Bob Cirino ~ Breaking the Cycle: Understanding Karma and Reality Creation

Bob Cirino is the director of the Yoga Studies Institute, a nonprofit organization dedicated to teaching classic literature and methods of yoga. With a rich background in meditation, permaculture, and scientific research on environmental sustainability, Bob combines his expertise to promote compassionate living and environmental stewardship. He is also known for his work with the Asian Legacy Library and has a significant presence in international yoga communities.

Visit Bob on his website: https://www.spiritualwarrior.life/
also on: https://www.yogastudiesinstitute.org/
and on IG: https://www.instagram.com/bob.cirino/?hl=en

Key Takeaways:

• The Power of Compassionate Wisdom: Bob underscores the necessity of integrating wisdom and compassion in yoga practices to foster true transformation and environmental stewardship.
• Connection Between Yoga and Permaculture: Discover how Bob links the principles of permaculture with yoga philosophy, highlighting a holistic approach to living harmoniously with nature.
• Empty Nature of Reality: The episode explores the concept that objects and experiences are projections of our perceptions, emphasizing the role of mindfulness in changing our reality.
• Service as a Path to Fulfillment: Bob’s journey illustrates how acts of service and cultivating compassion can lead to personal and global healing.

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Chapters

• 0:33 Bob Cirino's Journey from Meditation to Yoga Studies Institute
• 9:12 A Journey from Permaculture to Meditation and Compassion
• 17:28 The Intersection of Permaculture and Yoga in Self-Sufficiency
• 18:31 The Ancient and Modern Benefits of Biochar for Soil Fertility
• 25:24 Cultivating Compassion Through Yoga for Environmental Harmony
• 28:52 From High School Research to Startup Ventures
• 37:25 Integrating Eco Technologies in Conservation Development
• 41:01 The Concept of Weeds in Gardening and Meditation
• 51:13 The Interplay of Karma, Yoga, and Ethical Living
• 51:13 The Interplay of Karma, Yoga, and Ethical Living
• 1:10:20 The Intersection of Yoga Practice and Compassionate Wisdom

Transcript

0:33

Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast, so happy you are here. My goal with this channel is to bring inspirational speakers to the mic in the field of yoga, massage, bodywork and beyond. Follow us at @nativeyoga and check us out at nativeyogacenter.com. All right, let's begin. Hello. Welcome to Native Yoga Toddcast. My name is Todd McLaughlin. I am so excited to introduce you to Bob Cirino. We hit it off right off the bat. What an incredibly entertaining and fun person to talk to. And I cannot wait for you to hear this conversation. Check him out on his website, spiritualwarrior.life. He is also the director of the Yoga Studies Institute, which is a nonprofit. Go to his website or their website, yogastudiesinstitute.org. Follow him on Instagram at @bob.cirino. And you know what? This was such an incredible experience for me, because right off the bat, Bob just like, lit me up. I was like, oh, man, this guy, he's so smart. He is really living the yoga and has a mission to, like, make this world a better place. And he's doing it so intelligently and so from a place of really understanding the deeper truths that are in the yoga practice, that are in the yoga is in the yoga philosophy and all these teachings. And so it's one thing to just embark upon study, but it's another one when the study becomes your life. And the way he combines the understanding of our relationship to Earth and our relationship to our internal environment, our internal Earth, planting seeds and what comes to fruition is just really remarkable. And I feel like from this conversation, I have a new appreciation for what yoga is and what meditation, the purpose of meditation, what our purpose in life is, here and now. So if that sounds a little too heavy for you, but if you are looking for some enlightenment, some insight into how you can grow? This conversation I think is going to help you. All right, let's begin. I'm really happy to have this opportunity to meet and speak with Bob Cirino. Bob, thank you so much for taking time out of your day today. Can you tell me a little bit about what your day is looking like so far? What have you gotten up to this morning? Oh, what a question to question. First of all, thank you for for having me appreciate it. Todd, your guests are beautiful beings, so it's an honor for me to be amongst your list of folks this morning. We just finished a yoga teacher training. Oh, I'm just like, I'm just overwhelmed with love right now, for the beauty of the people who show up to you know, dedicate their lives to living compassionately. So we've wrapped that up maybe two hours ago. Wow, did a little practice, and here I am. So that was my morning. Verycool. How long have you been offering teacher training? Well, we've been training teachers at the yoga Studies Institute since, you know, since covid. That's when, that's when we kind of opened up the nonprofit. It existed before that, but it kind of became a sleeping giant. So then we we re awoken it. So 2020, is the first time we put out a pretty sincere training on a lineage called Lady naguma, and we recently turned that into a 203 100 hour training. In total, it's over 1000 hours of training, if you go through the whole lineage. But you know, getting it certified and registered with yoga Alliance is a bit of a process. So So, yeah, we've been doing that for a couple years now. Nice. Well, then let me back up a little bit and find out. When you say we you have, do you have a. Studio, or is this an online platform? Yeah, got it. So the so the yoga Studies Institute. So I direct a nonprofit called the yoga Studies Institute, and our mission is to teach the classic literature and methods of yoga. So, so we go through yoga, sutra Hatha, yoga, Pradipika, Bhagavad Gita. Then we go through a couple really sweet lineages, and we teach that. So when I say we, it's all the great instructors that make up the yoga Studies Institute. And we're International, so a lot of our audiences in China, Russia, Vietnam, Japan, Mexico, Singapore and, of course, United States. So we run programs internationally online, then we have localized distributors who help to translate and kind of naturalize the content to fit the culture of whoever you know the people we're serving is. And so when I say we, it's kind of the core team of instructors and administrators and then our beautiful community of distributors and students worldwide. Wow, are you the founder and or the person behind this idea? No, the founder is. His name is Geshe, Michael Roach, so he has been teaching Buddhism and yoga for, I don't know, like, decades and decades, and he was the founder of the yoga Studies Institute. And then, like I said, it kind of fell asleep. And me, personally, I wasn't really into yoga in the way that yoga was originally presented to me, I was I fell in love with meditation, and I heard that one of the presentations of yoga is that it prepares your body and your mind for meditation. So I said, you know, if you try to sit still for half an hour and your body's not prepared for it, it's kind of hard to stay focused. And so So I said, Okay, I've always been an athlete, but let me train myself in something that's specifically designed for what's become the sweetest practice of my life, which is meditation. And so I got a book called How Yoga works. Felt like it was a good book, just on the title, and it was written by Geshe Michael Roach, and I read it, and I consider that to be my first yoga teacher. And it was about prana, and it was about breath, and it was about how our mind and our prana run together as one. And, you know, just really going into the sweet depths of of the multi dimensional idea and practice of yoga. So I was just practicing that. And at the at the back of the book, it said yoga Studies institute.org, and when I went to the website, nothing was there. And so, So, long story short, I heard that they were going to teach the yoga sutra again, which was a text that I tried to learn, but it's kind of hard. And so I said, Okay, you know, if they're teaching it again, you know, I love the book. I you know, I love the teaching, so let me see if I can help. So I started by volunteering, and you know, I was glad to hear that it was reawakening and and then, you know, another long story short, I ended up becoming director of the nonprofit, and stopped doing the other things I was doing, and just went full on into teaching compassionate wisdom through yoga. Wow, cool, Bob, that's amazing. That's really cool. So it's been a journey. Todd, I hear ya. That's a neat little timeline there in relation to your first Yoga Book, is the same teacher that you're now able to work alongside. That's that's an honor. That's always really cool. When that that works out, I remember what was my first Yoga Book, the first yoga book I ever saw. I was in between 11th and 12th grade, and I found Be Here Now by Ram