Conscious Evolution, Awakening & The Nature of Reality with Tim Freke

Gary Lee Haskins: It's Tim Freak, right? It really is pronounced Freak, yes. Freak. Okay. I know if it like Freck. Yeah, no. I've I've always done Freak A. It's an old West Country English name. It's pronounced Freak. All right. Well, Tim Freak, thank you for joining me today. It's a delight. So yeah, getting this thing started, would you be able to give us a little bit about who you are and what you do exactly? ⁓ I am an English philosopher. I'm essentially a very curious human being. I've been exploring spiritual experience since I was very young. and when you have spiritual experience it makes a big impact on you. So I've been trying to work out what it is and what it means. ⁓ and that led me to do study an awful lot of different spiritual traditions and write a lot of books. And so I've been writing books for a long time now. ⁓ and my l my latest ⁓ Work has been to focus on what's the future of spirituality and how can we conceive of it in a brand new way? Awesome. So what was this original spiritual experience all about? Would you be able to get into that? Yeah, sure. I mean it it the it the the the the first one that made the big impression on me was I was about twelve, almost thirteen. And I grew up in the countryside in a fairly nondescript town, I think you'd say. ⁓ and I used to sit in this in this hill overlooking the town with my dog. And I've always been very curious. I've always felt like this is a profound mystery that we're in. I can't remember a time when I didn't think that. And one day dwelling on that, something happened and I felt catapulted into a new way of being which I hadn't experienced before. And the most the thing which I ⁓ well, I I wrote about it afterwards, so I've got some record of it as well. But my recall also is is ⁓ th like being s immensely ⁓ held in love. And because the only context I had for it was I used to go to church when I was much younger. you know, I'd heard that God is love, so I felt like, ⁓ this is God and that made a big impression on me. So I went then looking, I mean I went down the hill, it passed, and I carried on being a teenager, you know. But something had been started which would then play itself out through the rest of my life, which was, What was that? How can I go there again? How can I go deeper? How can I share it with others? Like I said, I wrote about it straight away. It's just my nature. So that catapulted me into the journey, and here I am now, 66, and I think beginning to understand what happened to me when I was twelve. Wow. That's powerful. So you were contemplating the mystery of it all. And then somehow, some way it just hits you that God is love. Well, the the experience is just like, whoa, everything. There's this the the the the characteristics which I would say. come along with what I think of now as a deep awake state where you you shift is that ⁓ the senses come alive so the the sky was very blue, the grass was very green, a sense of connection ⁓ and this love. Now honestly, Gary, and I try and be as radically honest as I possibly can. It's hard for me, it's a long time ago. I'm now you know much older. So how much of that I filled in later, I can't be sure. But what I'm absolutely sure of was the f the experience of overwhelming love. And 'cause that I wrote about and that has ⁓ stayed with me. so that's been the guiding principle? It has up until recently, and I think it's shifted recently, where it now feels like, ⁓ actually it's about wisdom. And that that the wisdom is what allows me to find the state of coming into the love and The wisdom is what allows me to to work out how the hell to live with it in this bittersweet world. So I I in la in retrospect now I think I was no it's no surprise of I became a philosopher. Philosophia is the Greek. It means a lover of wisdom. And I think that's probably a good description. That's cool. I didn't know that. Yeah. Yeah, it is cool, isn't it? That's Pythagoras. I well, it's allegedly Pythagoras, who first coined the phrase that he was a philosopher, a philosophia. Hmm. So I mean, this was going to be my question, but you already kind of described it how that has changed for you over the last fifty or sixty years, you know, this guiding principle of love. But you said it's more so now evolved into wisdom. Nothing. Sorry, sorry, Gary, I don't want to mislead you. Not that the love it you know, if you said to me what really matters, I'd probably say love. But the the the what I've realized is that I've realized especially working with people experientially. So a lot of my work, as well as writing books, has been travelling the world, taking people through experiences. People still come to Glastonbury, we go through experiences, so that other people can exper can experience this ⁓ for themselves. So that's really important to me. And what I've learned from that is it's not as hard it's that it's it's it's surprisingly easy actually, yeah, in the right conditions to come into that state. The hard thing is how you live with it. That's the wisdom. So the love is is absolutely central. But the it's it knowing knowing how to love and how to return to that state, th that that takes a lot of time to learn. Hmm. Lifetime, some may say. Well, yeah, I'm I I d I've never seen any end to it. And you know, and I feel like a constant beginner. I mean I that that that hasn't changed. I felt like a beginner then, I feel like a beginner now. I feel you on that. Mm. That's the good news. This is it's an ever renewed sense of love that we learn to live with. Ever novel, you know? Ever novel, yeah. That's the f ⁓ and that's an interesting thing about the state, which really intrigues me, actually, Gary, is that whenever I come into it intensely. And I couldn't live in it like that. You know, being p for me, I just like you know, I I'm not c overwhelming. You can't you know, I can't do practical things very well and it's overwhelming. But it's good to touch it regularly. And it always feels new. It always feels like the first time. It's always a shock of, ⁓ yeah, it's like this, I remember now. It's it's this this real. Which is a funny thing to say, but I think I understand what it means now. But that that I don't know what it if it's like this for you and your experience, but there's a sense of, ⁓ this is more real. And I've never r ⁓ when I was younger, I thought, what does that mean? How can it feel more real? But I think it's because it's the leading edge of the whole evolutionary process now. So this is process which we're in, as which in our universe seems to have been going on