#249: How to Have Meaningful Connections: Duncan Trussell & Raghu Markus on ‘The Movie of Me’

Feb 19, 2024 | COMMUNICATION, POWER LIFE, The Gabby Reece Show

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I have two guests today: Stand-up Comedian Duncan Trussell of the Duncan Trussell Family Hour podcast and a show on Netflix called Midnight Gospel, and his writing partner on a book called “The Movie of Me to the Movie of We”, which is Raghu Markus.

I always find that Duncan has a pretty identifiable voice and he also for me feels like the hyper-intelligent every man who’s on the quest for not only enlightenment but this idea of how we reframe things, how we keep the ego at bay truly and not just say, oh, I’m being mindful now.

And Raghu is this very steady voice of reason who has, worked with Ram Dass and met so many powerful members in this community where he has this steadiness. And the two of them together created a book full of conversations where they don’t always agree.

And so it’s a great place to have the conversations and ask questions like, how do I do the internal work while living in the external world? Or do we ever get it right or do we land? Or once you meet your guru, are you there? And I appreciate the thoughtfulness, but the realisticness in which they approach, hey, trying to do it better, try to be a better citizen in the world, and try to be part of the one and do the best that we can, realistically and honestly, and not just in some airy-fairy way or not even trying at all.

Resources Mentioned:

Show Sponsors:

TimeStamps

  • 00:01:43 – The Movie of Me to the Movie of We
  • 00:04:01 – Starting a Meaningful Connection
  • 00:18:44 – Balancing the Internal & External
  • 00:24:43 – Embracing the Quiet
  • 00:29:30 – Understanding Chanting
  • 00:34:19 – A Greater Force
  • 00:41:38 – The Mind and Heart
  • 00:43:31 – The Process Within
  • 00:49:13 – An Unending Work
  • 00:52:23 – The Parent Connection
  • 00:58:37 – New Ways to Use Creativity
  • 01:01:30 – Proof of Heaven
  • 01:06:00 – Is There Hope?

Show Transcript:

[00:01:43] Hi everyone, welcome to the Gabby Reece Show, again, thank you for joining me. And I listened to your book and I read the book and what I really came away with of “The Movie of Me”  and going to the “Movie of We” between the two of you is you’ve managed to have a really intimate and personal conversation around some, oftentimes high-minded and confusing ideas of, how are we our best internal selves and live in the world?

[00:02:21] Gabby Reece: And you guys really did that and achieved that with this book.

[00:02:26] Raghu Markus: Thanks. Thank you. Thank you. We have a guy posted and that’s, his name is Ram Dass, so that helped us a lot. All that stuff that Ram Dass has been working with over these decades around identity and role and believing in your story and all of it.

He helped tons of people.

[00:02:43] Gabby Reece: Yeah. And Duncan, I couldn’t help but think, I’ve watched you for a long time. There is a part of me where I’m like, oh, you’re. You hit me differently, but you’re almost like a modern-day Terrence McKenna. For me, even like the voice and how unusual I, I was like, oh, I wonder if Duncan ever thought about that, that it’s this person who is living in both places at the same time.

[00:03:10] Duncan Trussell: I think I hold Terrence McKenna in such high regard that I, and he’s his ability to articulate the experience of whatever that is, the psychedelic realms. It’s like his psychedelic, you read his books and you could be sober, but you start feeling like you’re tripping ’cause he’s somehow would go into that zone and observe and then report back in a way that’s really. Visceral and like you, you just feel like you’re there. So I am flattered, but he, I’m just not there yet, I don’t think. And I like his consumption of psychedelics is terrifying to me. Terrifying. Five dry grams and silent darkness. No thanks. No. I’ll pass. Thank you. Yeah.

[00:04:01] Gabby Reece: Maybe that’s why you didn’t get there yet. I don’t know if I, in your mind, I, Yeah, probably. Maybe we can. First of all, it, how did you guys decide you have your own relationship? How did you decide, okay, we’re gonna, we’re gonna take this conversation on why did it feel So important?

[00:04:21] Raghu Markus: It was already happening. We would just talk, aside from doing podcasts and, I met Duncan, I don’t know, it’s a dozen years ago, 13 years ago or something, after he had had a a wonderful Skype session with Rondos and then got in touch with us and suggested the whole idea of doing podcasts.

And here we are, all these years later. And, but at the same time, we, just get on the phone or we hang out together. When he was living in LA and just talked about the existence, existences, what’s the word? Duncan, the,

[00:04:56] Duncan Trussell: I don’t know what that word is. It sounds great though, and I wanna learn it.

I pick it up and I’ll get it to you. But the reality of how we were dealing with our lives and how. We were attempting to put one foot in front of the other on this path and called spiritual path of self-Discovery is probably the most simple and basic way to put it, and we were both interested and, my decades of working on it and Duncan’s own really magnetic pull towards getting some of this stuff revealed.

So we start recording. These conversations. Some of them went on podcasts, some of them didn’t. But then we had an idea, okay, this makes sense, we can use ourselves as Guinea pigs for all of the neurotic stuff that we went through, how we got self-identified from the earliest days, how we are living.

We had lived this life of separation and how we see other people going through this. And so we thought that we would be pretty good examples of it. And then we had enough great teachers to be able to pull the kind of information that would help people move forward. And get a little bit more balance in their day-to-Day lives.

We’re very similar in that we like stuff to be, not esoteric, but put into a vernacular that people can understand on a day-to-day basis. Very here and now.

I think one thing Raghu and a lot of people like and forget is that not everybody has had the experiences they’ve had. It’s normal to them, it’s normal that he got to meet I don’t know, I don’t mean to underplay it, but it’s, they’re used to, oh, they met Neem, Kholi, Baba. They traveled through India. He’s friends with Ram Dass, Trudy Goodman, Jack Kornfield. And they’ve, lived together forever. Whereas, somebody like me, and especially when I met Raghu, I’d just gotten testicular cancer. My mom had died. I was, it peak cynical, like peak fashionable cynicism. Where people think that like your cynicism is some sign of intelligence, but inside, you’re dumb. But if you act like you don’t believe anything, you feel power in this really sad, rotten way. So when I met Raghu, I was fully prepared for him to be a complete grifter.

And that’s was sad, but it was because I loved Ram Dass so much. But I just basing, meeting, like I’d had bad experiences in the past, and all of us have you meet somebody, they’re wearing a lot of beads and jewels and they’re wearing all the right clothes and they’re, they seem so fancy, they look the way you would expect the guru to look or a holy person to look.

And then they’re just salespeople. So I thought that’s what was gonna happen when I met Raghu. And then I would just throw, be here now out the window and forget about Neem, Krolli, Baba and the whole thing. So the conversation that you’re hearing is one, as he mentioned, that we have been having for a long time.