Dass. And I was like, Whoa, what is this? Have you? Have you perused that bro, that book? No, but you know, I've listened to many of his teachings, yeah. And I never had the pleasure of meeting Ram Dass. So I like if that opening of that book had then turned into, now, I'm a director with Ram Dass. Holy cow. What a crazy turn of events. So that's amazing that you, you know, you kind of that connection just happened. It's very sweet, kind of quickly like that. Or just, you know, in that way, can you give me a little bit of backstory and history on how did you come into meditation practice? What was your intro into your world of meditation? That's a difficult question to answer, because I think that in the moment i. There's like I'm making a decision to begin meditating. But I think that you know, at least in the way that I've experienced my yoga, is that, you know, when we look back in our life, we see how every single moment is something that brought us to here. And so how can we say when it started? So I mean, the first thing that comes to mind, good point. That's a great point. My parents taught me values, you know, they were very value they are very value oriented people. And I think that, like, one of the essences of meditation is keeping our core values present. And you know, that's the object that we're fixing our mind on. And so I think that that was, you know, one of the primordial experiences. And then I've just always had a penchant toward understanding mind. I I just thought this mind is just unbelievably powerful and and mysterious. And so I spent a lot of high school, especially getting into all kinds of lineages and traditions trying to describe the nature of consciousness and the nature of mind. And I got into, I got into Napoleon Hill, who wrote, Think and Grow Rich, who is, wow, that's somebody who understands mind. And I started, I started my life started to change extremely rapidly after I touched that text, because the methods, I think, were really beautiful, but I but I think what gave me the platform before that was when I was 18. I I went and worked on a permaculture farm in Costa Rica and and it was this beautiful farm. I love permaculture, like, before anything, I'm a gardener, but I mean, like, I belong in the soil. That's where you'll that's where you'll find me playing a guitar in the dirt in my garden. And so I was in, I was on a permaculture farm, and I just went into the library, and one of the books in the library was an introduction to Buddhism. And I said, Yeah, why not these? Apparently these folks are really into mind. And, you know, I like that kind of thing. And so it was the first time that there was a methodology to meditation that was, like, really not formal in, like, a sterile sense, but formalism, like, I can follow these instructions, and there's a path. And so I had this, I had these nice moments meditating, like in the sunrise in my little hut, you know, in Costa Rica. And then, and then one morning, I had a meditative experience that just was absolutely indescribable and ecstatic and infinite, and just totally blew my context of reality out of the water. And I then endeavored for years and years to try to find anybody who could explain because an intro to Buddhism wasn't necessarily explicit enough around what I experienced Good point. So then I so then I found, after I don't know, five years, and trying different traditions and methods, I found this meditation called the lion stance by Master Asanga, who lived around 200 ad and a friend of mine said, who was a meditator. He said, Hey, I think you're gonna like this. And he gave it to me, and I was able to reliably return to that state of pre cognitive awareness that was infinite and expansive on a on a on a on a reliable basis, there was there were steps. And not only was it relieving to feel that there were steps, but there was even further to go, and the explanation was so exquisite and precise. I said, Oh my gosh, this is, this is wonderful. So that's how I got into meditation. So then I said, Why do we have this? This this meditation? Because I've never heard of it before. It's like, kind of, you know, if I Google it, I don't find it. And that's how I really connected with the Asian legacy library, which is this nonprofit that has digitized, I think, like, three and a half million pages of Eastern philosophy texts. And so one of the meditations that they digitized and preserved, because, you know, these are these. These scriptures are written on palm fronds that are just decaying in caves for any number of geopolitical reasons or just cultural reasons, people are afraid that authorities might take them or something like that. So this nonprofit, for 35 years, has been going and digitizing all of these ancient manuscripts and making them available for free for everybody online. And so I said, I have to help these people, because the most precious jewel from my meditation practice is a cultivation of compassion and stillness. And so I said, this is what the world needs. So I said, How can I help? And I started volunteering. And then, you know, when I look at all these. Uh, kind of like, I don't know, miraculous things that's that's been in my path of meditation and yoga. It's, they've been catalyzed from acts of service where I just felt my heart sing and I listened to the song and I danced and I and I served. So yeah, that's a little bit of my meditation journey. Wow, Bob, that's so cool. I'm so excited to meet another permaculture enthusiast. That's incredible. I took a similar route at age 18. After finishing high school, I started traveling with the organization willing workers on organic farms. Woof, yeah, I was a woofer. Yeah, me too. And I ended up traveling and woofing in Connecticut, California, Hawaii, Italy and and Australia. And when I got to Australia, I ended up staying there for five years and working on on and taking permaculture design courses in Mulaney at crystal waters with like maxlin Deger and some of these, like old school classic people that were all originally with Bill Mollison and and that whole group, because it seemed at that point in my life, apparent to me that for Me, self sufficiency was important, and I I really longed to somehow have a little bit closer connection to my food source. And then, as I started researching organic farming, permaculture has popped up because it was like a food forest, you know, like imitating nature in its, you know, forms, and not trying to create a monocultural situation, but one where everything benefits off of another. And so when you said permaculture, I just, I don't have many people that are into it, you know what? I mean, it's, I mean, it's gaining popularity, but it's not like on, on the the forefront of people's, you know, consciousness. And I really think that yoga is an epitome of permaculture, truly. You know, like the the fourth chapter, I think it's the third verse. Fourth Chapter, yoga sutra says we must become as gardeners when we're talking about cultivating ourself, cultivating our world. And I think that Permaculture is such, such an it's, it's this beautiful contrast of observation and action, of passivity and activity, you know, and then you let the wisdom of nature appear, and you're a student of the wisdom that's ubiquitous. It's in every single thing. It's all around us. And if we try to place our I don't know, our pride or our ego or our self centeredness, then that ecosystem will wither. And so, you know, I think that there's just so many rich analogies, and I don't talk to very many permaculturalists either, I know, but I'm like, you know, so one of my startups was the biochar company. I don't know if you've ever heard of biochar, Todd biochar, biochar, biological charcoal? No, I'm writing it down, because everything you've been saying, I'm going to check out all these different things you're talking about, biological charcoal. Help me out. Fill me in. Yeah. So this is something I was extremely passionate about, and we had a startup Richard Branson put out a $25 million virgin Earth challenge for the first company to have a business model that, at scale, would sequester a gigaton of carbon. And of the 11 finalists, we were one of the finalists. No way, technology called biochar. Wow. But here's what's amazing about it, and it's just like yoga. This technology is ancient. So what bio, what biochar is, is it's charcoal that's been created under a very specific set of conditions, one might call tapas. Then the product that comes out of that a high temperature, low oxygen, the product that comes out of that, when it's put in the soil, increases basically all metrics of fertility. If you think about like, what happens in a Brita filter with your activated carbon, it can grab all the stuff out of the water with activated carbon. It's going to hold that but it doesn't give it back, which is a good idea, because I don't want to drink it with biochar. It has a similar kind of quality, but it'll give it back. And so when we think about the soil environment, and we think about what are called cations, which are positively