S1E25: Telepathy and Eastern Wisdom with Anu Gupta | Talk Tracks

In this episode of The Talk Tracks, producer Katherine Ellis has an expansive conversation with Anu Gupta—author, civil rights leader, and mindfulness teacher—about how telepathy and intuitive knowing are deeply rooted and normalized within Eastern traditions. Drawing from Hindu and Buddhist philosophy, Anu explains how these capacities arise naturally through meditation, ethical living, and inner stillness. Together, they explore why non-speaking autistics may already be living at higher frequencies, how our thoughts impact others, and what it means to live a life grounded in love, clarity, and presence. _______ Join The Telepathy Tapes Backstage Pass https://thetelepathytapes.supercast.com/ to get ad-free episodes, never-before-heard interviews, behind-the-scenes documentary footage, and access to our private Discord community. This is your invitation to come closer. To help shape what’s next. To be more than a listener… to be a co-creator of this paradigm shift. So if you’ve felt moved, if you’ve felt seen, if you’ve felt the call, subscribe today and join us: thetelepathytapes.com. https://thetelepathytapes.com/ See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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

• 0:00Ky Dickens?

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• 0:33Ky Dickens?

  Hi, everyone. I'm Kai Dickens, and I'm thrilled to welcome you to The Talk Tracks. In this series, we dive deeper into the revelations, challenges, and unexpected truths from the telepathy tapes. The goal is to explore all the threads that weave together our understanding of reality, science, spirituality, and yes, even unexplained things like psi abilities. If you haven't yet listened to season one of The Telepathy Tapes, I encourage you to start there. It lays the foundation for everything we'll be exploring in this journey. We'll feature conversations with groundbreaking researchers, thinkers, non-speakers, and experiencers who illuminate the extraordinary connections that may defy explanation today but won't prolong.

• 1:16Ky Dickens?

  In this episode of The Talk Tracks, Telepathy Tapes coordinator Katherine Ellis chats with Anu Gupta, an author, civil rights leader, and mindfulness teacher who has studied the eastern Vedic traditions deeply.

• 1:30Ky Dickens?

  In this conversation, Anu touches on how concepts like telepathy, expanded consciousness, and intuitive knowing are actually normalized in these ancient traditions. And not only that, they're seen as natural byproducts of being in alignment, when your heart, mind, and soul are clear and open. It's a beautiful, grounding perspective that offers a lot of hope. There's no phenomena or magic to chase. It's more about tapping into our inner humanity. When we step outside of some of the Western perspectives, we find other traditions that remind us it's about the inner path first, and then the rest unfolds. So let's get into it.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  Well, hi Anu. Thank you for coming on the podcast. Do you want to give a brief introduction of who you are and what you do?

• 2:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, thanks so much for having me here. So my name is Anu Gupta. I'm a human rights lawyer, I'm a scientist, educator, a mindfulness teacher, and author of a book called Breaking Bias. And for the past, you know, two decades, I've been really inspired by the idea of mindfulness and meditation-based tools to overcome all forms of bigotry and prejudices. And beyond all the work that I do in the world, I'm also a deep meditator and a lifelong student of Hindu and Buddhist teachings, particularly in the Self-Realization Fellowship tradition, which is a worldwide organization that was founded by my teacher, my guru, Barmansay Yogananda, in the US in 1920. So yeah, that's what brings me here today to talk to you about

• 2:59Speaker 02

  all the exciting things of science and Avanand.

• 3:02Speaker 01

  Amazing. That's so exciting. Yeah, so I know that you're very knowledgeable about how a lot of the eastern traditions for a long time have talked about telepathy and if we brought it up, you know, maybe in other parts of the world, it wouldn't be as shocking or odd as people may find it here in the US. So can you tell me a little bit about what you know about that?

• 3:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, I think to begin with, you know, in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, you know, they've, you know, long recognized the subtle capacities of the mind, you know, telepathy being one of them, but not as something that's supernatural, but as natural extensions of consciousness, which are generally refined. So these are capacities that we build through inner discipline, meditation, and ethical integrity. And one of the ways that the Shastras, the Upanishads, the Vedas, and others truly talk about this is that mind-to-mind knowing is actually part of human existence, but it happens when one's mind is fully known and purified and still. And, you know, when I was listening to the first season of Telepathy Tapes, I was

• 4:12Speaker 02

  just so awestruck by some of the young people you all spoke with, because it so seemed that they had fully known and realized who they were. They know who they were, right? Because they're oftentimes non-speaking, non, you know, autistic. And it's the external world that then projects onto them certain ideas of who they ought to be when they are kind of living in that stillness that... You know, one consciousness, as we would say.

