Hello, and welcome to the Borealis experience. I'm

your host Aurora. And I'm very excited to be posting this

interview today with Jeremy devens. Jeremy has a yoga

podcast called the quiet mind, yoga podcast. And he also has an

astrology podcast about Vedic Astrology. Make sure to check it

out. He's a huge inspiration for me. And his podcast helped me

through that very long and COVID influenced winter. He is so much

in my life

that we in my family, we have a term when we say, do you want to

do a Jeremy? It means do you want to do a yoga session a

meditation with Jeremy because I see you're struggling. And I

know this will make you feel better. He has an incredible

story. He was born into poverty and crime, and is now rising up

to be an inspiring role model and leader. So I'm very honored

to have him here on my show today, and to share his story

with you.

I hope you enjoy this interview. And yeah, feel free to share or

send a comment or a review. And we will be excited and happy to

answer all the questions you have. Welcome on the Borealis

experience show.

Jeremy devens.

Yeah, well, thank you. I really appreciate that intro.

So yes, I was quiet mind yoga podcast and the quiet mind

astrology podcast is there separate and yoga practices on

the yoga, podcast, and then astrology insights and

horoscopes on the astrology one. And it's vedic astrology, which

is from the same source texts of the Vedas as yoga teachings. And

a lot of what I teach now is very much from that tradition

and path is so helpful in my life. And I've had a really sort

of

interesting life. I guess I could say anything, everyone

could say that. But I had a very difficult childhood, no father

and very unusual upbringing, and led me to ask a lot of questions

and try a lot of different things. And then I ended up

finding yoga at a relatively young age in my early 20s. So

there's a lot of things I could touch on. But I'm curious if

there's anything in particular, you'd want me to focus on maybe

this

finding your true self, your knowing yourself, like you

talked about in your podcast, understanding yourself better

things like that. Yeah.

Yeah, and most of my listeners are men. And I feel like it'd be

very interesting to hear how you started your healing journey,

because I think a lot of the time, like, it's good to have

guidance, and it's good to hear the story of someone who went

through stuff, and then how they help themselves. We talk a lot

about counseling. But sometimes a counselor, like is kind of

from an above perspective, and they sometimes didn't go through

stuff. So on my podcast, we share stories, where we can

relate and you go as deep as you want to go

for people to understand who you are, what you went through.

Yeah, so your healing journey and to share that

will be so incredibly valuable.

Yeah, for sure. So first thing of note worth of note worthiness

is I you know, growing up without a father, it's it was

very, sort of unclear of, you know, who I am or what here or

going to school when everybody's talking about their dad and

their family. And you know, I didn't have that. So I felt

outcast and different and I think we all feel outcast in

different ways. And are all kind of seeking to understand

ourselves better. But that was for me, I just kind of got used

to it though. I felt like okay, well, that's just the way in my

life is and that's okay, and can't change that. And we

actually did several blood tests with different men and it wasn't

those guys and my mom had a really

ruff wildlife as a young person she had me when she was 20, I

was a fourth kid, the only one that she kept. So the other ones

were adopted out. So it's very unusual and sort of chaotic. And

we moved all the time. And there are different men around. So I

didn't really have any, like masculine role models are men to

look up to, I had a couple of uncles who were criminals. They

were in and out of jail all the time and stealing and

doing drugs, and is very chaotic. We lived above a bar

and inner city, and there was shootings outside of my window,

like there was violence around. And

so my mom was a bartender, and I was around the bars and the

gangs there in the inner city of Minnesota, in Minneapolis,

growing up there,

and she wouldn't let me go outside. So I just stayed inside

all the time. And that was actually good, it's, I probably

would have gotten a lot of trouble, one of my friends

actually got shot at a young age. So it's good that I stayed

inside. And that kind of led me into a more meditative way of

approaching everything says having to be isolated, having to

be internal, almost in a confinement in a way in

solitary, which is what meditation is, really, it's like

a chosen sort of solitude. So I basically had to be alone. And

I got into like video games and movies and keep any kid. But I

spent a lot of time alone. And I got to kind of sit with my

thoughts a lot. And I think that led me to being interested in

meditation and yoga and spiritual path. And eventually,

I was flipping through public access TV, and there was some

guy doing Qigong, I didn't know what she Gong, but that's what

he was doing on TV. And he's just like, standing there, you

know, with his cheap camera and doing some movements. And he's

talking about energy, you can feel energy in your body. So I

was like, making fun of it with my friend. But then I saw it

again, like no, another day, and I just tried it myself. And I

was like, Oh, my God, I could feel the energy. I felt

something. He said, you know, feel this in your stomach, I

could feel it.