for about fourteen billion years. And it's leading, I think, to this edge, which is when we touch this very expanded state. So when we do, we can It feels like, ⁓ yeah, this is it's a more emergent reality, level of reality we're experiencing. And then you can lose it and life becomes a little bit more black and white or a little bit more mundane or you or or even dark, you know, you can move between these states. And then you touch that again, then it's ⁓ how did I forget this? This is this is this level of beauty. So would you say we're evolving to that point of never losing it? ⁓ who knows? I hope so. That'd be nice. ⁓ but we're certainly evolving and it's certainly increasing. And I think we can see I can you know, as an old man now, I can see that in my own life without any shadow of a doubt. You know, although I feel like a beginner, I can't believe how far I've come. I mean, I just when I look back now, which I do regularly on my life, it's like, Wow, that's incredible. You know, the what I see of myself in the past is ⁓ my foolishness, really. It's like, ⁓ right, okay, okay, you know. I I I you know, y the perspective of age, we know ⁓ but make no mistake about it, if I live another ten or twenty years, maybe I'll look back on this and and be the same. So it's it's a constant evolution. And then it's like it's happening collectively. I love history, spend a lot of time studying and writing about history. And W there's there's you know, there's a lot of good things in history, but also it's a brutal place. You know, it's not somewhere you'd want to live, I don't think. Because things things are pretty tough in history and and you get a sense of how far human beings have evolved generally for all the faults that you could lay on humanity today, we've come the most amazing distance. ⁓ yeah. It is truly a mystery where we're all going, but it seems like we're working towards something, right? It's like There's something going on here, internally and collectively, like we're building towards something, like some as Terrence McKenna says, it's the transcendental object at the end of time or novelty theory. Like there's just something that's being built up. And who knows? And who knows if it really has like an endpoint, like a destination per se. Maybe it's just like destination upon destination upon destination. But point of my story is there's something going on. And as you described, It's evolution. We're evolving towards some kind of ⁓ we're building upon our mistakes of the past, it seems, you know? ⁓ Yeah. I don't know. Do you have any ⁓ destination that you could describe other than love? Like where is this going? I think I don't I don't think the the universe has a preset destination. My sense very much for my s for my own being with it, contemplating it study is it's genuinely creative. It's going somewhere. The whole evolutionary process is. Having said that, I think now there's somewhere I want it to go. And I think where it is we are being pulled. And the reason I say that is that when I said earlier, I think I've understood what happened to me when I was twelve now, finally, ⁓ in w just to a greater degree, is because the understanding I had then was the best I had was what I'd grown up with in in the church. And that's the idea that there's some sort of benign creator and you experience it and you found God. And then my whole mission w I I got very involved in the Hindu version as well, which was, you know, you find God, you devote yourself to God. ⁓ but now, for reasons we can go into if you want to, I don't think that's right. My sense now is that God is not My first thing I want to say is look, I think I'm I'm convinced personally there is what you could call a superintelligence, a totally benign, loving superintelligence. I think that's a reality and I think we can experience it. And when we do, it feels like that enormous love. But I don't think it's the source of all of this. I think it's the leading edge of the evolutionary process. ⁓ huh. That and and that's what we touch when we come into these states. We're not touching where it's come from. We're touching where it's going to. We're touching the actually most emergent level of reality. And that's a huge shift. It's a kind it's kind of like a as a gentleman in Japan described it well, I thought, as a Copacurnian shift, like when we went, ⁓ hang on. The earth isn't the the s you know, the sun doesn't go round the earth, the earth goes around the sun. Now it all makes sense. I think the same thing with the vision of God is we've is that people throughout history, like I did when I was twelve, have had that experience. And gone, ⁓ this must be the source of everything. But I think we've been mistaken there. I think actually now we understand we're in an evolutionary universe, we can see that everything is evolving. And I I my philosophical hypothesis now is that includes everything. That that what reality is is a process of evolutionary emergence. That's what it is. And it goes from the simplest thing you can imagine, which is really. The most basic piece of information. This is very Taoist, the bit, yin and yang. That's where it starts. The one is two. Nothing. Just simplest information you can imagine. Not God, not a superintelligence, not love, not wisdom, nothing. Just one is two. And from that is going to come everything. And then right at that leading edge, there's the arising of this superintelligence, which we get to move towards. It's three. Three what? There's one and two and then we're building toward three. Well yeah, I mean what well the the Dao De Ching. Do you know the Dao De Ching? Light Su's book. ⁓ yeah. It's ⁓ yeah, it's so you get there the idea that the Tao is begets the the one as two and that begets the ten th three, which is the ten thousand things. And so that's I mean th what I'm saying is is a bit different to that 'cause it's influenced by modern physics, but it's it's the same essential idea. It's like There's something at the beginning that the big the the nature of reality is the realisation of possibilities. That's what it is. And it realizes the very simplest possibilities first, not a big mind that just exists somehow. And and not there's so many problems with God at the beginning that that the that disappear. So one of the problems we've had is, I think, since the Enlightenment, is that there's people going, Well, there's There's there is a superintelligence, there is a God. ⁓ and so it must be at the beginning. And people are going, There's too many problems with that. We don't need it anymore. We can understand the universe without it. It doesn't