On December 19, 2023 John Lawyer and I talked about approaches to healing from various forms of trauma, time, the nature of reality, beliefs, awakening, purpose, spiritual community, intelligence, discernment, the complexity of war and violence, changing ourselves to change the world, and more
Biography
From desert combat zones to a battle within, John Lawyer transformed from soldier to spiritual seeker. He acts as one of several guides for Kishar, a non-profit online spiritual community for people to share their journey and explore their own unique spiritual path. John is an Omnist and believes in the validity of great human thought from around the world and across time. He offers individual spiritual coaching and guidance services as part of the Kishar Spiritual Community.
About John Lawyer
My story is somewhat unique and I tell it fairly well. The transition from a warrior in Kuwait, Baghdad and Kandahar over many years to a spiritualist and universalist is a powerful narrative.
I was a counterintelligence special agent when I was in the Army and also an asymmetric warfare specialist responsible for coordinating various operations for a special USAF unit in Afghanistan for six years.
So I’ve gone from receiving a bronze star for counterterrorism operations to walking through a swamp of sadness to an amazing path of spiritual healing and awareness.
https://www.facebook.com/KisharSpiritual
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https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnlawyergreenvets
https://www.youtube.com/@PeaceOnYourJourney
Related post:
Cultivate, Develop, Train And Progress Discernment
Audio: A Healing Way Out Of Spying And War With John Lawyer
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The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:
easiest way
[Music] get Hess welcome this is Josh of
integrating presence and today I have John lawyer with me John what’s going on
you know just having another great day in the world and uh in our reality Josh how about you well that’s fair enough to
say that’s close enough to to be somewhat accurate for me I’d say um so
who is John lawyer and what does he do I’m a spiritual guide and Seeker with
the kar spiritual community and my my every day is to try to help people find
their holess within whether they see it or not that light inside whether they can can feel it or not or see it and it
all started for me I was a soldier and civilian on and off for 12 years out of
the first 15 years of my adult life uh in and out of combat zones uh Kuwait
Iraq Afghanistan I spent six and a half years consecutively in Kandahar Afghanistan and that that kind of
damaged me but it also kind of greatly informed me I would later find out and when I came home I came home in about
2015 and then I had it took another seven years for me to kind of sort things out and figure things out and
then I kind of had a spiritual moment a major spiritual moment where I had this Clarity or understanding that I saw this
wholeness of the universe and Oneness with everything and loving kindness and uh knew what I wanted to do in the world
and for the past couple years now since that event I’ve been I’ve been walking that path well right on we can talk
about that pivotal moment and I’ve had something similar in my experience I don’t really haven’t talked about it
publicly um and I don’t think for me now is not the time you’re you’re welcome to we get to that in a minute I think the
biggest thing that I’m getting here is trauma and I know my I I said this
plenty of times before on the show my regular spiritual Kung Fu moves don’t work on trauma as much right uh you know
there’s a lot of great wisdom in that but when it comes to trauma it it’s a different animal um now it seems to be
potentially or maybe not further Complicated by you know um the being in
the military and who knows what all was going on with that I don’t know what level of detail we want to get into but
I think the the biggest thing overall for me is that I’m interested in this point is healing trauma addressing
trauma and how that might differ uh from other people with other issues you know
we all have our challenges but uh and we all have a degree of trauma I would say just being in a human Incarnation but
there’s some that are more some levels that are more severe than others so where do you want to start with this and
how do you want to approach this what do you want to say with because I think this is of utmost vital importance uh in
the the hour we’re in is is is trauma uh at least because I I I’m undereducated
on it yeah I think trauma is really important to talk about and I you know I
think that uh I agree with you I think every most most people have some degree
of trauma having lived in this reality we all live in within ourselves and we share and I think being in that when
you’re at War when you’re in that dark military-industrial complex that’s doing these things and part of the darkness
you you’re exposed to Great trauma for me personally I was exposed to this low
level of trauma every day that I didn’t necessarily even know that I was in and then there’s those those spikes of
high-grade trauma that could be uh significant events for some people it’s a car wreck or uh a big Health event or
you know for me it was getting attacked with a missile attacks or truck bomb you know these high-grade events happened to