But that started off with me. I. Like either being like aggressively cynical with him. And the reason I did that is ’cause I thought if I can offend him, if I say the wrong thing and he says, you can’t say that, then it’s bullshit. It’s it, that can’t be real. I would say, I don’t, you don’t even remember.

I go, I’d say the most blasphemous things to you just to test the waters. And one of the many things that impressed me was I never was flustered, never got upset, never admonished me or did any of the things you hear that people who are parading around as a quote, spiritual person do. So the conversation you’re hearing is, I like to think of it as a sort of a conversation that’s always been happening between people who and I don’t want to apply hierarchy to the spiritual path.

That’s so ridiculous. But people who maybe have. Had longer to study and be in the presence of teachers and people who haven’t, and a kind of transmission happens there that I think is really wonderful.

[00:09:54] Gabby Reece: Yeah. So even as a kid, whether it’s, experimenting with drugs or, the thing I really appreciated was a story about your brother living next to a church or temple with the priest, heart, and him being so different and just even that openness from you.

So I think both of you having these, okay, we’re gonna have these high-minded deep ideas about consciousness and we’re all connected, but how do I do this? When I’m squeezed, when my neck is squeezed, I’m trying to go to work or pay bills or deal with screaming children or being sleep deprived. Yeah.

And I feel like you guys weave in and out of that in this book quite a lot. Raghu, from your point of view, and you do share this in the book, there’s moments where you Yeah. You’re maybe you say, Hey, I’m not, I don’t react my best. You know the areas that you’re still like, Hey, I’m under construction here and I’m working on this.

Are there, what is it in your life that you are still dancing with and how do you, what is, what does that practice look like?

[00:11:03] Raghu Markus: Everything I am dancing with it, all dealing with, the stuff that we all deal with on a day to day, anger preferences drawn to comfort, the way that we are, in the west.

Push away any kind of discomfort. It’s a lot about what it is that we are having big problems because of this and all the way, obviously around the environment particularly you know what the biggest thing when someone says to me you’ve been doing this for decades, so what the hell have you gotten out of it?

That kind of thing. And I’m like, okay, as Ram Dass said, little schmooze now. So I understand that best as to what happens to a person when they actually apply themselves because they can’t stand being so unhappy and they actually apply themselves to some of the tenants of the various mystical traditions that allow for some kind of transformation.

That transformation in my case is simply. There is a lot more spaciousness so that when something comes in to me from the outside or through thoughts or emotions or whatever, then absolutely I am not reacting the way that I have reacted in the past. And it’s been a gradual thing over time where that reaction reactionary day-to-day thing is not what it was earlier in my life.

So that you can count on, and that’s part of the practice. And by the way, you Gabby you talked about you basically having children and a, businesses and supporting a husband and so on. This is a lot. If I had that if that was gone, I. Then I could be in a, a much more connective state, is what you said. Let me tell, I’ll, let me tell you one story that, something like that, i, when I was in India all those years ago, I happened to be at the house or the mansion in Delhi of the high Commissioner of Canada on Canadian. And I knew I, I was introduced to him and I needed a new passport, whatever.

So he was getting me all of this and in the middle of it all he was having a luncheon. He was a Buddhist with one of the great lamas of the last century. His name is Kalu Rinpoche. And he introduced me to him and a retinue of monks. We had lunch together, which was like, blew my mind. And then they took me in alongside of some Canadian journalist to.

Asked him a bunch of questions that he absolutely did not respond to. It was around, what do you think of Christianity or something? I don’t know anything about it. It was that kind of a thing. So they turned to me and said why don’t you ask him something? So I asked pretty much what you spoke to, which was I’d been living in the mountains and meditating and it’s just absolutely has been extraordinary states and peace and so on.

But I’m in Delhi and I’m like, it’s a horror and I’m completely caught in the world of transactional stuff in Delhi. And he said, no, you don’t do. I said, do I have to be in a cave to, to get to this piece? And he said, absolutely not. And he told me the story of the seven accomplished beings.

They’re called Siddhas in India, who each became realized through work. Through pottery, through weaving and so on and so forth. They all, he said it’s through the doing of whatever your karma or Dharma dictates through that, you get transformed. So I’ll never forget that and pretty tough to, achieve that.

But we do have tools and that’s, part of why we put this book together is we mention a lot of different potential tools like mindfulness.

[00:15:13] Duncan Trussell: Can I throw something out in relation to the cave thing real quick? How many caves are there? There can’t be enough caves for all the hippies.

You wanna go live in a cave Like you ever think about that? Eventually you’re gonna have to get on a waiting list for your spiritual cave because so many people have this fantasy and I think I. It, especially with environmentally, it’s not gonna be good for all the remote forests of the world if suddenly they are filled with flood, a flood of spiritualists looking to gain realization.

And also I think this, when you have this hierarchical view, and then you start beating yourself up. ’cause here, we are in our normal lives here, here we are, like with screaming kids and supporting a family and a job a business and all the other stuff. And that’s hard enough.

But now you’re beating yourself up because you’re not in some saffron robe hanging out in a butterfly garden somewhere where you think you’re gonna get realized. I think that’s a really sad way to be. And also it helps you procrastinate, doesn’t it? It’s if I’ll start the real path when I’m in the cave and the incense is burning.

This is a cave. I can’t think of a darker cave than late-stage capitalism. Like what a dark cave. This is the place we’re supposed to be. I if you ask me. And then in any way you trick yourself into thinking, oh, around the corner. That’s where I’m supposed to be. That is just another way to cling to your identity and torment yourself.

The this is it, man. This is it when you’re trying to use the bathroom and two toddlers are cop knocking on the door, dad, what are you doing in there? What is that? What is that what you, to me, that’s where the rubber hits the road when it comes to getting a little space between the way you might wanna react and the way you should react when chaos is around you.

[00:17:13] Raghu Markus: Yeah, but don’t, you can’t go too far that way and forget about the reality of having to create some kind of space within which you. Only with yourself and whoever it is, from the Buddha to Christ, to God knows what, to the divine presence. However it manifests.

[00:17:34] Duncan Trussell: If you ever heard this Raghu, I’m sorry. This rabbi told me that they build, they built a temple in time because their temple kept getting destroyed.

And so they built it. They found a place to build a temple that wasn’t in the world. They built it in time. And ah, that’s always stuck with me. And I get it though. I know Pooja table, incense, the pictures of the saints and all that, but I have people who live in a studio apartment with kids and they’re like, where do I go to meditate the bathtub?

You, you might have to sit in the bathtub, but I, so I think any attachment—I’m, sorry, I’m not refuting what you’re saying. It’s nice to have a Pooja table, but—. I think any attachment to that stuff is,

[00:18:17] Raghu Markus: I don’t care about a Pooja table. I care about, just five minutes without anybody else around, there’s just me. Going inside, whoever you wanna put it. And that can happen, after the kids are in bed, of course you’re tired and whatever. Yeah. Worldly life is not easy. Family life is not easy. Yeah. It is easier for these wandering men in, in, in India or here in America where there’s plenty of people.