• 4:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:39Speaker 02

  In these traditions.

• 4:40Speaker 01

  When you say a purified mind, or like, what does that mean? How, how does one get that? What's the measure of that? You know what I mean?

• 4:50Speaker 02

  Yeah, so you know, in the yoga philosophy, you know, whether it's the Hindu or the Buddhist tradition, there is a peaceful path, you know, it's known as Ashtanga Yoga. And the first two legs of this path are actually what are known as yamas and then nyamas. And that's really about building ethical integrity. So this is, you know, ahimsa being the first thing, which is nonviolence, speaking truth, um, non-stealing. So in the West, it's often known as the Ten Commandments, for example. So part of that is kind of the foundation. And then we move to like asana. So in the world, that's a third leg, which is posture. So we know a lot about, you know, physical exercise and physical, a practice of yoga. But that's one of, one eighth of the path.

• 5:35Speaker 02

  And then we move to like pranayama, breathwork, and then moving up to the subtle capacities of the mind. And the whole idea is for us to be able to still what's known as the vacillations of the mind, thoughts. So the way we think about thoughts in our world is like, oh, my gosh, they just happen. But actually, thoughts are energy. These are vibrations that we are releasing into the world. And in these traditions, in eastern traditions, thoughts are understood to be these capacities that we have, that we can actually willingly send and receive. But in order for, you know, Yogananda would say for our inner radios to be fully attuned, it needs to be purified or clean, right?

• 6:18Speaker 02

  Which is really about living a life of ethical integrity.

• 6:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, and that's so interesting to me because it, it a little bit makes me feel like what some people have issue with, with religions, which is that, um, you know, things are work-based, or you have to be a certain way, or do a certain thing in order to. I don't know, have have good things or be able to do something like this. And I don't know, that's hard to kind of like reconcile with or even believe, I think, for some people.

• 6:49Speaker 02

  Yeah, you know, I want to kind of speak about a few things, you know, there's three personalities I want to bring into this, you know, first is Jali Promasi Ogundanda, who wrote this book called Autobiography of Yogi. He's kind of one of the most seminal figures in the world, you know, George Harrison, part of the Beatles was a devotee of his. Steve Jobs, you know, at his funeral, the only book he gave to everyone was The Autobiography of Yogi. So, and he was a, you know, a lot of people believe in awakened master who really came to the West and the US in 1920, you know, when anti-mysticism laws were part of the law and here's this dark-skinned brown man coming here to really show the unity

• 7:30Speaker 02

  between all religious traditions, you know, whether it's Christianity or Hinduism or Buddhism or Islam or others. And underneath all that, he was really speaking about this idea of truth. And for him, like in the autobiography, it's really fascinating because there are so many instances in the book that folks read where he describes telepathic experiences. You know, there's a whole chapter, you know, chapter forty-three, when his teacher actually appeared to him telepathically and gave him a sense of astral realms and all these other realms and how existence and consciousness actually operates. And there's this really one funny example that he cites, which is of this cauliflower thief.

• 8:15Speaker 02

  This is when he was young and he was a student, still learning the path of yoga, Kriya yoga in particular. And they were going out to do something with his fellow students and he forgot to lock the door to the ashram where he was living, where he was staying. And his teacher asked him like, hey, did you lock that ashram door? And he was like, I think so, but he had forgotten that he'd done it, you know, we do that every day. But his guru already knew that he had not locked it. But within the ashram, he had left a bunch of cauliflowers that he had picked earlier that morning. So to teach him a lesson, his guru actually telepathically communicated with just a peasant who was passing by to go inside and steal one of the cauliflowers.

• 9:00Speaker 02

  Leave his gold watch and all the money he had left, just as it is, but to actually pick up this cauliflower and like steal it. And it was really funny, I mean, it's a funny incident that he shares about this cauliflower thief. But what he was really trying to show, you know, in this particular example is that thoughts are no more than the very subtle vibrations moving in ether. And just as correctly tuned radios, for example, pick up a desired musical number out of thousands of, you know, partner, partner radio stations. Um, a mind that is deeply sensitized and that's receptive can actually pick up countless

• 9:42Speaker 02

  thoughts and be able to see through thoughts of human beings that are out there. And particularly as we're broadcasting those thoughts. So when, you know, I listen to the telepathy tapes and listen to the stories of a lot of these young people, I'm like, oh my gosh, they're basically moving through wild amounts of thought, you know, on a daily basis because they have really refined this capacity. And for them to have refined this capacity is really through, um, being humans, being people who are completely truth seeking, who are really, are unable to lie or unable to cause harm. Um, and that is kind of the beauty of this path.