So I got really interested in finding that, you know, finding

this hard to figure out when that show was on, I only found

it a couple of times on public access. But as sort of sparked

my curiosity, like there's something more than just, you

know, the everyday life that I was living in.

That's another way teens. So I got curious about meditation and

eventually found Alan Watts. Have you heard of Alan Watts?

Yes, yeah. Yeah, it's great philosopher, teacher writer, the

60s 70s or so, and eventually found, like all of his audio, I

could find hundreds of hours of stuff and listened to all of it

over and over again. And that was like my first sort of father

figure really, in my life.

I had my uncles who taught me how to steal. So I was stealing

things when I was young.

And my mom was like, What are you doing? Like, why are you

like, Well, you know, the only men in my life are thieves.

That's what men do, right? She just gotten a lot of trouble for

that and realize, like, well, that's not really what I want to

be doing.

And fortunately, I didn't get into drugs, so dodged a bullet

there. But I did get really into meditation and like this sort of

spiritual path at a pretty young age and realize ultimately, that

like, any reason that we can take drugs, or any reason that

drugs could affect us is because they're affecting our neuro

chemistry, what's happening in our brains. It's like the drugs

are just stimulating something that's already in our brains

that I think we can access with breathing techniques or

meditative techniques. So started exploring that stuff.

And Alan Watts kind of talked about some of this stuff. And he

just had a really interesting view of the world. And so I got

really into that. And then I just kept going, like we touched

on so he starts talking about yoga. So I was like, Okay, well,

I'll check out yoga then just, I was doing the meditation as best

I could, and like finding like some guided meditations. But

then he mentioned yoga. So I started to seek out a yoga

class, and eventually found one at my gym that I was going to,

but it was all women. So I was like, this maybe isn't for me,

maybe it's actually just the women's only thing. So I

eventually found it wasn't just for women and tried it and loved

it. And it was like meditation and movement together. So I felt

like I found this thing that I was looking for.

Because it was having this way of being present and being

embodied. And being with myself that wasn't so negative because

a lot of times when I was with myself before it was

I got really into like dark, heavy music and really moody

stuff. So I was kind of in a depressed state for a few years

before that, and the embodiment of yoga really got me out of

that. So

this is kind of, you know, getting me up to my early 20s.

And then I, then I wanted to keep doing yoga more. So I tried

that yoga class, it felt really profound and really important.

And like, something I wanted to do every day, even though it was

very much outside of my norm, not cool. Like all my friends

that I had in high school, were getting into drinking and drugs

and partying all the time. And it was like the split in my life

where it's like, I don't want to do that, because I saw that

growing up. And

so I just basically went out on my own, and didn't really have

any friends for a while. And it was just like doing yoga things

and meditation things and Alan Watts stuff and listening to

that all the time. And I was just working jobs for money at

the time, but I was mainly trying to be a musician. That

was my main focus and music. And that was a way of expressing

myself. But it was all kind of filtered through this ego lens

of like, I should look this way, or I should like the music

should be this way I should have this success. Or I'm this age

now, like what did these people do when they were my age? So

there's a lot of ego wrapped up in it. And

eventually, I read this book by Alex gray, the painter Do you

know Alex gray heard of him? I've heard of him? Yes.

So he is like a psychedelic painter. He's done all the

artwork for the tool albums, the pan tool.

And he kind of he tries to transmit this like mystical

experiences meditative experience through his art. And

he has a book called The mission of art. And I read that. And

that really stood out to me. And he talks about this idea of ego

side, instead of suicide ego side. So I was in this

depressive state. And I was like, looking at all this stuff.