us and for me they happened uh enough that they were repeatable multiple times
over several years you know being over there for 12 years so I I have an interesting Rel relationship with trauma
uh it’s one that I don’t think that will ever completely um be done with I think
that’s part of who I am I think that and I think I have some acceptance with that now I think that’s part of uh addressing
trauma I think time helps trauma I think that acceptance helps it and there’s also that aspect of letting go as well
so you can accept that it’s going to be part of you but you can also let go of part of it I think as well and and and
that helps some of the hold that it has on you so I definitely appreciate having a conversation about trauma and and what
it looks like spiritually and then also how that intersects with this reality that we all share because you know we
most of us aren’t monks living in the the foothills of the Himalayas right so we we just figure out how we we do this
thing day to date as well yeah these are these are the really interesting points
um yeah I think I just leave it where you where you um U put it other than you
know if you work with folks with trauma I know there’s a big thing in professional Circles of being trauma
informed and I don’t know where that comes in with uh in in the spiritual
aspects because some of us us that consider ourselves spiritual or you know
like me that does meditation you know um I’m still trying because I’ve talked to
people with with trauma and I’ve just done regular meditation I haven’t really gone into it and treated it you know the
way a professional would or anything it’s just so I’m I’m a little bit feeling things out of um how to work is
there do you know of any differences of how um professionals would work with it versus folks in spiritual communities or
if you counsel people on it and how it might differ from one’s own experience
of trauma uh and how it might be similar working with people um in a spiritual setting uh versus maybe professional
setting too no that’s a that’s a great question uh I think trauma it’s it’s
highly individual individualistic and so it’s going to change from person to person kind of like what you were talking about getting out there a little
bit but there are some similarities I think that it takes a it takes a
holistic approach and I think sometimes people hear that word these days and and it gets cliche but really we have to
approach ourselves holistically and I think that there’s things that professionals can do from a therapy
counseling side uh there’s a practical side to it um that I don’t get into um
and then there’s the aspect from it spiritually and I think that there’s things that you can do to ground
yourself spiritually to to ask that question who am I and figure out your inner self which is to me Universal uh
being or Consciousness and I think getting at that helps ground you it tethers you to something that is pure
and perfect and whole and then there’s also the lifestyle aspect of it with you
know trauma is often a physi olical issue in addition to being a mental emotional and spiritual issue because
it’s like my amydala and and parts of my brain are rewired from having years of trauma low grade and high- grade and so
if we’re sleeping right if we’re eating the way that best fits our body and our
self if we’re moving intentionally and and if it’s just walking or whether it’s exercising whatever it is uh our
relationships all this stuff out in the the the concrete quote unquote real
world uh that stuff grounds us and centers us physically in this body that
we inhibit inhabit so I think that it has to be an approach by the person who
has trauma or it should be an approach where they think how do I move through this how do I accept this how do I let
go of this and it’s definitely a journey and and time I I don’t know that you
can’t just snap your fingers with trauma you got at this kind of when you first started talking about it and I think
that aspect is underrated that time heals all wounds is this great great wisdom of the universe it is because and
then just everyday other categories of life we see these goals we want to achieve and you know there’s just um you
know we think we should be there automatically and a lot of times they have to take very tiny steps at a time
and there’s nothing wrong with that because as I say you know this is from the Buddhist wisdom to drop by drop a
bucket is filled so don’t you know don’t think that you know if we’re doing good it it won’t accumulate same way with
doing things that aren’t helpful uh little by little those accumulate too so
what we do say think matters and it does it can and does accumulate um builds up
so all right so I want to go back and talk about your your story here um
because I think this is a key Point into what you’re doing today um maybe talk about from a spiritual aspect too if you
had any interest before up until to this let’s just call it U maybe an epiphany or Awakening moment or just event um
maybe even a peak experience is what I’m um um uh guessing here of what this was
and then uh whatever you want to tell folks about that experience and how that
uh transitioned into what you’re doing today and kind of what you are doing today you know more in detail as well I
think my first experience with spirituality I didn’t really know it I I was I was sitting in class and high