[00:18:44] Gabby Reece: I feel like we need those people though. I always call them the concentrated tablet that you can throw in the water to remind us. I don’t fault those people. I think they’re doing a different kind of work. And I will say this as somebody who’s already, my youngest daughter is a junior in high school, I have never been more peaceful in my life after the chaos of raising teenage daughters because you had choices to make and you put practices in place because you were either gonna Be one kind of person or you’re gonna be another. So I agree with that, that the work is happening, like you said, In the chaos because those are those real opportunities to go, oh, okay. And listen a car ride by yourself for 10 minutes. I call it active meditation. It’s hey, you check in, you can down regulate.

You think about how am I, how would I like to be versus like, how am I being? I really appreciate that. Duncan for you, I’d love to know how you’re balancing that external work. ’cause you are, everywhere and you’re creating and doing stand-up and all the things that you’re doing and you have three young children and managing internal work.

Is it like seasonal hey, this week I have more time to do that. It, is it moving and changing whatever life’s presenting you with?

[00:19:57] Duncan Trussell: Yeah I, what I’ve figured some things out that for me just work, which is if I always have an audiobook going, some Pima children going, some whatever it is, it does really doesn’t matter.

Neville, Goddard or any, anything that is talking about the transcendent. Reality. As long as I have that going and the my driving meditations as you call them, then I, that’s good for me, I have to be careful. ’cause if I’m not doing that, then I become reactive. And the reactivity, as all of us know, leads to the Samsaric loops.

So the, I have really subscribed to the idea that Ramda said it best when you’re off the path. That’s the path too. And Sharon, Salzberg says something that I have to remind myself all the time, which is the healing is in the return. And so it’s that moment. Where you’ve started telling the story of you’re the prodigal son, you’re now a pig farmer, you’re this filthy thing.

You’ve gone away from the light Father, why have you forsaken me? And then the moment you remember, oh, I’m supposed to be here. This is the teaching right now. This is the cave. And so I try to as long as I have friends like Raghu, my meditation teacher, David, Nick Turner, or people around me, the community, and I’m actively like listening or reading some book that points.

In the direction of the transcendent then I’m more likely to remember that, oh shit, I’ve, I’m so sucked into myself right now. Oh my God, it’s been two days and I have only been thinking about myself and what I want and what I need and how this is what I, where’s my respect? Where is it all that, the embarrassing ego stuff.

I, it’s nice to have reminders everywhere whatever it may be, to bring you back to that simple but profound truth, which is wherever you are, that’s the path. That’s where you’re supposed to be. That’s the curriculum. And then it’s the most wonderful thing to keep popping in there. I would love to stay there.

  1. I can’t, I don’t, I would love to though, but in any time I think I’m staying there. I don’t know if you’ve ever had this happen. I would love to know if you’ve had this happen. Have you ever thought maybe you got enlightened me?

[00:22:37] Gabby Reece: Or Oh, no. You, no. The times that I can hear uncomfortable things from people I really care deeply about and I don’t react internally I think of that as a win as far as I had a moment where I could just be in it. And so it wasn’t about me, but that’s about the only time it’s shown up for me.

[00:22:57] Duncan Trussell: Okay. You’re smart. See, I’m a fool. I’m a professional fool. And that’s real. So like I, if I’m meditating, if I pull off three meditations in a row, there’s an 80% chance somewhere, and I’m like. Did I just get enlightened and I will I’ll go around in this foolish oh, I think I’m in, this is what they’re talking about An emptiness. Everything’s empty. I see that. And then I’ll be at the steam room of my gym and I will feel competitive with people who aren’t staying in there as long as me. This is, do you know what I mean? The most egotistical thing. So I I would love to not keep getting embarrassed by my ego, but it just keeps happening.

Like It’s a real for me, this is not a, I’m a slow learner. I’m a real slow learner.

[00:23:49] Raghu Markus: Well, enlightenment, nobody even has any understanding of what that word really means. It is beyond and I love what the Dalai Lama says, which is basically he says, forget about enlightenment. How about just trying to be more kind?

And compassionate. That’s enlightening. So when, Gabby, when you said that, stuff would go on that would normally, might have really triggered you, some, somebody displaying awful behavior or whatever, saying awful things and you didn’t react. That is enlightenment.

That is what we are aspiring for. We are looking to just be better humans. Just start there and then start to have a little bit more peace inside ourselves, which means we aren’t reacting to stuff around us all the time.

Duncan Trussell: Right.

[00:24:43] Gabby Reece: Raghu I think I, I think this is something really important. My husband, we’ve lived in a kind of a physical practice, if you will, for many years coming from athletics, right? And what you learn once you come out of physical performance is actually the whole organism. How do you get that to respond better? So that means in all the ways, right? Not about being faster, more, but about this, how do we respond to the best of our ability? And the thing that this book shows me is two people who’ve talked and thought a lot about this topic, reminding the reader or the listener that, again it’s about something else than what people, I think enlightenment is about. It’s hitting the moments more often, like you said, or those explosions don’t impact you quite as much.

But it isn’t about perfection. It’s not about everything. Or being scared. And I really appreciated that constant reminder throughout the conversations between the two of you, if someone was not connected to these materials to Ram Dass or to a meditation practice or anything like this.

And they wanted to start, let’s say, Raghu from your point of view. ’cause I think people. It can be daunting. What? I have to be quiet for a minute. I have to be still and not, it’s all these things that people put around it. What would be just a few of the invitations for you to be like here would be an interesting way to start exploring this path that we’re gonna keep moving off and on through our lives.

[00:26:23] Raghu Markus: Nothing is gonna start you up unless you are really depressed and pissed off about your day-to-Day life and the way that you’re involved with people and how you are acting and how you are reacting. Until you get to that place, nothing’s gonna happen. I. Let me be clear. Many people have little sartorial moments where they have some breath, that, which is what Duncan was talking about.

You may, there may be a meditation session that suddenly there’s just freedom, spaciousness, not clinging. All of that, and that happens and it happens to people and they go, okay, I want that in my life on a day-to-day basis. In my case, it was just abject terror of what was going on at the time when I was a teenager and so on.

I got saved because of my love for music, and that’s a whole other story. But the reality is there has to be that one thing that you just can’t take it anymore and you want to do something about it. Or you actually have had some, as I said, sartorial experience that takes you out of normal consciousness and leads you to believe, okay, I can work on this and I can develop this more.