answer anything. It explains the universe with an even bigger mystery. If this god's at the beginning, it's hard to see it as wise and loving, given the shit show that the universe is, given this being five complete extinctions, given the ugliness that that can be in the the most basic fabric of it. It makes much more sense to see it as a naturalistic process of evolution, which really works. So get rid of God. What I want to come in and go is actually that's right, but don't get rid of God. That that experience of a superintelligence is real, it is significant, and to answer the prop the question you asked that started this whole conversation, it's where it's going now. It wasn't where it was going. He was just trying to get to basic matter for a long time. But s for some time now. This has started to arrive and we are integral to its evolution. Yeah. That's very powerful. Yeah. It's like we're moving into something that has never ever happened before. Yes. Yes. And the and the model I have of it, which really works for me, Gary, is when I think about my my biological body. So In this incredible process of evolution, we've gone from single cells, still most of life is single cells, but single cells have come into communion, let's call it, with each other to create whatever it is, seventeen trillion of them, which is a human body. That's incredible. The hypothesis I'm playing with when I'm trying to understand what this superintelligence is, is the same thing as happening on the level of soul or psyche. That psyche, soul, same means the same thing, is coming into communion and forming a super psyche or a super soul. So what's the make what's the great you know, the the the since very early times, well not that early, but certainly since you know the Hermeticas got it, and some you could say some Hindu philosophy's got it, is the idea that there's a a big mind, as the Zen masters call it. Z a big mind. What if the big mind is a big mind because it's made of little minds? Or the big soul is a big soul 'cause it's made of little souls, like your body is a big organic system because it's made of tiny organic systems. And that therefore what we're doing when we come into communion in that deep awake magical experience is we are coming into and at the same time creating God. We get to contribute to that amo that movement by being part of it. Yeah, it's like a new version of God. Yeah. It really is. And what it's done for me is it's allowed me to reclaim that experience I had when I was twelve. Because once you've once you well, for me, once I'd matured enough to really think it through, it was like, yeah, but the the the very idea of the creator is seems gone. It feels like it's redundant, it's part of our mythic past. And it has all those problems, the problem of evil, the problem of absurdity, all of that. And it doesn't answer anything and so it feels like it belongs to the past. And yet, and yet there's this experience. So what is that experience? Do I have to give that up? I can't give that up. That's too central. And then by flipping it around, suddenly it's like, ⁓ no, that's what this is. And that's why it's so important. Because it's the place we're coming into. Much more like Terence's idea or ⁓ Piertire de Chardin, the the had that as the you know, we're heading towards what he saw as the Christ, this ⁓ this greater. Union. And I think they're I think you know, that I'm not the first to have been onto it. You know, the people have been like trying to find it and see this other way of understanding the divine. Mm. Yeah, that's the thing is we all feel it in one way or the other. Whether you're aware of it or not, whether you're conscious of it or not, I think we all have that pull into this evolution. I I hope so. You know, it's like it amazes me how people can get by without it. ⁓ But the gr the great thing about what this does, this this Copaconigan shift, what it does is it goes it it it it it gives you a a spirituality which is intensely positive and optimistic. And I think a lot of people miss how negative traditional spirituality can be. Because the fundamental narrative, if you go into the mystical traditions, which I've all books I've written have been about, is that there's already God or there's already something. There's a big mind, it's consciousness, different things in different traditions. And you have fallen away from it. So this is not an evolution, it's a devolution. You have fallen into matter and you're trapped in a body and you've you've you've got you've got confused. You think you're something you're not and you need to stop believing you're something you're not. You're not Gary. Stop believing that and set yourself free. And and Gary's thinking is a problem. Gary's Attachments are a problem. Basically, Gary's the problem. And you set yourself free from Gary, you can be God again. Now I'm I'm play I'm playing and I'm pushing it, but that's not far off what you'll hear. Yeah. Whereas this says the opposite. It goes, no, Gary's not the problem. Gary's it. The whole universe has arisen as this unique psychobiological thing, a Gary. And Gary can realize. these higher states and Gary can contribute Gary to God. And Gary's not in the way. He's the foundation from w for which this next level of evolution happens. So it's a very humanistic and positive twist from the we've fallen and need to re remember. You know, we already know but we've forgotten or we're already perfect. He goes, no, you're not well the bad news is you're not perfect. It's not there's a real you that's perfect. No, there's no real Tim that's just already No. Tim is an evolving soul, he's evolving, and he's not perfect. But he is evolving. And he's evolving into something that can come into communion and be part of God. And that feels really ⁓ it's beautiful, I think. ⁓ it's beauty beyond words. Yeah. Yeah. Now do you think the integration of that insight ⁓ how do I put this? Let me think about this for a second. Because Gary can be bad. Right? Yari can sin. ⁓ but it's like honoring, so it's I f I feel as though it's like a simultaneousness to it. It's like honoring the uniqueness that your incarnation holds, that Gary holds, that Tim holds, whoever the listener is, to this ⁓ tapestry of God, you could say, through your individuality, but also honoring the whole at the same time, honoring The collective, you know what I mean? Like if get too locked into your uniqueness, you can become selfish. Yes. So it's kind of like a dance, right? That one has to play in the integration of their spiritual insight. Absolutely. Could very well put, I think. So I've got this I've coined