had to get in one.

• 1:06:28Speaker 02

  I have seen Slumdog.

• 1:06:29Bill Maher?

  That's a great movie.

• 1:06:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a great movie.

• 1:06:31Bill Maher?

  I'm sorry, I was being facetious, but.

• 1:06:35Bill Maher?

  So, okay, so you were brought up and when you say, yeah, because it's a hard religion to define.

• 1:06:42Speaker 02

  What's that?

• 1:06:43Bill Maher?

  Hindu, isn't it not? Because it's like all gods and one god, you know, like they just, as opposed to like the Christians and the Muslims who are like, we have the god and if you disagree, we're gonna fucking kill you.

• 1:06:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:06:56Bill Maher?

  Hindu is more like, let's, we'll incorporate you. You'll become one of our gods.

• 1:07:01Speaker 02

  Yeah, the philosoph- Well, no, the philosophical understanding is that there is one god, but there are many gods that take care of different departments. So you could think of it like the president and the cabinet, or like-

• 1:07:11Bill Maher?

  Or like saints.

• 1:07:12Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:12Bill Maher?

  People pray to the saints.

• 1:07:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, there are different gods for different parts of management of the universe, is how it's seen.

• 1:07:18Bill Maher?

  I mean, I was told as a little Catholic boy, there is one god, the nuns. We're very, very prideful about that. Like, I think they thought that made us superior in the West, you know, like, we have one god as opposed to those heathens and pagans and people in the shithole countries who have many gods, uh-huh, primitive. We have one god and his name is God.

• 1:07:40Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:41Bill Maher?

  And he has a son who's also God.

• 1:07:42Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:43Bill Maher?

  And there's a ghost who's also, I'm like, fuck, we're becoming Hindu. But no, really, I mean, three gods, you know, already we're in a polytheistic religion. And you can pray to the saints.

• 1:07:56Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:07:56Bill Maher?

  I remember that, Saint Christopher, you know what that is? It's a big thing like in, in Christian countries.

• 1:08:02Speaker 02

  Well, you've got someone on your team who I met earlier, his name's Vaivu.

• 1:08:05Bill Maher?

  Yes.

• 1:08:06Speaker 02

  Just such a cool name and I asked him straight away, where did you get that name? It's a very rare name, you wouldn't hear it.

• 1:08:11Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:08:12Speaker 02

  And Vaivu's the god of air, like, you know.

• 1:08:14Bill Maher?

  God of air?

• 1:08:15Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. And so, it's a beautiful name, but it's like, there's, there's a, there's a god for every aspect. Everything has a personal aspect, nothing's impersonal in the world.

• 1:08:26Bill Maher?

  So what have you incorporated from that in your, in your teachings today?

• 1:08:31Speaker 02

  In my teachings or in my personal life?

• 1:08:34Bill Maher?

  Your teachings.

• 1:08:35Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I don't, my teachings are definitely the practices, the habits, the mindsets I learned, not the religious aspects. I feel that faith and belief in God is an individual journey.

• 1:08:46Bill Maher?

  Philosophical from it made its way into the...

• 1:08:49Speaker 02

  Philosophical for sure, not theological, I would say. Because I believe that theological belief is a, is a personal choice, is a personal exploration. I think your relationship with God is individual and I encourage it, it's beautiful.

• 1:09:02Bill Maher?

  But there is something called God.

• 1:09:04Speaker 02

  In the Vedic tradition, yes, for sure. Yeah, for sure.

• 1:09:07Bill Maher?

  So you kept that?

• 1:09:08Speaker 02

  No, no, no. So in my teachings, I'm very focused on how people can build the qualities, the characteristics, the mindsets, the beliefs, the values of living a mindful life. I'm not trying to get people to follow a certain God or believe in God.

• 1:09:25Bill Maher?

  When you get feedback from people, what do you think, or I'm sure you know, what is the area that most of them say they help, that you help them with?

• 1:09:35Speaker 02

  Purpose, meaning.

• 1:09:36Bill Maher?

  Purpose? That's so vague. What does that mean?

• 1:09:39Speaker 02

  Well, like, well, I mean, it could be anything. It could be I was on the verge of committing suicide and now I believe my life is of worth and value and has meaning. It could be, I went through a divorce and I lost all sense of self-worth and now I know that I have value and purpose and meaning to my life. It could be,

• 1:09:55Bill Maher?

