On April 19, 2024 master space oil wizard and orator Alan Carroll and I could have very well approached nearly all the things about talking. Who knows? Likely not though. However, it was beyond fascinating to dive pretty deep into the particulars of deftly wielding the spoken English language. While Alan doesn’t directly address a few questions and points I put to him some of the topics we get into include: creating proper speaking space(s) with what Alan terms “space oil” and the power thereof; framing speaking not so much as language as choosing and controlling the vibration(s) of the air; dissolving conditioning; removing ballasts; knowing vs not knowing; words per minute; neglect, care and how to wisely exercise the “instrument”; slowing down; pausing; stillness; savoring; fluidity; beauty; patience; listening; art; the five elements; and of course Space Oil
Towards the end of our chat Alan said, “I’ve earned my living for the last 30 years teaching people how to not speak, and it works.” I didn’t comment about this on the show. He explained it to me afterwards and the rational behind it could perhaps fill another half show.
Also, I guested on Alan’s “Mindful You” podcast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QO5UW74_TPk or https://www.listennotes.com/podcasts/mindful-you/exploring-inner-wA_vcjh9QEN
Biography
Alan Carroll is an Educational Psychologist who specializes in Transpersonal Psychology. He founded Alan Carroll & Associates 30 years ago and before that, he was a Senior Sales Training Consultant for 10 years at Digital Equipment Corporation. He has dedicated his life in search of mindfulness tools that can be used by everyone (young and old) to transform their ability to speak at a professional level, as well as, to reduce the psychological suffering caused by the misidentification with our ego and reconnect to the vast transcendent dimension of consciousness that lies just on the other side of the thoughts we think and in between the words we speak.
Find Alan online:
https://www.instagram.com/mindfulnesseminar
Audio: Spaceful, Spirited Speaking With Alan Carroll
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The raw unedited YouTube transcription of this podcast:
holess welcome this is Josh of integrating presence and today I’ve got
Alan Carol with me Allan how’s it going blessings blessings to you Josh and the
audience well thanks Alan and you know I was a guest on Allen’s podcast and now
I’m he’s he’s back here on mine and so who is Alan Caroll and what does he
do well have different types of personalities today’s personality is
definitely a personality of what game am I
playing uh and and I’ve been blessed to be able to
at an early age to to to question the game that I was in because it didn’t bring me a lot of
satisfaction and so that got me on a spiritual journey because that’s where the other game
is and so for 50 60 years I’ve been playing this
this spiritual game and if you can earn a living and also play the spiritual
game then it’s like downhill skiing rather than trying to ski uphill it’s
it’s it’s more downhill kind of a skiing thing and and the discovery of how to
earn money and being be on the spiritual journey at the same time if you can combine the need of the
audience to be able to do something that they can’t do
now and and it turns out that it it takes you into into the Buddhist
Direction because the Buddhist direction for me is that there’s a there’s a space
between the sounds that human beings
speak and the amateur speaker is not able to
control the creation of the
sound and the creation of no sound
and why they can’t do it is because they there’s well that’s so that’s what I I
train people to be able to
stop make a sound breathe
anchor so you’re you’re achieving a state of Stillness between every town you speak
and when you you can do that you got to be present to do it you can’t you can’t disrupt the pattern of you’re speaking
and not be in the speaker you got to be able to disrupted and and that and that’s
control and that that’s called controlling the timing of your speaking so I’m in the timing
business well this is lovely and wonderful Allan and I think this is kind
of gonna form a lot of our conversation here today um I did notice after I spoke
with you that it would it was if I might say this enough it seemed like there was
kind of a transmission because you know being in this podcasting thing of course it’s
it’s speaking and I mean today kids
today uh they they text each other right they they text a lot um I don’t know if
the spoken word is valued as much but I want to get into this Mastery of the
spoken language a a command of the English language and kind of the the
power it can have for harm and for helpfulness
for um furthering one’s
enslavement uh imprisonment metaphorically speaking or
can be like a sword that cuts through bonds for Liberation um and when we have
this skill and Mastery uh in the right hands
I think it can be very helpful and then the wrong hands maybe it can be more harmful however most of us have to
communicate on a day-to-day basis and um talk about the importance of the spoken
language um in and of itself no matter how one uses it and then maybe go into
once it’s reach a level more of Mastery what changes um and then you know how
does all that relate to spirituality versus maybe the bass program or the the everyday world that we’re in um and you
can even talk about the importance there as well so I think I threw enough on your plate here and I will just say this
notion of the pause we talked about this off air last time you know in music one of the things
that defines a great musician is not how well they play the notes so much or is
just as much is how they uh approach empty space when
they’re not playing a note so that that space in between and one of the uh tips
I was given is I do it a lot of ums and A’s you know I’m getting it maybe a
little better sometimes one of the techniques is to be comfortable with those pauses one of the
challenges I have is I want to try to cram so much um we have this limited
time and if I can get everything I want in to a short amount of space then I
feel better but that’s not necessarily the case it has to be well spoken and um put in a right way
that carries some power and oom to it um yeah so there’s there’s plenty of
challenges here and I mean just language itself is just mind-blowing that we can make mouth noises and we can understand
each other is just it blows my mind where do the words come from how can we just talk and formulate sentences how of
nothing you know sometimes we can think about what word choice but a lot of times you know it just comes forth and
it’s it’s it’s really miraculous type of thing not to mention foreign languages which I’m trying to learn Danish now we
won’t even get into that because that’s a whole another ball game too so all right Allan
[Music] the the power of the language that we
speak I would reframe it before we open the
