What is true spirituality?

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I just I just kind of disappeared and became part of the whole universe I knew

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that that’s what I’d always been and it was it was a kind of infinite healing it

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was it was indescribably beautiful and clearly you know without doubt I knew

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like the most important thing that had ever happened to me to the point where I could have died that night and known

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that my life was fulfilled [Music]

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foreign [Music] up with Brook sprawl my guest today is

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the wonderful Henry shookman Henry welcome thanks so much for having me it’s great to be with you yeah so lovely to connect

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with you we have quite a bit in common from spirituality and meditation to poetry and psychology so I have a

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feeling we’ll have a very rich conversation today so talk about your background with meditation and

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spirituality I know you had kind of a spontaneous Awakening experience would you like to share about that when I was

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19 I had yeah this thing happened out of nowhere where

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I just uh my ordinary sense of things just fell away I was looking at the

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light of the Sun in late afternoon on the water and I I just um now stone cold

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sober and uh it really never barely hadn’t been in my life you know and had

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basically you know occasionally drank some beer as a teenager and stuff smoked some hash but no nothing beyond that and

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no kind of really no interest in anything esoteric or mystical or

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spiritual and suddenly I just was uh I just I just kind of disappeared and

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became part of the whole universe and um I knew that that’s what I’d always

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been and it was it was a kind of infinite healing it was it was

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indescribably beautiful and clearly you know without doubt I knew

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like the most important thing that had ever happened to me to the point where I could have died that night and known

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that my life was fulfilled and and I um actually you know you know what in the

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way of things I didn’t die and and life went on and I had a blissful few weeks

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and then I went home I was I’d been away from Far From Home on a gap year when

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when this thing happened and when I got home almost immediately I was really

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kind of hammered by all the unexamined childhood trauma that

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I’d lived with which was you know mostly about two things a very difficult

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domestic situation you know with um well with parental and stuff and

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secondly another chronic um rather severe skin condition throughout my childhood and and which

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which had become free of while I was away and so I came home and suddenly you

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know all the unfelt um feelings of my childhood that I’d

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sort of managed to compartmentalize so I could kind of function when I was a kid

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um I was so open that all of it just sort of swamped me and I had no

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significant resources for dealing with it and I was completely overwhelmed and went into

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a kind of deep despair which which I kind of lived I sort of kind of lived

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with for a few years and then and then actually that’s when I started to meditate I in my early 20s

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I think I was actually 24 I started meditating and that was the the way that

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my sort of healing Journey really began because it it’s really fairly soon after

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I started meditating regularly um I realized that I was something was

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off I wasn’t happy and there hadn’t been for a long time and that I could do something about it and I I started doing

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I started you know I started getting into therapy so how do you see the difference between spirituality and

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psychology that’s such a great question the difference between psychology and spirituality I mean of course you know

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they can mean a lot of different things and um undoubtedly there’s a whole lot of

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overlap and in a certain way I mean I feel my journey has been and continues

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to be absolutely about both of them and um I would say maybe it’s just sort of

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almost for the sake of convenience that sort of in my understanding you know spirituality is

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is can Encompass um for one thing non-dual experience it can

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Encompass what we call Awakening which is where you know our sense of self

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isn’t sort of improved tended cultivated developed it simply is seen through it’s

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seen the it’s always been an illusion and and we discover that when that

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illusion is no longer kind of hooking us or capturing us

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we’re we’re actually part of a great whole that is

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everything and it’s you know it’s an incredible Discovery to make and I do

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think it’s a discovery meaning that it’s kind of real because

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um I I believe and there’s a lot of Neuroscience these days and other kinds of Investigation supporting you know the

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sort of contention that the sense of self as we normally experience it as stable and fixed and

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separate from all else is actually a kind of Illusion

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but leaving that aside I also think it’s it’s it’s kind of terrible not to tend

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our self I think we must I mean I certainly I’ve had to bring you know

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learn to bring a loving welcoming attention and awareness to

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what I feel I am so that the sense of self that I can still plug into can

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still experience is is cared for so you say I don’t really I

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mean some people you know hardcore non-dual folks would say

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I’m wrong there isn’t a self just ignore it you know kind of thing but to whatever extent you’re getting caught by

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things and having intense negative emotion that’s just the extent to which