  Okay.

• 1:09:55Speaker 02

  Hey, I, you know, I just came out of college and I've just been stuck and confused and don't know what I'm meant to do and now I feel I've found my path. So those are the different types of things people could say.

• 1:10:05Bill Maher?

  Yeah. I mean, you do have to have a purpose in life.

• 1:10:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, and I think it's the hardest thing to find because we've had, we've made our value and purpose as humans defined by what we do. The question, what you do, is not only the number one question you are asked, it's become the primary way. If you think about it, even just a few years ago, all of our names started being defined by what we do. Baker, blacksmith. Like, when you look at the names and how they evolved. It became about occupation. So our whole identity has revolved around occupation, not purpose. And then if you look at how society has changed, towns and cities in the past would be built around a church. You could see the cross from anywhere, or a temple, you could see the chakra from anywhere in India.

• 1:10:49Speaker 02

  Then as time went on, you had the state building, you could see the flag from anywhere. So we went from God to country. And then if you look at it today, you'll see the skyscraper from anywhere. So we went from God to country to money. So you can see the change of purpose and value in the simple building of buildings. Because humans are basic. We define what's valuable by what's the tallest thing in the in the town. And so when you look at that, you look at how no wonder people have made their job feel like the entirety of their identity and purpose. And so I think while some people like me and you, it seems like you've loved what you've done your whole life. You're still doing it. It's purposeful to you and meaningful to you.

• 1:11:27Bill Maher?

  Well.

• 1:11:29Speaker 02

  Maybe not.

• 1:11:30Bill Maher?

  No, I've got you. Maybe I can just, you're such a smart person, but maybe I can shed light on something that you would not know because of the age I'm at. I'm almost seventy. Every decade of your life, I feel like when I look back, you have a different. There's a theme to every decade, like in my ten to twenty, before ten, I don't, I don't know, get baseball cards or something. But ten to twenty was like survive. High school, hazing, college, more of the same, the breakup with the girl. It was just like survive. Just like, like, like I might not make it. And by the way, throughout history, like children mostly didn't, or at least half of them didn't.

• 1:12:15Bill Maher?

  It wasn't until, again, to the point about you're living in the best age. Like, we assume most kids are gonna make it. Most kids didn't, at least half didn't for most of history. Okay, twenties was like be a success. Like, I know what I want to do. I knew I wanted to be a comedian when I was eight or something. Like, now you're doing it. Don't be a fucking failure. Because this is the kind of business, it's great if you succeed, and it's nothing if you don't. So just don't fucking fail. Thirties, when I was actually starting to succeed, then it was like. Get girls.

• 1:12:57Bill Maher?

  This didn't happen enough in my teenage years, in my twenties. Let's get girls. Forties.

• 1:13:05Bill Maher?

  More girls.

• 1:13:09Bill Maher?

  Fifties. All right, girls, but this is the last. Fifties, it starts to be. You're going back to survive, live. Stop doing the things that your body cannot take you doing anymore because they will kill you.

• 1:13:27Bill Maher?

  You can't drink like that, you know, you just can't, you can't have unprotected sex or whatever the fuck you were doing. Stop doing it. And where I'm at now. It's funny because, you know, survive.

• 1:13:43Bill Maher?

  Don't retire because purpose. You kind of know. If you lose the purpose in life. You're gonna die.

• 1:13:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:53Bill Maher?

  People have done it.

• 1:13:54Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:13:54Bill Maher?

  Like within weeks, Andy Rooney was on 60 Minutes. He quit or we fired or whatever. He was like dead in a week. It's like, you know, it's funny when you get fired from a show and then you're in a coffin. I mean, it was crazy.

• 1:14:10Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:11Bill Maher?

  But that's what's because, you know, it's an ageist country. So like you never know.

• 1:14:17Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:18Bill Maher?

  When they're just gonna and then what do you do all day?

• 1:14:22Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:14:22Bill Maher?

  And you have to have a reason to get up. You have to want to live.

• 1:14:26Speaker 02

  But that's what I'm saying that you were, you were fortunate. And I've been fortunate to find it in our work. But I think the challenge has become that.