door erase the word language because that creates a
separation feeling like your language my language change the change the word
vibration when we speak we’re simply vibrating the air some people are
articulate when they vibrate the air so the sharpness of the vibration the power
of the vibration is like at a higher frequency so it penetrates a little bit deeper like that thing they had in the
Dune the the the movie The Dune there was this thing that that mon would have
that would power the through a vibration it would so you you have a vibration and
you have a choice when you speak you can vibrate the air For Love or you can
vibrate the a for ego identity the preservation of my identity in the
conversation now J shut your goddamn mouth and let listen to what I have to goddamn say so now I I change the
vibration of the air and and the first vibration there’s compassion behind what
you’re saying uh there’s a there’s a Loving Feeling blessing behind what you’re saying the judgmental critical
part of us is not there so so the your ego can’t sniff it out no no there’s no
there’s no there’s no attack going on here so you’re able to sweeten the air and through a a feeling of contribution
and love and and and so you have a choice of the vibration of the air but
most people are automatic speakers and they have no choice they’re automatically reacting to what the movie
in front of them says is going on and tell you real realize that you’re the source of the movie uh you’re going to
be you’re going to be playing with the wind because the movie is inside it’s not outside stuff
you see that’s outside is just a projection of of of the tape that’s the 35 millimeter slide that’s behind your
neck there that’s the light shining through that creates the the movie of your life but you got to be able to you
got to be able to to realize that the that the paint brush of the creation of
the movie is in your hands but you only going to realize that if you can wake up uh from what well from the automatic
reaction of I know so immediately if you if you if you say you know then immediately you painted something and
it’s much better to to be able to say I don’t know but the ego is in is in the knowing business so the ego is not going
to say I don’t know the ego of course I know ah you know come on I know it and a
lot of defensiveness of the illusion comes out of people rather than uh the
opportunity to have more compassion which means you have to let go of the 35
millimeter slide and make it clear there’s it has to be blank and that’s called not knowing this it’s the taraz
just an empty space there in front of you and that’s the first rule of the course of Miracles the course of
Miracles says to look at the reality in which he live is is if nothing in there has any
meaning and what do you mean by that well just just play the game so I play that game of everything has no
meaning and so it allows you to be more still in the vibration of your speaking
which then allows you to be more observant of the world in which you
exist so now there’s a space between you and the things and when there’s a space between you and the things you can
manage the things and there’s a choice that I the bigger self can make when I’m
using this power of my speaking and and the and and the hurtfulness is that
people don’t know who they’re speaking for they just I’m speaking for me go I’m
speaking for me yeah me me well well what’s me well me turns out to be what e
CI talks about for the best one I like is the is the is the the me that most
people think about me is like their resume their uh how I would consider
myself to be the I am I am I am I am and you draw a circle around all those those
conceptual identities or all concepts are conceptual identities and and then
you put a circle around that that’s your ego so that’s your conceptual ego and
and and the Lord has given us a a sword that that conceptual ego can can use for
good or evil or not for good or or evil for for for preservation or
Surrender and so most people use the sword for preservation rather than for the pre the
preservation of of the all and so you got this and sad Guru said the same
thing this comes from s Guru he said that the the mind’s identity has
different components the first component is the he said it was the intellect and the intellect was described as a sword a
knife a very very sharp intellect and he said but who who holds the sword the
sword is held by your identity who are you well those are is just simply the program or the media of of of what
you’ve watched in your life and what people have told you is so and so we live in that identity and so that’s
called your ego so people are in the I need to preserve the identity of who I
am and God has given me a sword and when you consider if you’re stuck in who you
are is defend in your identity rather than the space from which the identity comes which would be more
spiritual then you’re you’re defending an illusion and there’s no there’s no
there’s no joy in that Mo momentary gratification but you know
impermanence seems to be around for everybody here it’s like grass to talk
everybody it’s like grasping sand holding sand in your hand and holding on to it and it just drains through your
hand it’s like he that’s what things are like that’s what so it’s like it gives you a really A A Grateful feeling of the
moment that that you’re in and the appreciation and the love that you you’re able to vibrate the air with that
will make the flowers grow and you can also switch over to the preservation of my identity and I’ll tell you what’s
going to happen about here you got to go over there there there and don’t don’t talk back to me I’m sick and tired of
what you had to say to me so you can you can make that sword the sword of Love or
you can make it a sort of hatred and hatred is Just Bounce backs at you you just boun you you’ll be more hatred
yourself and and that that leads into the into the into the Forgiveness
conversation I’ll throw that one back to you and you can talk about forgiveness a little
bit well it’s it’s interesting you forgiveness and this was a huge game
Cher for me forgiveness um all this mention it briefly before I go back and i’ I’ve done this several times in the
podcast but you know I was raised in um a Christian tradition and one of the
things I was never taught is self forgiveness you know when I learned that I could forgive myself it was a huge
GameChanger you know and even recently I I’ve learned this technique of
forgiving uh what’s in myself uh something that I might be critical of in the world outside me or for those around
me maybe there’s something in my self that I could forgive that will help along that process another huge thing
about forgiveness is it can’t be forced I don’t feel it can be really forced especially maybe for some people but it
seems like it will happen when it’s the right time this word forgiveness has a