this phrase, I make up words when I can't find words that do the job. So I coined this phrase of the universal, ⁓ to mean an individual conscious of unity, just what you've described. And my My hypothesis, my guess, I don't know. My hope is that what's happening is that we're evolving into individuals. Because it's if you don't know history, it's easy to think we've always been like we are now, and we're we haven't. We have not been individuals like we are now. We we have been collective, much more tribal, much more collective. You've been with people who all basically think like you as being the norm. And then with the arising of the ability to reflect more deeply, you've had ⁓ people questioning and cr and come from that's come creativity. So what science, the arts, ⁓ the economy, everything's taken off because of individual creativity and we've individualized. And we are so so individual now compared to what we we were. We still need to go further, I think. We need to reflect more, become more individual. But what you said is also true. We can easily become isolated, narcissistic, ego e in that negative sense of egotistical. And then I think what's ⁓ what's emerging is also this level of awakening to the oneness, of going, ⁓ but I'm pa I'm I'm absolutely embedded in the universe. And when that happens is when I think we can come into communion with God or that super soul. I think that's what a pragmatic approach to union with God looks like is hey, we're all in it together. It's like honor yourself but also honor the tribe. Yeah, absolutely absolutely kind. Absolutely. ⁓ yeah, we're you know, there's been a huge jump quite recently into a sense of oneness. I mean, a lot of people have a sense of that we're part of one human family. You know, it's like that we're we're human we're all human beings. That's new. You know, most of history you've hated your neighbors, absolut and done terrible things to them. Everyone has been like that. Everyone. Yeah. No goodies, no baddies, everyone has been like that. And that's changed. And then from we even more, there's a profound sense, I think with a lot of people, of ⁓ we're we're embedded in nature. Yeah. That we're part of a a bioecology. We're not we c we don't exist separately from it. And then i in the last well, since I've been exploring this experientially, so maybe twenty five years people? A bit more, more and more people are having this experience of awakening. There's no doubt in my mind, it's still not big, but it's it's bigger. And you know, when I would talk about oneness twenty five years ago, people would go, I don't know what that is a bit abstract, isn't it? You it's like oneness, how's that gonna help me? Yeah. Whereas now people go, ⁓ yeah, yeah. I either have experienced it, I want to experience it, I know what you're getting at. So that mystical oneness is opening up. ⁓ so yeah, I think it's there's reasons to be optimistic that we're moving that human being it's not just tech that's evolving. We are evolving. Mm-hmm. And well all the all the all the tech and everything that's evolving has come from us. You know, it's our it's our psyche, our soul, our imagination that's evolving. Yeah. That's how I see tech too. It's it's like a crude ⁓ reflection of really what's going on in the internet of our mind, of the technology of our mind, right? So at the same time that we're realizing it's all one, we're building this outward reflection of the one mind through the internet and through AI. That I couldn't agree with you more, my friend. I think it's exactly what we're doing. I think we're doing it. And I think what we're seeing is that in w especially with AI actually, what we're doing is we're seeing into the nature of the universe. Not because the universe is a big computer, because I don't think it is, but Computers work because they're a bit like the universe. And AI in particular works because it's a bit like the universe. And so I think what we've got now is the perfect model for understanding that you don't need a creator because this is the evolution of creativity, and you don't need a intelligence to design it because this is the evolution of intelligence. And now we've got models where you can see a intelligence evolving. It works it out. So you've got a model of the universe that's working out how to be the elements, working out how to be life, working out then how to be conscious, working out how to all the things that that the universe has worked out how to be. And that's still happening. Now it's working out how to be God. It's like it's like th there's more and more possibilities that it can that it can realize. Because this is the realization of ever more possibilities. You know, it's like that novelty thing which which ⁓ Terence took from ⁓ Whitehead. I didn't know that. Yeah, from from ⁓ the philosopher Whitehead who was a big influence on Terence. I don't even know who he is. ⁓ yeah, he's ⁓ he's dead now. He's he's but he was he was influential in terms of putting out a a evolutionary vision of spirituality much, much earlier on. ⁓ yeah. Yeah. So I think moral of the story is we're evolving toward a more beautiful experience overall. I think so. It's like right, it's just like beauty for beauty's sake too. That's the thing. It's like we're seeing that it's really just for the actual experience. It's for the almost like ⁓ you're building a better video game. Like you're building a it's a next generation video game. It's ⁓ it's a better movie that was played before. I think that's really all it's for is where ⁓ We're seeing it in a way that we never saw it and we're seeing it in a way that is just simply miraculous. I love that phrase you just used, Gary. We're seeing it in a way that you've never seen it before. And I think it's exactly what's happening. And so every time everything you're we're experiencing, we're discerning in some way. Otherwise we wouldn't know what it was. And we discern it with categories. And that's what ideas are. So we're doing it on a neurological basis, how we we're Discerning the colors and the shapes, and then we're discerning it on an ideational basis. And the more our I the more sophisticated our ideas become, the more we can discern. And then we can put it into narratives, which is how we understand. And that governs what we experience. And that's wisdom. That's the evolution of wisdom. That's why I say w wisdom is everything. Everything everything we're experiencing is the relationship between, well, in my case, myself and the world. And myself is happening on a biological level, but it's also happening hugely on the level of the psyche or