school and was in nth grade and I had this like instant understanding of like how to deal with people and be kind and
that kindness was this good thing that made the world a better place and easier and I was pretty much kind from then on
after I mean I Had My Moments don’t get me wrong but I I would lived more kind life and it helped my relationships and
and so that was an interesting thing that that I think was like a mini was like this mini Epiphany you know and
that kindness and I was also always a very positive person I think that really helped me survive my time uh in combat
zones and you know when I joined the the Army I also told myself I said look don’t Lose Yourself don’t go to basic
training don’t get indoctrinated to such an extent that you lose who you are and so I really held on to my youth and that
magic of childhood a little bit I lost grip on it at times and but I I made a
real effort to stick with it um I think that was helpful because I think that magic that we have from childhood is
this beautiful thing I think Magic is very natural thing I don’t think it’s supernatural I think it just is um and
so then going into the military I mean I I will just have to say I I was a Believer I was an ideologue I believed
in what we were doing I was driven to succeed in my mission and and do counterterrorism and Counter
Intelligence to to win uh there is no winning by the way I know that now but
um I was a driven person and I was so I was working 100 110 hours a week it’s this very religious thing it’s this very
spiritual thing and people won’t usually talk about it in those terms but uh I’m not afraid to talk about it like that
and so you know when I spent six and a half years consecutively in kahar Afghanistan I mean I was a
fundamentalist I was as much of a fundamentalist as a Taliban and the terrorists that we were we were after
because you have to be that to catch them and to to do your job and I you know I now realize that we’re all just humans and that that there’s evil on all
sides and and none of us were doing the right um and so I think that that idea of this
transh humanistic idea this humanist perspective on life really came through for me especially in my time in
Afghanistan and started to wake me up and I tell his story every now and then there was a guy that came to me in our
unit and I I saw new special agents every six months because they would come in and then leave come in and then leave
you know and this kid came and asked me he was a new lieutenant and he said you know what do you most look for in a new
guy in our unit and you know these guys went out and met human intelligence sources and captured bad guys and you
know um I told them I I it was a weird question i’ never even asked that I said you know actually the thing I most look
for is kindness because if they’re kind if you’re kind I can work with you I can teach you you can learn and and we’ll
all be safer so even in the middle of War I I kind of had this concept of kindness especially towards the end so
my time in that machine when you’re completely sorry when you’re completely
uh immersed in it it it did inform uh my spiritual journey later on it did help
me see the light easier as well right when you have this when you see this dark you suddenly can see the light in a
in an easier way I think it helps appreciate the balance of the universe as well
so I’m just digesting this a little bit here um um so with it I there’s so much
I could go into there but I want to keep this uh flowing and what was the the the time this the
the experience you’re talking about where um the was there pivotal moment
where you um what you were talking about earlier on you know uh do do you feel
comfortable sharing about that or what can you say about this transition from
even though you do have this this um this threat of kindness running through
these the the operations you’re involved in um was there was there a significant
turning point and how did that unfold you know when I let I I I just got I
decided I needed to get out and I I was having I wasn’t into it anymore I was I
was very damn I was kind of burned out completely crashed and that’s when I went home and really I was just kind of
lost for seven years I I was just lost I didn’t have an identity outside of that I didn’t know who I was because it’s
like I was a guy that when I walked into a room people listened to what I had to say they wanted to know what I had to
say I I moved planes around and and told people where to go and um you know stuff
like that just I it was uh I thought it was important work so like I was
completely just lost and so that was seven years of just like not knowing who I am and so I think that uh that’s what
started me I I I ended up with a therapist in the VA that had the practice Eastern Faith she helped me a lot um I wasn’t able to wrap myself
around her mindful teachings completely but she taught me mindfulness and it helped me I was too injured to use it
fully um but I think that helped start a snowball rolling down the mountain and
and then I when I was about nine months before my kind of Awakening event I I’m
I was only 39 at the time but I got shingles in my left eye and on my left side of my face and um I actually lost
Vision in my left eye and and I got this big scar here um right where my third
eye would be uh and I don’t think that was uh a coincidence so I think I lost