charged ions, like ammonia, which is a nitrogen source, or potassium, which is a really important thing for plants, those ions will zorb onto the surface of biochar, waiting for a plant to pop out a hydrogen proton or a little bit of acidity to knock it off the biochar and then absorb it into its root. So what you find is the fertility they put in the soil stays in the soil instead of washing out with rain events. So then the surface of biochar is extremely high surface area. One gram of most biochar have has more surface area than a tennis court, so something that's absolutely tiny. So think about. All of that chemistry potential on this huge porous surface area. So it's a sponge of water, it's a sponge of nutrients, and then, of course, it's a sponge of life. Because where water nutrients are, life follows. So biochar was discovered even though it occurs every time a lightning strike, you know, creates the fertile Great Plains because of all all this charcoal that's being deposited in the soil in this really high temperature fire event. Or you'll find it in like conifer coniferous forests, where the forest fires are part of the healthy ecosystem, you find a layer of black, and that layer of black is extremely productive. And so all this occurred, you know, and you might be familiar with 1491 it's a book about what the Amazon was like, free Columbus. Have not read that? Yeah, so I'll check anyway. There's this, there's this idea, and it's, you know, maybe 20 years ago. People thought it was a little crazy, but I think it's I think it's getting a lot more momentum that the Amazon was a cultivated rainforest, like it was a, it was an and the Mayans did this also, by the way, with their with their China system, and, you know, they worked on a 200 it was called NOPA. It was like a 200 and not going to get the number right, but like 250 year cycle that was intergenerational for cultivating rainforest in their in their environment that was productive for food and fiber. It was permaculture. Wow. And so in the Amazon, they started waking up to this idea of the Amazon being a cultivated environment, not this, like totally wild thing. It was actually the wildness of man combining with the intellect of man combining with the power of nature to create. So the way that they started seeing this is by helicopter. They saw these huge, dense places of vegetation. They were way more dense than adjacent jungle. So they dropped in and they said, what's different about this? Because the the geometry of them looked human, made it didn't look like natural pattern. Looked like like Anthro, like a human pattern, and they found that the soil was black. And I don't know if you spend much time in jungles, but the soil is usually like red or, you know, some kind of really dense clay. All the fertility in a jungle is held in the biomass, because things degrade so rapidly, and so they found this black tilthy, you know, like very easy to crumble soil that was way more fertile than the adjacent soil. And they said, what's the X Factor? The X Factor was charcoal. So they found that in the Amazonian basin, part of this, like cultivation of the Amazon, was this practice of combining food scraps with pottery shards and intentionally created charcoal. So then our company was the first company to make that a retail product and B to B to B product for large scale farmers as a way to, you know, increase fertility. And then it's our carbon sequestration technique. Because the best carbon sequestration technology we have in the world, if we want to get carbon out of the air and put it in the ground, there's this really incredible technology that's been under R D for billions of years, and it's called photosynthesis. So what happens is, it takes the CO two out of the air through the energy of the sun, converts that into a sugar. That sugar then is converted into the plant material, and then biochar fixes that plant material into a charcoal that won't degrade for hundreds to 1000s of years. So we have this carbon pump just putting carbon into the soil in a way that's going to make it fertile for generations to come. So the reason I brought up biochar is because I have been educating people on biochar for, you know, a long time, and what I found was that there was a common denominator between people who gave a darn and the people who fell asleep while and I'm trying to tell them something that feels really important to me, yeah, and it was compassion if someone has no compassion, then why are they caring about tomorrow's world, you know? And so what I realized is I don't know if I need to educate carbon as much as I need to educate compassion. Because if we are, if we really understand ahinsa, you know, if we're really understanding empathy and exchanging each ourself with others and equanimity, opecschat, you know, of course we're gonna take care of this planet. Of course we're going to adopt not just biochar, but a multitude of things that are generative as opposed to degenerative. And so that's why I went full throttle into teaching yoga and meditation, because I, in my experience, that's been the most catalytic thing to cultivate compassion so that things like permaculture will have wider adoption. Wow. Holy cow, Bob, I'm. You know, I blown away. Man, blown away. Number one, I have to ask, what type of education did you have post high school? Beyond, beyond the education? Maybe you're self trained, like, maybe your interest went straight, like, let me understand this, let me read, let me study. Or do you have a background in chemistry or something? Because the way that you're explaining this seems like my PhD chemist friend who I got a chance to live with for a while, and he was brilliant, like you are, and but he was and he was a chemistry, you know, doctor in chemistry, and he blew my mind with his ideas and what, in the the type of stuff he was trying to create, he he had this whole thing with he was using horse and cow manure in these enclosed environments, trying to speed up the process to be able to break down chemical like poison. He just had these, like he would do these experiments where you would take these like different, like poisons that we like mercury. How can I put it in a contained environment with with, you know, microbiology, and you're talking the way he talks and so on. That's making me think you have to have a chemistry background. Do you what I love about what you just said, Todd, I'm going to go into microbiology just for a hair, because, please, one of the, one of the things that Costa Rica taught me, it was the first time I was in a jungle, is this, like, life wants to live. That's one of my mantras. You know, life wants to live. You know, if we just create conditions, then life wants to live. Because you'll find in the jungle every single opportunity that life has to live it will, and that, that that thrust of vibrance and thriving and but also the the the the endurance to endure through like life wants to live, and that is part of us. And I think that, you know, my definite chief aim in life is to harmonize man with nature. And I previously was saying, How am I going to do that? And is through science, through chemistry, through my Yeah, that was my path. But then I learned the third verse of the yoga sutra. Todd asked drupe vastanam, like on that day when we achieve the state of yoga, then the seer will come to dwell in their true nature. And I said, Wow, nature isn't just this biological thing. My first expansion was nature being a biological thing. To nature being even abiotic or non biological things. But then yoga was like, you really want to understand nature? Boy, oh boy, hang on tight. We're going to go for a ride. And I was like, wow. Like revealing the true nature is the ultimate harmonization of man with nature is to be in union with that truest essence of ourselves. So originally, you know, I started doing University Research at the University of Delaware when I was a junior in high school. I was doing, really, I don't know, nerdy stuff called confocal microscopy of calcium ions in fungi, mycelia. And so I was so you were in, I won't go too far down that track, but as a junior in high school, you were going to the university and and starting research at the university level, at the high school level, because you were that, well, I have a passion for science because I can feel it. I feel it, yeah, but that's even that's mind blowing, that you're in 11th grade and you're like, wait, wait, I gotta hurry up here and get into the university style of research. And then just say that one more time that that combination of words that you just you shared with me us. So, so it's confocal microscopy conflict. That's a type of microscopy I won't go into. It's a really, really, really interesting methodology of calcium ions in the growing tip of the roots of fungus, essentially. So I started there. I got there because I was doing research in what are called action potentials between bone cells and neurons to help to understand why bone cancer is so painful. What can we do to make bone cancer less painful? And