Jay Shetty | Club Random with Bill Maher

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Hey, check out the new podcast in our network, The Magnificent Others with Billy Corgan. Billy, I remember he was here.
He was awesome. He's an incredibly insightful interviewer.
So this is great. Catch him talking about one of my favorite topics, greatness in music with the legends themselves.
And he must know all of them. He was one himself.
First episode is my pal Gene Simmons. Get it on YouTube at Billy Corgan, TMO, and anywhere you get your podcasts.
Those places where people have meditated for tens of years, hundreds of years, thousands of years. And where is this one? Because I want to avoid going there.
I mean, humans, not good people. Am I wrong? We're doing all right.
We're doing all right. You think we're doing all right? No, we're not.
How are you doing? How are you doing? I'm good. I'm well.
Thank you for having me. Oh, please.
This is such a cool spot. I really appreciate it.
Really? Yeah. Even for you? Yeah, it's nice.
Is it spiritual enough? Anywhere can be spiritual enough. Really? Yeah.
Then would you like to go to the Spearmint Rhino? I've not tried that. That would be an experiment.
You've never been to a strip club? I have never been to a strip club. You think you're spiritual.
Brother, I'm going to rock your world. When was the last time you went? What day is it? No.
It's been a minute, but, you know, there's something wrong with it, right?

I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

I think it's about the state of consciousness you want to live in.

Really?

Already we're on that.

But why can't you?

You just said you could be spiritual anyway.

You can.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Did you see Anora?

I did not yet.

I've heard about it.

I've not seen it yet.

She was a stripper.

Okay.

I'll have to check it out.

I don't know enough about it. I did hear about it.
The movie? it the movie i need to see it yes yes i think you'd enjoy it okay it's just enjoyable yeah you know it's a great performance i love that director he did another one called the florida project did you ever see that no i didn't see that you'd like that too okay it's an interesting movie it's about this woman who's a complete train wreck. I mean, she's poor.
You know, she's like living in a motel, you know, right near the shadow of Disneyland. And she's got a little six-year-old girl with her.
And she's just a terrible mother in a lot of ways. But she's kind of a big kid in herself.
And she loves the kid. And the kid loves her.
But she does things which, in today's world, we would never allow. Like, just lets the kids roam free, you know, run across the highway.
You know, they're begging for free food at McDonald's. I mean, she just...
And then she literally, like, turns a trick while the kid is in the bathroom when she needs money.

She's not really a hooker, but she's terrible.

So, of course, social services come.

But the kid's loving her life.

It's one of those really interesting moral questions.

Because the kid does not want to go.

I mean, then the kid just runs.

And what's the resolution?

Well, the kid runs.

I mean, it's great that it's just right in the shadow of Disneyland where life is perfect because life is not perfect, I think is one of the great themes there. I just think the resolution is the kid runs away and they're going to have to either catch her, but she's like, no, I love mommy.
I don't want to live. Mommy's fun.
I love it. I've got my homework, so I know a Florida project.
Yeah, I just did a big plug for this director.

Nice.

I love it.

I've got my movie night sorted.

That would help, actually.

Me and my wife are always struggling to find what to watch on movie night,

so that's going to help us out.

How long have you been married?

We've been married now for eight years.

We'll be nine this year.

And how did you know she was the one?

I don't know if you do ever know.

I think you figure out more and more every year. So I don't think I ever...
Don't put that on the Valentine's Day card. I don't think you ever do really know if someone's the one.
I think you think you know when you meet someone that someone's the one, but it takes many, many more years to actually get confident about that idea. I think we're overconfident in the beginning and we might overestimate what we know.
And then you get to know someone deeply and you think, well, I'm lucky you turned out the way you are. I agree with every word you said.
That is a very realistic, I think, very wise answer. It's not a romantic answer.
I don't feel like it's the answer women want to hear. Right.
But sometimes the answer we want to hear is definitely not the right answer. And your wife's okay with that? My wife's actually far more, less the romantic than I am, so she loves that answer.
She'll actually appreciate that answer. Yeah, she'll actually agree with it.
Maybe that's why she's the one. Yeah, maybe that's why.
There we go. But you were celibate for a while, right? I was for three years.
I was too, not by choice. That's the difference.
When was that? You were a monk. I was at Cornell.
When were those years? College years? Yes. I went to a college, Cornell, in the 70s.
Great college. Great education, yes.
Not a fun, pleasant experience. Most people who went there would say the same thing, I think.
It's kind of a cold place in many ways, which is why I never gave them a dime. But, yeah, it had just recently, the Ivy League had just recently, when I got there, just made, you know, integrated with women at all.
I think a couple of the colleges when I went like Dartmouth, I still think was all male. Wow.
Yeah, this is the mid-70s. Wow.
That's remarkable to even think that. It is.
So wait, you were one of the first years where? I think I feel like the ratio I recall being something like 4 or 5 to 1 which would be bad under any circumstances but especially when you're a shy nerd with no game no money no anything and the women had more choice of course well they're always at that age going to go for older men.

Because when you're at that age as a male, you're just a very rare person.

I saw this other great movie.

Look at all the movies.

I know.

You've been watching a lot of movies.

I know.

I always do.

This one I'd never heard of.

It's like 10 years old.