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you’re still hooked by this thing that you’ve got to get unhooked from but I actually

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I mean I think they may be right I don’t know but um and I said I must say I’ve had

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periods of time when I might have even said that myself but I I really don’t

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see it that way now I feel we we’ve got to a well-rounded kind of um unless I’d

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say wholesome and sort of integrated um spirituality actually must include

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psychological tending as well and I I sort of feel um

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I don’t really want to lean on one side and exclude the other

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yeah familiar with Ken Wilbur’s work at all yes some of it I’ve read oh man he’s

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great I’ve I’ve Loved I haven’t read a whole lot but I’ve read bits in pieces I

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mean man that whole pre-trans fallacy thing is brilliant she’s talking to John verbiki about that

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last week I think we could dive into a little bit

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but there’s a few different things I wanted to touch on from what you shared you know Ken Wilbur talks about

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transcending and including so it feels you know at the higher levels of development we don’t simply go to the

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next level and then disown the previous level that’s not an authentic developmental process and that’s not a

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sustainable developmental process to the extent that I’ve done that you know kind of working with my own say narcissism

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it’s like there was a time when I was like oh I’m not a narcissist but all those people are narcissists and now this is dangerous and now this is this

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part of me is bad now I’ve disowned it now it’s you know kind of cut off in some way and of course then I found that

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everywhere around me and it didn’t feel safe and then when I was able to go back and kind of get to know that part and

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find empathy for that part as just the little girl who’s just struggling and didn’t get enough you know didn’t feel

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self-worth and needed to get a sense of self from the outside world as I was able to find just compassion for that

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all of a sudden other people with those traits didn’t feel threatening and I was able to transcend it in a more authentic

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and grounded way where it’s still a part of me I’m not trying to get rid of it it’s no longer dangerous or a threat and

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so it does feel like there’s a necessity to you know not simply transcend but

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also to include the lower levels of development and you know there’s a lot

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of you know there are people in the spiritual Community who have reached a kind of Awakened State of Consciousness

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without doing the accordant spiritual work and that’s where we see all of these kind of cult leaders who are very

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corrupt as they have these very mystical um I mean I I’ve never encountered you

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know firsthand these kind of leaders who have actual Powers I don’t know if you

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have I’d be very curious but I’ve heard stories like Michael Singer talks about you know certain experiences he’s had

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with gurus who have you know the ability to kind of I don’t even know I I don’t

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even know that I could describe it but in some way move energy or heal or you know kind of

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um cultivate these certain States and I don’t know if I fully believe in that but I’m I’m I hear that there are people

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like that who have these at least magnetic presences you know they’re just captivating they’re embodied they they

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exude unconditional love but then there’s like the oceans of the world where they they have those traits and

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then there’s all of this corruption and all of this exploitation and so that’s where this apology piece is so important

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to integrate the shadow so it’s it’s interesting because I’ve always had the assumption that if you’re enlightened in

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that sense if you reach that level of Awakening that you aren’t prey to the

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psychological vices and the ego temptation but what I’m recognizing is in some ways they’re separate and in

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other ways I think spirituality can be a natural kind of um expression of the Continuum of you

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know like psychological development but in some ways you know they can be

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separated um and and but as you say I think that

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finding the wholeness and it is the the kind of truly enlightened State requires

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us a level of integrity and Shadow integration there’s a way in which

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people aren’t truly Reckoning with the Shadow and the pain and the trauma and

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spirituality can be used as a way to gloss over that and I would argue that’s not a healthy relationship with

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spirituality um you know it sounds like you would agree with that by and large I totally

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agree with everything you said but then I think of like one of my teachers in particular who’s a zen teacher in the UK

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I write about him in my book actually and he’s God he you know he’s just such a kind

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man and he was is so deeply enlightened and so unassuming and you know hardly

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anybody kind of knows about him you know he’s very quiet under the radar he’d he’d be he’d

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been a lawyer he retired and and then ran to Charities for

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severely disabled people and towards them and he he you know he really

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he hadn’t done a whole lot of psychological work he may have done a bit here and there but it wasn’t like he

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was somebody who come through tons of therapy and was really well versed in it um but he he just uh

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exuded peace and love in a very sort of humble unassuming kind of way