Like, why are we here? What's the point like, Who am I and

trying to understand myself in my life, and

it's very down for a while, but then I read his idea of ego

side, it really stood out to me, because he talks about how

there's a certain amount of people every year, jump off the

Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco and try to kill

themselves. And some of them survive. Some of them don't. But

the ones who survive in like the research they've done and then

most to death, you think, well, maybe they tried to kill

themselves again, and they, they're successful that time.

But a lot of them from the studies that they found actually

survived the jump, and then they feel like a part of them died,

rather than actually dying. Like, they realized, well, if

I'm willing to do that, if I'm willing to give up everything

and just end it all, then everything else now is a bonus.

It's just extra, it's like, I can do anything. Like if I'm

willing to just end it, why not just quit my job that I don't

like or leave this situation, I'm not happy and, and they're

essentially killed their ego, and moved on. And that's what I

did in my life is my identity was musician, cool, dark,

brooding, mysterious guy, whatever.

And I just dropped all that and just got really into things that

actually enjoyed, which was the yoga and meditation and

left. My, you know, is difficult decision. But the main person I

was making music with were in this is always felt heavier when

we were working together, and it felt more like I was going down

and a darker place I didn't want to really be in.

So I just trusted like, Okay, well, I'm going to go towards

what really lights me up. And what I really feel like is in

alignment, and that was I knew for sure it was just doing yoga

every day, and meditating every day. And that was the first

step. And then it was my diet and my habits and my sleep. And

you know, and then moving out of Minneapolis, I didn't like the

cold weather and moving to Texas where it's warmer. And so just

like this step by step of like,

you know, noticing what's feels like it's in alignment and what

I actually want and what's not in alignment anymore and kept

doing the things that were in alignment and it started with

just one thing for sure for me was you know, the yoga but

before that it was the Alan Watts and before that it was

meditation. And so now at this point, it's I feel like most of

my life is in the integrity if like if something feels out of

integrity, I can say, now that doesn't feel right, I need to

change that.

But for a long time, I did just kind of work jobs to make money

and just kind of get by and all I had was my yoga practice I

felt in alignment and then little food choices, little

health choices or lifestyle choices.

And then that eventually led to a yoga teacher training which

completely changed my life. And then that teacher was also an

astrologer. So astrology learning, did an apprenticeship

with him and just kept studying and studying and just basically

was on the 10 year run of just constantly doing trainings and

learning and going to retreats and reading books and having

lots of experiences being deeply involved in communities with

their centered around yoga and meditation and spiritual

communities. And men's work as well and the mankind project,

it's really helpful space. So basically, I decided to just try

everything because everything was extra, so willing to kill my

ego of rock star, whatever. You know, Trent Reznor was a big

influence like that really dark moody rock music, Kurt Cobain

kind of stuff. Radiohead, you know, like, that was my big,

those are my father figures for a while, but it was making me

more and more depressed and not feeling like myself. So I killed

all of that, instead of actual suicide and the ego side, and it

chose to just do what actually felt in alignment. And, you

know, doing yoga 12 years ago is definitely not cool. And for

men, and,

and that was usually the only guy in the class and for years,

I was usually the only guy in the class and, you know, now

it's a lot more normal, but it's, it's like I didn't care

about that I didn't care about you know, what anyone thought of

me or what it looked like, but I was there for my healing. And,

you know, yoga got me and my body got me to get into these

deep meditative states of presence and self awareness.

And, and, you know, you just start to notice all these

patterns, everything that's out of alignment, and you just start

to see like, okay, that's not working, that's not working and

change it. And that's kind of in my process. And till you know,

where I'm at now is kind of where I want them to be the

whole time of where I feel like I'm just doing the work I really

enjoy, and fortunate to get to help people. And that was like

the ultimate conclusion of all that, there's a few things. So

number one is like life can either be a tragedy or comedy.