• 10:22Speaker 02

  And the other thing I'll share about this is that in the traditions, um, telepathy and other capacities aren't desirable. You know, they are not the goal itself. They're just part of the path. So they're known as cities or supernatural powers. But if we, you know, what's, it's known as like, they can actually become a distraction because oftentimes when people attain these cities, these powers, they can become attached to them.

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• 13:08Speaker 01

  What other ones are there?

• 13:09Speaker 02

  There's actually, so the Buddhist path, I mean, this is both Hindu and Buddhist path. The Buddha was really clear and he actually described five

• 13:19Speaker 02

  categories of supernatural abilities or synthe's as they're known. So telepathy being one of them, which is knowledge of states of minds of, you know, others being able to read or transfer thoughts to others. Telepathy. Then the other ones are knowledge of one's past lives and the past lives of others. The third one is what's known as divine eye or ability to see into the future, to see things near and far on earth and beyond, just things like time travel, bilocation, visitations to other realms. For those people that believe that stuff. The fourth one is divine ear. Ability to hear sounds near and far on earth and other realms.

• 14:03Speaker 02

  Then the last one is actually the ability to transform one of the four basic elements

• 14:10Speaker 02

  in the physical world from one one element to another. So earth, air, water and fire.

• 14:16Speaker 02

  So like being able to cook without fire or dematerializing one's body or doubling one's body. So there's a kind of the five supernatural abilities.

• 14:25Speaker 01

  That's, yeah, that's so interesting. I mean, why would we not just be born with that ability? Do you think?

• 14:32Speaker 02

  Well, I think that's the thing. So there's several answers I have around this.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Or do you think we are and we?

• 14:39Speaker 02

  We are, yeah.

• 14:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 14:40Speaker 02

  We are so in the eastern traditions, you know, we look at time from a very, from like a deep space and time perspective. So there's a book called The Holy Science by Paramanthi Venkatesh's teacher. So he was a Vedic scholar, lived in the late. Nineteenth century, and in this book, he really shows unity between Christianity and Hinduism, Hindu way, Vedas in particular. And what he says and what he's described is that time is actually cycles of twenty four thousand years. And there's twelve, and it's divided into, there's a descending cycle of twelve thousand years and an ascending cycle of twelve thousand years. And these cycles are divided into four stages.

• 15:22Speaker 02

  And the first of these stages is what's known as the Kali Yoga or the Dark Ages. So the reason why, you know, like to question, why don't we, a lot of us know about this? Well, because the last, until, you know, the year seventeen hundred, we were actually living in what's known as the Kali Yoga, which was, you know, which was all about, you know, we think about the medieval ages and just so much bigotry and enslavement and genocide, all of that occurred during that time. But since the seventeen hundreds, you know, we've moved into the second age, which is Dvapara Yoga or the age of energy awareness. So this is when we're beginning to grasp subtle forces, particularly energy. And we kind, we see that, right?

• 16:04Speaker 02

  And since seventeen hundred, the advances in science have been so vast. And some people, telepathy is still rare, but it's emerging, right? Particularly with telepathy tapes, we're beginning to bring this information out into the world. And now this age is supposed to be twenty four hundred years long and we're like in year three hundred something. So that's why, but then the third yoga is the Treta Yoga or mental awareness. So that's where the capacity of intuition is fully developed within human beings. And mind to mind communication is actually possible. And then last is Satya Yoga, which is the age of truth, where one is just one with the divine. You know, what one would say, and there's instant knowing.

• 16:46Speaker 02

  So I think in the eastern tradition, that is how they begin to explain some of this stuff.

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Um.

• 16:53Speaker 02

  And the beauty of this for me has been in the introduction of that book. Just as, you know, how does this time, space continuum actually exist? So just as our planet is revolving around a sun, right? Around the star, um, which basically gives light.