soul. Where I'm I'm understanding, categorizing, looking at and everything every new piece of and every new insight which is true. And true essentially means trustworthy. That's the etymology of it. Which I think is really good. So you get that. When you say something's true, it means it's trustworthy. You can it's like, yeah, that works. Like you said, pragmatic. And the And so you get an insight which is true, and suddenly you see something which has never been seen before. Yeah. And and everything, every single thing that's been seen has been seen for the first time by somebody. I I find it fascinating to think that there was a time when there was one person in the world who understood Einstein's theory of relativity, and that was Albert. And he was the only person. And he'd seen this, and it turned out to be. Trustworthy. Change the world. Yeah. And on and on and on that goes. So for me, and that this obviously just for me, the moment where God flipped was one of those moments. And then from then on I saw something I'd never seen before. And my experience was transformed by it, was better. To me, there's also something about Relating with others that see it. Right. If Einstein was the only one that saw it, he'd think he was crazy. If everyone was like, dude, this E equals ⁓ C squared, come on, Albert. But when you come on here and you relate to others, there's something about building that trust with somebody else. It's like, ⁓ you see it too. Absolutely. Like that adds to the beauty. Absolutely right. Yeah. And and we need that anyway. I mean, I think it's very good to be questioning. You've probably picked that up already. And that is you know, so there's a everything, you know, I've I've had to I've had to come out and go look, there's ideas in my in huge number of my books that I think are wrong now, because I had a traditional I d a traditional I v view which I've flipped on its head. So it's everything's changed. And one of the ways that we do that is we test it out with each other. Now, as it turned out, you know, our book held it held the line when a lot of people did say he was mad and he did get rejected and more and more people went, No, actually you're taking you're making sense. So it can start small, but nevertheless we share it and that's really important because if if I say, Look, I think there's a loving intelligence and you go, Yeah, I do too, then we can go, All right, what do you think it is? And then we can try and work it out. But if everyone else goes, I don't think there is, Tim, then maybe there isn't. Maybe I'm just delusional, which I have to I have to consider. Yeah, maybe I was a kid or I had a delusional experience and I've been set off on this path of delusion ever since. It's possible. I I I don't think so because I know so many other people who go, No, I know exactly what you mean. Yeah. That's the thing, is we have this inner conviction of trust within ourselves first that leads the way. Yes. And then the other is they just add to that conviction. So there is something about being a pathfinder in the way of Albert Einstein, of your own insight. that you also have to weigh as well, where people are probably gonna think you're crazy. I know that. I know people think I'm crazy for talking the way that I talk and you probably feel the same way too. So it's like honor other people in relating, but also there is that inner conviction that you have to honor as well. That ⁓ I don't know, it kind of goes beyond words. It's intuitive. There's this like inner knowing that just no matter what anyone can say to think I'm crazy, ⁓ it's still It's like this fortitude. It leads the way throughout the all of the endeavors, you know? Fortitude. Very nice. Yeah. You're absolutely right. And ultimately, you know, I think, you know, I'm a I'm I'm what I call a paralogical thinker, and I think you might be too, which is you can see both and that you need to bring things together. You did it, for instance, with the oneness and the individual. It's like it's not one or the other, it's both and. And with this as well, it feels like, yeah, really important to share with others, really important to listen. But ultimately You have to decide what you're gonna do today. You have to decide what you're gonna trust. No one else can do it. It has to be you. And you come back to that sense of what you could call intuition or you that fortitude, that sense of, yeah, despite everything, this. And and then you find out whether it worked or not. And whether you go, ⁓ no, I was completely wrong. And and that's important because I've had profound intuitions. Which have turned out to be right and I've had profound intuitions which have turned out to be wrong. So I know that I'm fallible. But that's what I've got. What else have I got? I've got I've got the bet the best I've got right now is my current understanding. So I can just stay open, try and evolve, try and learn, and learn from my mistakes. Hmm. Yeah, that's powerful. Fortitude, integrity. Yeah. Integrity even if you're wrong. Yeah. It's like there's even purpose in your mistakes too, right? You can probably see like, ⁓ I thought that way, but I thought that way at that point in time and now I'm here. Like you had to make the mistake to end up here at sixty six years old. Exactly. See through your mistakes. That's right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. There's a line from ⁓ Mahandas Gandhi, which I read when I was a teenager, which has stayed with me, which is where he went, ⁓ my commitment is to truth, not to consistency. I like that. And and yeah, it's good, isn't it? Because he's not talking about logical consistency there. He's not going, I just believe anything. He's saying when the situation when when I understand I was wrong and I need to see it in a different way, I change. I don't you know, the fact that I said it this yesterday, that's gone now. Now I think this. That's to evolve one has to be able to do that. Hmm. I mean, I think that's wisdom. Yeah, yeah. There you go. I think that's right. It it w be that ⁓ what you just said then, really deep, because is to get that wisdom isn't a thing that exists that you need to find. It's actually an evolutionary process. Because because the greatest wisdom is right at the leading edge. The the greatest wisdom is the is the new insight that no one's had yet, that you're just on the edge of. So you you it's creative. Wisdom is creative because the whole process is creative. Mm. Ugh, yeah, I gotta take a deep breath on that one. This is good. Yeah. I don't even know where to go from here. It's like all of this is just I gotta sit with