And for a long time, it was a tragedy. And then I decided with

the ego side that it'd be a comedy. And I would

not care what people thought and just do what felt right. And,

you know, as long as it doesn't hurt anybody, you know, and then

the second thing was MLK, Martin Luther King, Jr, quote that

stuck with me when I was in that depressive state of

he says, life's most pressing and urgent question is, what are

you doing to help other people. And my whole thing at that point

was just trying to succeed as a musician. And that wasn't really

helping anybody. It was just this trying to help out this

image in my head. So I switched to helping and even if it's just

one person, even if I teach yoga class, and nobody comes, or one

person comes,

you know, I just decided I'm going to try to help people like

my teachers helped me because doing the yoga practices, and

that training like

was, by far the best thing I've ever done for myself. And so

life changing. I'm a high school dropout, I had no money growing

up, no family to support me. And the first thing I ever completed

was my yoga teacher training. And I

felt like that was the thing I'd been looking for is like

understanding philosophy, anatomy, spirituality,

meditation, all the things are included in there. So I just

really stayed on that path since then. And it's just continue to

deepen and expand. I feel like I'm still learning things all

the time. Because there's so much depth to it. And I was just

kind of looking for that my whole life. And now I feel like

I'm living in alignment with that, and I'm really grateful

for that. So I hope that's helpful. Yeah, answer. Yes. That

was such a Yeah, in depth answer. And so beautiful. Thank

you so much for sharing all of this.

It must have been a very lonely path and a hard path at times,

but like you said, it was so worth it. It was so worth to let

everything go. Let your ego go. I can recall eckerd tolley, you

will know heard of him. Yes. went through a similar

experience. And yeah, now you kind of flipped around your

whole life experience and sharing with other people and

helping them and inspiring them. It is like so incredible to me

to hear your story and to feel and imagine how you have felt

when

We're growing up. And to know now when I look at you when I

listened to your podcast, I just think he's like the role model

that if I had children one day, I want to let them know this is

the direction we want to go. Right? This is and so from from

not having any, like inspiration and to living like growing up in

darkness, you created your own world, you you probably have

friends now that feel like family and support and

everything you needed back then as a child you have now and as

because you were willing to walk through that loneliness and, and

yeah, show your true self.

Thank you. So yeah, incredibly grateful.

I cannot stop saying that.

I'm gonna it comes to astrology. I know, for a lot of guys,

they're gonna probably switch off the episode now. But talk

about it because I feel more and more people are interested in in

because you either believe in it or not. But it can teach you

again, a lot about yourself. What were the experiences of for

you that you've made? Was it in magazines, or podcast? or? Yeah.

When was the strategy

starting to change you and change who? Like how you see

yourself?

Yeah. So there's a couple of significant things that first is

that when I was growing up, and this is just a sort of

paranormal, weird story, and I'm not very paranormal person at

all. But my mom and my stepdad were playing with a Ouija board

when I was like eight or nine. And they said, if you're, if

you're a healer, give us a sign. You know, they're asking all

these questions. And then finally they say, Okay, give us

a sign if you're, this is real, and all the power went out and

the whole block. And so as like a like eight year old kid, I was

like what, you know, like, maybe it's just a coincidence, you

know, whatever. But that sort of sparked my imagination of like,

trying to understand like, maybe there's more to life than just,

you know, physical practical reality. And, you know, having a

difficult childhood, I think a lot of people who have like

traumatic, difficult childhoods they, they look outside of the,

the, you know, like, I didn't have the mom, dad family unit

thing. So you have to think outside the box, you have to

look outside of what's normal and expected. So you get curious

about the things that are more esoteric, and that's what I did.

And

so I was always curious about astrology and paranormal stuff.

But I kind of just stopped focusing on the paranormal

stuff. And I kind of followed astrology loosely, even from my

childhood.

But it wasn't until doing the yoga training and then working

with my teacher, his name is metop Benton, he's written a few

books about yoga things, including the book called

astrology yoga. So he was my teacher for my yoga training.

But also he was an astrologer. And I heard people had amazing

experiences, like people were just raving about his readings.

So I scheduled one and eventually did that. And again,

I was still very poor. So it took me about a year to finally

pay for this, like $80 reading.

That's how I ended up doing the teacher training, I had to do

like this work trade to pay for that. So there's, you know,

still very poor at this point. And like 12 years ago or so. And

I got a reading with him. And he's basically told me my whole

life, like he didn't actually know me, like, we knew him as a

teacher, but like, looking at my birth chart, he knew like I

didn't have my father, you knew things about my life that were

very specific and like specific dates, convened.