there's a novel, really cool thing that I got plugged into was looking at we only think of our neurons as something that can communicate something like pain. But there's really cool research that Dr Boggs was doing and Dr Duncan were doing at the University of Delaware that was proving that bone cells also had the same mechanism of communicating information as neurons. And so that gives us an entire. Really novel pathway for medicine to help make it less painful. And I love that I used to work on. I used to volunteer on an ambulance as an EMT. I did that in high school too. Wow. And so I so I love, I love the body. You know, it's interesting. Well, in high school, you volunteered to work on ambulances. Yeah. Wow, man, you're blowing my mind today. This is incredible. I mean, most high schoolers are just like gaming and, I mean, I don't want to, I don't want to under appreciate what high schoolers are going through. Most high schoolers are, we're mixed up in our hormones, and we're just like, I mean, it's not that I wasn't taught, yeah, yeah. All that was happening too. But you also decided, let me let me go. I'm curious about being on a on an ambulance. Let me volunteer, and they let you volunteer. So what they saw you, and they thought, Who is this kid? Like, what? Why is he so eager? That's incredible. Bob, you got to keep going. I want to keep going. I want to interrupt you, but it's every now and again I got to pause just because I'm I'm blown away. But keep going, and I really, like I said in the beginning, it's my parents, you know. Like, I know, I see, I I know, I know that I'm lucky, you know, yeah, and my parents really taught me service from the very beginning. They get it. They were like, the greatest thing you could ever do is serve. That's the highest ideal, yeah, and so, and so, you know, I really appreciate them. And so, you know, my mom, my dad, got me a microscope when I was, I think, like, eight years old, because he's, he's a scientist. Well, he used to be an engineer and and he just really fostered my love of curiosity. And my mom had a garden. And so now we can kind of see how these things are coming together. My, my mom's a physical therapist, so she likes to heal people and so, and I love, I love thrill, you know, like that was one of my I have one tattoo on my body, and it's epinephrine, because I spent a lot of my life Pearl staking, until my wife helped me understand the value of self preservation. And then what I found is that the most exhilarating thing that you could ever experience is the depths of meditation. And then I and then that's, in my opinion, as far supreme as to anything that you could do otherwise. Yes, being enthralled in a beautiful text. Also is as exciting as cliff jumping. You know, that's what I've learned. So, yeah, so I was doing the research in the action potentials of osteocytes and looking at how they communicate to neurons. And then from there, I was like, I really like fungus, because I love fungus, and fungus is the network that fungus is the membrane between life and death in the natural in the natural world, and and fungus is much more like an animal cell, like that, the kingdom of fungi is more like an animal cell than is a plant cell. So there's this, and it's like, I don't know, I feel that they're magical and they're the great if you look at how nutrients and water are delegated throughout an ecosystem. It's actually the fungus that is primarily helping to direct the they're the orchestras of our ecosystems. So I think that that's fascinating. And Paul Stamets, Dr Stanis, you know, he's the one who really opened my eyes to that. So then, you know, I went to my PI, my principal investigator, and I was like, I want to do all this, but with fungus, does is, does that exist? And they're like, so strange that you ask, there's one of the world's leading scientists of that right there, right right at the Delaware biotechnology Institute. And so let me make an introduction. And so, Dr Kirk zimmick, he's, I mean, he's a, he's a bodhisattva, you know, he'll never hear this, so he won't hear me say that, but he's a, he's, he's truly a really special being who loved the world, and he and he just taught, he gave me a lot of opportunities, and I'm really appreciative for that. So that's how I got into the fungal microscopy, and then I went to University of Delaware to continue my research, published some papers, got some grants as a as a freshman, and I was doing a double major in chemistry and biology with a minor in biochemistry, so that, Because I thought biology will is everything above the soil. Sorry, I did a minor in soil science. Sorry, it was biology and soil science with a minor in biochemistry. So biology is everything above the ground, and then soil science is everything below the ground, and the language that they communicate with is biochemistry. And so I wanted to get the whole picture. So that's why I pursued that. But what I found out Todd is I was doing all this research, and I was teaching myself a lot, and I was like, gosh, we have all the solutions already Todd. I was like, we don't got to figure more stuff out. We just. Have to implement. And that was like a very stark realization. And I was like, I'm in the wrong place. I have to be an activator, not a researcher. Wow. And so, so then I we so then I got into startups, and I started up a couple businesses, and one of them was, was with the biochar company and doing that kind of stuff, and, and so that was really great. And then I ended up dropping out of university because that wasn't my path anymore. I did I and I realized the power that you can do by finding good teachers and having, like, an appetite for self learning. Because I was taking a biochem, a 600 level biochem class and and I learned the biochemical pathway that I taught myself as a senior in high school. And I was like, I was like, Oh, I don't need to be here, you know, if this is not my path, you know, then why am I here? So, then, so, then I dropped out and start up businesses and lived in the Dominican Republic for 18 months, doing a really cool conservation development where we took all these eco technologies and integrated them into a conservation development of a pristine valley in the Dominican Republic. And the thesis was, development doesn't mean destruction. In fact, we can have conservation and development, which are often people put at odds. We can do them in a way that's affirming. You know, the old idea of conservation is separating man from nature and saying, Don't touch this. But the destruction of the environment is not an environmental issue. It's a cultural issue. And so we have to integrate man into the healing of nature. So instead of man being a problem, can we see humankind, and when I see man, I mean humankind, I apologize. Can humankind because we were the offenders? Can we also be the catalyst that can quickly heal this thing? And I think the answer is yes. I think so too, yeah, oh man, I just have to say that I'm so impressed You're an incredible you're too generous. No, honestly, I mean, I really admire your your curiosity and your path and the way you describe that, and I really think what you're onto is truly what is needed. You're right, like, I mean, you're to get to that level of education, and then to have that much riding on it, and then to actually see which direction you need to go, and then be okay with turning directions, because, you know, you put so much we put so much of our lives into, I'm going to achieve this goal, and then you get so far down that track that you think, well, I might as well finish. I'm I've gotten this far, but then to have that ability to turn and say, I'm going to go this way now, and maybe it's not a turn, maybe it's a continuation, and in the direction you actually feel you have to go, but that's not always an easy decision for us. Would you agree? Like, I can't maybe it was in that moment for you, because you had a lightning moment of like, I need to now focus on people being able to actually implement what we're going on. And there is sometimes maybe a disconnect in terms of the intellect, because if we over intellectualize, we almost get further away from the practicality of how do I implement this in my daily life? But what you're doing now with meditation and educating people the ability to, like you said, open up to compassion, because then, if that's there, I can now actually be in a space where I can take this information and actually apply it. That's really cool, man. I mean, that is just next level, next level, like seeing into the future. I mean, I'm just so happy to have this chance to meet you and to have our listeners, to have you listening right now, to meet Bob, and now we're going to follow you and to see what kind of cool stuff, how we can get involved, you know, like, what can we do to kind of further your mission together? You know, as a community, I think, to have someone like you that has this sort of insight and curiosity and the intellectual knowledge to back it up, not just an idea. I mean, you've done the hard you're doing hard