• 17:13Speaker 02

  The understanding that a lot of these ancient sages were able to bring to the earth is that our star, our sun, is actually revolving around what's known as Brahmanadi. So it's, and the farther it is from the Brahmanadi in that twenty-four thousand year long cycle, that's when we're in the dark ages.

• 17:37Speaker 01

  Wait, sorry, what is the Brahmanadi?

• 17:39Speaker 02

  It is basically a central point around which many, many stars are revolving around. And that's basically, one can really think of it as the supernatural, divine consciousness, love, God, what have you, but that's at the center of it. The farther one is away in this twenty-four thousand year long cycle.

• 17:58Speaker 01

  That's based in the Hindu tradition.

• 18:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, in the Vedic tradition, yeah.

• 18:02Speaker 01

  So who, who came up with that? Who decided that?

• 18:05Speaker 02

  Well, we don't know, right? A lot of this, because of the Kali yoga, right? A lot of this has been passed down and written down, but a lot of this was through inter-inference. And this was the sages of the Vedas and the Upanishads and a lot of eastern wisdom traditions. So folks think they know, like the Yoga Sutras was written by Patanjali and,

• 18:27Speaker 02

  but no one really knows who the author is or who came with it. These are, that's why like Hinduism is like a name that was given to this tradition. Because Hindu is basically the word for the Indus Valley or the Indus River. And the Persians were referring to people of this land. There's all those people that lived by the Indus Valley. But the true name for it is actually Sanatana Dharma, which is the eternal law or the eternal truth. So, so that's kind of, it's really interesting, right? And one example that really came to me, so I shared with you the five supernatural capacities or siddhis, there was a saint.

• 19:05Speaker 02

  A woman saint who lived in the 20th century. She was the teacher of some of the most prominent Western Buddhist teachers. Her name was Deepama. So this is her, Deepama. And she taught John Salsberg, Jack Horchil, Joseph Goldstein, a whole list of teachers that have really popularized mindfulness in the West in the last 40 years, some of whom are my teachers too. So she's kind of my teacher's teacher, right? In a way. And she, you know, particularly in her biography that's written by Amy Schmidt, she was someone who had all five of these capacities. Like she had attained these capacities within her lifetime.

• 19:45Speaker 02

  And there's so many stories of her, of her just going to see her teacher walking through walls.

• 19:53Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 19:54Speaker 02

  You know, being able to, and you know, one would, if you read her stories, you know, these are Western teachers that were her students. They're like, oh, my gosh, she like exuded this energy. She was able to cook, you know, with her hands. So without needing a fire or convert various elements from one place to another. There are these other funny stories. They're not funny, they're supernatural stories of her spying on her teacher by building a house in the air and just like peeking inside. And, you know, here was this woman, she was a widow. Like she lived a very, very difficult life. You know, she lived under, she lived in Myanmar. She was of Indian origin, didn't speak Burmese while she lived there.

• 20:37Speaker 02

  You know, was a widow, hadn't meditated ever. But in her 40s, she lost her husband, two of her kids. She was completely alone. But somehow found a meditation path. And then was just, you know, the only explanation is because of her past karmas from previous lifetimes, she became such a, what would say like she was a prodigy, a spiritual prodigy, that within a couple of years she reached, you know, the four stages of what's known as chanas or dhyana in Sanskrit. And these are the stages of attaining these supernatural powers and abilities. But even after receiving these abilities,

• 21:19Speaker 02

  she actually abandoned them because she said she stopped practicing them because she said they involved the ego. And a hindrance to liberation, to final, you know, freedom from the cycle of birth and death. So in the eastern traditions, when we think about human existence, you know, the first noble truth in the Buddhist tradition, for example, is that we suffer. There is suffering in life, right? There, we can get all the money in the world, all the power, all the fame, you know, and yet we, there's this like sense of unsatisfaction.

• 21:56Speaker 01

  Mm hmm.

• 21:57Speaker 02

  And when the Buddha really came here to teach, you know, through self-realization, through attainment of freedom, is that the cause of the suffering is craving. But there is another path, which is Nirvana, but one can actually reach that state through the noble eightfold path. And for her, when she received these ciddies, she was like, wow, like, these are distractions from this final state of freedom.

• 22:23Speaker 01

  Well, I just would think it would connect her fur- more closely with this state of Nirvana to be able to have these abilities.