It's called Five to Seven. I've not seen this either.
I'd never heard of it. It's really interesting.
It's about, you know, the French have this tradition where they don't ask what the spouse is doing from five to seven in the day because they're very realistic about how passion wanes and people need a mistress or a lover. Wow.
So this 25-year-old kid in New York, he meets this 33-year-old French woman, and he's totally besotted. And one day they're walking along, and he's like, what else don't I know about you? She's like, well, I'm 33.
I have a husband. It's like, what? Do you have a husband? She's like, yeah.
Why do you think we meet from five to seven? Oh, my gosh. And it's a really interesting movie, except that they put in the mouth of this 25-year-old words that would never come out of a 25.
Oh, really? It's obviously a writer twice his age. Right, right.
Nobody 25 is that cool, that confident, that wise, that good with women. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But other than that, it's fun if you suspect. But that's much less easy to swallow than Avatar.
Now the sad thing is that so much of that is, I mean, you know, that's five to seven in that era with some culture. But I'm hearing some horror stories right now of people dating.
I was talking to someone I know, and they were saying that they were seeing this guy. He was kind of going in the right direction.
It was a bit of long distance across the States, and she was hoping that it was going in a more serious direction. They're in their 30s, and so she'd reached out to him and messaged him and said, hey, I'm coming to see you this weekend, obviously, as we planned.
Just wanted to make sure that we're on the same path, that this is serious. It's going somewhere.
Very, very, you know, acceptable way of messaging at someone. And she didn't get a response for a day.
And she thought, okay, well, maybe something's up. It's okay.
Didn't get a response for three days. Texted again, just checked in.
Didn't get a response for seven days. She goes online and she finds this online space where she starts talking about her experience, posts it.
Next thing she knows, she gets a message from another woman who says, hey, can I chat to you? I read what you wrote, realizes that this man's actually in another relationship. He's getting divorced at the same time from another relationship and he's's dating this woman.
And it's mind-blowing that someone has the audacity and the ability to navigate that many people at the same time. I don't even know how you keep up with that.
It's actually something that I'm sure always went on. What's amazing to me about the story is that someone thinks they could get away with it today.
Before the internet, You know, before that era and social media and tracking people in every possible way yeah same thing with criminals i feel really bad for criminals it's hard to be a criminal now because they got cameras everywhere it's the same thing you i mean if you're a husband cheating and your wife knows where your car is at all times because it's on her phone, you know. You've thought through this, Bill.
No, I don't have to. You're speaking from experience.
I don't have to because I'm not married. Yeah.
And one reason is I never want to cheat. I never want to have to, you know, lie in a relationship.
And that's very hard because, you know, I think a lot of people, and you'd be a great one to ask this, but I think the common idea in people's minds is the longer you're in a relationship, the more honest you get and maybe in a great one. But actually it's the reverse.
The longer you're in, the more you start lying, much to protect your partner who areas get sensitive. Do you still want to fuck me as much as always? Absolutely.
Okay, well, it's a lie, but you got to tell it. Yeah.
I think it's hard because we all say we want the truth. I think if you asked the average person, they'd say, I want people to be honest with me.
I wish people told me the truth. But then when someone says it, the old cliche, you can't handle the truth.
Like we don't, we can't actually handle it. And I think it takes a lot of maturity, a lot of openness, a lot of self-work to be able to say, Hey, you know what? Actually, I'm happy to hear what you actually have to say.
And you know, it, it takes a lot of courage to hear the honesty and it takes a lot of courage to say it. But I think a lot of people are scared to say it because they're scared of how it's going to be received.
Did you ever see Tootsie? No. I've got to get you a streaming service.
You need to get me a... I need to get you a...
I don't watch a lot of stuff. I watch a bit of stuff, but I obviously don't watch enough.
I thought I watched enough. Well, I mean, you're probably on to other bigger, deeper spiritual things.
But for us normal people, you've heard of the movie, right? I have not. I've not at all.
Never heard of Totsie? What year is that? Totsie is a super classic. I mean, it's 1982.
It's Dustin Hoff. I wasn't born.
So what? I wasn't born for the French Revolution, but I know about it. Really, Doc? That excuse is really, your generation should lose that.
It's a stupid thing to say it really is you were bored for it yeah i saw a lot of movies i wasn't aware i know but i wasn't born for a citizen kane but i've seen it that's fair that's fair okay so tootsie is you know dustin hoffman is yes and bill murray yes okay so the movie is it's i don't know if you can make it today because it has to do with gender, but he's an actor in New York and he can't get work. And there's an ad for the open auditions for a soap opera, but it's for a woman.
And he dresses in drag and he gets the part as a woman. Wow.
Michael becomes Dorothy, an older woman. It's very funny.
And the audience loves him, and he becomes a big soap opera star. So he's at a party one night as the woman, because he's invited.
And he's very hot for this other girl who's on the soap opera and he says and they're talking and she says to him here thinking it's a woman you know guys are so full of shit i wish one of them would just be honest and come up to me and say i think you're the most beautiful woman in the world and i'd like to go to bed with you right and he hears it later on he's at a party as himself as michael and he goes up and he tries it and she throws a drink right in his face it's a great movie moment that's awesome i need your movie list this sounds like oh well that's gonna make my life a lot easier um i feel like nowadays all my generation does is spend hours and hours and hours trying to find something to watch and then give up eventually so and these movies don't make the lists. You look at IMDb and you start looking at all these lists.
Well, I mean, that movie is 40 years old. But it is.
I mean, certain classic movies, you don't have, I guess maybe you don't even have the old DirecTV where I still have the 50 movie channels. Because if you flip through that, they're playing all sorts of movies from all sorts of years yeah i'm a big nolan fan so christopher nolan yeah so i've spent i've spent my time probably diving most deeply into nolan's movies starting with memento the prestige is probably one of my favorite favorite movies even seen either of those uh i don't remember those so memento is the story about the man who uh forgets morning when he wakes up.
And so he tattoos his memories onto himself. And he's on the search for who killed his wife.
It's a brilliant, brilliant story. Yeah, I have heard of that.
I don't think I did catch up to that. Highly recommend it.
I'm going to watch that one. Yeah, one of the best.
And the prestige is Hugh Jackman, Christian Bale, Scarlett Johansson. It's beautiful.
It's such a great movie. What's it about? It's based on two magicians.
Oh, yes, I did see that. Yes.
Yeah. That's his most, that's early on.
2006, I think that is. Right, and that's more of his mainstream phase.
Just the way Stanley Kubrick, you know Stanley Kubrick? Yes, yes, yes. I mean, he did so many innovative movies, but he also did Spartacus to start his career, a very mainstream movie.
And there's two that Christopher Nolan did that I don't know what's going on. Which one? Tenet? Yeah, that's terrible.
Yeah. And then what's the other one with Leonardo DiCaprio? Oh, which one is it? Oh, Inception.
That's an amazing movie. I'm sure it is.
That's a beautiful movie. I'm sure it is to you.
I love the concept of the idea of we're living in a dream within a dream within a dream. Yeah, but it's kind of hard to follow.
I think it takes a bit of reading, but I'm that kind of person who wants to watch a movie and then... No, no, I am not movie bright.
I'm not stupid, but some people are much more movie bright. Very often, like a young girl, I need to watch a movie with.
Got it. Because she can explain to me what's going on.
Like, okay. Yeah, at Inception, I was just completely lost.
Well, anytime. Call me up.
I'll explain the plot and we'll walk through. Right.
But no, you're reminding me of, I remember I was at a wedding, maybe like four years ago and it was, you know, people in entertainment and everyone there was a writer, a comedian. You know, every speech was a Netflix comedy special and perfectly delivered.
It was amazing, super entertaining. But I remember I was sitting with a group of people who were all asking me what my favorite movie that year was.
And of course, with my naive and unrefined movie knowledge, I said Marvel Endgame. And everyone at the table had all these indie movies that they were in love with and everything.
So I've had that experience before as well. I'm worse than you with that.
I mean, all of those kind of popular movies, any spandex movie, I've seen hardly any of them. The ones I have seen, I didn't see any difference.
I don't know why Catwoman is the worst and Spider-Man is the greatest. To me, it's all the same movie.
Oh, no, there's some good movies. I'm a Marvel fan.
Oh, you are? Yeah, I'm a Marvel fan, so there's some good ones in there. I just tried to watch, well, I did not try.
I watched, well, sort of Dune, the second Dune. Yeah.
Now, I have to admit, I did not see the original Dune. Got it.
I haven't seen the original. I didn't see the first Dune.
I've seen that one. And I missed the first 10 minutes of this one.
Okay. Got it.
And I was watching it in the kitchen while I was making food. So I'm not really sure what's going on in Dune.
It's something about they're on another planet. I think it's the year 10,000.
And yet everything is just eerily the same. They still have helicopters and they're still fighting and running really fast.
And there's one tribe that has this thing on their nose. Have you seen that? Do you know what that is? I think it, I suppose it helps them breathe.
I don't know. I guess so.
It's very dry. Yeah.
And yet Zendaya's skin is perfect. I mean, really, I've been to Vegas for a weekend.
It's a great observation. And my skin got worse than what's going on here on the planet.
What is it? I don't know the name. Okay.
I don't know how that is. Anyway, I could tell there are some very bad people because it kind of goes to black and white when they show them.
It gets very Lenny Ruff and Stall. And, of course, the real bad guy is a huge fat fuck, and you can always tell the worst thing you in this world is fat shaming.
Unless you want to show he's a bad guy, then it's completely okay. This podcast is brought to you by Aura.
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Pet injuries and additional coverage and subject to policy terms. And I didn't get to the end that the real bad guy is Austin Butler, but they shaved his head, and I was like, oh, that's awesome.
He gets killed in a great fight scene. Oh, so you have seen it? I've seen it.
I've seen that one. Yeah, I've seen the movie.
I don't remember the name of the planet, but I know the movie. I've seen both of them.
So if you don't watch movies, like what do you do? Oh, I watch movies. I watch movies.
I think we just watch different movies. Well, what else do you do for fun? I definitely love, I'm a huge soccer fan.
So I grew up, I'm born and raised in London. Watching or playing? Both.
I don't play as much anymore, but I used to love playing and watching soccer. It's still one of my favorite things to do.
Where did you grow up in England? I grew up in North London. So it was, yeah, soccer is my first love.
Football is my first love. And it's something that I can do any day of the week.
I don't know London well enough to know what does that mean, that neighborhood, North London? What kind of neighborhood? It's a bit in between. It's a bit rough.
It's a bit, it's definitely a little rough. I definitely grew up in a neighborhood where there weren't so many Indian and South Asian people.'t.
There weren't that many when I was growing up. There are now.
There are a lot of South Asian people in England and in London. Well, London, I read this in Andrew Sullivan's column.
He said like 50 years ago was something like, I don't know, I forget the stat, but it went up by 50% the number of non-white people. Okay, that makes sense.
Which is amazing when you think. Yeah, I mean, growing up in London.
I'm not lamenting it, I'm just saying. Oh, for sure.
It's just, you know, acknowledge change. Oh, it was amazing.
I mean, I remember in our primary school, elementary school, part of our studies was visiting every religion's place of worship. That was really common because there was someone from every religion in our class.
There was such a great exposure to other cultures. We celebrated every religious holiday.
It was pretty incredible to have such a diverse upbringing. And I know a lot of my friends here didn't have that.
So that was a real positive. It's powerful.
I did that. I made a movie called Religulous.
It's a documentary.

It's a comedy.

And we went to all the different religious sites.

For the documentary.

Yeah.

And I made fun of them all.

But we never got to, now you're not officially a Buddhist, are you?

No, no, no, no.

But you were a monk, right? I lived as a monk but in the Vedic tradition

which is more aligned

with Hinduism

if you had to put it

into a category.