work, or work that a lot of us are like, that's too hard for me. My brain can't even, you know, hopefully you're all you know what I'm saying. Like, that might seem really challenging. So okay, well, I got more questions for you the the next question I have then, and I'll be really curious to see where your mind is at on this is that the other day, my daughter, she's 11, she said, um. Her name is Priya. She said, she she's like Dad. You know, I was out, I was out in the front and I was pulling weeds. Quote, weeds. She's like Dad. What makes a weed a weed? Why are you not just letting that plant grow? And I said, well. I want these other plants to grow, and if I make space for these other plants to grow, that's why I'm determining, in my own mind that this is a weed, but then from a place where we don't have without name or form, why is a weed a weed? So I just want to hear your take on, is there such a thing as a weed? And is a weed a man made concept? Thank you so much for that question. Todd, I love that question as a gardener and as a especially a permaculturalist, that's a very good question to ask. And then, and then I'm just gonna hit one little pause to add one little extra thing. And so we can keep the connection between gardening and or soil and everything and the meditation world, because then in our minds, we might think that thought is a weed, and then we try to eliminate and then plant the thoughts that we want. And I'd also like to hear your thoughts, if you've made a connection between mental weeds and plant weeds. Okay, now, now I'll be quiet and let you, let you talk. No, I love the question I mean, and it's, it's, I feel like I can't even answer this question without talking about what yoga has to offer us, as far as a as a framework to understand our perception of the world and and I think that, you know, it's answered, at least, in my opinion, in that third verse, or actually, in the second verse of the yoga sutra. You know, mas Patanjali, the author of the yoga sutra, did not waste his time. He said, I'm going to review for your yoga. You got Y'all ready? Cool, here it is. I mean, it's, it's done in the second verse, and then everything after that is, if you didn't catch it. So yoga straight to verti nirodha, right? So yoga and the My Favorite translation, there's lots of translations. My favorite one is, yoga is stopping the way the mind turns things around. So chitta, verti. So verti comes into English and like the oh, that's, that's very weird. Weird is like or inverted or vertical. It's to twist something or via, it comes from vert and so we're twisting our Chitta our mind. And so what does that mean? In essence, the way that I've come to understand, in the way that my teachers have taught me, in the tradition that I've been taught, is that what we're doing is we're thinking that the weed is a weed from its own side. We look at a weed and we say that weed is a weed independent of my perception of it, but that's the wrong way of looking at things. That's, that's that's avidya, that's wrong vision, that's the wrong view what yoga teaches us. And you can catch this in the stillness of meditation, and that's why we meditate, so that you can see this occur. You can see this occur in real time, and then you'll never misunderstand it again in the stillness of of you know the highest forms of Samadhi is that the weed is not coming from the weed at us. The weed is coming from us to the weed. And that is, that is a radical idea, right? So, so let's, let's play this out, because I think this is a really, really Crux point of the methodology and the philosophy of yoga is so a human walks up and they say, oh, man, that's a weed. Get rid of it, you know? And then a cow walks up and your cow goes lunch. Love that man. What a great thing. And so what is it? Is it the great thing that you want to keep and cultivate, or is it the bad thing that you want to rip out and get rid of? What is it so when the human and the cow are looking at the weed at the same time. What is that object? Can one thing be two things at the same time? Inherently, it cannot, because it's two one thing can be two things at the same time. It's just that's just not possible. It is a thing that is what it is, and so now it's so if it's not a thing from its own side, let's take let's take this opposite experience, which is, instead of the human and the cow walking in, let's imagine the human and the call walking away. What is that thing? What is that thing? Before there is a being to perceive it and make it a thing, it's empty, it's pre it's pure potential. It's a thing before a thing. It's a pre cognized potential. It's the lack of anything so that it can become a thing when we perceive it. Yeah. Huh, and so and so. The ultimate nature of reality, the swarupa, the true form, or the self form. The self nature of a thing, is that it has a lack of inequalities or characteristics inherent to it. There's no objective reality. The only objective reality is a lack of an objective reality. So then, when we look at, you know, our partner, right? And we say that partners a weed or, Oh, that partners tomatoes. You know, I love tomatoes. You know, what is making our partner a weed versus a tomato is not our partner. It's the it's it's our perception of them that makes them that thing. And we say, well, what's the real reality as well? Who's Who's Who's going to report, right? And so this ultimate reality is the lack of any kind of objective reality before perception. So then the next question you have to ask is, Well, why is it a weed to us? And why is it something amazing and delicious to a cow? So if something is empty, we can think of it as an analogy of like a movie screen before a projector projects onto a movie screen. The movie screen is blank. It's pure potential. It could be anything, but then it becomes a thing that's perceivable because there's a projection onto it. And so where does that projection? What is the what is the nature of that image? Well, it's coming from film. This being projected. Okay, well, where'd the film come from? That's a good question, because that answers the question of whether my partner is somebody who's amazing today, or someone who's just really great at my kids today. And what the yoga sutra says is that there's a cause and there's an effect, right? So when we do when we have Krishna or aklishta, what's the difference between things that are that are making us suffer versus things that are giving us pleasure. Punya punya, punya punya, you know, it's, it's the good things that we do create things that are pleasant, and the bad things that we do create things that are unpleasant. So that's talking about a seed and a fruit, which potentially uses the word pala to describe and he goes in depth of all the Palas, all the fruits of keeping our yamas and niyamas, which is our ethical code of life. How do we how do we walk in the world with grace? How do we walk in the world in a way that's creating something nice instead of something degenerative? And so if it's true cause and effect, then when we perceive the world it's it'd be wise to realize that is an effect. So then it's like, if you if you see, like a man hurting a dog on the movie screen, and you're like, that's wrong. That's a good reaction. So the first question, so the first reaction you might have is to go punch the guy on the screen, which is what a lot of us are doing. There's an effect, and we're trying to change the effect, even though the effect has a cause that came beforehand. When you plant the seed, it takes time to become a fruit, and so we're often fighting our fruits instead of planting new seeds. So that's the first kind of wisdom that comes out of the prajna, the wisdom that comes as a as a function of Samadhi of a mind that's so still that it. It can see the unfolding of reality. We can it can catch the verti. It can catch the image coming from the perceiver toward the object, making it the thing that it perceives. So then, if the nature is empty, and then the film is what's making that. Then instead of being foolish and fighting the TV screen, we should be wise and change the film and a good direction of what film to make, because potentially, doesn't leave us hanging. You know, he gives us three chances at a methodology of yoga. The first is aviasova, which is a very simple idea of turn towards the things that bring us up and turn away from the things that bring us down, essentially, then it gives us Kriya Yoga, tapas Fauci, engage in spiritual hardship, which one of the hardest things we could ever do spiritually is to love someone who's hurting us, right because the pain that we're healing right now from that person, the perception that we're have of this person hurting me, that's because We have engaged in that in some kind of even minor way in our past, which is why we need Ahimsa, because that's the opposite of seeing that film. Then we in tat sanity out in our presence, then all conflict can comes to an end if we make Ahimsa a way of life practice time and so engaging in the world in that way is, I think, really, really, in