kind of um Christian more of a Christian background but to me the wisdom of this
is basically letting go of a burden that that I no longer need to carry around um
so I can ask for forgiveness I can I can forgive another and I can forgive myself so a three-way
forgiveness um and even folks that aren’t there yet they could go as far
removed as you know maybe I can start to consider
sometime in the future as a possibility to start
considering wondering about and looking into to the possibility for forgiveness
you know so it’s just this kind of like approaching dancing around um because
when I really saw the power of forgiveness um I thought it was a
no-brainer but a lot of people they can’t do you know they’re just not there yet and that’s to force yourself into
forgiveness or to forgive another ask for forgiveness or forgive yourself it might just not be that possible yet but
I think when we can see the wisdom that this grow Grudge that I might have for someone else it’s not hurting them
anymore really it’s only gnawing at me a burden on myself so when the time comes
I might be able to put that down and walk away from it so Allan you touched
on a lot of stuff here um a couple things that came up well the thing that really struck me
when you said you there’s no meaning um now I definitely see that as an exercise
and it’s a good way to kind of quiet the mind because if I’m always trying to
find meaning in every little thing and I know I did this early in my practice I kind of had to have an answer for that
you know what does this mean you know what’s the meaning in this what’s what’s the purpose or things like this so you
know I definitely see that as a really good exercise but I wonder about how it
might contribute to this possibility of like solipsism where nothing really
matters there’s no truth you know uh and with that maybe I’m going a little bit
too far extrapolating A little bit too far or that you know if that’s the case well then there’s really no incentive to
be ethical unless I’m missing something you know I want I want you to clarify a
little bit more what you mean about U no meaning and then if you mean there’s like no meaning in Life or no meaning in
doing anything you know it’s just kind of a nihilistic type of thing I I don’t think you mean that and then I want to
ask you a little bit since you’re I would consider you kind of a language expert so I wanted to uh see what could
be said a little bit about NLP as far as schooling me because I haven’t really studied this at all so I think that’s
enough for now
okay what what comes to mind is that there are five
elements sad Guru talks about the five elements the India talks about the five
elements the Chinese talk about the five elements but what are these five elements well there’s the physical world
we live in all right so there’s physical elements they call the Earth there’s the fire which transforms things like water
the heat the air smoke and gas there’s the the air Earth fire water and and so
those are the physical elements that combine the world in which we live okay
but there’s a Fifth Element but the problem with the fifth
element is that it’s a metaphysical element it’s metaphysical what do you
mean Josh said it’s metaphysical well it means
that I have two hands that I’m holding up face to face and if I say uh can you taste it
can you hear it can you see it can you smell it can you feel it you’ll say no there there’s there’s not nothing
there’s nothing there but you know there’s a
space you know there’s a space so if you can consciously create
space between the sounds that you have control of in every moment of now and
every time you speak to be able to perform your thoughts
requires space you become more spacious and as you become more spacious
the gunk which is the glue that holds the crap of the past and future and
tight ego it constipated part of our s it begins to
dissolve every time you let these bubbles of space float around it begins to loosen
up and in speaking when you create space the key to professional speaking when
you create the space is the understanding of
articulation and there’s a definition that I use it’s a
definition and it starts with well when when you speak are you able to take the thought
form that’s inside your head let’s say say and you’re going to bring it out into the outer World by vibrating the
air through the instrument like the flute most people don’t have much
control over the flute so the flute’s sort of like an automatic flute it just
it automatically plays the music I don’t have to think about the flute I want to think about what I want to say but I’d
have to think about the flute so if you can practice creating a
space every time that
you you speak it’s like throwing ballast off the hot air balloon when you throw
the ballast of the weight of the hot air balloon it gets higher and higher and
higher so in the speaking business how much Ballance do you throw into the space every time you speak you said in
the beginning gee people talk about I I talk a lot when I speak I say well I
talk a lot lot of Might speak too and so if you can create
space between the sounds that you speak you now have
lowered your words per minute and most people obviously I would
say don’t think about their words per minute but if you think about your words per minute and you control your words
per minute you become more mindful of the minute you become more present in
the minute because I had to be present to tell the flute to shut up the pause and the
music allow the audience to savor the smell of the
wine to allow you to digest the the beauty of the music and
in articulation we call what I just did
fluidity how fluidity does Allan
speak is there any at all
fluidity Josh I look and I don’t
see any fluidity
tall and so that’s the reality in which they live but if you can create fluidity
then you’re not stuck to the particles and the particles are the content of your identity and all of a sudden the
the the the Drano of Life passes through and you become a hell of a lot more
compassionate for the for the love of life when you can clear clear the tubes
that are blocking that are blocking with your constipated conceptual identity which is
need needs to be dissolved and you dissolve it by able to pause
consciously every time you speak if you like because it’s a free world Josh I’m
sure it’s free over there in in Denmark I’m sure it’s free you can speak there you can make
vibrate you vibrate the air right dude that Mar you vibrate the air right uh yeah and then there’s also
vibrating out of which orifice right uh when we vibrate that air and some people talk about diarrhea of the mouth too
right that’s that’s a messy game but so Allan
this goes back to another thing I want to ask about self so all the folks
you’ve interviewed you’ve interviewed some amazing folks I was listening to a few of the
podcast before we went on air here and there’s a lot of spiritual wisdom and
knowledge in those one of the questions I like to ask folks here is especially