And what's that like?

I mean, the life of a monk,

I'm sure we all have

an image in our head

that's very Spartan.

It's hard.

It's definitely hard

and challenging.

Are these the celibate years?

Yes, correct.

So you're waking up

at 4 a.m.,

you're having cold showers,

you're meditating

for around

four to eight hours a day,

you sleep on the floor, you get two sets of robes, you wear one, you wash one, and it's a really challenging lifestyle. But at the same time, talking about what we're speaking about, what was really profound to me when I think about it is that it was three years of my life where I didn't have to pursue anything.
I didn't have to pursue a woman. I didn't have to pursue a job.
I didn't have to pursue a promotion. And I feel like there's something really powerful about a period of our life where you're not pursuing anything external that allows you to actually go inward to have a go at mastering your mind, not that you ever will, and pursue that perspective.
And so when I looked at the science of it, because I've always been fascinated by the parallels between spirituality and science, I was looking at a study that was saying that most of our life, we live it in pursuit. So we live it in anticipation, reward, and then crash.
So you anticipate something, you get the reward or you don't, and then you crash after it, whether you're happy and then crash or sad and then crash. And that keeps us in that cycle of anticipation, reward, crash.
But when you actually don't pursue something, there's almost a sense where your dopamine stabilizes and you actually get the ability to focus on being present for small things and getting to appreciate the things that you would usually miss or things you wouldn't see. And so now when I look back at it, I look at that as one of the biggest things I learned there because I don't know any time in my life before or after where I haven't been pursuing something.
And so that was the most magical thing when I look back to think, wow, what a period of life where you're not pursuing something. It must give you, with your vast audience, a lot of cred.
Kind of like the revolutionary who has spent time in prison. You know, a lot of the people who wound up presidents of countries, Menachem Begin was, you know, some people would call him a terrorist.
He went to jail, you know, fighting the British for Israel's independence. But, you know, Mandela, you know, Martin Luther King.
You go to jail, Castro, I think, before you – you have a kind of a credibility with the crowd that, like, yeah, I walked the walk for this. I didn't just talk about it.
I, you know, in your case, got up at four in the morning and took the cold shower. And are you allowed to masturbate when you're? No, not at all.
So when you say celibate, even from yourself. Yeah, fully celibate, yeah.
Wow. What do you do about that? Well, it's a great question.
So I think what was really fascinating is before I did the life, I always thought it would be suppression or repression. But actually, I found that that engagement that we had there with the meditation, with the clean plant-based diet, with the focus, I'm not kidding.
At least at that time, it was a thought that evaporated. It was a thought that disappeared.
And that didn't happen immediately. It probably took months to even feel that way.
It was months of dedicated practice that allowed you to get to that point. But I found that that environment was almost protected by some incredible shield, which I've never experienced anywhere else.
And I was actually just back there. I go back to the monastery every year.
I was back there this January. And I traveled there with my wife now.
She comes with me as well. And we were there for a week.
And I was spending time with my teachers again and the monks again. And again, I felt this force-fueled energy while I was there.
And the moment I left, I felt all the other allurements and all the other attractions come right back. And I was thinking, wow, there is something special about locations in which, kind of like this room that we're in right now, right? Like this has a certain vibe.
It has a certain energy. Absolutely, it really does.
It does, right? This location has an energy. I walked in and it- Not for what you're going for.
But locations do have energy. They really do.
They really do. And I think that those places where people have meditated for tens of years, hundreds of years, thousands of years, carry their energy.
And where is this one? Because I want to avoid going there. You don't want that force field.
Yeah, you don't want that force field. No, I'm not as strong as you.
I'm not strong. I'm not strong.
I'm actually very, I wouldn't consider myself strong. Okay, well, you're stronger than me because I couldn't last, I mean, let me ask you.
I'm just so curious about this. Let me break it.
So you're there for three years, 36 months. I'm guessing that the first month must have been the worst, the hardest.
It is the worst. Because you're, obviously, because you're transitioning.
It is the worst. And I can't believe I'm doing this.
What am I, crazy? What the fuck am I doing? I only lived so many years on this earth. Why am I not enjoying it? There's things going on.
I could go see Tootsie. I mean, there's movies.
There's lots of fun things. Okay.
But where are we like after six months? Six months in, it's changed because first month you're thinking while you're sitting on the floor, God, why am I sitting on the floor? It hurts my back. It hurts my leg.
I can't even meditate. I can't focus.
That's day one, week one, month one. So you don't even get a chair? You don't get a chair there.
No, there's no meditating on chairs. You don't get a chair? Not for meditating.
What about a bed? You sleep on the floor. You have a thin little yoga mat and a little bed sheet.
And when you're in India, you have the mosquito nets. So you're sleeping in this really tight tent because the mosquitoes will eat you at night.
I remember one of my- Shouldn't you welcome that? I remember one of my friends went to sleep with his head, you know, because your head shaved. He had his head shaved at the net and we woke up and his head looked like the moon because they had craters all over it from the mosquitoes eating it alive.
So do you have a roommate? You have communal living. So there's 20, 30, sometimes a hundred people in a room, depending on the size of it when you're traveling as well okay so sleep on the floor no amenities no 100 people in the room sounds like club med sounds like club have you been to a club i know what club med is but i've never been i did a movie called club med believe it or not okay and we stayed there for a month right it's i shouldn't this doc or a script? No, no, this was a movie.
It was a movie of the week. And the idea behind Club Med is for people on a budget.
It's actually a brilliant idea because it's for people who are going to enjoy the outdoors anyway. They just want to swim and fuck.
They don't need. So you go to this place and it's very spartan it's it's you know it's like a monk's thing you get a bed and a i mean it's no locks i seem to remember you get beads you don't even know what do you do with the beads because to like buy drinks but there's no money because we want to you know it's kind of smart you it's just, let's get up.
We're going to be at the beach all day.

We don't need an $800 a night room.

Yeah.

So I feel like that would be a good halfway.

That's your experience.

That's the closest I'm going to get.

That's your monastic experience.

I love that.

But you are stronger.

I mean, that is an amazing amount of strength.

I mean, let's not kid ourselves.

I think it's strength that we build up over time. Yes, of course.
Yeah, I don't think it was something I went in there with. Okay, so where are you after a year? Is there a point where you're like, you're digging it? After, yeah, I mean, six months in, I was having the best time of my life.
I was like, I'm going to do this for the rest of my life. So what brought you out of it? What brought me out of it was my body breaking down.
I literally couldn't hack it. You mean from sleeping on the floor? From sleeping on the floor, from waking up at 4 a.m., from eating what you're given because you don't get to choose.
There's no menu. Everyone eats the same thing.
I'd have friends of mine, monks, who were waking up at 2 a.m. and I'm being woken up and I'm a light sleeper.
And if someone's sick, I'm getting sick and my immune system's getting rocked. And so I realized very quickly that I didn't have the physical ability to stay there.
And then at the same time, there was this, if I'm honest with you and honest with myself, there was this rebellious spirit of wanting to share what I'd learned in a way that resonated with all my friends back in London. You sure did.
And in a way that I felt would help people that I grew up around. And not that that was discouraged, but it wasn't encouraged.
That wasn't the goal of being there. And there was far more of this regimented fall in line, which is really important for that sacred life.
And I respect it. I think it's needed.
I just didn't fit in. It's a strange thing to say, but almost after three years of trying to become a monk or being a monk, I realized I wasn't one.
And that's almost like the hardest thing. So the first month was the hardest, but the last month was even harder because you've kind of used all this self-awareness training to come to the conclusion that I don't think I belong here, but there are things I've learned here that I think are so profound and powerful.
This may be a stupid question, but why do you need the torturous physical part, if really what's going on in the mind? You know, why do you have, has it be, has to hurt, I mean, if you don't hurt your back, you wouldn't get to the mind. No, I'm asking legitimately.
It's a great question. No, it's a great question.
Because, I mean, couldn't you do it at the Raddus?

You could now.

Definitely, I do now.

I would say that there's a beauty in it because that helps you go beyond the body.

Because your body is such an uncomfortable place

to live at that point

that you have to go inward into the mind

and further deeper.

Whereas if you're in the full comforts,

you don't actually ever have to go that deep.