part of my real vision and I I gained some spiritual vision with the universe and then I had my event and then that’s
when I finally realized I was I was whole inside I had light and so yeah I
think that there are definitely multiple things that kind of led me to to where I’m at today this is um yeah and we we
have this this notion in in mythology and just in different spiritual
communities and with different spiritual figures of how they might their physical Vision might be less but their their
inner Vision um seems to be heightened I mean there’s this there’s that notion
too so it’s it’s it’s interesting and then also how the physical body can have a you know or the phys physicality can
have a correlation to what’s going on before things come into the physical and
and things like this so yeah I mean none of this stuff is uh unfamiliar territory
with me um um so what I want to say here
is you know I everybody’s got lots of opinions right including me in this and
some of them might be more helpful than not when we start getting into overall stuff like this I look at Politics as an
emotional con game it’s made to trigger people out emotionally um but well
before I say any of this stuff and I I don’t I’m just kind of testing what I want to say here my my grandfather you
know was in World War II uh well both of my grandfathers one loaded bombs onto
airplanes in the Air Force the other one was in the 82nd Airborne he had five
Battle Stars he was one of the few that um didn’t get really injured the entire
time I mean very minor things compared to so many people you know he was reluctant to talk about it till the end
of his days and then he finally gave an interview with a local paper and it wasn’t much longer and and he passed you
know um and he never really made it about IDE ideology or anything like that
he would just talk about with the gear he jumped with like the gun he used you know just matter of fact things that
happened didn’t go much and beyond that you know and my dad and uncle they were both in the Navy my uncle was in a a
nuclear sub uh during Vietnam time in the North Sea he was a cryptographer you know completely outdated job from what I
understand with moris code right uh and yeah and so I have a famili and then I
had recruiters after me but I never went in I would never went but I I I had a job in marketing where I worked with um
uh veterans to getting them VA loan products so I have a little bit of a background but not directly anything you
know it’s just all indirect things here and um but I am fascinated by the
intelligence Community too and I I don’t know how much I want to get into that as
well um so I’m trying to feel out what I should talk about maybe we can come back to that if there’s there’s any time left
over let’s just keep it to you uh what you do now uh after you started uh let’s
just call it Awakening because I had dark Awakenings in my um um in my path
as well and it got to a point where I just couldn’t go back to sleep anymore you know and things got uh you know Dark
Nights of the Soul you talk about that people have multiple dark nights and and I I think this is uh a really important
part of a lot of people’s path a lot of Shadow work uh there’s a lot of that early on for me a lot of weeping lots
and lots of weeping during meditation uh on my own though so it was you know socially acceptable and this was like a
I look at as a purification process anyway enough about me um where were you um once you had this what got you
interested into doing this as a nonprofit and tell us uh tell the
audience more about what you do now um like uh like what what traditions you’re
mainly drawn to maybe what practices you’re involved with um some of your
goals and whatnot uh with what you’re doing now sure we when I when I kind of
had my event my my moment I I knew instantly what I wanted to do just came
to me what my kind of higher purpose or Dharma was and so that made it easy I said oh I’m going to start an online
community and nonprofit and help people and help people help themselves uh and
in the community we have we have you know we have guided meditations we have courses on how to live better
spiritually how to live better um in the lifestyle and in your day-to-day life we have affirmations it’s it’s a place
where people can share their stories their Journeys I wanted to create a place where regardless of your faith
your belief your spiritual philosophy or your religion you could come and talk to people and we could ask better questions
find better answers and I I also went became a certified professional coach so
I could be a spiritual guide and help people uh one-on-one as part of this whole thing and so I do that but as far
as my own spiritual beliefs I’m an omnis or Universalist I believe in the validity of pretty much all philosophies
and religion I believe that they’re all valid I think we’re all saying very similar things and under that umbrella I
have things that I specifically believe in myself which are I really subscribe to lot of the the non-personal the
impersonal Hindu like the Brahman and and Hinduism and the yogi and and and all of the stuff that goes along with
that speaks deeply to me from those viic Traditions I subscribe to the Dao and
and the balance of of Daoism in the universe and I incorporate aspects of
some indigenous Traditions that I don’t practice them specifically but I let them inform my own spiritual faith and