The very first thing is in my mind, is mindfulness. You’ve got to start having an idea of your self-motivational factors of the, of your selfishness of your the manipulations that we do to either protect our scene. Defend our scene or grope for something that’s, what we think is the answer for us in terms of might be money, power, whatever it may be, until you get a handle on how you are interacting on that level it’s, you could meditate from here to eternity and nothing’s gonna happen.

There has to be that mindfulness. And for your listeners, Gabby, I have to do a commercial for Joseph Goldstein, yeah. Who wrote a book called Mindfulness and is the, I mean he’s the three of them. Him and Jack Kornfield and Sharon Salisbury, been, we’ve been friends for a long time, but Joseph particularly has a grasp of this and that book is phenomenal.

And, it’s so great. I think we’re thinking now that we have to have a Joseph Goldstein mindfulness course. I’d love to remember. Round up. That’d be cool. Yeah. So mindfulness to start with. And then it’s whatever you gravitate towards, it could be a physical practice yoga it, and, or just walking in.

Nature is a wonderful practice. Forest bathing, they call it in Japan. Meditation might be a thing, chanting might be your thing. Meeting up with a group of people who are one, like you minded towards wanting to expand out of the little me. And you realize that, and you wanna spend time with people who are like-minded.

I think those are the most simple, basic places to start.

[00:29:30] Gabby Reece: And those can, I actually think what you’re saying is, it’s like anything, the foundation where it’s really, it never really moves too far from all that stuff anyway. Even when you’re deep into the practices. Duncan, I have to say, I, when I read that you like to chant and do these things and you do have a very specific pitch in your voice.

[00:29:51] Duncan Trussell: Yes. You mean deep resonant, powerful.

[00:29:56] Gabby Reece: I was like, I was like so curious about I thought, oh, that must be amazing to hear. And do you do that privately? Do you like I just, I loved, I just had a lot of fun in my mind. Thinking of you Chanting.

[00:30:12] Duncan Trussell: and such with my presidential voice. It’s like hearing a president chant. It’s amazing. I know, I get that all the time. I get that all the time. Yeah, it’s I know ’cause like when I listen to myself chant, it’s like listening to all the great world leaders at the same time. That deep, powerful commanding voice. Yeah, it’s intense. I I try not to do exhibitionist style chanting, and so usually if I’m doing it, it’s in I think I, it’s in my mind, like if I have my mala beads, I’ll just be, I’ll just hear, rah. In my mind, sometimes if I’m cleaning, I’ll sing Hare, Krishna, it’s usually a spontaneous thing for me, not as disciplined. As I would like it to be.

But, Raghu in, in the Bhagavad, Gita Krishna says, here are the types of people that come to me. And it’s not just miserable people when, and one of them is that people seeking gold. And this is something that I really love ab like about the Eastern cosmology versus the Western cosmology.

The western cosmology. There’s this potential for blasphemy. You’re going to infuriate God, you’re gonna do something wrong. But the Hare Krishnas, what I loved about them is that whatever way you reach out. Is good, including being angry at God. Many of the great devotees started off trying to kill Krishna and try tried to, in fact, Krishna it’s considered has two moms one of them, his like mother-mother, the other, a demon who wanted to kill him and snuck in when he was a baby and tried to feed him poison, like breastfeeding him.

And so he sucked all the poison out of her and she became like a great devotee of Krishna because of that direct contact with the divine. So though I do think, you know the recognition that you don’t have to be in a never-ending loop of, a reactive loop of being angry or resisting or fighting everything or trying to arrange a phenomena to meet some ridiculous standard.

That is true. That is a good way to, to be inspired to start meditating or looking into stuff. But the manifestation stuff that many of us roll our eyes at, that can also lead you to what the Hare Krishna is called, the higher taste, which is, it’s the encouragement or what drives you is that you get this little glimpse of something that you can’t buy that is better than money and cars and all this stuff, and better than anything.

And then you naturally start gravitating towards that stuff. It, it’s do you wanna go to Sizzler or do you wanna go to some. Four-star, incredible restaurant. And once you start tasting food like that, the other stuff, it just doesn’t scratch the itch quite as much. So Rugo, I agree with you.

I think you and I, what we have in common is we just recognize our own neurosis and how awful and annoying that is. You have a weird voice. Your voice, it sounds high-pitched shrieky, so you’re double annoying compared to me. ’cause I have this powerful voice, yeah. But I think if you’re a neurotic, it’s not just that you’re tormenting yourself, everyone around you is being tormented too.

And so we both got into it, I think, via that recognition. But I would, I just wanna put a word in. You don’t have to be some depressed, neurotic, middle-aged. Whatever we are to like start meditating.

[00:33:55] Raghu Markus: There’s lots of other ways in, or depressed, neurotic, Seventeen-year-old. That’s what I was Referring to, but No, you’re right. Absolutely right. I know tons of people that was not the case. And I said there, there’s some kind of bit of opening satori that happens for people that leads them to Yeah. Not, wanna go to the five-star hotel to eat rather than, yeah. So that’s absolutely true.

[00:34:19] Gabby Reece: I can even speak personally that I’m not I mean I’m sure I have different things about control or security, but I think for me, at a really young age, I Intuitively felt there was a real Way that the world worked and law, like greater law from a greater place or a greater force.

And it motivated me and also I was afraid to go against it. So it wasn’t just oh, I’m drawn to be better. It was actually truthfully oh I don’t wanna poke that bear. I wanna try to learn how to be, do the best I can and do the work and have the practice. Because for me, the law was so clear, wow. Like north and south. I don’t know if that makes sense, but it, it’s not maybe the best motivation either, but it was a, it was different.

[00:35:10] Duncan Trussell: Oh, absolutely. That’s good. I you, yeah. You’re not a fool. You look and you see there’s natural law, there’s a kind of metaphysical reality here. I. And you, in your you, that’s smart.

That’s wisdom. Whereas like people like us are like, yeah, maybe there is, but let’s see if I do everything wrong over and over again, what happens?

[00:35:33] Gabby Reece: But Duncan you have interesting parents. They went through a lot of different things and I always say we have the example sometimes of what not to do, but somehow the law, I could see it plant being played out by the adults in my life early and it looked yes really difficult.

Also, I wanna add something that what Raghu said, and this is like really Calculated. So if I look at like Duncan, the more the work that you’ve done, right? And it feels to me, and I know this is again, calculated, but it feels like the more work you’ve done, that actually your life, if I just looked at it from an External position as somebody who can track you a little bit with your career. Yes. And the fact that you have a family. Okay. Kids, it almost seems like because you’ve done more of the work and moved closer into your essence, that you’ve actually become more successful. And I think sometimes people think it’s like you’re, and I don’t mean successful, but more yourself, which then brings a life that reflects you, which I think is a great thing.

But I think sometimes people think that by not being as ego driven or not being, of me oriented that somehow we still won’t get this opportunity to express and create and do all these incredible things.

