Pod Insights Know Thyself E124 - Dr. Lisa Miller: The Neuroscience of Spirituality, Synchronicity & The Awakened Brain About this episode Visit https://marekhealth.com/knowthyself and get a 10% discount on the Optimization Package (use code KNOWTHYSELF)
Author and researcher Dr. Lisa Miller unpacks the science of the Awakened Brain and how humans are innately wired for spiritual experiences. She discusses the root causes of the mental health crisis our planet is facing, and how by reconnecting to this innate spirituality we have the power to heal on a global level. She describes depression as two sides of the same door, revealing the opportunity hidden within our suffering. She discusses how transcendent experiences are explained on a neurological level and the 4 major finds of her research.
She reveals the science of synchronicity, surrender, and our ability to be 'trail angels' who help others along their journey. She also shares a guided practice to open yourself up to life's wisdom and live in harmony with the divine will.
André's Book Recommendations: https://www.knowthyself.one/books
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0:00 Intro
1:42 Defining Spirituality as a Scientist
3:45 The Cause of the Mental Health Crisis
6:00 Is Spirituality Limited to the Brain?
12:00 The Awakened Brain: Being in Sync with the Universe
16:52 Children are in This State Naturally
20:54 Mirror Neurons and Past Life Regressions
24:51 4 Major Findings on the Awakened Brain
30:39 Science of Synchronicity & Surrender
37:35 Guided Practice: Open Yourself Up to Life’s Wisdom
43:10 Her Most Shocking Discoveries
44:30 Depression as the Doorway to Spirituality
51:24 Integrating Achievement & Awakened Brain
56:00 Conclusion
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Lisa Miller, Ph. D., is the New York Times bestselling author of The Spiritual Child and a professor in the Clinical Psychology Program at Teachers College, Columbia University. She is the Founder and Director of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute, the first Ivy League graduate program and research institute in spirituality and psychology, and has held over a decade of joint appointments in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University Medical School. Her innovative research has been published in more than one hundred peer-reviewed articles in leading journals, including Cerebral Cortex, The American Journal of Psychiatry, and the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.
Website: https://www.lisamillerphd.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.lisamiller/
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Know Thyself
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André Duqum
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Speaker 00 The best clinical science can say is that spirituality is not a belief. It is an inborn human seed of perception. In 30 years as a scientist, the most breathtaking finding that I've seen is this. The spiritually engaged brain vibrates at the wavelength of all life. It can be through synchronicity. It can be through a gut instinct, but we have knowing in many forms. So the awakened brain is our inborn capacity, rather than fear uncertainty, to be an open system. And this is our greatest strength. I hear from people, "Well, how do I do that?" There is a practice that I have found to be highly effective. It was a gift to me. Shall we share it? Yeah. So there's a very popular view right now that somehow if I want something
0:44 Speaker 00 and if I really align myself, it'll be just as I perhaps ordered on Amazon. But what if the most important parts of our lives are not strategically planned? They're not what we want. They're better than what we want. This is our birthright. And shouldn't every child have this opportunity?
1:06 André Duqum? Hey, everyone. Welcome back to Know Thyself. Our guest today is a professor and founder of the Spirituality Mind Body Institute at Teachers College in Columbia University. She is a graduate from Yale, one of the leading national experts on health and spirituality, and the rising, emerging understanding and conciliance between science, our brain, and spirituality. And her work has profound implications. I'm really looking forward to diving into. Dr. Lisa Miller, thank you for being here.
1:35 Speaker 00 It is so lovely to be here, to enter into your world.
1:39 André Duqum? We welcome you with open arms. How do you define spirituality? Let's start baseline.
1:45 Speaker 00 Well, if I put on my scientist hat, I would say that the most judicious thing to say as a scientist is that scientists can only identify threads of lived, human, spiritual life, not define spirituality at all. But we are quite accurate in showing what dimensions of lived, human, spiritual life exist, have innate biological underpinnings, have profound consequence unto the rest of our lives, and change over the course of our lives. So. To that avail, I can say of the many dimensions studied by scientists,
2:29 Speaker 00 the two that are innate, profoundly life-changing, and evolve over the course of our lifespan, are a deep transcendent relationship. What we call that may change across cultures, traditions, faith traditions. But we are all born with an innate capacity for a transcendent relationship. And the second dimension that is all of ours is that just as we might feel the presence of the universe, or God, or Shem, whatever our word is, in our own lives, we feel that ultimate love towards one another. Relational spirituality.
3:11 Speaker 00 Whether or not I've ever encountered one day of religion in my life, every single one of us, 7.2 billion people on Earth, are all spiritual beings when it comes to the inborn capacity for transcendent relationship and that presence, that felt awareness of God or the universe in one another and in Earth.
3:36 André Duqum? That felt experience of our oneness is, the taste of that, the experience of that, I think transforms us on contact. And right now, we live in perhaps one of the most individualistic cultures that has ever existed. And we're seeing the effects of that in real time through depression and mental illness. Could you share any context for just how bad and disconnected it currently is right now on the planet?
4:02 Speaker 00 Well, you've hit the nail on the head. If you want to look across the past 100 years, we've never had a time where suicide was as pervasive and as shockingly prevalent amongst young people. The rate of death by suicide has become the number one killer of Gen Z. So it's not cancer, it's not COVID. It now rivals auto accidents as the most likely way that a young person will die. Someone in high school, not college, it's now pressing down into middle school. So that was simply not the case. And if we track over the decades, how did we get here?