some of this stuff. So many new insights I'm coming through with this conversation. You're really cool, Tim. I like you. You're ⁓ that's very kind of you. Thank you. I like you too. I could tell your experience in this and ⁓ you've been doing this for a long time. Yep. Also, by the way, ⁓ You're very sharp and you look good for sixty six. Thank you. Thank you. Thought you were a lot younger. ⁓ hmm. ⁓ Even know where to go from here, man. I mean, the last line we were on was wisdom is this creative expression. Like it is creativity in some way. Like to be purely creative is to be purely wise, I feel. I think it's to be on the on the cut. The vision I have of what this is is that we're in the the the evolution is sorry. Yeah, the evol the the gr the universe, the evolving universe is a creative process. So everything's evolving. Most things are evolving pretty damn slow, so you don't notice. But not Gary. Gary's evolving Gary's evolved and Tim in the last half an hour. I feel it. Yeah. Yeah. That's that's that's the leading edge. It can th w it's happening now because the psyche, the soul, is a is where all the evolution is happening. And and that is where we become wiser. And open up new possibilities and that's why and and it's why it's so exciting. Mm. Yeah, that's a good point to riff off of is evolution, as we have classically known, has been at the whim of our environment. Darwinian evolution has been almost like a cause and effect type thing. It's like you have to evolve just to survive. But now at this point, we're evolving in a ever more novel level. It's like we're doing the evolution. We take it into our own hands and evolve really how we want to evolve. Yeah. And that's very different from how evolution looked in the past. Very different. I mean I think the big the big ⁓ thing to get as as a foundation is that after Darwin and Wallace and all that the study, which is still going on of you know, how does biological evolution work and there's a lot of questions around that, but that it happened one way or another seems pretty damn clear to To me. But the big insight, I think, which came later, only a hundred years ago, not long, was the whole universe has evolved. And that is another, you know, another thing altogether. So the the evolution of the universe, the physical universe, the the elements, the universe of the stars, that didn't happen through DNA and survival. But there were principles that were the same that underlined it. And I think the principles I would say is what I call pastivity, which is the past repeats or tends to. It conditions that what can happen next is conditioned by everything that's happened before. And another way of saying that is the universe is learning. So the the patent that is set up, they're likely to repeat. But it's also creative, which means it will repeat, but not quite the same. It's probabilistic. And then I look at this moment and go, ⁓ yeah, that's what's happening here. It's the it's pretty much the same as the last moment, but not quite. And the not quite is really clear with Tim and Gary, not so clear with the computer and the lights and the room. That's pretty much the same. It's not actually if I was to speed it up, you'd go, ⁓ it's changing actually. But I can't see that. It looks pretty much the same. It's repeating. Tim is repeating. He's staying pretty much like he is, but also he's animate and doing so life becomes a higher level of that creativity. Still the passivity, but now more creative. And then the psyche. It's like, ⁓ here it's still the passivity. I can't think. I can only think with the ideas I've got. But they can come into new arrangements. I can get w ideas from you. They will in they will combine with my ideas and and it's very creative. So the creativity is increasing all the time. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I like that. The whole universe is learning. Yeah, 'cause that's what evolution is, you could say. It's a giant learning process. Yeah, I think the the what what what we're doing is that made conscious. We're we're able like this is what you just said. We can do this the thing that's been happening all along, we can now do it consciously. What does that mean? It means we can, as you just exactly what you said, we can choose. Which, you know, ev the evolutionary process on the material level, there was no choice. Took a very long time, it was just random, cause and effect. And this came out of it. Biology took that and increased the level of choice until we got to conscious choice and then you got and then and then for us it the more we can reflect and actually see how we're ideating, the more choice we have. So choice is relative, you know, because most of what we do is habitual. So the more we can choose, and you can see that in culture. You know, i i it it the there's still when I talked about us individuating. If you go to some collectors of human beings, you will find a lot of people who go, Well you know, well, I'm a Hindu, I'm a Muslim, I'm a Christian, whatever it is. Why? Well, that's where I was born. There's it hasn't been chosen. It's just there. They don't even know they've got it. It's just that's the truth, right? That's what I was born into. And that's the condition of most of humanity throughout history. It's only now where people are going. Yeah, no, I was born a Jehovah's Witness, but I'm not anymore. Or I was born a atheist, but I'm not anymore. It's like whatever the thing is, there's reflection. And that reflection creates choice. And then we're more creative. And off we go. And then And off we go. And off we go. Yeah. Off we go. Yeah. Mm. I like that. Choosing. The choice. Yeah. And I think we're choosing We all we we choose millions of things throughout our day, but I think it comes down to the choice of like from the vantage point of the unity that we spoke of or the separation, right? And I think when we evolve when we choose from unity. It's like your individuality chooses from that unity, which is essentially choosing love. Really, that's the essence of it. And that's something that is very foreign, that's for sure. Choosing love despite what the reflection wants to tell you that this person is separate, despite that they, you know, called you an asshole. They did something that you think should should have you think that they're not a good person, whatever. It's like still despite that, you're choosing this evolutionary point in yourself that is acquainted with love, I believe. I don't want to sound too corny and cliche, but I think that is really how the the it looks for us. How that evolution looks for us at a realistic level