[00:36:53] Duncan Trussell: Yeah. That’s sad. I gotta, I, so one of my friends invited me to, there’s a racetrack here, and I went to this, it’s not my thing.

I’m, this is never a car person, but how do you pass up driving on a racetrack in fancy cars? And I’m a terrible driver. So I didn’t really do a lot of driving there. And the driving I did, I’m, I still was terrified, but there was this Indian man there who let me. Ride in this insane, I think it was a Ferrari he had, and I’ve never gone that fast in my life and it is the craziest feeling.

But when we got in the car, he had to put something in his glove box and do you know what’s in there? A picture of his guru. And so in, so we had this wonderful conversation about what mantra he chanted. And he was like asking me how often I meditated and I’m like, sporadically. And he was like I meditate twice a day as we’re zooming around this racetrack in a super insane car.

And it, and so that was, it was a beautiful thing to me because the truth is get the go. Get the stuff. If you can get the stuff, get this stuff, get the stuff, don’t beat yourself up ’cause you want stuff. Get the stuff, but you will find out. The very cliche thing, which we all hear over and over again, but don’t believe it’s not gonna do anything for you.

You’re gonna feel the sit, you’re gonna get distracted by it for a second, and then you’re gonna be right back to where you were before and so I, yeah, I don’t I think that if you’re inspired, if you’re into the grind culture thing, whatever it is, that is a path too. And just as long as you main like work on mindfulness and awareness and being honest with yourself about how you are internally.

And how does that compare to where you are externally? Then I think that can be an incredible teaching, actually getting and getting everything you want. I wish there was enough resources in the world that we had matter assimilators so that everyone suddenly could get everything they wanted and have that terrible feeling where you’re looking around at all your stuff and you’re still miserable and you spent decades getting the stuff.

You’re, the Dalai Lama. I, he I heard he was giving a talk in Beverly Hills or something, and some mansion. And the way he started off with saying, you, we have all these things. I went to use the bathroom. I opened the medicine cabinet. So many sleeping pills. So many sleeping pills. So it doesn’t work.

It if it worked, oh my God. We would like, think of all the billionaires in the world. We would have no social problems. They’d be giving all their money to improve the planet. They would be, and they’d be so happy. They wouldn’t be burrowing down to build bomb shelters fighting each other on Twitter, so clearly achieving that stuff doesn’t seem to sure doesn’t bring the happiness. People think that it does though. It’s fun and I highly recommend it. If you can do it, go for it. Go for it. If that’s the way you need to learn, that’s the way you need to learn.

[00:40:01] Raghu Markus: Yeah, and that’s the one thing, of course, everybody is running off karma and I know, yes. It’s a hard concept. It’s not just about you pop me in the face, I’m gonna pop you back. It’s much more subtle and complex than that. We talk about it in the book the Law of Karma and I, so that unfolding is very, is of course completely individual. And it’s different for every person.

But I will say, when we talk about what are the motivations to to more, for more self-discovery, for more balance in one’s life, as we’ve been talking I, there’s so many different ways in which that happens. And Duncan said, it’s not just about being miserable, a teenager and then looking but at the same time, every one of us, everyone on this planet, except for maybe Joseph Goldstein believes their thoughts, Believes the story, their story. Every one of us. Not twenty-four, seven necessarily, but for many people, of course it is twenty-four, seven. And that is a reality that we, I think is I think it’s really one of the best things we accomplished in the book, is setting out that reality and that perspective that can absolutely change.

And once that perspective, it’s, it gets reframed. I think we reframed that perspective in the book, and I think that’s super important for people to understand.

[00:41:38] Gabby Reece: Obviously Ram Dass is a huge influence and there’s a part where he does talk about this balance between the heart and the mind. It’s not, okay, it’s all heart and no mind. And, I think most of us are needing to move more from the mind to the heart. I would think in this world. Maybe we could just share the thoughts on that.

[00:42:03] Raghu Markus: Yeah. That’s one great thing that Ram Dass did towards the end of his life. He came up with this teaching called Loving Awareness. I am loving awareness. And it was a way for people, you move from this place that you’re, this is the I, This is everything that operates the me, me on a daily basis and take, three breaths into the center of your chest and repeat.

I am loving awareness. And then suddenly a little bit of spaciousness immediately happens. And then the next thing you know. You aren’t judging every thought you want, you’re much more, oh, okay, it’s real. And that perspective is hugely important. And that is the merging of mind and heart is really about everything that we, meaning me and Ram, Dass and Duncan and next gen.

Everything that’s represented is about the merging of the mind and the heart. And it’s not the mind that is the eye that’s judging, believing in their thoughts, believing in their stories. And it’s a very specific merging that we have represented over all these years. These retreats that we do, Duncan and I have been doing in Maui for many years with Jack and Ram Dass and Christian Dass and so on.

It is a wonderful. Co-mingling of the heart and discriminating wisdom. The Buddhism is so effective.

[00:43:31] Gabby Reece: I’m curious because, a lot of times I think we’re good at it and then we’ll see something unfair. We’ll see politicians acting be badly. We’re you’re like I’m one with everybody, but definitely not that guy. Like I am not one with him, yeah. Or even people like, I’d imagine you do these retreats and they’re like we’re not gonna be jiving with every person. And Duncan, you talk about the kind of the, this, it’s also there’s processes within it, right? It’s not I guess what I’m trying to get people to understand is, yes, we are all connected and we are all one, but then within it, sometimes we’re, it’s almost like we’re allowed to be in these spaces where we hold kind of sacred space for ourselves.

[00:44:16] Duncan Trussell: You go to these retreats, they’re yapping about meta and compassion for all these people and on. And it sounds absolutely insane when you first start hearing it. It sounds unachievable like it, it’s the most ridiculous stuff you’ve ever heard. God, it used to really eat me up. ’cause like in the inevitably you get this meta thing and it’s imagine compassion for the whole universe. And you’re like, what are you, what is that even? What is the whole universe? But what you know, again, slow learner. You realize you’re missing a step. I was missing a step. The step is you have to have compassion for your, you’re in the universe too.

You’re part of the universe too. When they say the prayer. May all beings be at peace. May all beings have a roof over their head. May all beings have food. You are one of those beings. And you know that you’re talking about, I was excluding myself from all beings.

Meaning, because it’s somewhat, at least the mind will tell you. It’s easier to imagine some pseudo compassion for the universe. But try being compassionate for you where you are right now. Know, ’cause no one knows more about you than you. And you know what you did. You know all the things you’ve done and the hypocrisy, the mediocrity, the failure, all of it.