practice uh I I read Robin wall kimmer’s uh breing sweet grass and I thought it
was just this really beautiful work on indigenous um Oneness with the universe
and with plants and animals and everything and so that’s kind of what I
believe in and I I believe it’s a very pantheistic Oneness of of everything I
believe that we create our own reality that we walk through and I believe that
our realities just bump in like bubbles to all these other realities and then that’s our shared kind of Consciousness
that we have with others um when we see each other here in the quote unquote real world so I think that it’s about
self-love it’s about loving yourself first if you don’t take care of yourself you’re not good to anybody else I think
that our society teaches us to not have that that take that self-love and that
self-care idea I think that we’re there’s all this stuff that we’re told throughout throughout our lives When
We’re Young to not do this or do that or sign here or sit there go get this job go to the school um and I I I think that
we have to really peel back those layers and find out who who am I and and what am I and and where am I and so that’s
kind of my that’s kind of where I’m coming from yeah it’s a big part of my path too is investigating the nature of
reality and what’s the best way to go about doing that um you know the most
optimal and helpful way doing that as well so I guess I I’ll just throw in
here a little bit since you have this unique background in in counter inell
um uh we did get cut off a little bit earlier when we first started to do this it’s probably because of a different
connection but what I was saying there and if for some reason we get blocked again uh we can start wrap I can just
kind of wrap this up but it it’ll probably go through here right um maybe this is a gross misunderstanding of uh
of this but I I I want to say that and inaccurate too I don’t know uh you can
help me maybe but um when it comes to intelligence that it seems like that’s
basically lying or selective lies for a certain agenda or purpose and Counter
Intelligence would be uh specific truths uh for a specific purpose or um to
counter the the lies in order to for a certain agenda um I don’t know if that
that’d be too far off but um yeah it’s like a cat and mouse game right yeah it
is caner counter intell pure because I did pure Counter Intelligence at the Strategic level and I did counterterrorism as well but from a
Counter Intelligence perspective I did some of the work that was spy versus spy like the US versus Iran or the US versus
Russia or whatever you know whatever and it is at a strategic level especially
Counter Intelligence is trying to stop people from spin us spy on us and if they are spy on us and we can figure
that out well suddenly then you can you can use that as an opportunity to Leverage misinformation to the enemy um
through you know passage material or or fake material that you put back into the system um so I I was involved in in that
aspect of Counter Intelligence in addition to the counterterrorism stuff and it it was uh Counter Intelligence a
special agents yeah they’re taught to lie taught to manipulate at a strategic level and we’re also taught to collect
tactical Intelligence on the battlefield and and and across that Spectrum we’re going to meet sources and our our job is
to get them to tell us information however we can money or uh influence or
power or whatever deception you know and and you’re trying to get a human being to do something that’s unnatural which
is to betray their own people their own country their own region tribe so yeah
it’s a very manipulative uh practice and where I think this has relevance in the
type of um quote unquote spiritual marinaa is discernment okay so the the
more discernment we can have but it’s but but you know more fundamental than
that is the ethical layer because if the the ethical layer is there then it can discernment can just be used for more
Shenanigans so with that caveat in mind and for me it it all starts with non-harming and I know it doesn’t for
military stuff obviously but that’s my Preface on this and then you know they
talk about Gathering as much information as possible even disinformation information and then sort it all out
later the the more information the better and then the information models they can go through and see what’s
credible what’s not and then can even find out Miss uh misinformation and
disinformation tactics if if they have it even though it might be harder to sort through so I mean there just
besides the the strict uh Spy Games in general I mean the general populace is
just under so much deception upon deception you know the whole metaphor of being asleep and in a dreamlike reality
in illusion I mean it just doesn’t apply on the war theater and I would say the
the more the Warfare today is in the mind and um of a um nature of
Consciousness as well um so this I I think can be leveraged for discernment
skills if we’re doing it uh with with with especially people’s long-term
benefit in mind you know and to me it has to be this has to when when we look
into truth truth can be very um frightening for people you know it can be used to liberate it can be used to
cut b b bonds of bondage or it can be used to destroy you know destroy things
and not in a good way um so that’s why it has to for me it has to be balanced with true authentic um kindness and