• 22:31Speaker 02

  Well, it could be misused, right? That's one of the things, these, when you have these powers, like, just imagine so many people in our world who say that, oh, if I, if I had all the money, or if I had all the influence, you know, I would build charities, or, you know, solve for poverty or hunger. But so many of people get distracted by all the things that power and wealth really bring into our life. And that's the same thing with these supernatural abilities, and which is why she abandoned them. You know, there's a sutta, there's a sutta actually that Buddha talking about on telepathy. It's known as the Kevata Sutta, which is actually from the Buddhist texts. And he basically says that, oh, telepathy is totally possible.

• 23:17Speaker 02

  But he then said that ethical insight and liberation from birth and death are the higher aim. And telepathy is something that can distract one from reaching for those higher aims. And in the sutta, it's really, it's interesting because, you know, it goes like, you know, what is the miracle of telepathy? You know, there's a case when a monk reads the mind, the mental events, the thought, and the ponderings of other beings, and says, this is your thinking, this is what you're thinking, and this is your mind. So you can read minds, but when... Then he goes on to say, when someone who has faith and conviction in this person who can telepathically read, they'll believe him. But then, when you go to a person without faith, without conviction,

• 24:02Speaker 02

  they would say to the person with faith and conviction that there's a charm called Monica charm, by which the monk reads this mind, reads other people's minds. So that's similar to what we've been seeing in the 20th century, particularly some of the science around telepathy, right? There's always been people planting doubt, saying that, oh, this can't be possible. This is not humanly possible. And this is why, you know, even the Buddha said that, you know, this is the drawback of the miracle of this power of telepathy. Because we then use all of our energy trying to prove that we have this capacity versus working on this larger goal, which is to purify our hearts and minds, to be free from suffering altogether.

• 24:48Speaker 01

  Right. I guess I'm just like, why would we even come to earth and not be purified? You know, it's almost like, what's the point?

• 24:55Speaker 02

  Yeah, well, this is, what do you think? The point is she comes to life, right?

• 25:00Speaker 01

  I don't know. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's a good question.

• 25:03Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  It does feel like maybe we come here to, to do some refining, some soul refining.

• 25:10Speaker 02

  That's right. And so I think in our, in our traditions, right, in self-realization, the reason why Yogananda named this

• 25:19Speaker 02

  global organization Self-Realization Fellowship is because self-realization really describes the goal of what life is, which is to realize oneself, realize that we're one with everything and everyone, that we're, there's, you know, Thich Nhat Hanh popularized this phrase of interdependence or interbeing. You know, the African tradition is known as Ubuntu. And one can realize that through purifying one's hearts and minds. But there is the root cause of why we suffer. Across the board is what's known as ignorance or delusion, right? In the Sanskrit tradition, it's called aditya. So that is, basically, that's a distraction.

• 26:01Speaker 02

  Where we think that we're separate from one another, from nature, from other beings. And therefore, we need to accumulate more things. You know, we need to be the best in our profession or have the most number of followers or likes. And there is, you know, we fall into, and that, those are the defilements of the mind. You know, and this is why, you know, the practices in eastern traditions really bring mindfulness as a way to still the mind, to be able to see and know for ourselves how these defilements are distracting us and taking us away from our ultimate goal, which is to find freedom within.

• 26:43Ky Dickens?

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• 30:33Speaker 01

  It is, you know, everything that the world tells you is going to satisfy you. I think

• 30:37Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 30:38Speaker 01

  Always leads to emptiness. It's like the, what is the Oscar Wilde quote? That's like, there's two tragedies in a man's life. One is not getting what you want and the other is getting what you want.

• 30:51Speaker 02

  Because it's never enough, right? Because we can get the most amount of money and it's never enough. We want more and more and more. And this is what I think the, the young people you've interviewed are trying to teach us. Right? We think that we'll find happiness through these external measures. But actually happiness is something we find within.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:08Speaker 02

  And that is the state that a lot of them are living in day in and day out.

• 31:13Speaker 01

  Yeah. I mean, and you said, you were like, you know, I think that's how these non speakers are living in this pure way. Why do you think that's true? What do you think it is about being nonverbal?

• 31:27Speaker 01

  Or having a praxia that would make this more possible for them to tune into this? And have this kind of pure mindset and heart?

• 31:36Speaker 02

  You know, it's really, it's an interesting question because I don't know. I am not enlightened in any shape or form or claimed to be.