All of it. So if you can’t figure out a way. To love that and not be as like, okay, you what you did great, but to really love it. And that’s what Ram Dass was teaching. That’s, you have to start there. That’s the hardest part. ’cause once you, I think, can get enough space and truly forgive yourself and love yourself, not in some narcissistic, indulgent way, but in the sense of, aligning yourself with the reality that everything is fundamentally good. That, and that’s part of you. So now instead of look, being inside looking out, you’re outside looking in and then the outside and the inside, the boundary between the two, it starts melting down a little bit. And then maybe you can start being compassionate for the person at the retreat who clearly has covid and is hacking away during the morning meditation.

Maybe then you can do it or for whoever, but you have to, I, you really have to start with yourself. And that’s bad news, for a lot of us. ’cause that’s the place you don’t wanna start.

[00:46:37] Raghu Markus: The good news is, yes, you have to start with yourself and you at the same time have to start with everyone around you. There’s no way. Good luck. Luck. Yeah. Good luck.

[00:46:49] Duncan Trussell: You do. Then you’re doing the fake. Oh, I do feel compassion for you. No, you don’t. You’re a numb husk. You haven’t felt anything in years ’cause you’ve just burrowed up into your mind and you live in this terrible hoarder’s house in your head.

Where you’re, where you desperately or trying to evade the heart. ’cause we hear about the heart over and over again and everyone acts like it’s the garden of Eden down there. But it’s yeah, to get there. You, the vulnerability, the exposure, feeling completely exposed, not safe.

Having to like it feels if you’re a mind person, like I have been the heart. No way. It’s the worst and it hurts. And you don’t, and I’m telling you, if you try to get people to come to your retreat, starting off saying that, do you want to feel completely exposed, vulnerable, true, absolutely helpless because all your defense mechanisms have vanished for a moment. Come to this retreat, it’ll be great.

[00:47:50] Gabby Reece: Rahgu, you did say quote though. This is reflective of what Duncan’s saying in the book by Ram Dass, which is, I myself stand in need in the arms of my own kindness.

[00:48:00] Raghu Markus: That’s, I love that quote.

[00:48:03] Duncan Trussell: Oh my God, it’s so beautiful. Will you say that again? Will you say that again? It blurred out for me.

[00:48:07] Gabby Reece: It’s in the book you guys created Ram Dass said, I myself stand in need in the arms of my own kindness.

[00:48:14] Duncan Trussell: Oh yeah, that’s it.

[00:48:16] Raghu Markus: And that’s really what it’s all about. And Ram Dass put political people on his altar and including all the way through where we are, from Casper, Weinberger, whatever to Trump.

And I actually would go to him and say, I don’t know. I don’t think I can do that. Yeah. How do you do that? He said, I am not looking to the personality. I am looking to the soul. Yeah. And that is what I’m relating with. Yeah. Personality. I. You got a tough incarnation, he said, so that is a, that is what I mean when, yes, you’ve gotta, you’ve got to nurture compassion for yourself, but it’s not like you can wait until that happens before you enact it with people.

Even if you’re full of shit Duncan and you don’t really feel compassion for that person. It’s a beautiful way to be mindful of that and see where you’re not,

[00:49:10] Duncan Trussell: agree to disagree.

[00:49:13] Gabby Reece: I, how do you guys know when the book is like you go, okay, it’s, we’re good, we’re done. Because this is a big topic. Like how do you know it’s ready?

[00:49:22] Raghu Markus: We’ve been, we continue, we’ve been doing podcasts, talking about it. I talk to people, Duncan talks to people.

[00:49:31] Duncan Trussell: It’s never done.

[00:49:32] Raghu Markus: It’s never done. No it’s this path isn’t a matter of getting somewhere and then you’re done. We’re talking about some, I see I look back, I have more purview than you guys obviously, looking back, decades that I started on this, on, on a path of self-discovery, which sounds very Mindy weird.

It’s not the reality. The reality is I met somebody who was no longer polarized. I’ve never met a non-polarized being in my life. From then, I’ve met a, after him, I met a couple, but you know of these extraordinary beings. There’s no more me and you. And I thought, wow, okay. He’s human. It’s possible we can get to a place where we are not so separate and isolated.

It is possible. Yeah. And really that conversation continues at infinitum.

[00:50:23] Duncan Trussell: When I met Ram Dass the first time I asked him, are you my guru? And he goes, yes. Now what? And it was the best response. But in that, that, to me, I always think about that ’cause it’s okay, now what? Great. You met Neem, Kurali, Baba.

Now what? Oh wow. You had a transcendent epiphanous moment on five dried grams of mushrooms where interdimensional beings healed your trauma. Now what? And that’s always the question. And it’s such a brilliant, he was so good at being very, like giving these little co-ons and the way he would communicate because in Wrapped up.

The idea of finding your guru. There’s this hope. Okay, then I can retire. Like I’m done. It’s over. I’m finished. And it’s never done. As long as we’re here in the bardo of becoming it, it’s never, this is human incarnation. So yeah, in this conversation, the one we’re having right now. It’s going to go on for as long as there’s human beings on the planet.

And I love it. I love that the book never ends. Oh, just speaking to oh, yeah.

[00:51:35] Raghu Markus: You go and you have an experience. You meet a guru or whatever it is, and then you’re done. That’s the end of it.

[00:51:42] Duncan Trussell: Congratulations.

[00:51:43] Raghu Markus: Yeah. That’s what I thought when I met Neem, Karoli, Baba, the exact, the first second I thought, okay, I’m home. I’m done. I know everything. And then as time went on, I realized, oh my God, the karma that is spinning off, that I have to go through is endless. Absolutely endless.

[00:52:03] Duncan Trussell: Yeah. Yeah. I don’t think there’s you’ve, it. I know I, yeah I think for some people maybe there is a possibility of extinguishment, isn’t that what they call it?

Raghu blowing outta the candle. Like truly burning off all the karma. But, and for Gabby, it, you might be almost there, but not everyone like it, I don’t think we’re, there.

[00:52:23] Gabby Reece: I observe myself daily and I’m always amazed how I re-bite so many of the hooks that I’ve bitten day to day. I can’t believe.

I’m like, oh, there she goes again. I, there’s no way. What I have going for me is a drive to do the practice, but it isn’t in any way. I, you never, get there. And one thing I am curious about for you, Duncan is somebody who has a lot of knowledge in this area and has practice and.

Because the thing for me that’s been so interesting is the neck. I always say my husband Laird always jokes that, oh yeah, kids are so that we actually grow up. They’re for the parents to grow up. It’s like another kind of school. A school, yeah. Shit. That’s right. Because they’re gonna grow up, right?

If whether we do an okay job or we’re dysfunctional or whatever the ’cause parenting is what it is. As parents you are gonna do certain things right, and certain things wrong and you pass down certain things and it goes and on. But I’m curious because. It’s we know worry doesn’t do any good. We know, trying to project to the future is futile. And I’m just curious for you, because you might be really good for yourself, like in your craft and all these things being like, oh yeah I know how to, the attitude in which to approach this when it comes to your children. I’m curious if you’ve had to add anything into your practice to try to keep that same attitude even about them and them growing up and their safety and their well-being and all those things.