one way, it's terrifying, because we have to take total, radical responsibility for the weeds in our life, right? You can't blame the birds, man. You can't blame you know, the person who didn't do their job yesterday, pulling in the weeds. That weed is there because you made it a weed because of your past action. Thoughts and deeds, because karma is cause and effect. Karma, it's just, it's action, it's it's frames per second, it's the unfolding. Karma comes into the curve. The root of Karma comes into the word create in English, or, like cereal, the thing that grows, you know, or crescent moon, the you know, the part of the moon that we can see. And so our karma is this, like this, like CPU, that's like chugging through frame by frame by frame, giving us this image. Or GPU, you know, this, giving us the image of a reality. So we should recognize that and just change the film. And we and we have clues of what to do. Great answer. That's a very well thought out response to my question. Man, meditate. Yeah, in meditation, one of the things that's really nice is, is the clarity, you know, to be like, you know, because here's, here's the thing that's, I think, is, like, one of the coolest parts of a practice of yoga is, you know, okay, I'm not being violent in my life. You know, good job, I didn't punch anybody today. And you're like, Hmm, is it true that I wasn't violent today? You know, obviously, grossly, I was not violent because I didn't punch anybody, I didn't kill anybody today. You know, a lot of us can check that off our list. But did I even have a moment of violent thought where I saw someone fail and I rejoiced in their pain. Oh, like, I see, I see some, you know, I don't know some popular person that I just don't agree with my perception of how they live in the world, you know, yeah. And I'm like, Oh, good. They had it coming, you know? I'm like, good and, and I'm just like, that was ahimsa. That was not Ahimsa, that was, that was hinza That wasn't ah, himsa. And so if I'm going so fast in my life, then I lose the nuance of the texture of my world. And if I can slow down, and I can just really be an observer into the nuanced texture of my life, then I can catch subtleties that were not apparent to me. And then, because here's the pain, Todd, is that we think we're doing well, but we're actually still creating suffering like like, if it took me charana To ask me, Todd, there's these four kinds of meditations in the first chapter of yoga sutra. And like, Ananda is like, when we get to a meditative state of bliss. And a lot of people are like, good, I did it, you know, I'm in bliss. And he's like, ah, you know, as me ta, you know, like, there's still this, there's still another level, right? And all of these are Rupa naguma, which means they all lead to forms of suffering still. So even if we're in a bliss, if we're not wise about this beautiful compassion that we're feeling, we're still in a subtle level of ignorance. We still think that that bliss is coming from its own side, instead of understanding that that bliss is because I've served people in my past, and I and so we need to catch the truth of that that because if we start to chase bliss, then that'll destroy us, because we think that bliss is the thing, but it's not the thing. The the bliss of, you know, a pleasant meditation or a warm embrace with a loved one, we should use that to empower and invigorate us in our practice. So we need to use bliss for our liberation, but we but, but if we chase bliss, then we're only guaranteeing our destruction. That makes perfect sense, and we kind of, I can see that in my own life, where I'll feel like I just got everything lined up the way that I thought I needed to line it up for me to be feeling really happy with everything but something under, laying under, laying under, underneath, all that just doesn't still feel right. And then so quickly gets toppled, and you're just like, right back in the spot again, of going, Oh God, I gotta realign everything. Let me realign everything so I see what you're saying. Like, almost true, you know. So then don't try to realign. And maybe when I use the word realign, I'm putting that down the thread of chasing bliss, because if my my hope of the realignment process, and when I see real realign, like, okay, coffee's in the maker, I'm gonna wake up, I'm gonna hit the switch, it'll be ready to go. You know, I got that lined up. And then, you know, I got everything lined up for success for the day, and I got my podcast. Do lined up. I got, you know, and, and it's going really good today, like some days, my everything lined up. It's actually working. But I like what you're saying. Take a moment to even investigate that. Yeah, is that really the recipe for success in yoga? Maybe there's more. There must be more. So help me take me a little further here. Then, is it a, is it a letting? Is it that complete letting go of aligning things up for my happiness, that then that real, true happiness might pop in, or am I still in trouble? You know, what are you thinking these days? How are you feeling this well, Todd, Have you have you done? So you're like, I did all the alignment, you know, yeah. And of course, our Asana is a reflection of every single conversation we're having, right? So am I in good alignment, you know, like with my coffee maker or my knee position or whatever, you know, yeah, and there's been times when it's like, yeah, this is pleasant, good job, you know. But has there also been times when it's been unpleasant with the same exact alignment? Yes, so is alignment the cause of happiness? No, that's the verti that we're trying to nirodha, that's the verti that we're trying to stop thinking that things, thinking that happiness is in a thing, and if I consume the thing, then I'll be happy, which includes our schedule, which includes, you know, our coffee maker, which includes, you know, the beans that we and so what we do is we're caught in this illusion, that if we just put the puzzle pieces, right, you know, we got all the things, and there's five happiness units in this, and there's six happiness units and that. And then you make the puzzle, and then you get them, you're like, still suffering, you know, you're like, dang. And so that doesn't mean that we don't work for alignment. But what it means is that we we have to understand that those things could never be the cause. They're just the carrier, you know. So like when we take care of other people, when we serve other people, which is the essence of it's the path of yoga and the result of yoga, you know, and it's the state of yoga. It's serving other beings. So the highest of your potential most powerfully. And if we if we stay in that intention, and we really try to do that, then everything else will fall into place. Then when we hear the method, the method will work. So think of it like this, when we serve other people. We wrote ourselves, we wrote ourselves a letter, and we said, that was nice, you know, we mail it, and then we're like, one day I'm going to get that mail back. And then one day, now you've turned the coffee machine on, and the coffee machine is the mailman and the or the mail person, and the mail person's like, here's your letter. And you're like, Yes, this is a pleasant experience, good. It's not because of the coffee maker. It's because of the things we've done previously. Or else, if that wasn't true, then every time we got that alignment, then the only option for that would be happiness, and the weed would only ever be a weed to every single being who perceived it, because it has a nature of its own from its own side, that everybody would objectively perceive equally. So we can't be too attached, but we still need to work with method, because method is the delivery system for our own kindness. Yeah, good, good. I see that because you because we don't want to completely abandon and this is where we obviously get into Bhagavad Gita theory in relation to, how do I still align and work toward puzzle piecing, but without having any attachment to the outcome of the puzzle, which is so challenging, is that so so imagine, like you're what, in a moment, say, how? What is your response and or processes, when that inner feeling of like, dang it, yeah, totally. No. Do you? Do you then it sounds like you might, or strategy, or our yoga practice could be and or is, how can I be of service? So maybe, like, I booked the wrong ticket for the airplane. I show up at the airport, I booked it for the wrong day. What do I do now and then, if I remember, okay, this is just another attempt at me of aligning things that didn't work in my favor. I'm not happy right now, but could I, could I in this moment right now, still feel that I'm at one and then, how can I be at service? How can I be of service right now? Like, my mind goes to starting to then peruse the airport, where am I needed or, I mean, probably the first thing I should focus on is like, Okay, let's get the right ticket. Let's get the right ticket in order, you know, but, but I'm just curious then to take it to that next level. How do you