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and lived this very humble um simple life of service that you know

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and I really um so somehow I think he probably

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the language has sort of hadied down all this Shadow integration of the Shadow I don’t know because I always think of

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like in the realm of spiritualities there’s always sort of caveats and exceptions and sort of so I think it’s

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very hard to say anything categorical in this realm like I mean I’ve known people who you know they just had one powerful

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Awakening experience and it just sort of melted their life like a hot knife through butter in the most beautiful way

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and you know I’m meeting them 25 years later and they’re they’re still sort of

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radiant and quiet and it just you know and and leading exactly

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a life that sort of suited them there was great peace around them and and you

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know and not not in positions of of authority like teaching people or anything like that just just quietly

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embodying a spiritual

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experience that they’d had that just sort of they’d allowed to gently kind of

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radiate through their being more and more I think and again who weren’t

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particularly I mean dare I say a sort of sophisticated in the language of psychology or even spirituality and yet

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worth it you know of course there could be a little bit of projection here too but seem to

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reside in a kind of I don’t know radiant warm loving way that you could feel

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around I don’t know I’m just saying it’s not it’s not I don’t know I’m hesitant

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about you know kind of legislating how it must be because it’s such a weird realm I

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agree with you and I think not everyone is as neurotic as everyone else not everyone has the same degree of trauma

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as other people so there are I think for some of us like my path because I’m high in eroticism and have you know some

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stuff that I’ve had to work through in terms of my own trauma um I had to do that work it was it was

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inevitable you know for me to survive and to be able to integrate anything

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authentically spiritually but you’re right there are some folks who they have these Awakening experiences and it

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perhaps doesn’t require that same level of Reckoning and and I don’t feel skeptical of that when people are deeply

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embodying love and kindness and you’re not seeing any of the kind of red flags

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in terms of corruption then you know I don’t feel skeptical about that the people I feel skeptical about are people

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who are over emphasizing that everything is love and light and that there’s not there’s no space for Shadows so for

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example I uh had a friend a kind of new friend a few years ago who I really

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liked and and um really connected with and she was very spiritual and I was going through

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something where I um I had a stalker and this stalker was like threatening me and

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and saying they were gonna you know come to my house and I was really afraid and

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then I didn’t feel like I was getting the support that I needed for my family and I was telling my friend about it and

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she said something about me playing the victim and I was so angry I was like

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excuse me I’m being victimized currently I’m terrified I don’t feel asleep in my

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home and you’re gonna say you know just put positive energy in the universe and don’t play the victim like I expressed

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you know I hurt and I tried to work it through and she didn’t have any interest in you know kind of recognizing where I

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was at that I was in pain and and and that I needed kind of just holding in that and so I think there’s and that now

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if I’m 10 years later I’m still just stewing and victim event mentality and

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and blaming and feeling powerless if that’s a theme in my life where I’m I’m engaging with the world from that place

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I think there’s a proper invitation to step out of that and different ways to look and frame your experience but when

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you’re in the midst of of acutely being you know of an acute trauma to be told that you’re playing a victim just feels

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really antithetical to what I would consider authentic spirituality those

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are more than people that I feel um skeptical of as folks who are just

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you know oh just positive thinking all the way down you know there’s no room

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for anything other than that and I just I just don’t I think that I’m robust and

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um authentic spirituality has to Encompass everything that that doesn’t mean every person has to be doing deep

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Shadow work to be awakened but I think a truly enlightened person has the space

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to hold people at different phases in their process you know otherwise I I

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don’t know if I trust you you know yeah no I I totally agree and I think um

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having you know the a kind of flexibility in our in our spiritual

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practice you know that that can totally Embrace pain trauma when necessary

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whether our own or that that of people we meet is I I

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couldn’t agree more it’s totally healthy and it’s I I think you know you get especially in spiritual communities

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you’ll get sort of that spiritual communities that work on transcending

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self you know they’ll you know they’ll have implicit sort of hierarchies based

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on how they can do on how much somebody has tried is free of self you know so that

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anytime someone says pain oh you’re just you’re just being hooked Again by yourself I mean I I agree that can be

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really counterproductive and unhelpful and even sort of cruel and abusive in worst case scenario and so I I I like