4:42 Speaker 00 The ascension of the diseases of despair in general, addiction, depression, but foremost, suicide, goes hand in hand with the attenuation of spiritual life. And in particular, as you opened, collective spiritual life. So what's the antidote? If I said, here's a pill, it'll fix it, right? We do have the antidote. In a meta-analysis, so a study of studies, you round up all good studies. Tragically, 2,000 completed suicides and 5,000 match controls. There is an 82% decreased relative risk of completed suicide.
5:23 Speaker 00 Four fifths less likely to take our life when spiritual life is shared. Shared in the sangha, shared in the mingen fellowship, the squad. So we could do this, we could do this starting this evening. We could engage one another, come together and not just have the two of us in the room, but welcome and ultimate presence in and through us. Some people say the third presence, I would call it the first. Our faith traditions do this. It's immediately available to us. Shall we?
5:57 André Duqum? Yeah. I'm curious, when we use the word spiritual or spirituality, how do you discern, I suppose, what materials would say you could boil down to biochemical kind of reactions? When you're using the word spiritual, do you ever refer to metaphysical, non-material realities? Because I know so much of your work has been bringing forth what feel like metaphysical experiences into understandable brain chemistry and kind of bridging the gap between the two.
6:29 Speaker 00 Oh, that's such a magnificent point. So. We certainly can track the neural correlates in our brains of transcendent relationship. We can certainly point on the MRI machine and say, okay, whether I live in China, the US, or Brazil, the same neural correlates run when I am in a deep transcendent connection to the force of life. There's one force of life, and there's one human porthole. That does not mean that all spirituality can be boiled down to the brain. I am by no means a biological reductionist. That merely means body, mind, and soul. In the monoist view of the human, we are soul, we are mind, we are body. There is at once
7:13 Speaker 00 a neurotrace, as there is a phenomenological experience. As I would say, there is ontologically in the structure of being, the stuff of consciousness or spirit, all at once, all at once. Now, in The Awakened Brain, in my book, I spend the first two-thirds pointing out our natural, spiritual nature, the capacity through which we can perceive and receive transcendent awareness. But the final third is dedicated to this very exciting emerging science done by generally extremely rigorous scientists on the foundational nature of consciousness, running in us, through us, and among us, where suddenly we can stop
7:57 Speaker 00 borrowing the 20th century somewhat reductionist view of the brain as a maker of thoughts, right? Like a Ford Motor Factory, the brain somehow produces thoughts, or toasters, or something like that. Instead, to the brain being an antenna or a conduit of consciousness, that opens up the possibility that we are both emanations of consciousness.
8:24 Speaker 00 Like Raised from the Sun, we are in relationship to consciousness, receiving, perceiving, contributing back. There's a dialectic going on. That's very, very far, to your point, from radical materialism or biological reductionism. I think it's important to point out that the best clinical science can say is that spirituality is not a belief, it is an inborn human seed of perception. We are born to perceive into the spiritual reality. And that's where clinical science stops. And then we can pivot and say, how does the brain, what is our evidence that the brain is connected beyond the brain in the box, beyond the atomistic limits of the skull?
9:09 Speaker 00 And there, there's a cascade of magnificent research going on. May I share one of my favorite studies?
9:15 André Duqum? Please, yeah.
9:16 Speaker 00 Perhaps my favorite study is really a foundational, founding study of what we now call post-material psychology. Post-material meaning a consciousness-based psychology. It was done by Akterhoff. Akterhoff invited a traditional indigenous healer to be in one MRI machine. The patient was down the hall, and in some cases, across the street, in a second MRI machine. As the traditional healer started to do his or her work, a consistent pattern came up on the FMRI machine, tracking blood flow.
9:53 Speaker 00 Within an instant, the same pattern came up on the MRI screen of the patient, implying one thing, consciousness, in two places. The material footprint is what shows up on the MRI. How do we understand that one thing, consciousness, healing consciousness, I would say, spirit, in two places? Well, There's several explanations, but one of them is that there's a send and receive between the healer and the patient at a distance, that the brain is a form of an antenna or a conduit.
10:33 Speaker 00 But I think that it's very dangerous for the new consciousness-based science to make the same mistake as the materialist science of the 20th century, which is really to claim radical anthropocentrism, that we are in the center, sending consciousness back and forth. From whence this consciousness come? Well, no one really answers that, but it's kind of suggested that we make consciousness or we're the king and the queen. It seems to me that if we're really on a search, that we shouldn't feel nervous or somehow out of fashion to step out of the outdated vogue of radical anthropocentrism.
11:17 Speaker 00 And let's build a science built around source, that there's a source of consciousness. I say God, you use your word.
11:25 André Duqum? Yeah. Yeah, I love the invitation to, just reminder, to not make the same mistake that the materialist reductionists have in the new emerging science. And yet, the pendulum has swung one way and we're seeing a lot of emerging science, you know, discussions around non-locality of consciousness and quantum entanglement and these things that point to our interconnected nature that are really important to discuss because right now we're run largely by this materialist notion of reality and mainstream understanding of science. And so.
12:00 Speaker 00 Can I say one thing about that?
12:01 André Duqum? Yeah.
12:02 Speaker 00 So there's a very popular view right now in mainstream culture that somehow if I want something, which is really hedonic perspective, I would like to lose weight. I would like to...
12:15 Speaker 00 Have a child.