in this realm this this spiritual thing for lack of a better word is you know
what is self what is your understanding of this notion of self you talked a little bit before about encapsulating
the ego how would you like Define self or or
your understanding of what that means and maybe why it’s important
you’re right there’s lots and lots of words they use to
describe self with the capital S and every time they talk about the
self it’s the self with the capital S versus self with the small s
and I’m going to use the word the the higher self is a self that I would used
for years it’s the higher self capital S and I’m going to call the
higher self the Holy Spirit the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit there there a Triad up there there’s three of
them God is the source source of what the Son of God therefore you are the Son
of God and what speaks through the Son of God the holy spirit so the holy spirit is your
ability to speak for for this the holy it’s your ability to speak for the Holy
Spirit well who are you to speak for the Holy Spirit well you have a
choice you can choose to what would the Holy Spirit do in this
situation well the Holy Spirit would do this love compassion peace Joy surrender
let go open space flexibility and
fluidity in their
speaking my ego is not is in the constipation business he wants to keep
that ball of thoughts together and the preservation of the ball of thoughts keeps me
constipated and you don’t know you’re constipated until your physical body starts doing stuff to you diseases not s
g who said that 95 98% of all the physical issues that you think you got
are caused by the way you paint the pictures of what you see in your mind and so your mental thoughts but people
don’t manage their mental thoughts Josh they don’t think about managing their mental thoughts because that’s done
automatically and I know so I don’t need imag manal thoughts and so I I I say
that you you may not at this point in
time be able to manage the thoughts that you
think but you can damn well manage the
thoughts that you speak and so don’t give me this I’m
spiritual you’ll be spiritual if you can wake up enough to tame the tongue tame it baby tame the tongue of
the ego and when you can tame the tongue of the ego by making it shut
up and speak but you want it to but when I want to when I want to speak
I will say what I want to say and I have control of the break and the accelerator well then you have a choice
about how you want to vibrate the air and when you become more present the quality of the formulation of the
thought because you’re able to get control of the voice o and the voice
is is manifestation when you be able to control the power of your voice control
the vibration of the air to be able to be still be able to
discern rather than judge what a
gift to the world to be able to do that and what you’re doing when you are going
from the land of judgment to the land of discernment is that you are taking the
Fifth Element and you’re practicing through meditation and relaxation and centering and grounding and
breathing creating space between the constipated thoughts that are constantly
sring around in your mind and everybody can do it everybody can create space and you
don’t have to do the you don’t have to in addition to of course you’re doing your
meditation but you can create space between the sounds that you speak
what’s the benefit of that Alan well first of all you can
breathe if you don’t c a space between the sounds you can’t suck in oxygen and
the instrument needs oxygen it needs it needs the it needs the The Prana
energy and so but I can’t do that and speak at the same time and when in there
when you’re able to take the breath in you can then have the ability to tell the physical body to Anchor ground and
Center because you’re not worrying about making a sound you’re worrying about focusing on getting the
instrument yeah grounded and then make the sound and when you when you’re when your
instrument’s grounded the quality of the formulation of the sound will look
professional and sound professional whether it’s auditory or and and of
course the visual will get better too this is a really great skill and like I said at the beginning you know it
it depends what we do with it right because it is it is a very powerful thing and so it is a great
responsibility as well and we know the power of self-responsibility I just want
to kind of echo some of these things um you know the fifth element of space in
in the Buddhist terab Canon you know we talk about the four Great there’s talked about the four Great elements and of
course sometimes it’s also mentioned the space element right and sometimes it goes into the Consciousness element and
every once in a while they re mention a the relase element which is a little bit
maybe seemingly esoteric but and I won’t go into that because it’s kind of beyond my pay grade
other than to say like you know we all know how tightly bound things are and
then when something releases how amazing that is um
okay now the other thing though to jump in on
psychologically what you got to get to the point in the in that forgiveness
conversation is that what you have to release is the is we’ll call The Big G
the Big G are grievances that you have about the movie that you’ve been watching for the last 50 60 20 years you
got grievances complaints about the movie um and and that becomes your identity
your identity and your complaints become the same thing what I complain about I tell you what I complain if I complain
about them and then of course you get a club of the same complainers and so then you
form a song and a group and a I’m sure there’s donations made to the politicians who are goingon to send
their people to Washington for the for the complainers and so people are complaining and they’re called
Grievances and and forgiveness is the Forgiveness of the grievance that you painted yourself and so when you start
with the idea that what you see in the movie at this point in time has no
meaning the there’s no grievances then and then that is called not thinking
that is called Stillness that is called in the mindfulness game a space of
non-judgment a space in which there are no judgments because judgments are thoughts about the space that you’re in
so there is no judgments you got to get them Little Critters to disappear so all you got is a clear space that’s all you
got is a clear space and so how do you get the you have to go back you got you have to have to
dissolve it and and so you you have to forgive you have to practice forgiveness
of the grievance and and at first the ego is is in the grievance preservation
business not in the Letting Go business because it would be suicide for me to let go of that grievance because that
grievance is part of my identity that’s who I am I am and and you can tell the
depth of the of the penetration of the identity by the loss of Center the