You don't have to, you're not forced to go and challenge to see what lies beyond the body. And so there was a beauty too.
And while I was there back in, when I was there in January this year, I go back to trying to live as close to that as I can. I'm waking up at 4am.
Yes, when I go there now, I'll have a bed because I'm staying in quarters that are a bit more for visitors as opposed to monks right but i'm waking up at 4 a.m i'm doing the practices and there's a beauty in it i'll tell you bill it's it's so powerful because it just takes you back to realizing how little you can live with how little you need for that period of time and it does give you special access to go deeper and go beyond the body there is is a power to it. Are there people who start the program like you did and flunk out? Just like in the Marines, you know? I mean, the people who think they can do the Marines and then it's like, you know.
I feel like that guy. Yeah, I feel like that guy.
That's why when you say I'm strong or whatever, I feel like it's the other way around. Were there people who did that?

There were more people who stayed than left.

But some did leave.

Of course, absolutely. Yeah, absolutely.
For different reasons. And it's not discouraged to leave.
Well, I think I know the reason.

And you're not discouraged to leave. It feels like a personal failure.
I think that's how I felt when I left.

There was definitely a depression hanging over me because it felt like I'd aspired to do something in my 20s. I'd built it up, and then I'd failed.
And that's how I felt, at least internally. I was this close some nights, freshman year at Cornell, like wanting to just pack it up and go home.
Because it was so hard? Because it was so shitty. What part of it? Not the academic part.
That was what saved me. I did have academic epiphanies at Harvard, Cornell, and that was worth, that's what you're going there for.
But I did not have the fun college experience. It just wasn't a fun place.
And, of course, I got myself sort of ostracized in the dorm first year because the kids were like really immature. And I was telling them, you know, enough with the shaving cream fights.
It's not amusing me anymore. And then of course, I just made myself a pariah.
So like there was lots of reasons. What made you stay? That's what made me think of this pride.
You know, just you don't want to be the guy who something in me was like, you know what? If you put your tail between your legs and you go home now and you can't even hack college, your life's not going to turn out well. This is something in me new that this was a trial by fire.

My version.

Look, people went to Vietnam not that long before this happened.

So there are way worse trials by fire.

And what you did, I mean, I just can't imagine the fact that it got to the point where you had to quit because physically, that's, I just don't, but again, connect me to why that makes your mind better. Which part? Oh, the physical challenge.
Because there's, well, first of all, the simplicity of it removes all feelings of I, me, and mine. So when you don't have your bed, you now are rolling out a mat anywhere in the room.
There's a detachment to that. You don't have- You get a mat.
Yeah, the little yoga mat, like a little thin yoga mat with a bed sheet. But you don't have a place that's yours.
It removes that feeling of ego, that idea of this is my space. This belongs to me.
It gives you a sense that, hey, this is ours. We belong to this space.
This is something we all have to maintain because you don't know where you're going to sleep. When you have two sets of clothes, you wear one, you wash one, it again creates that simplicity of independence, of taking care of yourself.
So all of those physical limitations or simplifications allow you to access these modalities that you wouldn't. You'd never think of detachment if you didn't have anything at all.
If you're constantly surrounded by things, it's harder to understand that principle. So I think the extremes help us learn the lesson so that when you're not in the extreme, you can actually find the balance.
And so to me, even the, for example, when I'm sitting on the floor and my leg's hurting, my back's hurting, I'm now having to go beyond the body to see if there's something inward to go toward to find peace within. I'm having to find peace in my breath.
And by the way, that's true for anyone who bodybuilds today. If someone's working out, it's not fun lifting that weight.
You've got to go to your breath to get through that last rep, to push through. That's how it works.
So that resistance is a healthy resistance. It's just that I pushed it way too far.
I was a bit too excited to see how far meditation could go and how much I could push my body. I was a young man.
I was 22 years old and not being as mindful as I probably should have. So it wasn't that it had to hurt as bad as it hurt me.
But see, this fascinates me now because you see,

now you have so many things in your life that beyond what the normal person has, which we would consider things that really feed an ego. I mean, you talk to some of the most important celebrated people in the world, right? Oprah and Obama and who else? You've had every, you know.
Okay. And you're very successful.
Money is coming in. I'm sure you're not burning it in a pile, are you? No.
No. All right.
So, like, it's just, you must have gotten the bends from coming up from the no chair to obama i you know so these things that are ego gratifiers shall we call them that most of the world is like with their phone please like me and see me and give me this shit. Yeah.
And you got it.

Yeah.

Does it not affect you?

What's going on in the two parts of your mind?

Some parties might be like, this is cool.

Yeah.

I'm very fortunate and grateful that I've got to live two very opposite lives.

And it's been extremely, extremely difficult for me to wrap my own head around it. And I mean that.
I'm saying it, I can't. Yeah, and it's a battle every day, is the real answer.
It's a battle every day. Ego is something that you are working with every day.
If you sleep on it. But why are we saying it's a bad thing? I'm not saying it's a bad thing.
Oh, you're not? No, no, no. I'm saying that there's.
Some ego is good, right? Don't you need some ego? I mean, that's what Freud says, you know. Yeah, there's, well, in the Vedic literatures, it's described as real ego and false ego.
So the difference is that false ego is when you identify your worth with the thing false ego is i am worthy because i have right whereas real ego is i'm worthy because i live and breathe and i'm here or maybe did something good as opposed to that that would be even the second the first would just be that i've been given an opportunity to do that there's worth even in that there's worth in just living and being and breathing you're helping a lot of people now i'm trying to i'm trying yeah i think people would say they you have helped them definitely um so doesn't that like make you feel good of course it makes me feel good and there's nothing wrong with that nothing wrong with no no nothing wrong with that i think i think what it is is it's almost like when you buy into your own hype. I think it's if you walk into a room.
I remember watching an interview with Robert Downey Jr. that I loved.
He was being interviewed at the Cambridge Union. And he said, when I walk into my house, it's not like my family goes, oh, my God, it's Iron Man.
It's like it's not like that. It's like my wife will be like, can you take the trash out? And I think if you're walking into every room and you're like oh yeah i interviewed this person look what i did and look at who i am i think that is an unhealthy sense of ego it's an unhealthy sense of self-worth it it actually will make you extremely lonely and it will actually depress you eventually so i think that's the kind i'm being cautious of but now youaded into my area, Jay.
Go ahead. Because now you're talking about celebrities.
They're all full of shit. Robert Downey Jr.
does not, his wife does not tell him to take the trash out. Somebody else takes the trash out in that house.
He's a fucking movie star. He's got a lot of money.
Is all his life rose petals? No, of course not. And he's

married. So he's going to have to, you know, you got to serve somebody as Bob Dylan said, you know, okay.
But his life is cushy and lots of people everywhere he goes, deserved. He's a brilliant actor.
Done some amazing work. We could go through his movies.
Yeah, I love his movies. You know, when he goes out to dinner, you know, he doesn't wait.

He gets the best table.

He, what love his movies. But, you know, when he goes out to dinner, you know, he doesn't wait.
He gets the best table. What I'm saying is his ego is fed constantly.
He's always at award shows. And that's where you've got to battle it.
That's the point. That's my point.
It's harder. If occasionally, you know, at home, he's got to eat some shit with the, you know, it's not as simple as my wife tells me to take the trash.
No, for sure. Celebrities really like to play that up.
That I'm just like you. But no, I don't disagree.
And I think that's why for me, that's why I'm saying it's a battle. Because if life has become easier and more comfortable, you have to be more cautious.
You have to be more aware. Because it's so easy to get lost in that journey.
And so I relish the battle. I enjoy it every day.
I prefer being in a place now where I'm challenged, where I'm questioned, where I have to think about these things. If anything, it forces me to take more shelter.
It forces me to surrender more. It forces me to take my practices more seriously because it's almost

like if you're training every day, if you're a warrior and you're training every day, but you

never go into battle, you don't know how strong you are. So when you're on the battlefield every

day and your ego is being pushed up and you're being given all this praise and you're given all

these accolades and then you have to stay grounded, then you're really figuring out how strong you are.