12:16 André Duqum? Is this what you refer as the achieving mind in your book?
12:19 Speaker 00 Yes, I want something, right? And taken at the level of consciousness, I'm going to send that out and it's going to come back. And if I really align myself and I really send it out, it'll be just as I perhaps ordered on Amazon. Right? And that's a very limiting, very limiting journey. Because what I want is only based on today's information backwards. It's all historically driven.
12:49 André Duqum? Your memory?
12:51 Speaker 00 Yes. But what might be in store if I'm in a dialogue with the force in life or the oneness of all being, seeing what unfolds before me, has information that I've yet to discover. So giving up what I want should be a relief. And instead, life is this grand spiritual adventure. Who knows who's going to come around the corner next? What, how amazing what's in store for today. You never know. But it's better than what you think you wanted. Even if it's distasteful or hurts, it's better.
13:28 André Duqum? Hmm. I think coming to terms with the impermanent nature of existence and reality, how each moment is whether or not we want it to unfolding in a mysterious way. Like, we don't know what's going to unfold next, right? And yet, like, you're talking about this pervasive kind of psychology of planning existence to a T and controlling it and try to Amazon order our relationships and career. And you're inviting the embracing of spontaneous existence, the awakened mind.
13:59 Speaker 00 Yes.
14:00 André Duqum? And so let's kind of go into a little bit too, because the surrendering to the reality that each moment is like unknown. And if we want to experience a life greater than we could ever imagine, then it has to, by virtue, literally happen outside of our stored base of memory and of what we have known, you know?
14:18 Speaker 00 Magnificent, yes.
14:19 André Duqum? Yeah. So now embracing and what is the awakened mind in your experience and how you've studied it?
14:26 Speaker 00 So the awakened brain is our inborn capacity to be an open system.
14:35 Speaker 00 And each day, I don't know what's gonna happen. Each day, I can't control what's gonna happen, which is simply an ontological fact. I cannot control what's gonna happen. But rather than fear uncertainty, rather than be frustrated I don't have control, or that I let this ball slip out of my hand, or I didn't get him, or her, or them, or that job. What is life showing me now? What is the universe revealing to me now? It can be through synchronicity, and seeing the patterns laid before us, the guideposts. It can be through a dream, or a mystical experience. It can be through a gut instinct. But we have knowing in many forms. We have many inborn, organic epistemologies.
15:20 Speaker 00 We're intuitives, we're mystics, we're logicians and empiricists. When I really open my awareness to be an open system, and receive, and perceive God's guidance, the universe's direction, that's sure footing. That's not risky. That's not, certainly not airy-fairy. That's the most sound bedrock I could be on. So shouldn't we be teaching our kids that in school? I mean, I sat around in school waiting to talk about this for 20 years. The first 20 years.
16:01 Speaker 00 How amazing for a child to learn, your life is a grand sacred adventure. You don't know where you're going, and you don't need to. It's not about some pre-chosen, predetermined terminus. It's about this discovery that you are on. And what's certain is that you can be rooted in a stance of quest. You can be rooted as an open system in dialogue with the universe. Fear not.
16:33 André Duqum? And we simply just don't know what we don't know, right? These latent perceptual faculties that we are all, that we all have, but have, for various reasons, been shut down, ignored, shamed. What do you feel are those innate perceptual capacities that we simply have overlooked societally?
16:57 Speaker 00 That the child already has.
16:58 André Duqum? Yeah.
16:59 Speaker 00 And so just as a sidebar, if I'm a parent in my 30s or 40s, my greatest opportunity is to allow my child to flourish in their natural birthright, to not shut down and tell them that experiences aren't real, whether by omission or commission. And the second greatest opportunity I have is that my natural, the natural spirituality in the child will reawaken me.
17:28 André Duqum? Hmm. That's, that's really a powerful point. I was just with a friend who, she was playing chess with her kid, who's like six or seven. And she was just telling me just that, how like parenting and spending time with her child and as it's growing is connecting her so much to her own inner child and how healing it is, so.
17:48 Speaker 00 So the child is like a portal for spirit.
17:52 André Duqum? Yeah.
17:52 Speaker 00 And awakens everyone in the room, whether we ask or not, whether we know it or not, you know? And you can track, you know, through the lens of science, if nine people are in a deep state of prayer and the 10th person walks in, they more quickly move into a transcendent state of awareness as measured by the rapidity with which their mirror neurons come up online, which means that the naturally transcendent child, like an antenna, hosts consciousness and we all in the room awaken around the child.
18:24 André Duqum? That's such a powerful point because a lot of us aren't aware of the power of mirror neurons and how, not metaphorically, but literally, physically, the act of awakening as a being not only gives people unconsciously the permission to do the same, but also it brings forth that possibility in so many ways. And we just had Rupert Spirit on the podcast. He said, "The greatest service one can render humanity is to recognize the nature of one's own being." And that state of self-recognition, of self-realization, you become a candle in a dark world. And so I would love for you to share like-
19:03 Speaker 00 Can I make an addendum? And the nature of your child's true being.
19:09 André Duqum? Yeah, which is again a reflection of our own, right?
19:13 Speaker 00 Perhaps.
19:15 André Duqum? Yeah.
19:16 Speaker 00 You know, I think that parents really sweat it. They're like, you know, if I don't have my spiritual game on, if I'm not fully aligned, am I gonna damage my child's flame? Am I gonna mute their flame?
19:30 André Duqum? Yeah.