person has when they’re discussing what they’re talking about there just they’re
gone and there’s nothing you can say uh because they’re so stirred up you have
touched the what in the politics the third rail you you touch the third rail baby uh and and and you know and and I
know they talk about well what’s the biggest grievance people have is is my God is better than your God and when you
talk about gods and my God and then I speak for the word of God he say whoa my God I’m doing this in the name of God
and then then you’re then you’re talking on an illusion and and that’s uh and and and
if you can speak for the word of God then you would act as if you spoke for the word of God and and so a lot of
people say they speak for the word of God but would God do that you know is that the way the is that the way the
Holy Spirit would frame it you have to be able to create space around the game so the game is that I’m
in is the ability to create space and they’re called metaphysicians people who are looking in the metaphysical domain
which we’ll call space bringing it down into the physical world which we’ll call a
pause in the pause take a breath ground the body get the body still look at the
movie movie has no meaning what’s the meaning you can paint is forgiveness for
what for forever offense that you think you’re getting right now whatever whatever you don’t like in the movie if you if you are offended immediately you
notice it and you paint it with love you paint it with love you paint it with forgiveness and what you’re doing is
you’re laughing because the the paint is coming from you and you can now choose what colors you’re going to use
and it turns out that uh you you can paint your every moment as Heaven every
moment as a breath of God every moment as a contribution every moment is an act of of of compassion and love that’s a
choice or you can be the ego game the preservation of your of your sacred
identity I’ll tell you just tell you there’s a my wife and I enjoy watching a
show before we go to bed so Netflix one of the shows we watch and there’s one
we’re watching now it’s called gentleman’s and it’s a just the the Mad the the
Mad Duke and the house comes out with a the tourists are trying to do something
to his house and he’s going crazy he has no clothes on he has a he has his machine gun going like this scary and
old hair coming out 8085 years years old I’ll die before I let someone come into
my house and and scattering the bullets are going and then he falls
dead then they show you the bearing of the grave and he they took the coffin and
they made it vertical and on where the head is they put a a
window Diamond window diamond and the window was facing the house so he wanted
to die standing up facing the house and so that’s his identity people will people will stand up and face the house
of horror ra rather than uh relax and let go and release the the grip of the
thoughts and you can’t and in order to release the grip of the thoughts you have to have the grease you have to have
the fluidity in order to dissolve the glue that holds the thoughts together
and what is the the grease that dissolves the glue the grease that dissolves the glue is called space oil
you have to be able to place you have to be able to put space and oil the content
of your speaking and you’ll then be more fluid and that’s the number one tool of a articulate speaker is fluidity because
the opposite to fluidity is constipation most people are constipated when they
speak sure and it’s it’s a skill like anything else I mean uh it takes
training effort and kind of the right guidance and a lot of practice just like anything else any other skill to hone
you know the guidelines that are given for um wise speech is is it kind you
know is it necessary is it helpful um is it the right time to say
it you know around the the audience and does it create Harmony or does it create
division you know does it create Concord or will it divide
so yes these are these are things that I’m still living up to obviously um is
that is that does that come from the Buddhist tradition it it does this is the the right speech part right speech
yes these are the guidelines on right speech so you know is it kind and then not speaking harsh words you know
avoiding words would be the Holy Spirit but you’re saying what would the Holy Spirit speak in the Buddhist movie
you’re speaking for the Holy Spirit if you speak with kindness compassion love forgiveness then you’re speaking for
what the Holy Spirit would do and that’s a blessing so you become a saint at least a saint Josh you got to be Saint
now if you’re if you’re if you’re doing a thing we’ll send us something to Rome and we’ll get you blessed we got you got
the Christian background it’s good that’s good for your resume for being a saint see it came in handy it finally
came in handy you know and this speaks also to these UNH wholesome roots or some people
call them the poisons you know if we really want to get down to the root of a lot of this stuff it’s ill will you know
um some people say anger but ill will I think is really where it’s at because there are sometimes when anger can be
helpful I feel some people would disagree with me but ill will wanting to harm you know that’s that’s a poison and
an UNH wholesome root greed is the other one greed and then ignorance or delusion
not in the psychological sense but just not understanding reality for what it really is that’s the toughest one
because when we’re diluted or ignorant we don’t really know that we are you know and so the the REM of course for
that one is wisdom and then the remedy for greed is generosity and the remedy
for ill will is kindness you know loving kindness um and then I want to talk about Buddhist people they certainly
know how to hit a golf ball I’ll tell you straight down the middle you know there’s no white there’s no left there’s
no just perfect divots I tell you you Buddhist people stra forwardness you know now putting it into practice is
another story though is another thing you know reciting these things speaking
these things is one thing but actually exemplifying them in our conduct and behavior well that’s that’s a training
and a practice too now space the other thing that came up around this is holding space and how vitally important
this is I mean we could talk about it metaphorically but actually being there for someone and creating kind of an
environment and in in a presence and an inent attentiveness to be there for someone
and let them be who they are and it can be really healing and supporting
and I often Overlook that that it’s also in our words too and I like how your
training and your methodology is actually about when speaking the guidelines for speaking is you know when
you should speak and and how you should speak but the actual words flowing out of the mouth I find which you say very
helpful now the other end of all this you know is well one one one quick thing about thoughts you know there I call it