So I think I'm realized or reminded of how weak I am every day. And that's a beautiful reason

and we'll see you next time. accolades and then you have to stay grounded, then you're really figuring out how strong you are.
So I think I'm realized or reminded of how weak I am every day. And that's a beautiful reason why I focus on taking so much shelter in my practice.
What would you say is the most indulgent, materialistic thing you have in your life? Oh gosh. Right now.
So many now. Really? So many? Things? Well, anything.
I mean, it can be anything. It can be, you know, I don't know what, I don't know what your tastes are.
Maybe, you know, it's a vintage record player. I don't know what you...
Oh, that's... How did you know? That's a good idea.
I have a vintage record player. That's great.
That was amazing. Would it give you pleasure? That's impressive.
I do have a vintage record player. That's why I'm laughing.
That's why I'm laughing. Really? I have a love for design.
i have a love love love for design and uh i love i love uh how design can transform spaces if i find out you have a shark tank i'm gonna i do not have a shark tank i do not have a shark tank i have a vintage record player that i love it's um it's a 1960s brawn that a lot of apple's initials products were designed based on that. And I love it.
It's such a beautiful piece that inspires me daily. I was a huge fan of Steve Jobs.
Really? Yeah, big fan of Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs spent a lot of time in India and spent a lot of time, or at least what he did spend, time with monks.
And so he has quite a spiritual explorative side run this one through the spiritual grinder for me like he seemed like the last type of guy to die from what he died from like that's pancreatic usually somebody who strikes obese you know diabetes he was skinny yeah you know he's skinny doesn't mean healthy no no not necessarily absolutely not it's much more complicated than that i mean this just shows we don't know what the fuck well at that time too i think we had very little insight or conversation around gut health very little conversation about the microbiome very little conversation about the impacts of sugar very you know we weren't talking about all these things life. You were? Yeah.
Oh, that's amazing. I just didn't know a lot of people growing up.
I mean, I met a guy you probably would like a lot because he's a guru. I mean, a literal guru.
What's his name? Whatever. Dr.
Neil, I'm going to give you his shampoo here. He makes the only clean shampoo in the world.
Very cool.

Neal naturopathics.

I've been my holistic doctor for 20 years.

Before I went to him, I really wasn't that aware.

I was always kind of interested in health.

When I was in my 20s, I was too poor to do anything about it.

Really.

You got to eat fucking three cheese subs.

You only got $1.90 for lunch. Totally.
I used to eat a mars bar and drink a sprite every day you did yeah i grew up eating four chocolate products a day you're talking about in england as a kid i used to a chocolate bar a chocolate yogurt a chocolate ice cream and a chocolate biscuit every day my mom was like i got addicted to chocolate it took me years to curb my addiction years i was like that was that was something that was hard what what did you eat? What was the meal plan in the three-year? So you're eating cart-based, and it's all generally Indian dishes. So in the morning, you're eating sometimes a dosa, which is like a thin, savory crepe, is the closest I can compare it to.
If you've ever had a dosa, it's like South Indian food. It's very thin.
I love Indian food. Yeah, so it's like a thin seri crepe.
Is it good? It's great. No, even in the monastery? Yeah, it's not indulgent in the sense that you're not, you know, but it's healthy, it's great, it tastes wonderful.
Then there's upma, which is another Indian delicacy, which is simple. Kitchari, which is like mixed vegetables and rice.
So you're eating very simply, but you're eating healthy. And it's good.

But we'd be traveling, so you'd be eating things on the road sometimes,

and it wasn't so great.

Sometimes you didn't know when your next meal was going to come

if you were traveling for quite a while.

So you'd always try and eat what you had.

So you don't ascribe Steve Jobs' demise to something woo-woo.

I wish I knew.

I wish I knew.

I don't know enough about how he ended up with his health challenges.

No, but do you think there's some sort of plan,

or, you know, like, was it always destined that he was going to only live that long? Or, you know, is there a bigger picture to that? Or is it like atheists like me believe everything is fairly random, like club random? I mean, I would... I literally named the club after it.
Yeah. i've always found the middle to be where i find my home in that i think life is both free will and fate and what i mean by that is that free will creates you're right free will creates fate and so our actions do have an impact but then there are certain things where we have limited amount of actions to choose from and so you've got an interplay between fate and free will at any point.
I didn't get to choose where I was born. So there was a limited set of choices.
So when I grew up, you could either be

a doctor or a lawyer or a failure based on my parents. Those are my three options.
And I would

never have imagined having a career in media or entertainment or obviously podcasts didn't exist,

but I could never imagine being a host. That wasn't even in my vocabulary growing up.
And so you start seeing how these intersections of our life kind of limit us and then allow us to flow. So I've always seen this interplay between free will and faith.
So I live as if my actions matter. I think that's a good way to live.
But then I also accept that my actions matter, but I can't be deciding of the result. I can't choose where they go.
I think you should host Saturday Night Live. I do.
I think it'd be really funny. Wow.
You know? Because? Oh, you know, the Swami sketch. You know, just to have a whack at spirituality and stuff like that.
You know, if you encourage it, maybe, maybe from your, uh, when your lips do SNLs. Would you do it? I would do it.
Definitely. Yeah.
See? Definitely. I'd do it.
Exactly. You're out of the, yay.
The monastery's in the rear view, baby. I think it's great to laugh at ourselves.
We're going full throttle. I think if we can't laugh at all the idiosyncrasies of every establishment, it's a bad idea.
Go for it. I want to see you in a Cardi B video.
I want the whole thing for you. It's funny you say that.
I always said that Cardi B would be one of my ideal guests on the show because my joy is in not speaking to people that are like me or that look like me or act like me. My joy is in finding mindfulness within each person I meet.
Well, I'm so glad you mentioned mindfulness because she just had a stud put in her ass crack. Okay.
I didn't know this. No.
Where did you learn that? How do you come across that on your TikTok algorithm or your, I don't know, your newsfeed or the New York Times newsletter? I don't know. No, one of my writers tried to make a joke out of it.
Got it. And it didn't work? What's funny about Nicki Minaj? I mean, Cardi B.
Having her ass crack pierced. That sounds uncomfortable.
Bring me something that's naturally funny. No, I was like, it's almost too obvious.
And, you know, also it's a bad taste. And I'm just, well, wait a minute.
I am all about bad taste. Anyway, but, yeah, Cardi B, you, I could see it.
Yeah, I could see it. Maybe on my tour.
I'm about to go on tour with the podcast. I know.
Oh, I'm so good. So I'm excited for that.
You know, I blame the pot. I forget the plugs.
Oh, no. You don't need to.
I'm so glad. I plug it in.
It's fine. But really, that was so good, the way you did that.
I'm excited about it. I'm really looking forward to it.
I don't blame you, and you should be. And tell me all about it.
I hear you're going on tour with the podcast. Thank you for the plug.
I really appreciate it. That's so kind of you.
I never forget anything. No, I'm really excited.
We're taking the podcast on tour for the first time ever. So the podcast is over six years old now.
It's been an incredible journey. And this is the year I thought it would be nice to go.
An incredible success. Yeah, it would be nice to go and meet the community.
We've had millions of fans that have been so loyal over the 60s. So what will be different about it live or nothing? I think what will be different about it is I'm going to get to interact with the audience.
The audience is going to get to interact with the guest, ask questions. I want to open it up.
When you say interact with the audience, so they'll do the thing where they pass the mic around. I'm going to love to go out there and see people.
Go out there. Give people hugs, meet people, hold hands.
I'm excited to get out there and look people in the eyes and thank them for this. I don't think that's a good idea.
I love it. I enjoy it.
I like being with you. I mean, there's going to be a lot of people.
I know, but it'll be fun. It's going to take a long time to get through the whole crowd no no not through the whole crowd I'm not going to get through the whole crowd who gets selected for that I don't know we'll find out I know but then see now we're breaking down into you know the VIPs and the people who don't get the hug you see the problem well no but it's random choice it's club random there's rhyme or reason everybody everybody who buys a ticket to your show is going to want to give you a hug okay and either you're going to give 6 000 hugs i can't do that exactly and now we'd love to and now what we're down to is some people get it and some people don't and now you're in the worst kind of areas of ego and division and all the stuff that you- You think so? If you do something where there's a VIP experience- No, that's not what I'm saying.
I'm saying as in I would just go out into the audience. I'm not saying in a second.
But you just said you're not going to do all 6,000. No, of course not.
But here's the thing. Then who gets it? Here's the thing.
The community I have, and I know this because I went on a one-man tour on my own show two years ago when my book came out in 2023. I went on a tour, but it was just me.
It wasn't a podcast. I'm not kidding you, Bill, and I really hope that you'll get to come.
I really, I would love for you to be there. One thing that everyone said, so part of my event was me bringing people up on stage, asking people to do uncomfortable things that I believed were powerful for growth.
So we had everything from setting a couple up randomly on a date on stage, through to me putting a person inside a solitude cave to meditate for 15 minutes during the show with a question. And then sawing them in half? No, no, no.
I wanted to do that bit, but they said it was legally difficult. So we missed out.
Yeah, that would have been amazing. Yeah, that would have been amazing.
And then we, you know, to the point at the end of the show where I asked people to call someone in their life that they hadn't told they loved for a long time. And they did that live on stage.
That's a good one. It was really beautiful.
But the reason I'm telling you all that is my community rallied behind each of those people in a way you've never seen before. And I saw the audience, you saw 5,000, 6,000 people rally behind this one person who was having this experience, whether they were in that Solitude Cube, whether they made the call, whether they told the whole audience about a breakup that they just went through or a tough divorce, you saw the whole audience run and hug that person.
So I believe that even if I can't hug 6,000 people, 6,000 people will walk away with a hug from someone else in the audience. And it'll be that much more powerful because my audience and my community is all about building that rather than it being around me.
It's not about me making something incredible happen. It's about them feeling that from each other.
Are we sure we're not becoming a mega church? That's a great question. Are we sure? I think you're doing great.
I'm just trying to watch you the guardrails because I'm in this business and I know I've seen, you know, you don't want to end up like Britney Spears. You don't want to be shaving the head, hitting people with the umbrella.
I already shaved the head. That's fine.
Yeah, I got the hair back. No more shaving my head now.
I like my hair. Frank, you're not allowed to have hair there.
You're not allowed to have hair because... Just like the Marines.
The first thing they do. Yeah.
It's great detachment and you... And you have such a nice head of hair.
Thank you. I appreciate it.
Oh, you're going to love this shampoo. Really? I'm looking forward to using it.
Yes, it's the only really- Great plug. That was good.
No, but it's true. It's the only truly natural shampoo there is in the world.
I look forward to it. I love a new shampoo.
Yeah. I'll try it out tonight.
This guy's been in India a million times. Wow.
I love it. He fucking loves India.
I love it. George Harrison loved India.
Oh, really? George Harrison loved India. I know that.
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Oh, that's nice. Well, yeah.
I mean, he got the whole Beatles to go. I mean Ringo left after two weeks Ringo was like I'm not staying on the floor and he missed his English food and you know yeah of course it's a it's it's different it's hard but well I mean I don't know if you believe this certainly people from that shall we say realm of religious believe this, that we're all at different stages because we've been reincarnated different times.
And you can't hate people like me and Ringo. We just haven't been reincarnated that many times.
I mean, it's very doubtful that almost at the age of 70 that I'm going to suddenly have this. Who knows? Who knows? Who knows? Never say never.
But I don't think I'm going to go and do the three year on the floor. No, not three years.
Not three. Maybe three days.
Maybe three days. I mean, but, but maybe after I've been reincarnated, this is what they would say, maybe if after I've been reincarnated four or five more times, I will be at—is that the way you see it?