19:30 Speaker 00 And I think that the child's flame burns bright. And as parents, all we have to do is witness. You know, parents get very, very nervous. You know, am I not gonna have the right words? Am I not gonna know how to respond when my child has an awakening? And all we have to do is witness. We're ambassadors. We show the child around this holy land.
19:55 Speaker 00 We don't need to have answers. I also think that as parents, when we open up about our own spiritual paths and we let our flame be seen, the child knows that spiritual life is real. We talk about it. Our relationship goes to that depth. And that they can always get back to Source.
20:19 Speaker 00 And that means having the will to open up the window and be transparent to our children. You know, I was on a terrible mood today. I was obsessed with rumination today. And I'm so sorry because I missed you while I was ruminating. Would you sit with me while we meditate together? Would you sit with me and join me in a prayer? You can finish the prayer today. And in that way, you're showing the child that in and through all of our relationships is always divine presence. And who we are to one another is a divine appointment.
20:56 André Duqum? What do you think about those mirror neurons and how our neurology doesn't quite discern the difference between imagination and reality?
21:07 Speaker 00 Well, we count on it for MRI studies.
21:12 Speaker 00 But the most classic MRI study is to ask someone to share a very profound memory. And as we share this memory, to fill it out with sensory information, what it was like, what it felt like, where were you, anchor yourself physically, mentally.
21:28 André Duqum? How many patients did you do these studies with? When you had them under the MRI and you were doing this?
21:36 Speaker 00 Well, we've had many studies with different numbers and different studies. But when we share memory in the MRI, we elicit the same neural correlates as if we were actually there, plus memory. And what we find is that these memories are very, very, very real. So it opens up a question that neuroscience hasn't examined yet, which is, do we go back there in the field of consciousness?
22:09 Speaker 00 Have you done past life regression?
22:12 André Duqum? I've done a couple, yeah, sessions way back.
22:15 Speaker 00 Did you feel you went back there?
22:16 André Duqum? I don't know.
22:18 Speaker 00 I felt I went back there.
22:19 André Duqum? Yeah.
22:20 Speaker 00 It was very, very real and it was different than telling a story or a memory from this life.
22:29 André Duqum? Yeah.
22:29 Speaker 00 When I did past life regression, there was a cadence and a momentum to the experience that had a life of its own. There was a real sense of consciousness moving through my landing pad of a brain, not a constructive sense of coming up with a story or filling in a story or connecting the dots, but really of receiving, you know, a horse on fire. Like it really tore through. And I would say that the way I understand past lives in my own direct experience is that we can access what is actually germane and alive. It's not a parlor game. It's not a dalliance to go picking around our past lives. It is,
23:13 Speaker 00 we are brought where effectively we are now. So it's whoosh through the wormhole.
23:19 André Duqum? Where those energies are still alive within us.
23:22 Speaker 00 And whether it was in linear time, 1846 or 1486, we are in that nexus of consciousness that I think in linear time is eternal. So I think of time as like a clover and at the moment, we're at the center going through multiple centuries or decades. Do you think we can go into the future?
23:48 André Duqum? Uh, like.
23:49 Speaker 00 Future life?
23:50 André Duqum? Through our consciousness?
23:52 Speaker 00 Yes.
23:53 André Duqum? I don't know.
23:55 Speaker 00 I don't know either, but have you had visions of things in the future?
23:59 André Duqum? I think I've definitely had like premonitions and strong intuitive pulls that thought like were turned out to be very real and true. And I've, I think largely released the.
24:14 André Duqum? Urge I used to have, which is like the logical understanding, or I suppose empirical validation of like whether or not it existentially is true in reality.
24:27 André Duqum? Because I, I don't know, I've just come to terms with not knowing.
24:33 Speaker 00 Experiencing.
24:34 André Duqum? Yeah, just experiencing and that balance, right? Between like only, again, a society valuing what we can empirically kind of deduce and versus the ontological, you know, experiences and firsthand innate interior experiences. And so you were, when you guys were in these studies, you had four major understandings that you guys were able to pull through when they were guiding the the science of the awakened brain.
25:03 Speaker 00 Yes.
25:03 André Duqum? And I would love for you to walk through those because I think those findings are very important in bridging our understanding of spiritual experience and the science of it.
25:13 Speaker 00 So we invited people to share a profound transcendent connection. And the people who participated in our study were from all different faith traditions and outside of faith tradition. So Catholic, Hindu, Jewish, Muslim, spiritual, but not religious. And no matter what tradition they may be from or what language they used, as they shared their experience of a direct transcendent connection, the same neuro correlates ran through our fMRI study, which means that irrespective of how our innate spirituality is cultivated,
25:55 Speaker 00 however we call or name the transcendent, however we access the transcendent, a walk in nature, meditation, prayer, when we are in connection with our higher power.
26:09 Speaker 00 There is one awakened brain, and we all have it. There are four dimensions to the awakened brain. The first, and only the first, is shared in common with mindfulness, which is we stop the racket, we quiet the default mode. You know, what did I say? Is he going to remember I said that? Did the check clear? That sort of rumination comes when we quiet the default mode network. That is only one of the four dimensions, and it is shared with the very helpful practice of mindfulness, which is to simply bring presence and quiet and attention. The next three dimensions are unique to awakening.