thoughts and thating I use that because if we close our eyes and pay attention to our thoughts right sometimes things
are going to pop into our heads we don’t want to be there they just happen to be there and that’s what I call thating we
don’t really have much control over that but if we actively say Okay I want to think about a pink elephant I want to
think about where my car keys are then I can actively think about those things
but sometimes we might just close our eyes in a song lyric might come into our mind a memory whatever mental activity
we don’t seemingly have control over so I think this is um a good definition and
I like this notion that we do have seemingly uh quite a bit of choice in
our speaking especially if we train it as well um the other
thing that the whole other side of this coin we haven’t talked about is listening so of course we need to well
not necessarily I mean we can talk kind of talk to ourselves some people say that’s the first time of going crazy right but do a a hamlet dialogue or
something but on the other end of this we have the listener so I was wondering
if you have anything to say about listening and skills for this as well and how this might actually help
speaking or um do you do you look at this side
[Music] too space exists
everywhere so there is a drought of of space
oil although it exists everywhere there’s a drought of space
oil between the words the people speak and there’s a big drought of space
oil between the thoughts that people think until you’re able to control at some
degree the thoughts that you think you will continue to be
offended by things that you can’t listen to I’m not I’m not offended by things
that are beautiful matter of fact I’m attracted to things that are beautiful because what I think is
beautiful you don’t think is beautiful that doesn’t make any difference if I think it’s beautiful I’m attracted to
what I think it’s beautiful now I have have no listening for things that are
ugly because there now there’s ugliness in the movie that I’m watching and what do I now do with
ugliness well I can erase ugliness I can get upset about the ugliness I can I can
give money to people who will handle ugliness things I will get on the streets and I will protest the ugliness
things I will this is really really really ugly s and
so so there’s choices that you can make when you when you see ugly things but as
you practice you talked about creating spaces creating pauses creating
air bubbles that create the dro you become more spacious and when you become
more spacious you go to a place of Consciousness where there is an open
space and in Psychology we call that open space The Observer a witness or The Watcher or the
guardian it’s a AMCI talks about the the second bird in the tree there’s the doer
bird down here doing and there second bird absolutely still what in the movie theater watching
the show enjoying a bag of popcorn taking a deep breaths and and the Holy
Spirit and so there’s a there’s a a
transformation that occurs when you begin to
realize that there’s space between the thoughts that I
speak and then I can access those thoughts I can I can access I have control of the thoughts that I
speak that means you’re going to slow down the words per minute we’re
I’m I’m slowing down words per minute if I was if I was just
doing normal ordinary hey how’s it going Jo just talking it’s about 180 words per
minute but if you begin to slow down your words per minute through
practice you disrupt the automatic pattern of the ego and in my number one
favorite movie that will go into the coffin with the glass glass window is going to be the matri
one because that was the best most entertaining transformational so the pause becomes
the red pill and most people are busy with the blue pill living in the
illusion of the reality of permanence to seek seeking for permanent in an
impermanent world and wondering why you’re suffering it’s like well I don’t know why I’m suffering well you’re
seeking for something that you you’re seeking for constipation you’re see see I want it to stay baby keep it inside of
me yes and you know Let it Go people so and
and there’s so many people tell you how do you let it go easiest one that I I
love was the Buddhist bless all the thoughts that
you’re thinking and let them go the good ones the bad ones the horrible ones just just bless them all bless them all and
as you in order to bless something you have to be able to see it and and you got to be the Observer to
be able to see the thought and now that I can see the thought I manage the thought I can manage the thought I can
bless the thought and so I no longer become a victim of the thought whatever the thought was I no longer become I no
longer have the feeling that I’m I’m a sinner so the Salvation just the
Christianity will tell you that the forgiveness of sin leads to Salvation what is the sin the sin is the is the
grievance that you hold against yourself inside that you’re projecting onto that a-hole in the goddamn
movie not no no not you no no no no no but you know as I know it’s comes from
within it’s projected outside space is very healing that’s we
need we need more space people we need we need to form an organization the United space Federation
I think we’ll call it because it’s already named but you think it’s the outer space that he’s talking about no
he’s talking about the United space is is the inner is exploring in space Inner
Space yes it’s a it’s a beautiful place to be Inner Space indeed when you talked
about the ugly and the Beautiful it brought to mind this perception or practice of seeing the ugly and the
Beautiful and the Beautiful and the ugly and then what is the other version of
this it’s also kind of seeing both beautiful and ugly in the
beautiful is that what what it is and ugly and beautiful in the ugly so are
something as neither ugly or beautiful are seeing it both at the same time so this is a really kind of mind-bending
practice sometimes because we have been conditioned a lot to to make that
Judgment of ugly and beautiful the idea I give a lot is David Lynch the filmmaker he would take these
photographs sometimes closeup of P you know something really nasty and blow
it up really big and it look like this beautiful work of art and when people when they asked people they’d say oh
this is beautiful what is this and he would tell them and they’ immediately would have a different reaction to what it was because they didn’t know
beforehand so it kind of plays with that notion now it’s true what’s true people
live in an illusion and how do you how how how do
you what’s the medicine that you take that will alter the illusion that you’re in that leads to Joy and satisfaction
rather than suffering and there’s something about forgiving and letting go of of of your
of your point of view about what you’re seeing in the movie you think you are your point of view but there’s a
possibility that your point of view is programmed based on your conditioning