Like there was a certain turning point in 2008, for me, and

that's, you can see that date on my vedic astrology chart. This

is different than Western astrology, Western astrology

doesn't have these time periods in that same way, it doesn't

have a lot of the same ways of going really deep like this. So

this is the Vedic Astrology that he taught. And that's been used

in India for 1000s of years. And yeah, that just that reading a

really stuck with me and

change the trajectory of my life significantly. Like I was like,

yoga was great, like, Okay, I know this is good. But then the

astrology stuff is like, how did he see that? How does he know

this stuff? I'm like, so what is it about astrology that can do

this? And so I got really curious and I did an

apprenticeship with him and learn as much as I could about

it and didn't think I'd ever have my own work doing that or

teaching it because it's so complex and so rich and deep but

event

It came to the point of like, I realized, no,

I want to help a former version of myself. That's kind of where

I'm at now is like, everything I'm doing now is the things I

wished existed 12 years ago. And it was so much harder to find

so many things even just 1015 years ago, and now the internet,

everything is so easy and podcast. So my Vedic Astrology

podcast was the first Vedic Astrology podcast. And now

there's a few, but it's a dig, I created it, because the stuff

was confusing and difficult to learn. And there weren't good

websites at the time. So I created that. And

ultimately, I think it's one of the most empowering tools for

self awareness and self realization. And so validating

to see it's like, okay, you know, loss of Father is in my

chart. And I kind of tried to test it and tried to find them

and did everything I could, I even worked with an FBI agent,

who has like records on everybody, and he couldn't find

them. So I just sort of that was one of the ways where I just

sort of surrendered of like, okay, like, there's some truth

in this chart, you know, there's, there's things we can

control, there's always things we can control and choose how to

respond to life. But there are some things that are bigger than

us, like, I didn't choose to be born. And I probably won't

consciously choose when I die. But there's a lot of choice in

between. And by a lot of things like, I don't get to choose

who's going to, you know, show up to my classes, or you know,

who I'm going to interact with all the time. So, astrology

gives us some of that perspective on those bigger

universal things playing out these karma zz that are playing

out of like, yeah, in this state, something big is going to

happen, related to X, Y, and Z. And now I can sort of understand

it a little more, maybe prepare for it. But ultimately, it's

just sort of, as Einstein would say, like, he would say, I want

to know how God thinks. And I think that's what astrology is.

For me. It's like, I want to know how the universe is

creating and understand it a little bit. I don't think I'll

ever understand it fully at all, but at least have a hint of

like, okay, there's some patterns here that I can learn

from? Mm hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. Such a powerful part of your life now. And you make

people interested in it, and you make it very engaging. Like, the

first time I listened to it. My boyfriend was in the room. And

like, I didn't know him that well, at the time, I thought he

was gonna be like, Oh, no, like, I'm gonna leave the room. And he

was like, oh, like, really? Is that going to happen this week?

And

that's interesting. Well, let's keep an eye out. And yeah, so it

was very engaging. And

interesting to see that there's parallels with the Vedic

astrology and the real world, like in politics even a couple

months ago, and but then also internally,

and you don't have to, like give everything else up and focus

only on that you can, but you cannot see it as a guide and see

like parallels. Right? And, yeah, it's a beautiful tool that

you can use to get to know yourself better and your

environment and to relate maybe on a deeper level as well.

Yeah, absolutely. Just there's so many things in the my first

reading that just stood out, like How does he know this?

Like,

it, it's once you get to understand astrology, it's, it's

pretty clear and things like, you know, before that, you know,

in the US here and 2021 and insurrection thing that happened

in the beginning of January, like, like, I got a lot of

messages from people of like, you just said, this is gonna

happen.

You know, it's, it's like, that's, that's the kind of stuff

you can just look through history and you see the patterns

and it's like, okay, there's going to be a revolution

happening.

So it's,

in a way it's, it's

simpler. And from the Vedic perspective in India, like they

often think of time, very long stretches. And us, we often

think of time and very short stretches of like, What about

now? What am I going to do today? What's the news today?