• 31:47Speaker 02

  But I do think that they're operating at a higher frequency than most of us. And I think for me, like when I reflect on this and, you know, really move to a space of, well, why is it that these young people, and they're not the only ones, there are people that communicate with them that believe them. Some of their parents and teachers and colleagues, they have developed some of these capacities, particularly to communicate with them. Like, what is it about these humans versus others? And I think they are, it's not about them, it's about the rest of us. So they're here to teach the rest of us to have more confidence in them, to trust them, to have faith in them. And that's something they repeatedly say, right? They're saying that you can trust us, that we're not defective in any way.

• 32:29Speaker 02

  You know, we're differently abled, right? And I think they're teaching us to test the extent of our own compassion and our own empathy and our ability to believe that this is possible. You know, one of the things that,

• 32:44Speaker 02

  you know, professionally, I've been working on issues of breaking bias and overcoming prejudice and

• 32:51Speaker 02

  in the Vedic traditions, there are eight meanness of the heart. There are eight kinds of meanness that they've listed. I mean, Eastern tradition loves lists. It's it's just like makes like people who just like like lists to like understand.

• 33:07Speaker 01

  I like, I like lists. I appreciate that.

• 33:10Speaker 02

  Yeah. So and these eight obstacles, these eight meanness of the heart are obstacles to freedom, to finding alignment. And three of these eight are actually having to do with bigotry and bias. You know, one is, you know, race or caste prejudice. The second is pride of pedigree. You know, so when we think that we're from a certain family or certain background or certain abilities, we have that like sense of entitlement. Well, that's actually keeping us from getting free. And then this last one is a narrow sense of respectability, this smugness that we carry around. And the other five, for those who are curious, is hatred, shame, fear, grief and condemnation.

• 33:53Speaker 02

  So for me, when I think about the, you know, I've been reflecting a lot after listening to many of the episodes and I reflect on these young people, I'm like, oh, like they don't have these eight obstacles at all. You know, the external world oftentimes institutionalizing them and not believing them is often.

• 34:11Speaker 02

  Putting them in circumstances to have those things arise within them. And yet they have so much patience and compassion still for these, you know, institutions that are basically torturing them in one way or another.

• 34:27Speaker 01

  I know, yeah.

• 34:29Speaker 02

  And this is what I'm like, wow, like they're free.

• 34:32Speaker 01

  Totally, yeah, I I totally agree. That's like, um, you know, if you listen to season one and you heard from Libby, John Paul's mom, like

• 34:39Speaker 02

  That's right, I loved John Paul.

• 34:42Speaker 01

  She'll always say like, you know, John Paul would just say to her, Mom, just love them. Like, they don't realize, you know, and and this is someone who was bullied in school and never take, you know, people were irritated by him and, you know, everything that was just so difficult about his life. And he would always just say, just love them. And you're right, it's like, what total freedom that is to be living in that higher frequency all the time. I do want to ask, do you think that because maybe we do all have this potential capacity? Do you think that we pick up on people's thoughts without maybe realizing it?

• 35:21Speaker 01

  And it this has just made me so much more aware of my thoughts and even my thoughts towards myself or about myself. I'm realizing if those are negative, that's actually also a disservice to other people, you know, it's such a responsibility to have thoughts and realize that the power that they hold. And it's not just about you and your own mind, it's affecting this whole ecosystem around me.

• 35:52Speaker 02

  That's right. And you know, for me, you know, having studied and practiced in the Hindu and Buddhist traditions, what we think of thoughts and thinking is actually one of six senses that we have. So we often think of like the five senses, sense of sight, smell, taste, touch and hearing. It was actually a sixth sense, which is thinking. So in the Buddhist cosmology, thinking as a as a, you know, as one of our senses has really helped me understand, like, oh, thinking is just happening. And what we are then asked to do is become aware of what's happening in the moment. And once we become aware of it, we can acknowledge and we can notice it. And then begin to place our attention, our consciousness on something that is of higher frequency.

• 36:38Speaker 02

  And that is the habit that we need to be in. And for me, this really helps me understand that, oh, we've been moving through these dark ages, the Kali yoga, and now we're moving into the second age. And that's what's being asked of us. You know, we're constantly focused on war and division and polarization and misinformation. That's okay, right? And, you know, ultimately, if we continue to put our thoughts in that direction, we are going to suffer, right? And like to cause other people suffering. But we can actually then extract our consciousness from those places and to put it on something more skillful and wholesome, like love, like compassion, like generosity and forgiveness. Yeah.