26:52 Speaker 00 The next three dimensions have to do with spiritual connection. The first is that the bonding network comes up online, and we are aware, we perceive, that we are loved and held. It is the same bonding network that's engaged from our children and our parents or grandparents' arms. Now, from a reductionist point of view, we would say, okay, the bonding network runs, you feel as if you were being loved and held. But from a 20th century view of the brain as a conduit, an antenna, it's possible to interpret the finding as saying the transcendent presence engages our bonding network, and
27:37 Speaker 00 we therefore perceive the transcendent as loving and holding us. And that's a view of the human as an open system. The next dimension is that we move from having a very narrow attention span, dorsal attention, you know, the bowling alley point of view, I gotta get this job, I've gotta write that letter, is here, she, are they gonna ask me out again? Focused really on what's dogging me, to moving to a much bigger, broader range of perception, the ventral attention network, where the floodlights, or the sunlight comes on, and suddenly something way over there, 140 degrees, pops.
28:21 Speaker 00 Again, a reductionist point of view would say that we can scan a larger field and find something over there in the corner. But a 20th century view of the brain as a conduit would say, something over there at 140 degrees pulls our attention. We're in dialogue. And because the ventral has allowed us to open up a wider scope, we are prepared to receive engagement at 140 degrees. Situational awareness. So we now are able to perceive that we are actually loved and held. We are actually guided. And finally, the parietal, it puts in and out hard boundaries, allows us to know that you're seated very peacefully in your chair,
29:06 Speaker 00 and I'm in mine, and we each have our own zipped up bio-body suits. We are distinct, but we are also one. We are part of the great oneness. We are part of the family of life. We're part of the field of consciousness. We are emanations of source. Whatever your language, the parietal lets us know that while we are a point, we are also part of the wave, that we are distinct and one. So when we engage our awakened awareness, we know that we are loved and held, guided, and never alone. Loved, guided, part of the oneness, and one. That's not a belief. It is a seat of perception. It's a capacity in every one of us.
29:51 Speaker 00 Many people cultivate this because while we are all given the wiring to awaken, this gift is one-third innate, two-thirds environmentally formed, which means as adults, our practice of meditation, our prayer life, our service to other people. When we help the guy across the way who needs some food, when we babysit for the family who looks like they're at wit's end, when we do something that is generous and shows love of neighbor, we awaken to the love written into life. When we help others along, we awaken to the guidance written into life. So just as transcendent practice is awakening, love of neighbor and altruism are profoundly awakening of our birthright.
30:40 André Duqum? So the understanding of what's happening in the neurology and these felt senses of interconnectedness and spiritual experiences are really profound. And I'm curious what you feel the correlation is between allowing a greater intelligence to move you in a sense of more coherence and these states that you're talking to. Like you mentioned, when you do these generous things, when you cultivate a mindfulness practice, you have this felt sense of interconnectedness, right? And it seems like we're going from many ways, from the top down to the bottom up, and the way of navigating life and being open and inviting
31:22 André Duqum? more of the unknown and the serendipitous and the synchronistic. So talk to me, I guess, about how when you cultivate this both innate faculty and capacity that we have within us, and something that we can continue to cultivate in our daily life, we can move more towards synchronicity and not solely rely on the rational?
31:46 Speaker 00 Synchronicity is very solid data. I would call it hard data. Synchronicity, of course, is when two mechanistically unrelated events actually reveal one deeper unitive common purpose or common entity. So I could be thinking of someone and they call. I could be wondering, you know, where shall we drive this summer? And someone at the coffee shop sits down and says, have you ever been to the Badlands? So synchronicity reveals that we are part of a symphony, and that we're all playing a role. We show up for one another, just as people show up for us. Really, like rays of the sun or fingers from a hand, we
32:28 Speaker 00 are all emanations of source. Now, why is that so important? Well, you are a trail angel. You are. And
32:38 André Duqum? A trail angel.
32:39 Speaker 00 A trail angel. When you feel in your heart, I'll give you an example. Have you ever felt compelled to say something to someone? You don't know why, you don't know where it came from, but you felt compelled to say it?
32:52 André Duqum? Yeah.
32:52 Speaker 00 Will you share the story?
32:54 André Duqum? Oh, wow. There's actually a lot that come to mind.
32:59 Speaker 00 What you said, how they responded?
33:01 André Duqum? Yeah, I think the more that I've just become sensitive as a human being, I can sense the underlying energy in which words come from, or the unspoken things within somebody's life. So I've also, I think, just dialed in more with like pattern recognition and like whether it's supporting a friend who's struggling with something and being able to, while the main focus of what the perceived problem is, is right here, seeing the link of the pattern of where it's actually a deeper, underlying thing that needs our attention. So there's innumerable examples while being in conversation with friends where there's something that feels like, whether it's a subconscious capacity for pattern recognition or a greater intelligence connection to source
33:45 André Duqum? that's moving through me, perhaps it's all the same thing.
33:48 Speaker 00 But you count on it?
33:49 André Duqum? Yeah.
33:50 Speaker 00 Has it ever gone wrong?
33:53 André Duqum? If it's coming from love, usually it will never, it never will go wrong. If it's coming from ego and trying to prove something, or I suppose for my own agenda outside of the true, genuine service, then I think it has.
34:08 Speaker 00 Can you feel the difference?
34:09 André Duqum? Absolutely, yeah.
34:11 Speaker 00 So I'll give some examples. I'm in the healthy grocery store and there's a woman. At the healthy grocery store, I like to look in other people's carts for good ideas and she has abundant healthiness. A beautiful, you know, beautiful shard and beautiful kale and coconut-based yogurt. And I look at her and there's something 20% sad or distant, I can't identify. But what comes through me, what I feel told to say is, "You look so healthy. You are so healthy."