• 1:14:33Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:14:34Speaker 02

  If work is your only place of value. That's not a healthy way to live.

• 1:14:39Bill Maher?

  And this is going to get only worse because AI. Is already and will in the future take ever more jobs. There's ever more things that people used to at least feel valuable and useful. Maybe I'm just.

• 1:14:52Speaker 02

  Useful is the right word.

• 1:14:53Bill Maher?

  Maybe I'm just a cog in the big machine here at gigantic enterprises. But I'm doing and AI is going to take that job. Zuckerberg was bragging about it the other day and so was the guy from Nvidia. You know, oh, I think in the future AI is going to do a lot of these mid level coding jobs. Great, they can all work in a coal mine. What's gonna happen then?

• 1:15:17Speaker 02

  Yeah, and that's why we the works needed even more right now. Because people are gonna have to use that time, space.

• 1:15:23Bill Maher?

  These tech fucks don't care.

• 1:15:25Speaker 02

  I, I, yeah, I mean.

• 1:15:26Bill Maher?

  They really don't. They're, they're, you know what it is? I understand when you, something you're good at, we love to do things we're good at.

• 1:15:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:15:35Bill Maher?

  I don't play tennis. I tried it. I wasn't good at it. I'm good at basketball. I play that. You know, you're good at soccer.

• 1:15:42Speaker 02

  I'm okay.

• 1:15:43Bill Maher?

  I think you're probably pretty good. So, you know, they're, they're good at creating new uh, instruments of technology. They don't really care what the repercussions are. The phone fucked up people's mind. They don't really care.

• 1:16:00Speaker 02

  Well, I always say this.

• 1:16:01Bill Maher?

  AI is gonna do it worse. They just don't care because it's fun. It's fun to do your hobby.

• 1:16:06Speaker 02

  Yeah. I think if an inventor creates something that they don't want their children to use, it tells you everything. I always think about it that way.

• 1:16:13Bill Maher?

  Great point.

• 1:16:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, if you invent something and you keep it away from your children, that says a lot.

• 1:16:19Bill Maher?

  It says a lot about your hypocrisy.

• 1:16:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I think it all comes back to the root challenge that there is nowhere in our education system where someone learns that they should build things to help people. That just doesn't come up. It doesn't exist. I studied at Cass Business School and, you know, got a decent education and a first class honors degree and service or helping people or being of service to others was something I would never even have come across if I didn't meet the monks because that was their way of living. And I remember giving a talk about this a few years back at a big corporation. It was one of their big annual events and I was on stage. I was talking about the value of service.

• 1:17:03Speaker 02

  And this one man came up to me and he was in his thirties and he said to me, you know what? I never thought about anyone else apart from myself until I had a child. And that was the first time he said, and he was being really vulnerable, and he said, I've never thought about anyone beyond my child.

• 1:17:18Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:17:18Speaker 02

  And so I'm thinking, when anyone's creating anything in the world, we're rarely thinking about how this affects someone's child, someone's son, someone's daughter, someone's parents, someone's whoever it is, because that was never the goal of society. The goal of you creating something was to win and success in your twenties to thirties and get girls. And so if the goal was, if the goal was to be successful and get girls, then where did helping people come into any part?

• 1:17:44Bill Maher?

  Right.

• 1:17:45Speaker 02

  And so I think that's what the challenge is, that we've got to figure out that. It's like, how do you?

• 1:17:49Bill Maher?

  No, you're right. I had to get past, not that I was a bad person, but I had to get past.

• 1:17:54Speaker 02

  I don't think anyone's a bad person.

• 1:17:55Bill Maher?

  No, but I had to get past that phase in my life where I thought I had been gypped out of a fun adolescent, which I was, kind of, like I had one girlfriend and she broke my heart. And then, you know, the, it was just.

• 1:18:07Speaker 02

  That's how it always goes.

• 1:18:07Bill Maher?

  Then for years, it was just terrible. And, and, and then, and then I got nicer again because, because I could afford to, because, you know, it's actually the people, I'm sure young people think, oh my God, fifties and sixties, they're actually the, the best times as far as, like, you've established yourself, you're comfortable in your own skin, you're doing better. Yeah, there are issues with it that are not ideal, but on balance, yeah, I'm much happier.

• 1:18:34Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:18:35Bill Maher?