• 37:14Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, it's, I mean, in some ways, it feels like the earth is more than ever going in this direction of violence and anger and selfishness and individualism. And then maybe it's just because I've been working on this project for a while, but it really does feel like there is another movement happening right now.

• 37:34Speaker 02

  That's right.

• 37:34Speaker 01

  That is so dedicated to love and connection and a higher frequency and in a way that I've never seen or experienced before in my life. Um, and that feels really hopeful and exciting.

• 37:48Speaker 02

  That's right. You know, can I read something actually? Because this relates to the question you asked around if we have the ability to read other people's minds. And I'm going to read from the autobiography itself because these are Paramasya Obananda's words, and it's so clear because he defines telepathy. And this book was written like the 1940s, right? Um, and really kind of synthesizing a lot of ancient wisdom that's thousands of years old. Um, just on page 256 for any listener who wants to go back to it. So he writes that in telepathy, the sign vibrations of thoughts in one man's mind are transmitted through the subtle vibrations of astral ether. And then through the grosser earthly ether,

• 38:31Speaker 02

  creating electrical waves that in turn transform themselves into thought waves in the mind of the other person.

• 38:40Speaker 01

  Well.

• 38:42Speaker 02

  So this is all scientific, right? Part of the beauty of this path of ancient, eastern wisdom traditions is that it's all science. And, you know, the Buddha said this famous word, "Ehi pasiko", which really means in Pali, "Come and experience it for yourself." So don't just believe me for it, don't take my word for it, but follow this path and then experience it. And that is the invitation here is that, oh, like, it's hard for folks to believe me or Yogananda or any of the other people. But the more we practice, the more we're like, oh, whoa, it's working. You know?

• 39:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:18Speaker 02

  It's working and that's why people are hooked onto yoga and meditation and breathwork. And because they're like, oh, something's shifting in me that I don't even know what it is, but at a very subtle level, it's happening.

• 39:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, it's so cool. Gosh, and that quote even further sort of validates what I was saying about having such a deep responsibility for your thoughts.

• 39:39Speaker 02

  Yeah, exactly.

• 39:40Speaker 01

  Because they really do affect other people. And yeah, I want to be sending out love and good and peace with my thoughts, you know?

• 39:49Speaker 02

  You know, and one of the things that's really important around that, oftentimes we can put a lot of pressure on ourselves and shame ourselves that, oh, my gosh, like, why is it that I can't think, you know, more loving thoughts and compassionate thoughts? But one of the things that I've learned through my work is that our brains are plastic and they're also conditioned. So where we place our attention is where, you know, our thoughts are going to go, right?

• 40:15Speaker 01

  Right.

• 40:15Speaker 02

  But oftentimes our products or our thoughts are also a product of the company we keep. So that's really important for us to begin to notice and acknowledge that, oh, like, who are the friends and the family members that I'm surrounding myself with? Or the colleagues I'm surrounding myself with? And what is, what is the, what frequency are they operating on? What are they constantly talking about or thinking about, or how are they showing up in the world? That's one thing. But then also, what is in the media that I'm consuming? Whether it's social media, or entertainment media, or news media? Because that's also thoughts, right? At a subtle level, we're taking in these stories and narratives from these external inputs.

• 40:58Speaker 02

  And that is what's creating the thoughts that are generated in our own brain.

• 41:02Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 41:03Speaker 02

  And I think that is what we can begin to become more mindful of. And you'll see that, you know, that's why oftentimes like, oh yeah, I just went on this like awesome, all-inclusive vacation where I didn't do anything and it was on a media fast and I feel so great. Why is that? Because I purified myself and I was, you know, in the natural world. I was kind of listening to birds or whatever. So that's where I think we can begin to become more mindful of what we're consuming and what energies we're concealing. And of course, that's, uh, that's going to reflect in how we're thinking day to day.

• 41:34Speaker 01

  I would maybe even argue that our past experiences also would influence our current thoughts.

• 41:40Speaker 02

  Absolutely.

• 41:41Speaker 01

  And that is hard to change and get past. It's sort of like, you have to force yourself to realize like the past, it doesn't exist, you know? And, and how to sort of like rewire your brain to not continue thinking in whatever pattern that's made you think in.