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the idea of a you know if we’re gonna if we’re gonna Venture into spirituality

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that has got to be kindness first really and it’s got to be compassion kindness

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and and inclusiveness I I think you said that beautifully earlier the way I see it actually these days in my mind

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there’s a there’s an old um rather kind of little known Chinese

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Buddhist document that about practice you know that that says this is from the I think

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it’s from the late fifth century in China so it’s pretty early you know for Chinese Buddhism which only starts about

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second century BC uh sorry CE and um it says something

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like um the path of practice is like a cart track which has two ruts

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you know one for each wheel of the card one rut is mindfulness and the other ra

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is Awakening so they make this sort of distinction between mindfulness meaning the practice

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of gradual tending cultivating developing healing the human psyche and

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then Awakening as you know Awakening to what they call the

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way in Chinese Buddhism meaning sort of the way of all things the

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arising of everything as one as empty as appearance or whatever you know and what

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we awaken to an Awakening sort of thing but they’re saying you’ve got to always have both

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uh wheel ruts of the track I love that I I live by that now actually so I I you

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know I I can I can say quality at certain point in my training in in actually in Zen I went through a deeper

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kind of experience that really didn’t leave me for 12 years and then and then

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I had some traumatic stuff go on and in my life the people actually have

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somebody very very close to me and um it it uh you know really it that experience

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that experience which I’ve been living very naturally and easily and just this sense of everything always being arising

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out of out of this Wonder a mystery you know it’s always present for me actually I mean maybe not absolutely always but I

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could always access it anytime but actually after 12 years something happened that changed it and I

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couldn’t access it and actually I didn’t want to I wanted to just be totally

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grounded in my human heart and helping the best I could and and I needed to

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help my own heart as well as you know the hearts of those immediately

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around me but I feel it seems like it must be wise to always be open to new

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growth and development and yeah and if there’s a model of you

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know you can hit a real Awakening and there’s no going back in a certain way

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does that close the door on you know New Growth so maybe it doesn’t

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have to but perhaps it can you know it feels like with any Mastery there are

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layers and dimensions that you gradually step into and awaken and flush out and

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you know things that at the beginning you don’t even see because you’re not even awake enough to have a vision for

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what those might be so it just sounds like you’re stepping into a new phase of your Mastery and it looks a little

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different but you’re integrating new aspects of your Humanity into your spiritual practice and that sounds

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really rich and um kind of deep so

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well let’s hope so I wouldn’t call it my master it’s more like my studentship I suppose you know or Mike just my

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learning my learning you know it’s one thing well I do say one of the nice things about having a real serious

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spiritual practice is it makes you a lifelong learner which I think is a really good thing to

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be like in and it you know of course there’s so many different traditions and the one that I’m most deeply versed in

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Zen it’s not particularly popular these days but it has some really good things in it one of which is it’s got this map

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known as the ox herding pictures it’s like 10 pictures that set out this kind

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of map of spirituality and you know the third one is is is having an Awakening

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experience and the fourth one is kind of uh integrating Awakening in our in our

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daily life and but then at a certain point we’re supposed to just forget about Awakening all together and just

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lead a normal life without any hint of Awakening in it you know but but they

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say it’s rather hard to get there but but that’s the aspiration to kind of folded it back into the soil

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you know what’s the thing where’s then the

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yeah yeah we’ve that would be very relevant exactly before then or before the beginning in Zen or something a

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mountain is a mountain during Zen a mountain is not a mountain after Zen a mountain is again a mountain

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yeah there’s something about the hero’s journey in that you know like ordinary

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mind kind of confrontation with the unknown Awakening

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um shift in perception of what the world is and then returning home with this

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newfound dimensionality of Awakened awareness in ordinary life and ordinary

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reality yes yes and I think it’s you know it’s interesting for me having had

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some very profound kind of Awakening experiences there is a part of me that

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kind of has a little bit of a perfectionism like I’m supposed to always be walking in both worlds you

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know simultaneously so in my ordinary life always be awake to all this dimensionality and and other kinds of

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ways of seeing and relating with the world mystically and you know perhaps there’s you know time and a place for

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that um but in so many Traditions it seems like the remembering is essential and in

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some ways the forgetting is part of remembering do you have any thoughts on that