loving kindness even more um now the the the reason why this is relevant to your
story perhaps is um what I get with this is there’s an old dictum that all wars
are Banker Wars bankster wars and that they’re funded on both sides by people
trying to make profit and our economy is kind of backed up by War to keep the
economy going the way it’s set up now now what’s uh for for me it’s a really
delicate thing uh when it comes to military programming because on one hand you have to get people to to go out and
kill people that they’ve never met uh for reasons they don’t really seem to fully understand they think they
understand and maybe they do to a certain degree but they’re being lied to manipulated to begin with in order to
kill strangers for you know for supposedly High mind reasons um that they normally wouldn’t do and it’s
becomes legal to do so where it normally wouldn’t be right because of um rules
that are in place in war but then even more they have to come home from that and have to come into the veteran Arena
and then it it we have to start to heal and reintegrate or the the veterans have to start to heal and reintegrate into
the society the same one that but they can’t go up against the war machine
either because then then then you know if if veterans came home and got healed
to certain degree where they they uh would stop the whole military machine well that wouldn’t be beneficial for the
machine so there’s this cognitive dissonance of okay well I’m coming back and I want to be reintegrated into
society uh and I but can’t interfere with other people going in and and
killing you know for profit basically uh and so there’s this um disconnect of
trying to uh have these two opposing things kind of together and there’s so
many different ways that I see it being done and sometimes it works sometimes
people’s programming gets um oh I don’t know broken uh for For Better or Worse
um but I think uh I wonder how do you see this whole thing um without stirring
up too much trouble I mean I just don’t really see any kind of solutions to to
this whole the war machine is what you called it earlier and that I see it that way too um and it I I I really don’t see
anything other than for me uh I mean you couldn’t get you couldn’t force me to put a gun in my hand and kill people I
mean you’d have to lock me up in prison that’s I mean of course I have my own ideology here but really the only way I
could see out of this whole thing is radical nonviolence now let me let me another caveat with this and then I turn
this about me is that I’m totally uh into the Second Amendment because even
though I won’t have a gun myself and use it myself uh you know eventually I think we’ll get to the point where we can show
people in the future oh these used to be uh these are called guns people used to
people were so primitive they used used to kill people with them and they can show them you know like a like a a
history lesson but unfortunately the State of Consciousness is not at that point you know so if people have a loved
one they still need to be able to protect them and the non-aggression principle where if somebody’s aggressed
on they have the right to defend themselves they don’t have the right to start aggressive tendencies uh you know
so it I’m making it sound all cut and dry know when it comes to the Spy world it’s lots of Gray gray areas upon gray
areas upon gray areas you know so what would you say to all this uh especially
even if we’re going to fine-tune any of this is what do they call it harm reduction
so like yes we can’t wipe out War altogether and I think a lot of it has to do with one’s maybe past actions and
comma that some of these wars just have to play out because of our past actions maybe in past lives you know it’s coming
um our actions in the past are fruiting now in certain things that play out as
War you know they have to um because skillful actions will have skillful results unskillful actions have
unskillful results and some things I maybe just have to play out due to our past actions but what would you say to
all this now that I’ve thrown a lot of stuff out there there there is a lot but I I would say I agree with almost all
that um and I would say that my my my current iteration of my journey overlaps
with Mo most of that that you’re talking about I think that yes the military programs people deeply I think that’s
part of what it does in a very harmful way and then it kind of spits him out and says you know well there you are
have have a good life um I think war is a political exercise I’m not political
anymore I’m I’m apolitical these days but I do believe war itself is a political exercise and that whatever you
do when you’re fighting the war after the first 30 days or whatever it is like you you’re lost from that that’s no
longer relevant um that’s still what they’re telling people it’s for that’s still what they’re telling the civilians
and the citizens that’s what they’re telling the soldiers that it’s for and the officers but it’s not that it’s
something much different um on the other side of that there there is that reality
of all these events that have happened since the beginning of time the butterfly effect that has led to all this stuff that’s happening right now in
the human suffering that we experience and that’s that’s the universe playing out but we don’t have to play into it
but then there’s that complic you’ve said it’s complicated I completely agree with that because then you have you do