still operate, you know, in function, and then arrive at your destination, because, you know, maybe you're scheduled to teach that teacher training, and you know, you made a commitment. So how do you how do you sound like a real story? Todd, it is, it is. I caught myself recently, just like I'm laughing at myself, like, how did I book the wrong day? I mean, I thought I imported the right so, I mean, but more like a, like a strat. Sure, I understand that. Because what you're saying, though, and this is where we get caught in this little circular motion of Vritti, because then, if I'm I'm thinking, you know, I'm looking for a solution. Am I still caught in this idea that if I find the solution, I'll then be happy? Do you know what I mean? Like, yeah, and that's where I get stuck, I know, yeah. And, and I think that's a really great extrapolation of that verti, because we'll jump from 130 to another party, you know. And like you said, we're still in a video, you know, we're still in wrong view or incorrect vision. So what we teach is we teach nivanga Yoga. So everyone, not everyone, a lot of people know Ashtanga, which is eight. Ashta means eight, and then Anga means auxiliaries, limbs, branches, you know, I like to teach it as links, eight links. You see Anga used as the as a link in a lot of the text of that time. So we teach at the yoga Studies Institute navanga, which is the nine link method. And really it's the one link that's in the nine and that ninth link is in the yoga sutra. We just wanted to make it extremely obvious and highlighted. And that's compassionate wisdom, which in our tradition, is often referred to as the two wings that give a bird flight. So the first is, you can do either first. But in this very scenario, what I would think of first is, is the wisdom that understands the nature of reality, which I know sounds really crazy, but stay with me here. It's the wisdom that understands that the weed is a weed because you made it a weed, right? It's the wisdom that understands that the weed is actually empty of any weedness from its own side. And so what that does immediately is that it helps us realize that things are not fixed. So this crappy experience that I'm in right now, it's empty of any nature of its own, which means it's open to any possibility in the next karmic opening. Because the way that we experience the world is Frame By Frame by Frame by Frame By Frame. It's not continuous. We put it together as a continuous thing, but it's actually one karma at a time. Is how we perceive which means the next, literally, the next karma that opens the next seed that we planted at some point in the time could come to fruit. And so what a yogi does is they get be very, very, very skilled at influencing which are the seeds that ripen next. And we can do that through infinite amounts of methods. And that's why we have methods, so that we can try to coax forward the fruit that we would enjoy and stop planting the fruit that is really untasty. So the first thing is, is it true that this moment inherently is a bad moment? No, doesn't necessarily make me not experience it as that way, but what it does is it softens it as a from a concrete thing to something that is impermanent. It's something that can change because we get a reminders like, this is awful, you know, we get totally concretized on a thing being that thing, and no one could change our mind about it. So what we do first is we loosen, okay, unverti, you know, stop the verti that this moment isn't inherently bad. I can't tell you how many times something that I once perceived as bad ended up being absolutely perfect, and it was shame on me that I didn't have the fortitude of my practice to be in a space where I could hold that possibility in the moment when it was actually true. Well said. And so, you know, when we're in our warrior two and we're like, Please get me out of here, what we're doing is stop us. We're we're increasing our capacity to stay in a spiritual mode in a moment of heat and difficulty and hardship. And so we're training ourselves for this moment in the airport when we like, oh my gosh, you. And then you say, I've just invested all this prana, all of this energy, into an awful scenario. So what do you do next? Is I say, Well, what are the other scenarios? You know, because I should have equanimity for the outcome, like I should equally give life to the bad and the good. So now let me start to create different possibilities in my mind. Okay, now I'm feeling more relaxed. My my nervous system is re regulating, right because now I'm in a state of meditation, instead of a state of pure agitation and anger. And then you can do any number of practices to bring there's this really important Tibetan teaching that is essential. It's lung, some Bucha. Lung means prana. Send means mind. Jukka means to come together. Chikba means one. So it says that the mind and the prana come together as one, and that's the practice of the inner and the outer worlds coming together in union, and the practice of yoga. So if you start to develop, and this is a little more advanced, but if you start to develop a relationship with the prana inside of you, the prana moving inside of your body must have a mental counterpart to it. So by if we're having trouble changing our mind, then we can use the methodology of our body to influence how our mind is is turning because we are turning the mind. But let's try to make it a cluster. You know, not bad, not unpleasant. So then from that place, you say, of all the infinite possibilities, what is the most wise and compassionate thing I can do now? So okay, I understand the wisdom. Things are coming from their inside. They're empty in their nature, and everything's changeable. So now compassion, what is the most beautiful thing that I could give to the world in this moment? Okay, so then you're like, here's the cars I was dealt. Yeah, let me be of service and and what that might mean in your yoga teacher thing is, Hey, Todd, actually, this is a teaching this morning. Is my one of our yoga teachers. Someone's like, how did you start teaching? And they said, I didn't have an option because my yoga teacher said, Hey, I'm leaving, and I need you to cover my classes. And he's like, I'm not ready, I'm not ready. And she goes, Well, someone has to take care of my dog. She was like, I know you're not ready, but someone has to take care of my dog. And that was the beginning of someone who's been teaching for, you know, 3040, years, and is a beautiful teacher, yes. And so if we're so stuck in ourself, of our own experience as me, ta, you know, like me, me, me, my mind, I, you know, well, it was me. But what about that person? I'm like, Hey, can you cover my class? You have no idea what goodness you may have inadvertently just created, because that possibility exists too. Now we can't be foolish, right? We can be compassionate and foolish at the same time. That's where it's really important to develop our wisdom so that we can have discernment and discrimination between being foolish in our it's like, Oh, hey, that six year old, go teach the class like probably not a good idea. That's not very wise, you know. So we have to have both of these things together, the compassion and the wisdom, because wisdom without compassion looks like what I've experienced at university was we have solutions on a shelf, but no one's taken action. I have all this wisdom, but it's not coming to life, and we can have compassion without wisdom, which is, I think I'm doing a good thing, but I'm but actually, in reality, because of my own ignorance, I'm not, and that's a dang, that's a shame. And so when these two things come together, it becomes this thing that accelerates all of the benefits of our yoga practice. So what we teach is that if you do Asana without compassionate wisdom, then any of the benefits that you that you experience, they're short term, because what you're doing is you're eating fruit that was planted by seeds of the past, but you're not reinvesting. And in fact, if it's for self cherishing, I'm only doing this so that I can look mega sexy because, you know, that's cool, or, you know, whatever like, then that vanity is now the fruit that you're going to be eating next week or next month or next lifetime, or what have you. And so if we're engaging with our yoga and we're saying, I am doing this for the sake of all beings, that is my motivation of compassion. I'm doing this so that I can be of highest service to all beings. And I understand that the emptiness of the posture is a real thing, which means the same shoulder stand that made me feel great yesterday could hurt me today, because the pose is empty. It's a weed one day and it's a fruit the next day. There's no inherent reality to that posture or the teacher I am, the one who's putting it there, so let me intentionally put something beautiful and pure in that empty space so that I get to eat that fruit. Isn't that amazing Bob that you and I and everyone listening could have done a shoulder stand a million times. So let's just pick say, let's say 365, times, like over