Like, you think you probably have just been reincarnated more times. So you're closer to where we're getting where we are a being beyond our burdensome physical body.
I don't claim to have any of that evolution. I think that there's a, we're living at a beautiful time where the greatest gift of spirituality is available to anyone and everyone because it's so talked about.
How do you define spirituality? The ability to learn about the self. That's as simply as that.
The self? The self, yeah. The ability to learn about the real true self.
I think that conversation is so widespread today. It's so accessible today.
There's podcasts, there's books, there's social media pages, it's everywhere. So the ability for anyone and anyone.
See, I think I know myself as most people my age do. If you haven't known, if you haven't gone on by now.
But I think you're talking about a different kind of knowledge. Maybe I don't know myself at all.
I am absolutely open to entertaining that possibility. I think it starts there, right? I think it starts there.
It starts with, I mean, the one thing you do know is which movies you love. And it's funny you said, and I'm being serious.
I think sometimes I ask people, I'm like, hey, what kind of movies do you like? And we don't know what we like to eat. We don't know what we like to watch.
We don't know what we, you know, we don't really know that much about ourselves even starting there. No, those are things we do know.
I would hope so, but I would tell you- We do know what we want to eat. Most couples argue every night about what they should eat.
No, they argue about what the other one wants to eat. They know what they want to eat.
What they argue about is they ask their wife, where do you want to go? And she says, I don't care. You pick.
And then the first six ones, she vetoes. But I think that self-awareness has many levels.
And I think what I'm saying is that I think mental is important. I think physical is important.
I think emotional is important. And then I'm saying spiritual on a soul consciousness level, it's important.
That's not easy. But it's available is what I'm saying.
So I don't believe that I'm more involved or I've lived more lives, therefore I know more. I believe that it's accessible today.
I got very lucky. I met some remarkably compassionate and kind people, and they opened up the doors for me, and I believe that that's all I'm trying to do for anyone else.
Swami, can I ask you this one all right um i'm with you on all this but psychiatry kind of bullshit right and this is why i say like on the level that i'm talking about knowing myself yeah not on your level have you been to a psychiatrist or therapist or Briefly, under duress. Talk to me about this situation.
I want to. You can help me.
Okay, so, but in general, my view was always like, because my, well, I shouldn't say that. They're too personal.
But somebody I know went, and I know fooled them, because I know myself.

And when somebody who just met me is telling me about my life,

it's all I can do to stifle a laugh.

You think you could possibly know me better than me?

I have all my memories.

Now, I may be wrong about some things, but basically,

I think I'm going to trust my judgment about me more than you. That may not be true for all people.
To me, that's my problem with psychiatry. Yeah, I don't think a guru, a therapist, a coach, a teacher should be telling you about it.
I think those are different things that you're lumping together. I'm lumping them together because I think they're all positions of authority in someone's life and can become.
That's why I'm lumping them together, that there isn't the ability. Like a guru, a teacher, a coach.
A guru doesn't do what a psychiatrist does. No, they don't.
But I don't think anyone should be telling you about you. I think everyone should be inquiring and asking you questions that help you learn about yourself.
Well, that's exactly what a shrink would say they do. Which is not a bad thing.
It's not a bad thing's also kind of a bullshit thing you really believe that i do well i did have an experience you've never been asked a great question by someone that you felt helped you learn more about yourself i'm telling you bro it was everything i could do to not laugh out loud maybe but it's like dating right that's like a bad day like that's good and bad in every profession. Yeah, exactly.
That's a bad date. And maybe this person is good, but for me, it was just a joke.
Yeah, it's like a bad date. And if you didn't pick the person to go on a date with and you were forced to go on a date with them, that's even worse.
But I mean, it just got to also just asking me. I felt like no matter what I said, no matter how arbitrary what I said to this psychiatrist...
They would find something profound in it. Correct.
Right, right, right. I mean, I literally, listen to this.
I don't remember the details, so forgive me, but we went into my family history, as they always do. My mother and father were both in World War II.
My mother, an army nurse, was in London during the Blitz. Wow.
Yeah. And some nervousness or anxiety that I'd carried from my mother being in that situation into me, even though it was 12 years later that I was born.
And again, just could almost not stop from laughing out loud. Like, it just made me think some of this is valuable.
There are people who really, you know, their minds are messed up, and they do need therapy, and it can help, and it does. But for all those people on the Upper West Side who are just having normal fucking Upper West Side problems, it's just an indulgence that you could never entertain if you were poor.
It's a rich man's indulgence. Talk about white people's privilege.
Hiring a friend to listen to you rattle on about your fake problems. But isn't that the challenge that we need friends? Isn't that the real call to action here? Yes, but the answer is not to hire one who calls themselves a shrink.
Sometimes that's where people start, right? As in that's sadly where they're at. I feel like any time you're hiring someone, whether it's a prostitute or in a personal position, you're going down the wrong road.
I look at it this way. I mean, it's simple.
It's a simple assessment, but I think it makes sense that

there are some parts that are really useful

and important and skills that will help people.

And like you have a holistic doctor, like you said.

Some people will be like,

oh, holistic doctors are BS.

Like that's what they would think.

But you've seen great value from it.

There are things he's talked about,

which I do think are BS and he knows that.

That's okay.

I also have Western doctors.

I think you need both. Yeah, you do.
do and and you know I mean we're very good friends so it's I'm not insulting him but yes parts of what he believes and and he has enveloped in his practice because he's very serious about that part of his life I think are too inflected with things that are based in religion, based in Buddhism. And, you know, I mean, some of it could have chakras and, you know, emotions in your organs.
I don't discount anything because I don't think people know shit. I mean, that's my main above the credits title for everything I think about medicine is we don't know that much.
We know so much more than we used to. And people conflate that with we know pretty much everything now.
And it's like, no, in not just 100 years, maybe with AI two years, we'll be going, whoa, that's what we thought in 2025? Yeah. Well, that's why I want to encourage a more nuanced conversation with what we're saying, because I think we're so good these days of labeling something as useless or relevant or useful or irrelevant.
And I think it's so much more nuanced than that. It's like therapy can be incredible and it can be challenging or it can be condescending.
It can be whatever it is, just like anything else. And so it's like

having a nuanced conversation and going, yeah, actually, well, you know, my whole, like, I agree

with you. I like having Western medicine and Eastern medicine in my life.
I value both.