have you know being part of the machine I’ve done good things I’ve done evil things I’ve done you know um but there
were people trying to kill us um there were people trying to kill us on a tactical level by attacking our bases
there were terrorists trying to attack the Homeland in in a not not a cliche
sort of way but in a very real you know guys in camps in Afghanistan in Syria in
Iraq that were planning to try to blow up planes and blow up airports and blow
up things in the United States and kill citizens um and that’s where I think it gets complicated because I agree with
you about nonviolence and non harm I’m a I’m a humanist now I’m all in on getting
rid of nationalism and getting rid of all these kind of BS tribes that we’re all part of let’s just be part of the
tribe love trial loving kindness like you said so how do but how do we get everyone to put the guns down put the
bombs down right like um and I can look back and say you know our unit went out
and we had to capture people I had to send people and I had to pick targets to capture rip them away from their
families I also had to say drop a bomb on this guy today right now and you know
that’s but that guy was trying to kill us if we hadn’t Dropped a Bomb on that guy that guy would have shot a rocket at us and tried to kill us so um I mean
it’s more complicated than that it’s also you know not uh so how do we get
people to put to put the to put the guns down to put the bombs down but at the end it’s about if we want to change the
world we we have to change ourselves first now that I couldn’t agree with more because what I was going to say is
you know we’re little guys in the scheme of things I mean we hear these claims of
like well it’s so compartmentalized you know and different layers of uh clearance and stuff but we hear these
claims of like there’s actually people fomenting the war right that they wouldn’t normally do this um that
there’s indoctrination um paid uh agent provocators you know um people that are
um have a vested interest in in fomenting war and violence in order to
to make profit in order to control people in order to further agendas so
where some of this stuff might seem more kind of Grassroots a lot of it um from
from from claims I’ve heard in evidence that it’s not that it’s deliberately um
planted there and I don’t want to get too much into conspiracy theories but you know be that it’s it’s it’s not a
conspiracy I I want to interject because I I’m agree with you I saw it firsthand like when I was when I I spent 18 months
in Baghdad and just the massive waste of money that you saw that was being spent
and paid to corporations and it was just is staggering I flew in my wife and I flew into Baghdad on a C130 with a guy
that was working for the US government and he’s like hey what are you guys’ job we’re like well we’re doing Counter Intelligence and we’re like What do you
do and he’s his job this is in 200 five the fall of 2005 his job was to go in
and find out where all those pallets and pallets and pallets of cash that we flew in on c7s like we’re talking like
hundreds of million dollars at a time his job was to go find out where it all went and I saw him 18 months later on my
way out I was getting some stuff signed at the embassy and I saw him and I said did you ever find your money our money
that’s our money and uh you know he hadn’t found the money that’s what he said too so yeah who knows but there
there’s just so many different dirty tricks and shenanigans but and then you you find yourself thrown in the middle
all this and you’re kind of in the middle and you know uh you there’s only so many so much stuff you can do until
your term is up and you find out more what’s really going on and you know it’s a tough one I I feel for people that
that wake up in the middle of all this and and see this or or or piece it together later you know I don’t think
it’s going to be helpful so much to blame anyone the the things that that
are at the root of this of course are greed ill will and ignorance or delusion
not in the psychological sense but not seeing that the greed and ill will is involved you know and so the people with
all with the tons of money and the tons of power I mean I think they they you
know I I don’t you push that game all the way to the end I mean hypothetically
what happens if you’ve conquered every single world you you you rule and own everything you have all the power
nothing’s left then what then I mean then you get bored I mean then then
that’s what I mean hypothetically that’s what what that would lead to to me unless I’m missing something but then
what if you have it all then what do you you know so I I just it it seems so
ludicrous to me that um that’s what they’re after and I don’t know if you have any spiritual insights on on that
as well um uh but you know that’s that’s where that ends let’s say you do get all
the power in in multiple worlds all the worlds everywhere you know beyond this world you know all the all the power and
control then then that that’s it and they’re going to get bored with that and what do they do then so I don’t know
yeah ex I I agree with that largely I think that like I said like that’s why I
think that regardless of your your ideological positions or your politics or anything that you know these days if