and but but how do I get how do I escape from my conditioning
disrupt the the electrical circuits of the conditioning by taking the red pill when you speak because you can’t be
you’ve got to be present in order to
pause between the sounds that you’re speaking so you can’t you are a rating
the overheated anger see I can’t I can’t maintain you can’t be I
can’t it it’s hard to keep disrupting the anger with
relaxation it’s not it it just doesn’t work that way Josh I don’t know where you live but you can’t can’t you can’t
get angry and relaxed at the same time come on Josh don’t don’t you teach anything in those Buddhist schools you
know and so you can’t get angry if you practice pausing and so now you get
control of the instrument that’s playing the music it really is
Play Beautiful music this mindfulness of body helps us do that too and one of the
easiest things to let go of I feel once we tune into how bad anger feels in the
body it’s it’s a little bit easier to let go of uh than greed because if we feel into how it feels in the body we
then know that we have a choice if we want to really feel that that way then we can see and allow that to to to say
well I don’t want to feel like that can see how that makes me feel so do do now I have a choice I can see that so amen
do I want to choose other you wow I tell you that’s the preacher speaking there
whoa I tell you that’s the truth that’s the gospel truth you’re speaking
about my word for that Christianity stuff is God bless them right we heard it right here in this podcast that’s the
voice of the Holy Spirit that’s what the Holy Spirit would say you can feel it you can feel it in your body feel the
the purity of the thoughts that come from contribution and love and service not contaminated by the pain of the ego
that’s that’s the self that answers your question what’s the self what you’re speaking for yourself the higher
self Alan one of the things uh that I’m having a psychological barrier for
adding more space oil is patience you know it this seems like I don’t know if
people are Maybe thinking about this or tuning into this maybe they can see the benefit of it but to me it seems like a
hurdle can be you have to have patience for this you know Allan why can’t you talk faster you know I don’t have all
day here you know I’m I’m from New York I I only have a New York minute here so
respect my time and start talking faster you know uh what would you say to a criticism like that Playing devil’s
advocate um because it just seems like it’s so time consuming right another
thing I just thought of is I listen to podcast on overcast and they have this feature it’s called smart spe so you
push this button and it will auto the algorithm will automatically take out the pauses between people’s speaking in
order to save them time and I’m just like oh boy I think this is conditioned
helped condition the way I talk you know and I’m like uhoh I listen to so many
podcasts with smart speed on you know and saves me a lot of time but what is that doing to my speak important Josh
come On’s important get a hit her now come on come on get up I tell you you
you Eastern boys gotta come out to the west where we live I tell you you guys don’t yeah right people live in a fast
world and wonder why they’re suffering they’re suffering because there’s no space space is a space of
relaxation space is a space in which uh you can aate it’s a screen door
experience rather than a storm door experience you there’s holes all over the place aerated by you creating space
between the thoughts the ego speaks because the whole reality is sort of an egoic projection of your thoughts on
this three-dimensional holck that we all live in calling it The Reality in which we live thinking that it’s there’s a me
and there’s a there rather than I’m creating it until you realize realiz that the paintbrush is in your hand and
you’re noten going to realize that until you wake up and are able to create we
able to be a claim to be a metaphysician and I’m going to practice the tool of a metaphysician is the tool
of Stillness tool of space tool of
forgiveness and and then you are bringing the Holy Spirit down into the
constipated Earth and healing it by your own vibration
your own and your speaking is one of the big ways that you vibrate that you that
you that you connect to the outer World Art’s another one beautiful art that’s a
just beautiful things that are just just blessings
awe words of wisdom you use the word wisdom and it turns out that you want to
be wiser you want to know where wisdom lives wisdom does not
live in the in the content that’s already there so but if you can separate
the content when you speak and create an empty space you can breathe and you can go for
a diving trip and you can dive down into an empty space and you’ll discover that
wisdom a higher level of awareness exists in the empty space between the
thoughts that if you’re Rippling on the surface you’re diving down deeper and you have creativity lives there too so
Steve Jobs is a big fan of LSD he said you haven’t done LSD well
Goddamn I can’t tell you because he realized that there’s a created part of ourselves that we never that get stuck
down with the conditioning so how can you how can you burn through it quickly and so you can burn through it quickly
through artificial means and of course I’m a child the 60s I don’t know nothing what you’re talking
about I don’t believe you and so the so we but you can burn
through it also with meditation and you can burn through it consciously this is my message to the audience if you you
can burn through that that that that consciously not only with meditation not
only with drugs you can burn through it by pausing between the sounds that you
speak and it will increase your ability to perform your thoughts at a higher
level of quality so when it’s necessary to perform your thoughts at a
high level of quality in front of a large audience in front of a podcast
whatever you’re performing your thoughts at a high quality you use space and you
stick spaces in there so you’re able to keep the instrument in a state of
relaxation which gives you time to think about not only what you want to say but
also how I want to formulate the thought in order to have it the maximum
penetration into the effectiveness of whoever is listening whether it be auditory in the podcast world or whether
it be video in the YouTube world and space is the key that is missing except with
professional speakers like actors politicians I mean they’re great space creat
and it’s free it won’t cost you there’s nothing you don’t have to send anything TSH want Josh said know what do you want
to do I’m in the space business and I sell I sell cans I sell physic you’ll get a physical can it’s called space oil
I will send it to you I will send it to you it’s $59.95 it’s not it’s a specialty because we’re getting 10% off
we know that and it comes already full of space it’s you look inside there’s nothing there so it’s space and it says