And I think both have value. And I think the challenge becomes when we go, well, oh, that's

just, and you know, whatever. I think when you throw something to the side like that, it's kind

of the easy way out actually, because it is easier to just discount something without actually. I mean, to me, the main contribution, although there are many, I could break down specifics in the hundreds of Eastern medicine, is the idea that there is a mind-body connection.
Yeah, absolutely. And that when you just diagnose by the numbers on the on the blood work you just did you're getting a part of the picture totally but it's so not all of the picture and until western medicine recognizes that don't ask me for my blind obedience and the second brain the gut the gut is such a core part of eastern health my's practicing.
I mean, do we even know where the immune system is? I'm not sure. Yeah, but the gut and the brain.
But probably the gut. Yeah.
Because humans will fuck anything and put anything in their mouth. Mm-hmm.
So the place where you need like the most awesome kind of defense is the gut. Is the gut.
Because they will put anything down their gully. Yeah, absolutely.
I mean, humans, not good people. Am I wrong? We're doing all right.
We're doing all right. You think we're doing all right? No, we're not.
We're not doing all right. Gee, that didn't take long to break it down on it.
I was trying to be encouraging. No, I mean, the challenge is we keep repeating the same mistakes.
No, actually we are. Actually, it's amazing.
It's amazing we've survived. Considering how nuts people are.
Totally. That the lid stays on.
And it could fall off tomorrow. Absolutely.
But in America? I mean, don't get me started on the people who just don't understand because they have no perspective of what the rest of the world is like, what their life could be like, what their life would have been like 100 years ago.

They have this dumb idea, a lot of the kids, that we're living at the worst time in the worst country.

No, assholes.

You're living at actually the best time.

And even with our flaws, go ahead, try it.

Live in Mauritania, which I believe is a steamship.

But that's a psychological challenge, isn't it?

It's like we can only see as far back as we can see.

And that rear view mirror is just smaller and smaller as we.

So you grew up in what town?

North London.

Yeah, North London.

And your parents were together? Yes. And what do they do? My mother was a financial advisor and my dad was an accountant.
And did they bring you up with a religion? Yeah, I grew up in a Hindu household. Hindu? Yeah, in what I would call a ritualistic household.
And what I mean by that is you follow the rituals you don't know why, you do the practices you don't know why. There isn't a depth to that practice.
There's a ritual traditional aspect to it. Well, you must have seen Slumdog Millionaire.
I have seen Slumdog Millionaire. I was older.
I had to get in one. I have seen Slumdog Millionaire.
That's a great movie. Yeah, that's a great movie.
I'm sorry, I was being facetious. so okay so you were brought up and when you say, yeah, because it's a hard religion to define.

What's that?

Hindu.

Is it not?

Because it's like all gods and one god.

There's one?

As opposed to like the Christians and the Muslim, which are like, we have the god and if you disagree, we're going to fucking kill you.

Hindu is more like, we'll incorporate you. You'll become one of our gods.
Yeah, the philosophical understanding is that there is one God, but there are many gods that take care of different departments. So you could think of it like the president and the cabinet, or like the body.
Or like saints. Yeah.
People are predated with saints. Yeah, there are different gods for different parts of management of the universe is how it seems.
I mean, I was told as a little Catholic boy, there is one God, the nuns. We're very, very prideful about that.
I think they thought that made us superior in the West. We have one God as opposed to those heathens and pagans and people in the shithole countries who have many gods, uh-huh, primitives.
We have one God, and his name is God. Yeah.
And he has a son who's also God. Yeah.
And there's a ghost who's also God. I'm like, fuck, we're becoming Hindu.
But not really. I mean, three gods, you know, already were in a polytheistic religion.
And you can pray to the saints. Yeah.
I christopher yeah you know what that is it's a big thing like in in christian countries well you've got someone on your team who i met earlier his name's value yes just such a cool name and i asked him straight away where did you get that name it's a very rare name you wouldn't hear it right and values the god of air like you know god of air yeah yeah and so uh it's a it's a beautiful name but it's like there's there's a there's a god for every aspect everything has a personal aspect nothing's impersonal in the world what have you incorporated from that in your in your teachings today in my teachings or in my personal life your teachings yeah so i i don't my teachings are definitely the practices, the habits, the mindsets I learned, not the religious aspects. I feel that faith and belief in God is an individual journey.
Nothing philosophical from it made its way into it. Philosophical, for sure, not theological, I would say, because I believe that theological belief is a personal choice, is a personal exploration.
I think your relationship with God is individual, and I encourage it. It's beautiful.
But there is something called God. In the Vedic tradition, yes, for sure.
Yeah, for sure. So you kept that? No, no, no.
So in my teachings, I'm very focused on how people can build the qualities, the characteristics, the mindsets, the beliefs, the values of living a mindful life. I'm not trying to get people to follow a certain God or believe in God.
When you get feedback from people, what do you think, or I'm sure you know, what is the area that most of them say that you help them with? Purpose. Meaning meaning purpose that's so vague well like well i mean it could be anything it could be i was on the verge of committing suicide and now i believe my life is of worth and value and has meaning it could be i went through a divorce and i lost all sense of self-worth and now i know that i have value and purpose and meaning to my life it could be okay hey i, hey, I just came out of college and I've just been stuck and confused and

don't know what I'm meant to do.

And now I feel I've found my path.

So those are the different types of things people could say.

Yeah.

I mean, you do have to have a purpose in life.

Yeah.

And I think it's the hardest thing to find because we've made our value and purpose as

humans defined by what we do.

The question, what you do, is not only the number one question you are asked, it's become the primary way. If you think about it, even just a few years ago, all of our names started being defined by what we do.
Baker, blacksmith. When you look at the names and how they evolved, it became about occupation.
So our whole identity has revolved around occupation, not purpose. And then if you look at how society has changed, towns and cities in the past would be built around a church.
You could see the cross from anywhere or a temple. You could see the chakra from anywhere in India.
Then as time went on, you had the state building. You could see the flag from anywhere.
So we went from God to country. And then if you look at it today, you'll see the skyscraper from anywhere.
So we went from God to country to money. So you can see the change of purpose and value in the simple building of buildings, because humans are basic.
We define what's valuable by what's the tallest thing in the town. And so when you look at that, you look at how no wonder people have made their job feel like the entirety of their identity and purpose and so i think while some people like me and you it seems like you've loved what you've done your whole life you're still doing it it's purposeful to you and meaningful to you well maybe not no i've got you you maybe i can just you're such a smart person but maybe i and shed light on something that you would not know because of the age I'm at.
I'm almost 70. Every decade of your life, I feel like when I look back, you have a different, there's a theme to every decade.
Like in my 10 to 20, before 10, I don't know, get baseball cards or something. But ten to twenty, it was like survive.
High school, hazing, college more of the same, the breakup with the girl. It was just like survive.
I can relate to that, yeah. Like I might not make a – and by the way, throughout history, like children mostly didn't or at least half of them didn't.
It wasn't until, again, to the point about you're living in the best age, like we assume most kids are going to make it. Most kids didn't.
At least half didn't for most of history. Okay.
20s was like, be a success. Like, I know what I want to do.
I knew I wanted to be a comedian when I was eight or something. Like, now you're doing it.
Don't be a fucking failure. Because this is the kind of business, it's great if you succeed, and it's nothing if you don't.
So just don't fucking fail. 30s, when I was actually starting to succeed, then it was like, get girls.
This didn't happen enough in my teenage years and my 20s let's get girls 40s more girls 50s all right girls but there's a last time 50s, it starts to be you going back to survive, live. Stop doing the things that your body cannot take you doing anymore because they will kill you.
You can't drink like that. You just can't.
You can't have unprotected sex, whatever the fuck you were doing. Stop doing it.
And where I'm at now, it's funny because, you know, survive, don't retire because purpose. Mm-hmm.
You kind of know if you lose the purpose in life, you're going to die. Yeah.
People have done it. Yeah.
Like within weeks, Andy Rooney was on 60 Minutes he quit or we fired or whatever he was like dead in a week you know it's funny when you get fired from a show and then you're in a coffin I mean it was crazy yeah but that's what's because you know it's an ageist country. So, like, you never know when they're just going to.
And then what do you do all day? Yeah. And you have to have a reason to get up.
You have to want to live. But that's what I'm saying, that you were fortunate, and I've been fortunate to find it in our work.
But I think the challenge has become that if work is your only place of value, that's not a healthy way to live. And this is going to get only worse because AI is already and will in the future take ever more jobs.
There's ever more things that people used to at least feel valuable and useful. Maybe I'm just a cog in the big machine here at gigantic enterprises, and AI is going to take that job.
Zuckerberg was bragging about it the other day, and so was the guy from NVIDIA. Oh, I think in the future, AI is going to do a lot of these mid-level coding jobs.
Great. They can all work in a coal mine.
What's going to happen then? Yeah, and that's why we the works needed even more right now because people are going to have to use that these time space these tech fucks don't care i i yeah i mean i really don't they're there you know what it is i understand when you something you're good at we love to do things we're good at yeah i don't play tennis i tried it i wasn't good at it i'm good at basketball i play that You know, you're good at. We love to do things we're good at.
Yeah. I don't play tennis.
I tried it. I wasn't good at it.
I'm good at basketball. I play that.
You know, you're good at soccer. I'm okay.
I think you're probably pretty good. So, you know, they're good at creating new instruments of technology.
They don't really care what the repercussions are. The phone fucked up people's minds.
They don't really care. Well, I always say this.
AI is going to do it worse. They just don't care because it's fun.
It's fun to do your hobby. Yeah.
I think if an inventor creates something that they don't want their children to use, it tells you everything. I always think about it that way.
Great point. Yeah.
If you invent something and you keep it away from your children, that says a lot. It says a lot about your hypocrisy.
Yeah, but I think it all comes back to the root challenge that there is nowhere in our education system where someone learns that they should build things to help people. That just doesn't come up.
It doesn't exist. I studied at Cass Business School