[00:53:53] Duncan Trussell: I had, gosh, he’s such a wonderful musician. It’s Evandra Banhart on my podcast and he practices Vajrayana Buddhism and I asked him like, how do you balance, the life of a like famous musician with this practice? He said, I don’t see a difference between the two. There’s no difference there.

And so for me the parenting part and the whatever you wanna call my practice and the, my job as a comedian or podcaster part, I really work hard on not trying to differentiate any of it. One thing is always going to connect to the other in some way. And really just reminding myself again and again, what my meditation teacher told me, it’s some like sub, like a sandwich restaurant David’s.

So smart. And a lot of these teachers, they’ve pushed stuff under the door in this really subtle way. They know what they’re doing and they know you’re gonna think about it forever, but. I remember he just looked around and he goes, it’s all a temple, right? Everything’s a temple. And I can’t forget that.

And anytime you start thinking, oh, now I’m in the temple, but that place isn’t the temple. Now I’m in the sacred space. That is not a sacred space. That’s when you’re you end up causing a lot of problems for yourself. ’cause the whole thing is a temple. And it, you’re right.

They, our children are teaching us way more than we are teaching them way more. And and it’s, we’re so lucky. They decided to let us be their parents. They, and whoa, what a roll of a dice that they chose us. Whoa. Like you had so many parents you gonna pick from. I hope that’s a big bet. And I think that as long as I remember that and try to stay in the moment with him, I feel okay. And the last thing I’ll say about it, I learned from his karate teacher who actually is teaching the parents in the karate class, I think more than the kids. He said, isn’t it funny sometimes that people will yell that you should be quiet and and when you’re teaching kids yes, you’re teaching them. That’s what a. What kind of tree that is or why, what the stop sign means. But really what you’re teaching them is how to act how to how to, in everything you do, you’re teaching them every the way you are showing intimacy to your partner, the way that you are showing frustration and also your ability to apologize.

Whenever I’ve lost it. I make sure that I apologize and say I was angry. People get angry, people get frustrated. I’m so sorry. I don’t, I’m working on it, and to me, that’s the best I could do. And I, but, and I feel guilty. Do you get, I’m sorry. Do you get parent parental guilt Gabby?

Do you ever feel like I could be doing so much better?

[00:56:53] Gabby Reece: I’m a mom, don’t you know, like moms? Yeah. Am I spending too much time? Not enough time. Am I too mean? Am I not? Yes, enough. I mean it the, okay, so actually I’m friends with Byron, Katie and Katie, I’ve said this many times, two things. Listen, really listen.

Don’t fix their problems. Yeah. And I will say as when you have teenagers and girls are very oftentimes very different than boys. They are more talkative, especially, they share in the car. So what I would say is also insert as they get older permission to ask questions because you want, you wanna keep them talking to you, but you don’t wanna just chime in.

So really listen without fixing their problems. Even little kids, like little yeah, I’m just, you can’t be like it’s gonna be fine. You just go, oh, I could see where that’s hard and they’ll keep talking. Yeah. And the other second thing was, that’s cool. Try to make yourself, whatever the word happy means.

I don’t mean it like, yay, I’m happy. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like full happy. Best of your ability. So they know, they see what it looks like.

[00:57:56] Duncan Trussell: Cool. I love it.

[00:57:58] Gabby Reece: And after that, every day, every second is a guess. Like I am I know, and sometimes I look at Laird and I know he is looking at me like. I think, oh, he’s looking at me ’cause he doesn’t agree with that decision. Like it’s constant, it’s a constant dance and it’s something I’m grateful for because you either will choose to react differently to it, or you just torture yourself your whole life. So you have to get new skill, new tools, right?

[00:58:24] Duncan Trussell: Yeah. Yep.

[00:58:25] Raghu Markus: That’s another way for us to jump in and have intention.

[00:58:29] Gabby Reece: You two are like an old married couple too. It’s really good for the content.

[00:58:34] Duncan Trussell: What’s Unbelievable is I would marry Raghu in a heartbeat.

[00:58:37] Gabby Reece: I respectfully disagree. It’s oh really? So moving on, I just quickly, I’m curious about for you, ’cause you are a very creative person and with technology and creativity and even like taking your podcast and putting into Midnight Gospel on Netflix, it’s has this, how has this been for you, the learning curve on how there’s new ways to use your creativity?

[00:59:02] Duncan Trussell: There is a direct, for me, there’s A, and I know you’re not, I understand why, like, when don’t meditate to get this or that, and Bhagavad, Gita, you have a right to your action, not the fruits of your action, but man, learning how to calm my mind get into a space where I’m not judging everything.

It produces a higher chance of like spontaneous epiphanies. Like I, as opposed to getting I’ve heard Shogun talk about this, which is it? You either are going to get really technical, which means that you haven’t been working in the present moment. And so I don’t know if you experienced that.

I know, like whenever I’m arranging chords or like trying to organize my office or all these like technical things, that feels completely different from when I’m making stuff that I love and that space, that feeling seems to happen more if I am actively practicing, if I’m meditating, if I’m learning how to be in the moment.

I think all great ideas come from, I don’t know where just, but yeah. Emptiness. It’s like a, I’ve just, I’ve been listening to Rick Rubin’s book the Creative Act. Yeah. And he calls it a vacuum. It’s like finding a way to get into that vacuum. That’s where the great epiphanies happen. So it’s certainly helps.

[01:00:26] Gabby Reece: Duncan, thank you for your time. I’ll finish up before I go and and I really appreciate it.

[01:00:30] Duncan Trussell: Thank you. I’m sorry. No worry. Aloha. Thank you, Gabby. I’m sorry. You’re awesome. Thanks for the parenting tips. I’ll take them with me to the grave. Thank you. Just talk about it. No tips. Okay. Bye.

[01:00:44] Raghu Markus: See you later.

[01:00:46] Gabby Reece: So Raghu, I didn’t mean to cut you off before. So we were talking about the parenting.

[01:00:53] Raghu Markus: Yeah, the parenting thing. I, it would’ve been good if he was here, but I’ll tell you the story. I was with him and his baby was first son Forrest was about eight months old, and he’s holding the baby out in front of him, and he says, in the most beautiful, tonally beautiful voice.

Oh, Forrest. I just want you to know I. Unless you love me, I’m not gonna love you back for I cracked up in that moment. It just happened. He just did it. Yeah. And yeah, no, so our awareness around this stuff is very important.