• 41:59Speaker 02

  Well, thank you for bringing that up. I mean, trauma is a big part, right? Of how so many of us, particularly right now with like, here is trauma where we're seeing so much pain and cruelty around us, which also reminds us of the things we may have experienced. That of course keeps us small and keeps us in a place of feeling like a victim. And that's where some of these practices come in. But in addition to talk therapy and EMDR, somatic piece practices, that's where we can begin to heal our minds and our hearts. And that's basically an invitation of a lot of these practices. Because if I'm an eastern perspective, getting identified with our trauma is also, you know, a delusion.

• 42:44Speaker 02

  Right, it's basically unskillful and it totally makes sense from a psychological perspective, you know, because ultimately the being that's within is hurt, he's wounded or she's wounded or they're wounded, right? And they just want healing. So part of it is like bringing compassion and awareness to that and then being on that journey of healing is, yeah, ever more important now than it has ever been.

• 43:09Speaker 01

  Like, I do want to say too about the non-speakers is that you're right that they are living, I think, in this like more free state and, you know, so many of them talk so much about love and peace and understanding and, but they also still talk about things that like kids talk about, you know, it's

• 43:29Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 43:30Speaker 01

  They're still enjoying life and they're sort of maybe living in this elevated state, but still present here on earth. And I think that is still important to be like, I'm still here on earth and I'm having a human experience and I can be grounded in that.

• 43:49Speaker 02

  That's right. And that's the beauty of, you know, so that's, and as a result, there are teachers. So when I think about a lot of these inviting masters and teachers that we've had, you know, you know, like Yogananda loved to go swim and, you know, crack jokes and like eat all the ice cream in the world. Same with Deepama, like she visited the US and she was at, you know, Inside Meditation Society in the early eighties and she would try all the different foods and, you know, just, it was more about, they're not special in any way. They've kind of been in this incarnation, but they can see through some of the daily struggles that we're having because we're so attached to getting to a place and thinking

• 44:31Speaker 02

  that, you know, external things are going to bring us happiness. And some of those things are important, like we have worldly responsibilities, we have obligations to our family members, to our work colleagues, but that is not all we're here for, right? So there is that, there's, I think in the eastern traditions, there is this idea of Dharma, which is duty, right? So we have a Dharma that's more external, right? Where like you are right now has someone is one of the creators, producers of telepathy shows, that's one of your dharmas to really bring this out into the world. But then each of us also has an internal Dharma. Right, which is this idea of realizing, you know, self, becoming one with the ultimate

• 45:15Speaker 02

  of sublime. And oftentimes, that is what gets missing and we get lost in the external and forget the internal portion.

• 45:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. No, I think it's just a great reminder and a great place to put yourself in is to to try and live every day through that sort of like larger lens and paradigm, but still be okay with the fact that you're here on earth and you still have to do things like pay your bills and clean your dishes.

• 45:41Speaker 02

  That's right. That's right.

• 45:46Speaker 01

  Well, this has been so insightful and it's really interesting that just that this kind of phenomenon has been around for so long and validated in so many ways throughout history, all over the world.

• 46:01Speaker 02

  And I'm going to, exactly, and I'm going to encourage, you know, listeners to read autobiography of a yogi or I'm going to encourage readers to read autobiography of a yogi or listen to it. Actually, Ben Kingsley narrates it on Audible. It's actually a lovely, lovely listen. Also, check out Amy Schmidt's Deep Amma, The Life and Legacy of a Buddhist Master, to really learn more about these supernatural abilities, telepathy being one of them. And to see kind of with curiosity, you know, how this human form that we have has so many capacities that, you know, we were never taught to even know or believe,

• 46:43Speaker 02

  and how some people amongst us, like, you know, non-speaking autistics, you know, have those capacities.

• 46:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. It's so cool. Well, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.

• 46:58Speaker 02

  Thank you so much for having me. It's been such a delight.

• 47:02Ky Dickens?

  That's it for this episode of The Talk Tracks, but new episodes will now be released every other Sunday, so stay tuned as we work to unravel all the threads, even the veiled ones that knit together our reality. Please remember to stay kind, stay curious, and that being a true skeptic requires an open mind. Thank you to my amazing collaborators. Original music was created by Elizabeth P. W., original logo and cover art by Ben Kandor Design, the audio mix and finishing by Sarah Ma, our amazing podcast coordinator Jill Pachesnik, the Telepathy Tapes coordinator in my right hand, Katherine Ellis. And I'm Kai Dickens, your writer, creator, and host. Thank you again for joining us.