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wait when you say remembering just let me just get clear what do you what are you referencing by that I’m thinking

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about the the Hindu conception of you know we’re all basically I I don’t know

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if I’ll be able to articulate this properly but my understanding is you know the Hindu concept is that God

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um in his limitlessness uh kind of got bored there was nothing for him to do

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and so he had to gradually begin to play hide and seek with himself by limiting his own powers and awareness and he had

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to go go further and further as time went on to forget that he was God to

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play this game with himself and then come back to remembering and so we have

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in these Awakening experiences these oh this kind of remembering of our infinite

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nature are you know Consciousness that is universal um and that that’s you know in some ways

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built into the game yes gochi gochikochi yeah I would say it

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very much like that I think there is a as as far as like sort of a

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spiritual perfectionism or something you know I I actually feel quite sure that there is there

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there is a sort of a something that can happen where we it’s it’s not that we stay in some

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Transcendent state but the thing that differentiates the transcended state from an ordinary State can drop away I

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know that can happen and it it can get knocked out like um like I don’t know what would be like a window pane or

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something and and we we’re just no longer um

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we no longer feel that sort of a quote-unquote or Transcendence state is

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different from a most ordinary state that that can happen and then it’s the most amazing thing because then we’re

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it’s just normal it’s just absolutely ordinary but what ordinary is

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is endlessly sort of soaks the heart in a kind of love in a just ordinary and to

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me that’s that’s getting well it’s it’s a it’s a it’s a it’s as

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far as I’ve gone and I and to to live there is very possible I I know that

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from personal experience and it’s so beautiful this it’s uh but it still doesn’t mean that there isn’t there

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can’t be psychological things that come up and little of course blind spots and

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little um you know patterns that we get caught in that can all still happen I and I’m

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sure there are people who go beyond all that because a lot of people report that there’s a phase in uh

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spiritual practice where they’ve kind of seen it and then they’re back to this you know neurotic self and then they see

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it again and they’re sort of flipping back and forth between something that seems more awakened and

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something that seems more I don’t know what do we call it non-awakened you know but actually and

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I’m in a course I’m very familiar with that myself and as a yeah again I talk about that a lot in my book but a point

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can happen where that Duality between sort of Awakened and very much not

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awakened actually that can drop away

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and it it’s not like it then means we’re in some totally mind-blowing you know

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blissed out Transcendent state or something it’s actually it’s not that it’s called better than that it’s just

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ordinary but but somehow so whole and so peacefully

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total or something it’s it’s it’s a that’s to me that’s that’s the

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that’s one of the great great fruits of doing it that’s when we’re really starting to integrate it actually I think

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yeah it reminds me of that uh quote by Yates the world is full of magic things

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patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper and uh oh oh that’s wonderful oh

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loneliness is sort of a hidden portal into the Divine and that part of the

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difficulty with accessing that state of peaceful magic of the ordinary daily is

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just that we move so quickly and I think I I often wonder about the relationship

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between nervous system regulation and enlightenment because my sense is that just getting

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our systems calm is what wakes us up to these this other dimension of being

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that’s beautifully put I totally agree I mean that that’s I guess why so many of

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these Traditions have all this emphasis on being still and quiet and settling down

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yes and you’re absolutely right oh man beautiful yeah one of the things I’ve

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found in my practice is that you know I would try to like insert meditation or

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mindfulness or different practices in my overly programmed schedule and I didn’t

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have this breakthrough I was like oh like the slowness has to be there needs

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to be a bird’s eye you know component to this where I need to actually create space in my life metaphorically to

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breathe as well as you know specific times of practice and of course the goal

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is to practice mindfulness and and these states in our daily in every moment of

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our day and at the same time you know just like if you’re learning a sport you need practice periods to really focus

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those skills in order to then you know more naturally have that muscle memory to play properly if you need those

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practice periods because we can’t efficiently integrate mindfulness uh

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into our day unless we can practice it efficiently in isolation and isolated

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periods and so I’ve often kind of fallen into thinking like oh I’m just going to be more mindful in my daily life and

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there are little things I can do that help but if I don’t have those practice periods that are highly focused I find

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it doesn’t take and it doesn’t integrate as easily it’s so easy to kind of just forget