[01:01:30] Gabby Reece: And the thing is I, funny enough, I was raised by a couple that weren’t my parents for a few years and they were both from New York and she was very sarcastic. Like she’d say go play in traffic kid, like joking around, but through some of her humor go away, don’t go away. Mad though, I felt actually loved even deeper because there was no doubt. She wasn’t putting on forth this role also of I love you so much. It was like, I love you so much. I can actually joke around with you. That’s how much I love you. You know that, that humor. Raghu, you talked, there’s a beautiful part in the book about a book proof of Heaven. You, I thought this was really an interesting

[01:02:12] Raghu Markus: Yeah. Ebenezer, Alexander something I think.

[01:02:15] Gabby Reece: Yes. A doctor. Yeah. And so maybe you could just share why that book was important to you.

[01:02:22] Raghu Markus: Actually in, in on Mind Rolling on the podcast that I do, I have been talking to quite a number and Ram Dass was very interested in near-death experience, basically that ca and I talked to many people and he, including Eben. And the wild thing is that every one of these people that had these encounters, either personally, some of them I interviewed that did, large experimental stuff with many people getting their stories of it, it was all the same.

There was some concrete, the sameness, what happened as people went out of their corporal bodies into what the Tibetans called the bardos, the liminal spaces and down the tunnel, seeing the light, seeing people that part of your family or soul pod as Ram Dass would call it. It was extraordinary.

And all of it though, in all of it, they all said, my God, I never felt so loved as I did in that moment. And there was, to me it’s a real. Wonder to Ram Dass did this work all his life around normalizing death. This is not our enemy. This is part of life. And these near-death experiences, people experience the beauty of it.

Yeah, of course there’s attachment. We’re gonna have to let go of so much in that moment, but I think it’s it’s worthy for, that’s why I love doing them and that’s why Ram Dass, we used to talk about it all the time, just the commonality of people’s experiences around the beauty of the movement.

Now there’s scary stuff too, which is. I’m dead. What, that kind of a thing. But yeah I find that a great genre to talk to people about.

[01:04:22] Gabby Reece: Raghu. Thank you so much for your time and the book again. And people can get it. And again I listened to it as well, which was fun ’cause both of you are going back and forth and it really does oftentimes feel like this type of conversation, which allows people to interact with the information differently.

So from “The Movie of Me to the Movie of We,” and then can you also Direct people ’cause you do have a podcast and so many other things to all the places that they can find you and learn more about the things that, that you share and teach and talk about.

[01:04:53] Raghu Markus: Sure. First of all, as far as the audiobook, just go to movieofme.com. And there’s samples there. There’s our whole story and so on and so forth. And that makes and as you can tell guys that are listening, guys and gals that are listening to Gabby’s podcast, Duncan and I have a real unusual relationship. And it’s based on a lot of trust and a sense of wanting to share.

And I think that makes the book all the more appealing. Aside from, there’s some good stuff in there and it makes people think, and, Reimagine a little bit of a perspective other than that. And for Duncan, the Duncan Trussell Family Hour, please go and catch his podcast. Mind Is mind-rolling on the Be Here Now Network. We have Ram Dass’s be here now. Network, podcast Network. Go to be here now. Network comm slash mind-Rolling. And there you are. I’ve talked to extraordinary people from llamas to incredible musicians and so on. And I’m so happy to meet you, Gabby. That’s really more of the point.

[01:06:00] Gabby Reece: Thank you, Raghu. And I have to ask one final question ’cause I feel like it’s on the hearts and minds of everyone and technology has really, I was saying to Laird, we were talking about it we sit at the counter in the morning and just spend a, 30 minutes having a coffee and just visiting in the morning.

And I said, it’s interesting technology and how small the world has gotten has accelerated so many things that are happening in the world. But it’s also, it’s exposed all of us to a lot more things quickly, almost more than I feel like we can actually handle our biological selves.

It’s almost too much input and it’s, it, I think that there’s a lot of fear around so many of the issues. And I wonder from where you sit if you feel hopeful

[01:06:48] Raghu Markus: around technology?

[01:06:50] Gabby Reece: just, no. Technology is here. We will be able to figure out, we’re obviously in a transition of many kinds right now, and if from your point, as somebody who has been around a long time and seen a lot of things I think it’s just interesting to get a point of view because people are mostly sold a ton of fear. And and I just wonder if you get space now and again and when you think about it if there’s a part of you that feels hopeful or if maybe you are concerned. I, I don’t know.

[01:07:25] Raghu Markus: Oh, we cannot be anything but concerned right now. And in the long term, God only knows, we’re in a very tough spot as inhabitants of this earth and what we are doing. But on the other side of things, all we can do is get ourselves straightened out so that we perhaps can help people.

Who we encounter on a day-to-day basis. And Ram Dass said it so clearly. He said that if we could straighten our hearts out, then we’d be able to radiate from a place that is so constructive to help other people reach that same place. Is that going to cure the ills of what’s going on in the polarization, the power politics, and the fear and the wars and the most critically, of course, what we’re doing to our environment?

We need to take action and that first action is with ourselves in my mind. At the same time, you’re doing whatever you can do and social justice and hunger and homelessness and whatever anyone can do, we have to do that. But yes, we are in a very difficult moment.

[01:08:44] Gabby Reece: I appreciate that. Raghu Markus, thank you so much for your time and I, I look forward to talking to the two of you together because it is, it also makes it fun. You’re talking about very, high-minded virtual ideas, being more enlightened, being mindful, and yet, the two of you do have a really you have a banter, so it makes it, it just is a lot of fun.

[01:09:05] Raghu Markus: Thank you. We ground each other, we do that and have a lot of fun. That’s it. There’s a lot of fun in the book, the back and forth. Yeah. So thank you so much

 

About Duncan Trussell

Duncan Trussell is a stand-up comedian, podcaster, writer, and actor. He is most known for his podcast The Duncan Trussell Family Hour. He produced and starred on the Netflix series The Midnight Gospel.

In addition, Trussell has appeared on Cartoon Network’s Adventure Time and Comedy Central’s Drunk History and This is Not Happening, among others.

He regularly tours the country as a stand-up comedian.

About Raghu Markus

Raghu Markus spent 18 months in India with Neem Karoli Baba and Ram Dass. He has been involved in music and transformational media since the early 1970s, when he was program director of CKGM-FM in Montreal.

In 1974, he collaborated with Ram Dass on the box set Love Serve Remember. In 1990, he launched Triloka Records, which established itself as a critical leader in the development of world music. For 17 years, Triloka was home to such artists as Krishna Das, Hugh Masekela, Walela, Jai Uttal and transformational media projects that featured Ram Dass, Deepak Chopra, and Les Nubians.

Raghu lives in Ojai, California, and is the Executive Director of the Love Serve Remember Foundation. In 2016, he co-founded the Be Here Now Network, where he hosts the Ram Dass Here & Now podcast, as well as his own Mindrolling podcast. He is the producer of Becoming Nobody, a Ram Dass documentary feature film that was released in 2019.