and got a decent education and a first-class honors degree. And service or helping people or

being of service to others was something I would never even have come across if I didn't meet the

monks because that was their way of living. And I remember giving a talk about this a few years

back at a big corporation. It was one of their big annual events.
And I was on stage. I was

So, if I didn't meet the monks, because that was their way of living. And I remember giving a talk about this a few years back at a big corporation.
It was one of their big annual events. And I was on stage.
I was talking about the value of service. And this one man came up to me and he was in his 30s.
And he said to me, you know what? I never thought about anyone else apart from myself until I had a child. And that was the first time he said, and he was being really vulnerable.
And he said, I've never thought about anyone beyond my child right and so i'm thinking when anyone's creating anything in the world we're rarely thinking about how this affects someone's child someone's son someone's daughter someone's parents someone's whoever it is because that was never the goal of society the goal of you creating something was to win and success in your 20s to 30s and get girls. And so if the goal was to be successful and get girls, then where did helping people come into any part? And so I think that's where the challenge is that we've got to figure out that.
It's like, how do you... You're right.
I had to get past... Not that I was a bad person, but I had to get past...
I don't think anyone's a bad person. No, but I had to get past that phase in my life where I thought I had been gypped out of a fun adolescent, which I was, kind of.
Like I had one girlfriend and she broke my heart. And then, you know, for years it was just terrible.
And then I got nicer again because I could afford to. Because, you know, actually people, I'm sure young people think, oh, my God, 50s and 60s.

They're actually the best times as far as like you've established yourself, you're comfortable in your own skin, you're doing better. Yeah, there are issues with it that are not ideal, but on balance, yeah, I'm much happier.
Partly, mostly because you are just comfortable with who you are. You know who you are.
You know what works for you. You know what doesn't.
I mean, I'm not going to go to the madrasa. Not that it's a madrasa.
By the way, did they ever have, so that three years, there was no like break where like you get a week off. I would travel to different monasteries.
So I wasn't just there. We would go to Europe.
And for example, we were teaching meditation on the streets of Europe. Like Hong Kong, like Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now, where you're in a hotel room and you're like, I got to get back in the month.
You're in monasteries across Europe. So I was going to London.
I was living in monasteries there. I was going off to give classes at colleges.
I was living in monasteries in Europe. I would then go back to India.
So you're moving around. You're not in one place because it's encouraged for you to be with different communities.
I remember being in Scandinavia teaching meditation on the streets. It was the most unique experience I've ever had.
People were so open and excited to learn. It was pretty remarkable.
So your decades, you've only had basically— mean i'm 37 right so you've had through basically three decades to assess and they they are like i said even though they're very different yeah very different for you yes very different like right okay so what do you think the 40s decade is going to be what's going to be your assessment of that when you come to the end of that one i would so i know from a health point of view, when you were saying in the 50s, you learned what you could and couldn't do. At least now I know that the magical decade to solve it is 35 to 45.
That's like the time when you can really reverse aging and start that process. So I'm definitely focused on that from a health point of view.
I hope that I can do that.

That's a big priority. Gulp.

I miss that one. Yeah, that's a big priority for me, for sure.
I miss that completely. Yeah, no, I'm grateful.
That's what I'm saying. I think these conversations are being talked about more.
I'm getting the fortune on my podcast to sit down with the greatest minds in health and wellness every single week. I know what you're referring to there.
They recently discovered, or at least it was in the news recently, that aging doesn't happen completely incrementally year by year. It happens sort of in jumps.
And there are times, maybe this is the time you're talking about, where it really jumps a lot. Correct, yeah, 35 to 45.
Right, so you want to kind of like arrest that one yeah yeah at that point you can still make changes after 45 50 becomes harder well hopefully ai will help me with this hopefully i mean i don't think it's impossible i'm not saying it's not possible i know plenty of people who've fixed their health there's so many variables there's amazing there many variables that go into it. Again, like I know people who live terribly unhealthy lives, but they're just so happy.
Yeah, and are just fine. You know.
I know people who've lived their lives perfectly, healthily, and died early, and people who've abused their bodies. You know, I'm so glad I did remember this.
Please. Because I, you know, memory, I'm not even sure it's a good thing.
But our connection is Arianna Huffington, really. Oh, okay.
You know, one of my oldest, dearest friends. I didn't realize that.
I didn't know that. Oh, I'm so glad I remembered this.
Yeah, I didn't know that. Well, I mean, and she would be the first to agree.
I was the first person to, like, put her on TV. Wow.
I'm not saying I'm responsible for her success. I'm not.
She was always going to be on Whirlwind. But we became very good friends in 1994 when I had my first show, Politically Incorrect, and she was married to Michael Huffington, and he was running for the Senate out here, and she was a conservative.
She was a conservative helping a Republican candidate win an election and did not. But her first issue that she came on our show with was about Prozac, giving Prozac to children.
Still an issue, I think. And it was very natural that after she went through Huffington Post, which was a great success, that she would then get into the wellness because she was always this earthy Greek European woman who treated me like somebody, family, and guarded over me like that and cared for me like that.
Absolutely. So when I knew, when I first heard about you, I was like, oh, OK.
She gave me my first shot. Exactly.
I mean, it's very full circle-y. That's really beautiful.
I had no idea. That makes me so happy knowing that.
Oh, yeah. We should all have dinner with you.
Yeah, I would love that. I would love that.
Yeah, no, I wouldn't be where I am without Ariana Huffington. So I feel extremely grateful.
Yeah, in some ways, I wouldn't either. I mean, you know, I mean, we go back a long way.
And I mean, there's nobody who I trust and their counsel more. You know, she lives in New York now.
So we don't see each other as much as we used to but

we always a few times a year yeah you know and you know i can always tell her anything and you know again there's nobody like her yeah she's been an incredible support since day one and just you know allowed me to have wings it's been really beautiful and god bless her also loves money and is great at making it.

Yeah, absolutely.

I mean,

she uses it right.

Hey, everybody.

Get good sleep. That'll be $750 million.
I mean, you got to give it to her. I mean, everyone's got to sleep.
But I appreciate you coming here. I know you don't need to.
No. It was just a mitzvah, as the Jews say.
And I appreciate it. I appreciate it, too.
The joy and pleasure is all mine. I think getting to meet someone as iconic as yourself is a true honor.
So I'm grateful for that. And I feel smart just sitting next to you.
And I feel like I'm going to have my next seven movie nights all sorts.

I never really remember a lot from these episodes.

But what I always remember is the picture of the person laughing. I will see your head going back because you're a good laugher.
Thank you. And you have a...
It's why I do this. Love you.
I'm a saint.

OK, well, if you ever need a uncomfortable floor there we go

i can just see this is what it looks like this is what it looks like this is really

uncomfortable i've passed out on a couple of times myself

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