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yeah I can totally relate to that and I think another piece for me is like when the momentum has kind of taken over you

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know and I’m actually kind of rushing inwardly as well as outwardly without recognizing it

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um I suppose for me the you know the mindfulness piece then is to just

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be cognizant of this momentum in my body you know and not try to stop it but just

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be cognizant of it and feel it and feel there’s usually some pain in there actually there’s usually some little

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twist of distress and little maybe a little knot of distress and to feel that

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and to be kind to it and kind of bring I suppose a kind of loving awareness to

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it um can make all the difference so it doesn’t it actually sort of

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I guess I’m just I’m I’m really reinforcing and agreeing with you and just I’m adding this other thing that I

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find really helpful which is like okay it’s not like I’ve got to totally slow down now Henry you know it’s more like

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okay let’s just let’s just know what’s actually going on and yeah I may need to I may need to

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stop physically be still for a moment to get a chance to actually

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know what that is and then but then just to find yeah there’s this there’s this uh

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yeah kind of like a momentum in my body you know like a flywheel or something wants to keep turning and uh I very much

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relate to that yeah yeah and it makes me think of you know

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if the way that you were speaking about you know just getting to know this part and we don’t have to you know slow it

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down necessarily it’s just bringing kindness and awareness it reminds me of some of the work I’m doing in ifs right

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now where you know we presume that every part of us has a positive intention and

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there are no bad parts of us they all serve a purpose um and by getting to know them by

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listening by asking them questions by giving them the attention that they need they can integrate in a more balanced

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fashion whereas if we ignore them or we try to make them go away um we we think they’re bad then they

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become more extreme and there’s this kind of paradoxical nature to you know like the paradoxical theory of change is

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the more we accept ourselves as we are the more we could change and so there’s that kind of Phenomenon with this is

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like the more I go oh Brooke you need to slow down then I make myself bad I exhale that part of myself I create this

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tension that what makes me want to keep going fast to avoid conflict so there’s

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this kind of you know confounding process whereby we try to change ourselves and it actually Stokes the

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fuel exactly problematic you know ways that things that we’re trying to avoid it’s sort of

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like a an alcoholic a shame cycle they feel terrible about themselves so they

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drink and then they drink and they feel worse about themselves so then they need to drink more you know that kind of it’s a similar phenomenon these these cycles

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that we have of sort of self-rejection um that only feed more self-projection

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more anxiety more conflict more disowned parts and splits that the problems that

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we have in our lives and so the antidote rather is to welcome in these parts get to know them listen to them so that they

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can integrate and and be part of our Board of advisors without calling

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without any one part calling the shots in isolation and so I love how you know

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ifs and mindfulness go really beautifully together because it’s just a systematic way of getting to know the

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different parts of ourselves that’s almost just a a slight Twist on some of

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the mindfulness practices where you’re actually speaking to these parts instead of just noticing them and I find that

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really rich because I think that these parts do need to speak and we need to listen to them and that’s a part of what

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helps us heal is really understanding all of the different you know unconscious parts of ourselves that

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we’ve disowned and denied I I couldn’t agree more and I think it’s one of the most beautiful things

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actually is when we um when we feel the pain of a part that

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we don’t want to own and and welcome and then that shifts into loving it I think

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that’s one of the most beautiful things and then and then the very pain becomes very beautiful you know it’s all about a

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heart so we we’re recovering our more and more terrain and territory of our own heart

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as as I feel it you know and I love ifs by the way it’s a great system it really

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is I I feel yeah that’s beautiful recovering the terrain of our heart

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reclaiming more and more territory ex broadening the expanse of our internal

36:56

Horizons and you know capacity of what we can hold uh as a really beautiful

37:02

note to end on thank you so much for your time it’s wonderful to be new and

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connect I’m so grateful I love this conversation any final words that you’d like to share before we we say goodbye

37:14

well I want to thank you very much and I I you know it’s so great to talk with somebody like you Brooke who’s really

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interested in exactly the same sort of area of human development and or areas

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that I am it’s lovely to connect like that thank you so wonderful I feel like

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will have many more conversations on the horizon we didn’t even get into poetry today so I kind of like a different

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podcast on that well um thank you so so much Henry and I’ll we’ll do it again soon okay thank you so much

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[Music]

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thank you