is In our dealings with each other is no matter what, you choose love and that's how we all evolve. Again, I don't want to sound too corny. But it's deep it's deep. It's deep. You know, there's a moment in in my last book, Soul Story, where which is a it's a pretty full on philosophy book. But in the middle I stop off and I go, Look, ⁓ I've got a confess that the thing that's making me write this book of deep philosophy is really a very naive intuition that I can't shake off that I'm absolutely convinced about. And if I say it it sounds almost childish because what what I think it's coming from is a conviction that life is good, death is safe, and what really matters is love. And that does feel like a deepity. It feels like one of those things you read on the internet that you just go, Yeah, really? Yeah. And yet I think it's something profoundly true about it. That that those things. That that life is essentially good. It is moving towards something good. And that death is okay. We've evolved to be able to survive death, I think. And and that love is what really matters. But let me try this on you, on you, Gary, because it's just a s switch of language which has helped me a bit. Because because love is often associated with that warm kind of, you know, pff mmm thing, which I love. You know, I love that kind of pink fluffy love. I'm a big sucker for it. But actually the love we're talking about is quite strong and it's it's like it's robust and and it can hold suffering and it can so I've started also using the word benevolence, ⁓ which means to wish well. And it feels like there's a universal benevolence when I come into the great intelligence. It's it's like there's a universe I w with everyone. It's a big love, but it's a universal wishing well. And what I like about that phrase for me is that that tends to stay with me in a way that the love feeling comes and goes because it's an emotion. So I don't always feel l you know warm and soft inside. But that that benevolence, even when somebody is n is not easy to have that towards. It's there. So that's the first thing. And then the guiding principle for me is universal benevolence plus evolutionary wisdom. And what I mean by that is there can be something, and I see this in my younger self and I and in all around me actually, there can be something genuinely naive about all you need is love and you know where you where it's it's it doesn't have the wisdom to live in an evolutionary world because the world is dangerous and people do terrible things and cannot be trusted and we live by predating on other things and i it's a it's an evolutionary world and we have to somehow live with all of that bittersweet we have to live with physics, we have to live with biology, and we have to live with all the levels of that happening in our cultures. Where some people are still living in the Middle Ages. And we have to live with that. And then we have to bring the universal benevolence to it. And that requires evolutionary wisdom. So you can discern, ⁓ okay. You know, I I I can discern quite easily that I can just relax and trust you. But not necessarily somebody else. I might need to be be careful. You know, and and You know, I have a daughter, she's grown up now, but you know, I'm ready to protect her if she was threatened by somebody who wasn't, you know, even though I'd feel that benevolence because I have evolutionary wisdom, which would mean no, I step in. Do you see what I'm trying to get at? Yeah. Love, definitely not the right word. It's very loaded for sure. We need to come up with a new word. Probably. I'll have a go. I have a go. I mean I love the word love. Let's not get rid of it. But I do think benevolence is a good benevolence is is is is wishing well or choosing w to to wish well. And and whatever word you use, the important thing is it's the fruition of the Christian tradition, really, that started two thousand years ago. It's that love your enemies, love your neighbour as yourself. Of course that that's universal, but that love your enemies, whoa, that's a big one. It doesn't say don't have enemies, of course. You know, it says you can you can actually engage with the struggle. of being alive in an evolutionary world. And we can do it without being naive. You know, you the the the well again, the Christian tradition has got that, you know, be innocent as does but wise as serpents. It's like you know, you we need both. We need that big love or that benevolence which goes everyone. Everything actually. But the nature of the universe is such that all these levels coexist and I need the wisdom to be able to tell what I do where. And At the moment what I see is that on the one side there's cynicism, which is like ⁓ human beings and they're all rotten and use every man for himself. And on the other side there's kind of naivety. No, just be nice, it'll all be great. And it's like neither of those are right. Neither of those are right. We don't need cynicism and we don't need naivety. We need wisdom. And part of that wisdom is you come into this what you describe, the unity, you serve it. You serve God. Because God's the leading edge of e the evolving universe. And you serve God with everything you've got. And that's bringing that benevolence into the world, but you do it wisely. And that's the that's hard. It's definitely hard. But but that's the journey, I think. That's the that's the that's the challenge every day. That's what I was gonna say. That's the hero's journey. Yeah, it is. Yeah, that's right. That's what that's what ⁓ Campbell was on to. Yeah, exactly that. Yeah. Exactly that. Hmm. That's what makes the journey worth it. That's what makes this ⁓ an adventure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it is an adventure, isn't it? I mean, you know, I I mean ⁓ I mean I'm God, you know, I th when I think y you of what you've got ahead of you. Yeah, I just think God just wanna go. Good for you. You're in good shape and you're off. You know, you're off on the hero's adventure and and I I just I'm sure it will be extraordinary and And each one of us, you know, takes it forward and I I look to the people before me, you know, people that I hung out with, like Ramdas and people like that, and Terence. and ⁓ you hung out with Ramdas? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and You were friends with Ramdas? Well, I I I n I knew him. I I had ⁓ I I saw him in in Maui. ⁓ he wrote a very nice introduct comments about my first book for me. ⁓ I didn't know that a few times. Yeah. I love Ron Doss. That's like my number one guy. Yeah, yeah. He was good he was big for me. And and he he what he taught me, I think, was ⁓ humor and lightness, not taking myself too seriously. Tenderness. Yeah, love. He is a love chunkie, isn't he? ⁓ like me. I feel like I feel like that too. And ⁓ so yeah, I I got I got to see him ⁓ not that long before he died, I guess, in Maui and had dinner with him and I used to be I used to be a musician. We don't already get off on this because it's another story. But before I was a writer when I was much younger, ⁓ I was a composer and ran recording studios and ⁓ wanted to create music which could lift people up. And I did a I did a a a piece of music with Ramdas called Another Level of Fun, which was using his voice on this dance track. And and I and I think really one of my obscure claims to fame, actually, is that ⁓ I was also the very first person, I think, in the world to make a dance well it's kind of an ambient track really, with the Terence, using Terence's voice, which I know is just every you know, when I go to when I get to when I get invited to speak at psychedelic festivals, I hear endless dance music with Terence and I think I think I was the first person who did that. Is that online? Are both of those online? I think both of those might be online actually. Yeah. I most of my music's not, but I think those two might be. ⁓ that's cool. What's it called? So the one with Terence is called ⁓ Hooray in a New Way, which somebody else did a a another Terence track using a very similar title of ⁓ three or four years afterwards. ⁓ but this one is obviously I'm Tim it's Tim Freaks, so you you know, I've got such a weird name, you'll find me. And then the Ramdas track was called ⁓ Another Level of Fun, which was a line that he said, and Hooray in a New Way was a line that Terence said that the the elves ⁓ from Hyper space under DMT was saying to him. Both of those are the same idea though, and it's the same really premise of this whole conversation. Yes. Yes. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. That's probably why it's come up. I don't think I've talked about that in a podcast ever, probably Well I'm honored. Hooray in a new way. Hooray in a new way. Another level of fun. That's it, man. Yeah. I feel like it's just getting started. And I think that is also the essence of ⁓ this wavelength inwardly is like every day is just getting started. Every moment is it's just getting started, right? It's this ever renewed novelty, which I think is something I said in the beginning. Yes. Ever renewed novelty. And that is really the miracle, man. ⁓ because I think materialism altogether, right, the Western mindset is very just thick, it's very stagnant. We get stuck in this like, this is how life is and Very monotonous, which we all have to deal with a sort of ⁓ sense of monotony in our life, you know, we're human. But I think with this inner seeing this insight, it brings this renewed novelty amidst the monotony. Yes. You know? Yes, beautifully put. And that's and and and with the vision that I'm trying to explore of the evolving universe, it's going, Well, that's because that's what it is. Literally every moment has never happened before. Yeah it's just literally true. And this conversation's never happened before. And this this moment is never it and so that's that that sense of novelty is inherent in what this is. And so when we miss that, then life becomes very much like this, doesn't it? And you you and then you ⁓ And the difference between living like this and when it it's just so big. It's such a big difference. And so part of what I think we need to do with each other, and I think that's what you're doing with this podcast, I suspect, is just keep reminding each other. Just go don't forget, you can go and then when you do, you're in a different world. Same world but different world. Yes. Everything changes, but also nothing changes. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. What what changes is how y what how you discern what's already there. Suddenly there's this It's just funny, isn't It's like it's it you know, it's it's dark here. And when I was walking in to speak to you, yeah y you just look up and there's the stars. And it's easy you don't even notice them. You know, I some I can walk to and fro my office, it's bottom of the garden, and not even notice them. And other times you go, ⁓ wow, there's the stars above my head going on and on and on and on. Yeah. Billions and billions and billions. Billions. It's like what the hell is this that we're in Yep. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And you get that profound sense of mystery we started with, that kind of ⁓ wow, this is there's more going on here than we can possibly imagine. And then we do our best to imagine it. And keep fluid so you can learn and more and more and more and more and more. Amen. Beautiful stuff, Tim. I think that's a good note to wrap this up at, to be honest with you. I think so too. I thank you for reminding me and reminding anybody that listens in the future of the majesty of the life that we are in. But sometimes it is just as simple as looking up at the stars. Again, that might sound corny, but it is the truth. Just looking up at the stars, realizing what a star is, too. That's billions and billions of light years away. That's light. And not only is it light, that's you. Extended in a greater sense. When you look at all those stars, that's an extension of yourself. That's the miracle, man. Well put. Well put. Yeah, thank you for reminding me of all of this, Tim. Appreciate you. Keep up the good work. Thank you. It's been ⁓ lovely to meet you. You as well. have anything else to say. Do you have anything else that you want to say? ⁓ yes. I the things I always forget to say, let me say them because it's I I really want to I want to ⁓ offer people something. Which is you know if you want more of this, if you want more of the the reminder, then I my latest project is a is a cr combination of a podcast and a book called a pod book called Why Your Life Really Matters. There's gonna there's gonna be thirty seven chapters There's already thirty one or two. And you can have it for free. ⁓ you know, it's just I'm just giving it away. It's on the internet, it's on podcast providers, and ⁓ I have a ⁓ an online community. Again, you can just come and we have these conversations, we do practices to try and move us from here to here. ⁓ so if you're intrigued by anything I'm saying, you know, I'm doing my best to move us on and move me on and and and contribute. So if you want to be part of that, check it out. Awesome. Thank you again, Tim. I wish you all the best and peace and love to you. Peace and love, everybody.