34:51 Speaker 00 So I deliver the message and the woman bursts out crying. And she says, "I have cancer. I'm starting chemotherapy tomorrow." Her eyes full of tears. And I said, "Well, they're going to take it out."
35:12 Speaker 00 You are healthy. And she said, thank you. I needed to hear that. I didn't come up with that. Right? And she said, I have cancer. I'm having surgery tomorrow. I said, they're going to take it out. You are healthy.
35:30 Speaker 00 And she's very moved. Okay, she's moved because that message from Source was that you are strong, you are healthy, and that which had made you ill invaded you is going to be removed.
35:45 Speaker 00 If I hadn't said it, she wouldn't have had her helpful message. And so on note, really on key, are these messages that come through us that I've come to count on that process.
35:57 André Duqum? You trust it.
35:58 Speaker 00 I trust it. And when I'm stuck and I don't know quite how to help someone else along, I pray and meditate and ask for guidance. So for instance, a woman I know was well into the third trimester and lost a baby. What do you say to her? And I wasn't sure how to be supportive and walk with her through that very painful loss. And so I prayed, I said, what, you know, please, God, guide me and use me as a vessel to share what will support her in her journey, in your child. And sure enough, and we're all built this way, the right words come. And I see her
36:40 Speaker 00 then a few weeks later, and she said that, those words on your note, they were exactly, I read it to my husband many times, what we needed to hear. So God sends us working for each other. The universe has this beautiful symphony, and we're all in it.
36:58 André Duqum? The cultivation of the trust for both supporting other people, but then also for our own life's journey is, it's such a freeing sensation to know that you're never alone. Like, you always have that felt sense of connection to something greater. And I think it's Terrence McKenna that has the quote, he said, the secret to life is...
37:19 André Duqum? You hurl yourself into the abyss and realize it's a feather bed.
37:23 Speaker 00 Wow.
37:24 André Duqum? You know, and there's just this, there's this free fall into the unknown of life.
37:29 Speaker 00 And you're caught.
37:30 André Duqum? Yeah, and you're held, which is, which is beautiful.
37:34 Speaker 00 Loved and held.
37:35 André Duqum? Yeah.
37:36 Speaker 00 You know, there's sometimes people will say, I don't know how to receive. If we're saying, okay, spirituality is not a belief, it is a seat of perception, it's in you. I hear from people, well, how do I do that? And I think that every tradition has a way in, but there is a practice that I have found to be highly effective. It was a gift to me. Shall we share it?
38:00 André Duqum? Yeah.
38:01 Speaker 00 Are you open to that?
38:02 André Duqum? Yeah, totally.
38:03 Speaker 00 Okay, this is a practice that was shared with me. So I share it forward. I always thank the teacher from the late Dr. Gary Weaver. May we practice?
38:13 André Duqum? Yeah.
38:13 Speaker 00 Okay, I'm going to invite you, if you'd like to close your eyes and clear out your inner space.
38:23 Speaker 00 If you would, five breaths.
38:46 Speaker 00 I invite you in your inner chamber to set before you a table. This is your table.
38:56 Speaker 00 And to your table, you may invite anyone, living or deceased, who truly has your best interest in mind. Anyone living or deceased who truly has your best interest in mind.
39:20 Speaker 00 And with them all sitting there, ask them if they love you.
39:33 Speaker 00 And now you may invite your higher self, the part of you that's so much more than anything that you may have done or not done, anything you may have or not have, your true eternal higher self.
39:49 Speaker 00 And ask you if you love you.
39:55 Speaker 00 Ask you if you love you.
40:00 Speaker 00 And now finally, you may invite your higher power, God, spirit, whatever word is yours, however you know, your higher power.
40:14 Speaker 00 And ask if they love you.
40:17 Speaker 00 Ask if they love you.
40:28 Speaker 00 Now with all of these people sitting here right now, what do they need to tell you now? What do they need to share? What do they need to let you know?
41:02 Speaker 00 And when you're ready, I invite you back.
41:13 André Duqum? Thank you for that. It was beautiful. It's just so nice to feel.
41:20 André Duqum? The many human beings that are in our lives alive or dead that we can feel held and supported by, that I feel held and supported by, and just like so much gratitude for, I think sometimes we think non-physical angels or people that are not in bodies, like those are like the spiritual beings to connect with. And there's so many examples of the physical human angels that are in our life that want to support us and love us and want to see the best for us. So that was beautiful. Thank you for sharing.
41:55 Speaker 00 Was there someone who surprised you or you particularly enjoyed sitting at your table?
42:00 André Duqum? I mean, there's a lot. Yeah, there's my family, to previous mentors and brothers and friends of mine. Yeah.
42:12 Speaker 00 You had a big table.
42:13 André Duqum? Big table, yeah.
42:14 Speaker 00 Lovely.
42:17 André Duqum? Holding it down.
42:18 Speaker 00 Lovely.
42:19 André Duqum? Yeah, and that is such a, even when we were speaking to you earlier with mirror neurons, it feels like that practice, it like gives us the experience of actually being there, you know, and actually feeling held and supported, where people feel proud of you and are rooting for you in genuine love. And that's always available to us because we can always visualize that within us, you know? And so that's an amazing tool. Thank you for sharing.