  Partly, mostly because you are just comfortable with who you are. You know who you are, you know what works for you, you know what doesn't. I mean, I'm not going to go to the madrassa, not that it's a madrassa. By the way, did they ever have, so that three years, there was no like break where like you get a week off?

• 1:18:54Speaker 02

  I would travel to different monasteries, so I wasn't just there. We would go to Europe and, for example, we were teaching meditation on the street of Europe.

• 1:19:03Bill Maher?

  But you didn't go like to like Hong Kong, like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now, where you're in a hotel room and you're like, I gotta get back in the.

• 1:19:09Speaker 02

  You're in monasteries across Europe, so I was going to London, I was living in monasteries there. I was going off to give classes at colleges, I was living in monasteries in Europe. I would then go back to India. So you're moving around, you're not in one place, because it's encouraged for you to be with. Different communities. I remember, you know, being in Scandinavia, teaching meditation on the streets. It was the most unique experience I've ever had. People were so open and excited to learn. It was pretty remarkable.

• 1:19:32Bill Maher?

  So where do you, so your decades, you've only had basically.

• 1:19:36Speaker 02

  I'm in, I'm thirty seven.

• 1:19:38Bill Maher?

  Right, so you've had three, basically three decades to assess. And they, they are, like I said, even though they're very different, very different for you.

• 1:19:47Speaker 02

  Yes, very different.

• 1:19:48Bill Maher?

  Like, right, okay, so what do you think the forties decade is gonna be? What's gonna be your assessment of that when you come to the end of that one?

• 1:19:55Speaker 02

  I would, so I'm, I definitely know from a health point of view, when you were saying in the fifties, you learned what you could and couldn't do.

• 1:20:01Bill Maher?

  Yeah.

• 1:20:01Speaker 02

  I, at least now I know that the, the magical decade to solve it is thirty five to forty five. That's like the time when you can really reverse aging and start that process. So I'm definitely focused on that from a health point of view. I hope that I can do that. That's a big priority.

• 1:20:18Bill Maher?

  I missed that one.

• 1:20:19Speaker 02

  Yeah, that's a big priority for me, for sure.

• 1:20:20Bill Maher?

  I missed that completely.

• 1:20:22Speaker 02

  Yeah, no, I'm grateful. That's what I'm saying. I think these conversations are being talked about more. I'm, you know, I'm getting the fortune on my podcast to sit down with the greatest minds in health and wellness every single week.

• 1:20:32Bill Maher?

  That, I know what you're referring to there. They recently discovered, or at least it was in the news recently, that aging doesn't happen completely incrementally, year by year. It happens sort of in jumps.

• 1:20:49Speaker 02

  Hmm.

• 1:20:49Bill Maher?

  And there are times, maybe this is the time you're talking about, where it really jumps a lot.

• 1:20:55Speaker 02

  Correct, yeah, thirty five to forty.

• 1:20:57Bill Maher?

  Right, so you wanna kind of like arrest that one.

• 1:20:59Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. At that point, you can still make changes. After forty five, fifty becomes harder.

• 1:21:05Bill Maher?

  Well, hopefully, hopefully AI will help me with this.

• 1:21:08Speaker 02

  Hopefully, I mean, I don't think it's impossible. I'm not saying it's not possible. I know plenty of people who've fixed their health after fifty. There's amazing stories, yeah.

• 1:21:15Bill Maher?

  There's so many variables that go into it. Again, like, I know people who live terribly unhealthy lives, but they're just so happy.

• 1:21:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, and are just fine.

• 1:21:24Bill Maher?

  You know.

• 1:21:25Speaker 02

  I know people who've lived their lives perfectly healthily and died early, and people who have abused their bodies and died of it.

• 1:21:31Bill Maher?

  I'm so glad I did remember this.

• 1:21:33Speaker 02

  Please.

• 1:21:34Bill Maher?

  Cause I, you know, memory, I'm not even sure it's a good thing. But.

• 1:21:41Bill Maher?

  Our connection is Arianna Huffington, really.

• 1:21:44Speaker 02

  Oh, okay.

• 1:21:45Bill Maher?

  You know, one of my oldest, dearest friends.

• 1:21:48Speaker 02

  I didn't realize that. I didn't know that.

• 1:21:49Bill Maher?