I I don’t have political debates with people I don’t argue with strange the internet or family at Thanksgiving you know uh sometimes I’ll ask people you
what you know if they’re in a a political discussion be like well what have you done today to change the world for a better place not not for yourself
your son or daughter your your you know your your nuclear family what have you done today to make the world better like
um outside of the arguments for for race and class and social justice and and
everything which I I believe in some of those struggles from like uh the way I was raised and some you know some of
that still there in my brain but I think at the end of the day what have you done to change the world and I think this is
a really good place to bring it all back to and start wrapping this up because I
couldn’t agree more I mean I look outside myself and I I can see all this but what can I actually do about that
well we can we can speak out about it right you can speak from experience that that story you just told about the
pallets of cash I think is a is a real eye opener for for some people maybe other people might think well that’s
just part of doing the war business but at the end of the day that’s right so when I change myself internally then
when I come into contact with folks that has a ripple effect and all this stuff
that we’re talking about I mean for me it’s so abstract right I I look around I’m in a Walmart parking lot now you
know uh all the the the horrors and things they they they pump into the news media I don’t see any of that stuff
around me you know I I don’t I’m not saying it’s not there but the the amount of relevance that it has uh dayby day
for most people I think is is not there we don’t hear the the the good stories
and the things that people have done you know this because what we focus on we
give energy to so you know what are we G to what are we doing to change ourselves
and to help each other it could just be as simple as a as a smile you know giving someone 10 minutes of our time um
to see how they’re doing you know taking time out for myself when I get frazzled
to to to to go within and see what’s going on you know to explore reach out to someone I haven’t reached out to I
mean just on and on and on we I mean we can come up with all kinds of great things and I think these need just as
much if not more attention and effort too me we speak out to and we know
what’s aware what’s going on but the more time we spend amplifying the negative without Solutions is not going
to be the answer I feel as well no I I love that I because I you know I always
I like to say I have great I have great great Hope and Faith in humanity I think we’re going to be okay I think that like
you said we focus our media focus on the negative our social media our communities and I think part of that’s
because our mind and ego tend to to focus on the negative because it’s kept us alive for thousands of years and now
we’re really safe because we live in these you know aircond conditioned palaces and uh of life and so I think
that you know the there’s people graduating from from from college and there’s babies being born and there’s
people finding their purpose in life and there’s all this great stuff that’s happened all the time we just have to
like embrace it I totally agree especially when met with so much negativity that can help balance it out
and then we can look at these deeper uh spiritual questions like you’ve mentioned about who are we you know what
is this all about what is this experience you know uh is it what we think it is how deep can we go how much
of that is going to benefit us in those those around us to to to gain you know a
a a degree of um well-being in this world and uh Awakening to things how
they actually are you know instead of deception and delusion and illusion so
well John it was a pleasure and thanks for letting me do get on my soap box and rant a little bit here um would you like
to tell people um how they can get in touch with you you know if you have any special events coming up um you know
anything you want to point people’s attention to as well and then um you know some the last word what kind of
messages what what message would you like to leave folks with today sure thanks for that opportunity uh our main
website is k.org that’s K i.org and that gives people uh the entry
space to our community uh one-on-one individual guidance and coaching if they need it and we also have all of our
socials our YouTube channels there YouTube channel is pretty cool and uh check it out it’s it’s a safe space it’s
a a constructive space it’s a spiritual space And as far as how I’d leave it I
would say don’t chase Perfection uh this real this re real world reality that we
this a concrete reality we occupy is probably not going to be perfect there is a perfect Oneness within you that tied to the universe you can can love
that and love yourself but don’t chase Perfection and we have more time than we think I think that there’s time to slow
it down and and there’s a lot of time it doesn’t matter if that’s time in a day
time in a minute it doesn’t matter how old you are you still have time like there’s there’s there’s more time than you think uh well wonderful and
beautiful John and may you all make peace with time and find time as an ally
and leverage it to your well-being and that of all beings everywhere may all
beings everywhere realize Awakening and be free
Integrating Presence 