42:43 Speaker 00 It's my view that they are there. And they're there even if they're embodied and right now in Detroit.
42:50 André Duqum? Yeah. Yeah.
42:53 Speaker 00 Superposition, right? In the way that a father wakes up in the middle of the night and he knows that his son, who's been deployed, has had something go wrong. Right? There's a sense of deep bondedness through which we are one and distinct.
43:11 André Duqum? On that note, what do you feel like are the most shocking discoveries you've personally learned about non-locality of consciousness and quantum entanglement, which we spoke to earlier, in regards to this? Because there's a lot of strange things happening at that scale that we can't maybe fully rationalize, but is very powerful nonetheless. And so, yeah, anything that really sticks out in terms of its potency in regards to studying those two areas?
43:41 Speaker 00 Well, I'll share one from the road of life and I'll share one through the lens of science. How about that?
43:46 André Duqum? Yeah.
43:46 Speaker 00 Through the road of life, what's always struck me is that where there is, you could say, a karmic entanglement, right, positive or negative, well, put it this way, if I honk at someone in traffic, I see them in the grocery store. If I lose my cool with someone at work, they show up on my summer vacation. There's a sense in which the consciousness tangles we create are dictating material expression of how we see each other and reconnect. Maybe it's a new opportunity to untangle that node. But I think that basically, once
44:26 Speaker 00 in contact, always in contact. That's from the road of life. Through the lens of science, the most breathtaking finding that I've seen in 30 years as a scientist is this. When we look at people who, through suffering, difficulty, have awakened. So, you know, there's a lovely body of science that shows that very often, struggle, suffering, depression is the early phase of an awakening.
44:56 André Duqum? Two sides of one door, as you have so eloquently shared.
44:59 Speaker 00 Yes, that the yearning and the struggle and the existential emptiness actually reveals that our vessel and capacity has become more capacious and now feels like a half-empty vessel.
45:13 Speaker 00 We are on a quest. So the yearning, the existential frustration doesn't mean we're off the path. It means we're on the path. A knock at the door, a bang at the door for a more deepened connection with God, spirit, consciousness. That is, I think, the majority of forms of human suffering. There are some where there's a biological depression, there's a piece broken and we fix it with medication. But most of the time, and I'm not against medication, but medication alone is insufficient. Most of the time, there is an emergence that first presents itself. The ignition is struggle, it's developmental depression.
45:55 Speaker 00 When we take this journey and we awaken, what we find is that we've cultivated a path, a spiritual response to suffering that is forevermore there for us. We can always get back. If we invite people to come in, this time not to the MRI machine, but the EEG machine that captures energy given off the back of the head, how we're using the brain, brainwaves, what we find is that people to recover, people to move through despair through an awakening, give off high amplitude alpha, specific wavelength. High amplitude alpha goes by another name in another field.
46:35 Speaker 00 It's Schumann's resonance, the constituent wavelength of nature from the earth's crust up one mile all the way around the earth, which means the spiritually engaged brain vibrates at the wavelength of all life, of nature, creation. So the kingdom, Eden was not long ago and far away. It's here now and it is a choice to enter through our seed of being. And we readily then have available to, the felt oneness is mirrored by the oneness of wavelength. That to me is the most beautiful finding in science.
47:12 André Duqum? So powerful. And there is a... There's a part in this book, The Awakened Brain, that I really love. So this was advice Howard Thurman that you quoted gave to someone who is struggling to make a decision and desperate for guidance. And Thurman wrote a letter, his handwritten response, said, "You're like a little boy under the Christmas tree who has so many gifts, he doesn't know which one to open first. The main thing is, you must wait and listen for the sound of the genuine which is within you. When you hear it, that will be your voice, and that will be the voice of God." And it feels like when you're in those moments of depression, despair, where you're speaking
47:55 André Duqum? to awakening is the other side of the door, the making space for silence to discover that which is genuine within you to emerge is, it's our primary task, is to make space and see what's trying to emerge from within us. And I know you've really shown so much of that, and experienced it obviously in your own life, where those moments of depression eventually gave birth to some of the greatest gifts in your life. Would you agree?
48:27 Speaker 00 I would say that depression forced me to go deeper on the spiritual path. That was certainly my experience. My husband and I struggled for years praying and hoping for children. It was profoundly, we had the jobs we wanted, we had the friends we wanted, we had the home we wanted, and it all felt empty and for naught in our lives, in our path for us, because we wanted to be parents. And one can, if you will, try to conceive, but humans cannot make conception, right? There has to be the breath of life.
49:10 Speaker 00 So we tried and tried and five years went by and nobody came. It was profoundly depressing. And that was a journey I share in the awakened brain of extraordinary ego death. You could control probably, you know, when it comes to the most important things in life, 2%, 5%. The tidal wave of life is a force far greater than us. And what we can do is start to ask, what is life showing me now? What is life revealing to me now? Not what do I want and how am I going to get it? I want a baby. How are you going to get a baby? Well, let me research the best infertility doctors. Ooh, that didn't work. Let's go to Boston. In Boston, there's a team where their rates are 5% higher. Let's go there.
49:54 Speaker 00 This form of achieving awareness is being fed to us as children and cultivates a form of perception of reality, which is really very anthropocentric, where, you know, we're basically Mighty Mouse in the middle of the universe, commandeering what we want. And if we don't get it, we must up our game. There's a better strategy. But what if the most important parts of our lives, who we love, where we end up finding that we feel alive, with whom, where, what we're doing, are not strategically planned based on yesterday's information, but are really discovered? These are gifts. These are gifts of God, gifts of the universe. They're not what we want. They're better than what we want.