a year, and then at some point, this sort of realization will come. You know what I mean? Like? Because we see how we could be practicing a pose and just practicing it, because someone told me to practice it, because I went to the class, and they said, go into shoulder stand. So I went into shoulder stand, and I'm breathing in my shoulder stand. And then, and the understanding of what you're presenting and what you're presenting is what you've learned from other people who have had this realization. So where you know, I understand that what you're saying is like, this isn't just me coming up with this idea. This is like, this is wisdom that has been passed down for for eons, that then one day, all of a sudden, we're going to realize that this shoulder stand, and you start going deep into it, start going deep into this philosophy and starting to really, what am I doing, and why am I in a shoulder stand? And why is it this way? Yeah, why is it and how is shoulder stand gonna bring me the peace and happiness? But then maybe if I start to implement a little more of this structure or methodology, or, like you said, this ninth piece into this eight, previously eight. Now have another little piece to add. In compassionate wisdom. And I like how you brought in the idea of, I could have an idea that when asked somebody to teach, but instead of choosing the six year old that's never come into the space before, I'm going to pick the person that's right in front of me, even though they, you know, the wisdom piece. And then boom, all of a sudden I'm in shoulder stand. And, yes, here it is. I've and you have a realization, Yeah, isn't that incredible, though, that it could be 365 times before this? 366 this is the one. And I know there's no set number of the amount of shoulder stands one would do before that moment would arrive, but it does make sense to me that the teaching does say, just continue to practice over a long period of time. Because there's no when the student comes up to you and says, Well, how long is it going to take? You know, I've been doing shoulder stand for like, When am I going to I gonna I want to have that moment you were talking about in Costa Rica, where you had that blissful state of meditation and and then you were trying to figure out, like, what just happened, and you're and then the rest of your life is like, going back to like, how do I get there? I find all this so fascinating. I love the connection with the earth and nature and reality of yoga being all one. And so it makes sense to me, like I remember when I first started having this realization of, like, all this gardening work is really just an external exhibition of the yoga practice now that I'm embarking on and, and, and when that connection was made, for me, of like, what this all fits together so perfectly, all the analogies and all the but that's no real big wonder mystery, because we are living in the world as a part of the creation, as a part of nature, As you know, and hopefully out at some level, at one with this, as opposed to seeing us ourselves, separated that me gardening on the inside and on the outside is really all just me gardening, and we could call our yoga practice gardening practice, and we could call our gardening practice yoga practice. And where does that separate, and where does it intersect? And, man, I mean, you're right, the solutions are all right here, like we don't really need to start doing more experiments and more research and more It's right in front of us. So I think it's time, instead of asking the question, how come we're not coming to that real? You know what I mean? Maybe we it is right now. We are planting a seed. We are consciously planting the seed by having this conversation, because, and I like the idea of of understanding, like I could plant a seed now and it might come to fruition 15 years from now, but then maybe as a yogi, slash boo meditation practitioner, slash just human, slash, am I human? But we won't go right there right now that I could plant the seed right now. Boom, here it is. It's fruited, or it's come to fruition. You know, like that to to, and I love your frame by frame reference, reference. I mean, everything you're saying, like, I come across it, but I'm feeling it's aliveness right now. Like, I feel like you're, you're bringing it to life in a way that I can really I'm just excited. And I sometimes, typically, my next question would be, Bob, what do you see for the future? Bob, what do you want to do for and I. And I see how futile that question really is, because does that really matter? Like us projecting the future, our future fruit, our future ripening of fruit that can come out of this conversation, I think it's already right here, right now, like we're getting a taste of it right now. Do you feel the same? Do you are you? Do you agree? Or yeah, I'd love to riff on that just for coming up on time. Oh my gosh, it's been. How long has it been? Holy cow, I don't know, but I'm having dude, we're at an hour and 15. I haven't even looked You're right. I try to give them to an hour. We would just go all day long. I really do want to publish an eight hour podcast. I don't know how many people embark on listening to the eight hour podcast. Most people's attention span, but I feel like we could do this, Bob, but let's You're right. Let's make this the final the final riff. But I want to hear everything you have to say, so don't feel like you have to hurry. So I think that, um, I think a lot of things are a pendulum. You know, where we're like, all the way over here, we're all the way, but most often, and, and I think, in fact, always it's, it's the middle way. And so this idea of projecting future, it's not inherently bad to do that, because there's no inherent reality to anything, right? So it's more about how we're approaching it. Are we approaching this activity with compassionate wisdom? That's what gives us its flavor. That's what determines whether it's a cause of suffering or a cause of liberation. And so I think it's really important to have a vision. I think it's really important to have a vision, because the vision I have is a world that's free of suffering. That's an important vision. I think it's, it's it's the vision that is, the horsepower that drives me in my practice. But here's where it gets really fun. Is like you were saying, collapsing time collapsing that time gap, that's, that's a real thing. And there's a couple different ways that people can talk about that, and I think it really depends on who's listening as to how you would share something like that. But the way I feel inspired to talk about that now that was really radical in my practice, was the joy of doing something beautiful in the world exists totally in this present moment before the fruit. The the activity of wholeheartedly living your true beliefs is the fruit. You know, like there's nothing better than to live totally integrated and with, with compassionate wisdom, you know, it was the language I would use. And then, yes, you will get a fruit from that. And how long to you have, you know, it's, it's impossible to tie one exact effect to one exact cause, like you'd have to be omniscient, which is a goal, you know. But so it's impossible to say, Oh, this was from that thing. But I think that there is a total liberation of the attachment to result by understanding that there's bliss in the cause. So, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like I am who I believe I should be. You know, I believe that I'm embodying my sweater, but my true self, and that is its total and whole reward. I get it. I think you communicated that clearly, like, I can follow everything you're saying. It's not easy to do. Did a great job. Bob, well, thanks for holding this space. This has been incredible pleasure. I know, man, gosh, well, we'll do it again. We'll do it again. So we'll break it into, like, instead of one eight hour chunk, we'll do eight, we'll do nine. Let's do nine. Let's go for this. Let's go for the navan. Is it navanga? Yeah. So it's Nava and Anga. So the two A's in Sanskrit become a long a. So navan, let's make this the first of nine. By the time we get to the ninth one two, the world's gonna be a different place. Yeah, it's gonna be a difference. So what do I see? I see, I see. Hope. I really do. Because, you know, one of the, one of the classic ending debates that That at least is in my lineage, is the realization, or the belief, that the causes of liberation are more powerful than the causes of suffering. And so, of course, there will be that, you know, like we are suffering so much, but we are also through our practice changing the world, and that that's a more powerful cause. So it will eventually, given the prospect of infinity, it will win. Dude, I love it. Oh my gosh. Bob. Optimism is healthy. I think, Yeah, as long as it's with wisdom, I agree with you. I agree with you, and then if it's our choice, that's what I'm going to choose. Thank you, Bob, thank you. Todd is such a pleasure. We'll pick it up here next time. 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