  Oh, I'm so glad I remembered this.

• 1:21:51Speaker 02

  Yeah, I didn't know that.

• 1:21:52Bill Maher?

  Well, I mean, and she would be the first to agree. I was the first person to like, put her on TV.

• 1:22:00Speaker 02

  Wow.

• 1:22:00Bill Maher?

  I'm not saying I'm responsible for her success. I'm not. She was always gonna be a whirlwind. But we became very good friends in 1994, when I had my first show, Politically Incorrect. And she was married to Michael Huffington. And he was running for the senate out here. And she was a conservative. She was a conservative, helping a Republican candidate win election. And did not. But her first issue that she came on our show with was about Prozac. Giving Prozac to children. Still an issue, I think. And it was very natural that after she went through Huffington Post, which was a great success, that she would then get into the wellness.

• 1:22:45Bill Maher?

  Because she was always into, she was always

• 1:22:48Speaker 02

  She's incredible.

• 1:22:49Bill Maher?

  This earthy, Greek, European woman.

• 1:22:53Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:22:54Bill Maher?

  Who treated me like, you know, somebody, family. You know, and guarded over me like that. And, you know, cared for me like that.

• 1:23:03Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 1:23:04Bill Maher?

  So when I knew, you know, when I first heard about you, I was like, oh, okay.

• 1:23:08Speaker 02

  Yeah, she gave me my first shot.

• 1:23:10Bill Maher?

  Exactly. I mean, it's, it's, it's very full circling.

• 1:23:13Speaker 02

  That's really beautiful. I had no idea. That makes me so happy knowing that.

• 1:23:17Bill Maher?

  Oh, yeah, we should all have dinner one.

• 1:23:18Speaker 02

  Yeah, I would love that. I would love that. Yeah, no.

• 1:23:20Bill Maher?

  This is somebody who

• 1:23:21Speaker 02

  I wouldn't be where I am without Arianna Huffington. So I feel extremely grateful.

• 1:23:24Bill Maher?

  Yeah, in some ways, I wouldn't either. I mean, you know, I mean, we go back a long way. And I mean, there's nobody I would trust in their counsel more. You know, she lives in New York now, so we don't see each other as much as we're used to. But we always, a few times a year. You know, and, you know, I can always tell her anything and, you know. Again, there's nobody like her.

• 1:23:45Speaker 02

  Yeah, she's been an incredible support since day one and just, you know, allowed me to have wings. It's been really beautiful.

• 1:23:51Bill Maher?

  And God bless her also loves money and is great at making it.

• 1:23:56Speaker 02

  Yeah, absolutely. She uses it.

• 1:23:58Bill Maher?

  Hey, everybody, get, get good sleep. Uh, that'll be 750 million dollars.

• 1:24:07Bill Maher?

  I mean, you gotta give it to her.

• 1:24:10Speaker 02

  I mean, everyone's gotta sleep.

• 1:24:11Bill Maher?

  But I appreciate you coming here. I know you don't need to.

• 1:24:15Speaker 02

  No.

• 1:24:15Bill Maher?

  It was just a mitzvah, as the Jews say, and I appreciate it.

• 1:24:21Speaker 02

  I appreciate it too. The joy and pleasure is all mine. I think, you know, getting to meet someone as iconic as yourself is a true honor. So I'm grateful for that. And I feel smart just sitting next to you. And I feel like I'm gonna have like my next seven movie nights all sorts.

• 1:24:37Bill Maher?

  I never really remember a lot from these episodes, you know. But what I always remember is the picture of the person laughing.

• 1:24:43Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 1:24:44Bill Maher?

  You know, I will see your head going back because you're a good laugher.

• 1:24:48Speaker 02

  Thank you.

• 1:24:49Bill Maher?

  And you have a... It's just, you know, it's why I do this.

• 1:25:00Bill Maher?

  Okay, well, if you ever...

• 1:25:01Speaker 02

  That's a lot of fun.

• 1:25:01Bill Maher?

  If you ever need an uncomfortable floor...

• 1:25:03Speaker 02

  There we go. I can just... This is what it looked like. This is what it looked like.

• 1:25:07Bill Maher?

  This is really uncomfortable. I passed out on a couple of times myself.

• 1:25:15Speaker 00

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