50:39 André Duqum? And perhaps in kind of getting close to wrapping up here, you really talk so beautifully about the integration between both achieving and awakened mind. And in so many ways, and I've heard you actually share that we've been educated out of our spiritual awareness, you know? And so a lot of us have to do more work in the building of the relationship with the awakened state in those perceptual capacities. And then there's a cohesiveness and integration with that achievement kind of mind and the rationality. And as we're riding this wave of life, we, with our intention, kind of carve out the tail, kind of the direction we want to go. But then you're inviting this kind of open palm to see what you want to receive from life as well.
51:24 André Duqum? And so what have you learned about the, yeah, the importance of the integration of kind of both understandings?
51:29 Speaker 00 We need both achieving awareness and awakened awareness and to use them in tandem. So I can ask a grilling question.
51:38 Speaker 00 Through achieving awareness, you know, what profession do I want to go into? Where do I want to relocate my family? How do I solve this algorithm? And plow through that logically, stepwise, and still not quite have a deep resonance that I've reached a solution. And when I feel stuck with my drilling, pure logic, I can toss the question over to an awakened form of knowing. I can see if perhaps I have an intuitive response, or if in my dream life, there's clarity. And I wake up, perhaps in the morning, having traveled there and back with a certainty. There are other ways of knowing, which are less cultivated than in our mainstream
52:23 Speaker 00 education system, that are profound, surefire, hard data ways of knowing. Intuition, mystical awareness.
52:33 Speaker 00 The skeptic is always welcome. The skeptic can help drive this inquiry. But when we can bring into consort multiple forms of knowing, really multiple organic epistemologies, we develop a dialogue between ways of knowing. And this is our greatest strength. This is our greatest strength. We even see that people who walk through life, receiving a mystical experience and then discerning its significance, or noticing a pattern in the universe empirically, and then intuiting the deeper underlying truth. Myelinate the tracks between regions of the brain. We effectively pave the highways so that we are more innovative thinkers. We are more situationally aware.
53:17 Speaker 00 We're more creative. Yes, in our work, but most importantly, in our lives. This is our birthright. And shouldn't every child have this opportunity?
53:29 André Duqum? I feel definitely so, and I just think of how some of the most brilliant innovators in the past, like Newton, Edison, Gödel, they had metaphysical practices that would help them tap into that state. And then it's like you kind of receive the insight of, whether it's innovation is something you're working on, or the direction of your life, it really feels like the balance of both is how life can make the most of you in a way.
53:57 Speaker 00 And the awakened insight is indeed received. It is a receptive form of transcendent perception. Whereas often, there's a more front-footed, driving quality to empiricism or logic. And we need to bring both the receptive and the front-footed forms of perceiving and knowing into consorium.
54:15 André Duqum? I found what you shared about Schumann's resonance just so, so powerful. And I think people that are listening to this podcast certainly strive for the cultivation to like that level of coherence in one's life, you know, where you discover your own well-being, you find that alignment and coherence and, you know, helping in serving the world. I know, I definitely feel that on my path. And what are any last thoughts you have for arriving at that place, whether it's through practices, any insights that you feel like we haven't touched on yet, for people to embrace the awakened brain, mind, and life?
54:53 Speaker 00 Well, the deep rhythm of the universe is experienced by all living beings. Animals don't seem to miss a beat. I can say in my own path, when I'm feeling deeply aligned, when I am connected with the heartbeat of the universe, I am working in tandem with fellow living beings. And when I am feeling surly and out of step and not aligned, I am not working in tandem with fellow living beings. So if, you know, in my meditation life, I'm too distracted to get down to it, in my prayer life, I'm not getting there, go outside to nature and let the animal be your guide, let the animal be your teacher,
55:34 Speaker 00 let the tree ground you into all infinity. Because they're always there, there at your table.
55:44 André Duqum? Really important reminder, and I've definitely found that the actual key to speeding up is slowing down usually first in life. So, thank you for sharing that reminder.
55:55 Speaker 00 And of course, the child will show up and step.
55:58 André Duqum? Yeah.
56:00 Speaker 00 The spiritual child.
56:01 André Duqum? Lisa, I've really loved our conversation so much.
56:03 Speaker 00 Me too.
56:04 André Duqum? And with just our short time today, feel very connected from when you first came here, and I just really appreciate your presence in the world and the work that you're doing. It's just so needed, important, and is a powerful reminder for us all about our own innate power. So, thank you so much.
56:20 Speaker 00 Thank you for being a wellspring, that's bringing life to our society.
56:26 André Duqum? Thank you. I strive to be so. So, to the degree I can contribute in that way, I appreciate it. Thank you.
56:33 Speaker 00 Very much.
56:34 André Duqum? Where people want to find more of you, we'll leave links down in the description below. But any other primary source where you like to connect with people or point people towards your work?
56:43 Speaker 00 Well, on Instagram is where I share important discussions. It's dr.lisamiller.
56:50 André Duqum? Great.
56:50 Speaker 00 Yeah.
56:51 André Duqum? Everyone, thanks so much for coming out and checking out this episode on the Know They Self Podcast. Please, as always, let us know in which ways this was uniquely impactful for you. And there is a lot that was powerful for me that I want to continue to contemplate on. And Lisa, thank you so much. Until next time, be well. Take care.
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