space oil on the outside and anytime you find yourself constipated that you have a hard time
getting through something you pick up that can from Allen K associate space oil Academy and you squeeze it three
times if it’s a little bit six times if it’s a many but if a lot just you can squeeze it 20 times a day but no more
than 20 times a day and you will notice that whatever you were issues with is
not going to be dissolved so that’s my my message to you and my my my desire
for you to buy those space cans oils and by the way I’m just teasing do not send say this isn’t from the Rockefeller
Rockefeller Foundation is it the space oil or that that was snake oil that he was selling is that snake o no this is
space oil you got be clear about that one yeah okay all right uh Allan this
has been really really cool I just wanted to highlight the importance of space something that came to me is this
uh I think it’s called the discourse on the Lesser discourse on
emptiness and there’s a contemplation that’s we can experience this for
ourselves you contemplate what’s called Village and this is the everyday work a day world and notice how kind of busy
and chaotic it is in the mind and I’m not going to do this very deep but I’ll mention this so if anyone wants to look
this up and do it later then you zoom out then there’s the Forest right and we know how we feel when we go into like
the Wilderness or just even a nice park there’s not the busy hustle and bustle of the Wilderness I mean of the
village then we take one more step back and we go into Earth contemplation of
Earth the entire Earth as a whole right and how much more peaceful that is so
then when we drop that then there’s space boundless space there’s no
boundary to how far space could go right it’s boundless so I we can we can stop
there there’s a c there’s a couple other layers where if you remove that what’s behind that it’s boundless Consciousness
removing that is boundless no thingness or nothingness and one of the most subtle
layers of existence in said is if that’s removed then there’s neither perception
nor non-perception and that’s a very subtle layer so anyway yes this is profound and
I appreciate so much Allen’s articulation of this talking about the
fluidity but more important the pauses and the space that is interjected and
kind of crafted in with our speaking I know it’s poised to help me so much and
pretty much anybody that wants to have any kind of communication and we need that communication every day or most
every day right whether it even be with ourselves so Alan thanks again for being
here and speaking with with me in the audience whoever is listening to this
what would you like to bring people’s attention to and tell folks how they can
um find you online how they can listen to your podcast any other works and
projects you have going and then take the folks out here with the final message
please well the game that I’ve been playing the game of mindfulness we bring that
into a way of earning a living been doing it for 30 years around the world over 60 countries large corporations
because they have the money and we train in corporations they’re speakers they’re
speakers whether they are Executives whether they are Engineers account
managers marketing people people who have to stand in front of audiences whether the audience is in the virtual
world or the audiences in the the outer world the physical world and we use really this is the
secret I’ll tell you right now we only use one tool we run different classes different lengths of classes which you
can find out on our website the only tool we really use is the tool of a professional
speaker and you ask yourself what’s the tool of a professional
speaker see I couldn’t tell I got to come to the class but I love you so I’m G to give you this is my message the
tool of a professional speaker is called timing you control the timing
of your speaking while you are
speaking so I’ve been demonstrating various speeds of speaking
we’re talking today and there’s speeds where I get excited so my words per minute go up and
there’s times when I just chill
and taste the sweetness of Stillness in our
conversation and that’s a nice place that’s blessings and love and cherish compassion live in that
space takes a lot of energy to speak doesn’t take much energy to love relax when you love so my message is to you
want to love yourself give yourself space What where can’t you give yourself space the space you can’t where you
can’t give yourself space is where you hold grievances against yourself for the sins that you think you have done
Son of God cannot create sin you are you are the Son of God you are the spirit
you are the Holy Spirit encased in the physical body and so we train speakers so I’ve
earned our living in Allen countown Associates by by training speakers how
to be mindful professional mindful speakers and it’s a what happens is they
begin to realize that they’re they have the power within
themselves to transform their ability to speak and boy when you see that on a
videotape as I said I’ve earned my living for the last 30 years teaching people how to not to speak and it
works far as my uh far as the the website Allen count
Associates mindful you.com that would be our website and I
would love to hear from you you can reach me through the website I do podcast I do a mindful you podcast
once a week every Tuesday get to talk to people like Josh and have conversations like we had today because today’s
conversation and from my point of view was
valuable the clarity of the conversation that we had really was valuable and so
that just was a nice partnership Josh so I appreciate the the opportunity to to
speak about something we both love and to be able to articulate it with the
fifth element of space and space is where in heart is saying is where love love is giving something space to be the
way it is the way it isn’t and anyway you’re listening was a great question we’ll hold it for the next time because
there’s a problem with listening is that you you have to let go of your point of
view which you have to have fluidity and people don’t have fluidity so with with pausing it gives you fluidity not only
with the way you speak but also with your you’re willing to be flexible to listen to other
people’s points of view and really we should do another one on listening because listening is a is a
there’s a problem with listening and it has to well anyway nothing another one
it is very important and so thanks again for doing this Allen and may all beings
everywhere find the most optimal spaces and ways to
articulate their highest most beneficial speech for the
well-being and liberation of all may all beings everywhere realize Awakening and
be free by now How Sweet It Is How Sweet It Is Jos when you speak I would almost say
Amen say Amen one could say that amen Amen brother all right thank you
all bye bye byebye
Integrating Presence 