But often, the Vedic perspective is 1000s of years of like, you

know, we're going to reincarnate and come back. And you know,

I'm, I don't, you know, I don't think you have to believe

anything or follow any particular path to understand

astrology, learn from it, or yoga. But yeah, that's the sort

of Vedic perspective of like, there's just cycles of time

playing out there's patterns. Yeah. Yeah. And we're all just

animals, I like to say and we have Yeah, we go with the flow

at times and we react to, to things that are happening in the

world.

Just because that energy is right there, and we felt feel

like we have to awaken now we have to have a revolution

because the old is is not serving us anymore. And I can

totally see. Yeah, it's like waves like, like the ocean.

Yeah, coming back and forth. And yeah. So yeah, we're coming to

an end here. Your story is incredibly powerful. In a

nutshell, I would say, You chose to not live alive as a victim,

you chose to take what you had, and leave it behind and find

something new and find yourself.

So this, in and of itself is so inspiring already. Is there any

message you would like to send out to mainly men but also

women? The thing out there who are still maybe stuck in a

situation they don't want to be in are still feel like a victim?

Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, it's, it's really tough. Like, I remember, having

a job I really didn't want to be at,

there was a moment that stood out where, you know, we were

working overtime, like 60 hours, 70 hours a week at this window

factory that I worked at. And all I could think of is I just

want to save up money and get out of this job. And me and my

close friend, I had a few friends who work there,

actually, we were all just like, we just want to save up money

and quit because it's, it was so stressful and so difficult. And

we were carpooling home One morning, there was that we

worked the night shift. It's like 7am, and our leader, or

like shift leader, guy or manager came out in front of our

car, like, jokingly, like, we're only going like two miles an

hour, but he came out in front of our car, like jokingly, like,

with his hands up, he's like, Just kill me now. You know, it's

just like, we're all stressed out, we all wanting to get out

of this situation.

It's not where we wanted to be. And that just stood out to me,

it's just like, I just need to just quit already. And I, you

know, I didn't really have a good plan at the point at that

point. And it was the best income I'd made at that point

for sure. So it's scary, it's uncertain, it's unnerving to

leave what is safe and familiar and what you're already in. But

that feeling is there for a reason. Like, that's can't

ignore those feelings. as men, I think we're often trained to

just sort of

not feel and like, like, whatever I can, I can handle

anything, we want to be impervious to pain, essentially.

And that's kind of what we admire in like, action heroes

are athletes, like wow, like, you know, nothing can stop them,

like MMA, like they can just get knocked down and get back up.

And that's sort of a masculine strength. But when it comes to

emotions, and those little messages of like, this has got

to change, this is out of alignment. Like we've got to

listen to those, I think otherwise, we continue to suffer

and ultimately going to create a world where that's sort of

normalized, and maybe you have a wife or family or kids or

whatever, and they see you suffering and struggling and

being something you don't want to be. And that creates more of

that sort of energy all around you, and it reinforces it. So,

ultimately, I think it's important to trust those

intuitions and take little actions, maybe sometimes big

actions. But to know that ultimately, if you're,

if you zoom out, or just, we're just here for a very short time,

and it might as well make the most of it while we're here and

reach out to people who have done what you want to do. And I

only reason I'm a yoga teacher now is because I had so many

good teachers myself, only reason I'm an astrologer now is

because I had so many good astrology teachers. And that's

the only reason I have any success in my business because

I've had so many good teachers and I have a lot of great men in

my life in the mankind project and just to I've met over the

years and other stuff. So that's a great program that any guy can

get involved in usually anywhere in the world. And, but find

people who are doing what you want to be doing. And eventually

you'll be doing that too. It's not gonna be immediate, but it

will happen if you just keep being around those people and

keep listening to intuition.

Very beautiful closing words. And yeah, as soon as you decide

to shine your own light and be truly yourself, you will attract

also people who

who see you and who want to support you.

And lift you up and it's just incredible. Like it's scary at

the beginning, but they will find you if you if you are not

scared anymore of who you are. And yeah, Jeremy, thank you so,

so much for your time.

I know you've just got a limited time here and I'm so grateful

that you made the time to be on my podcast here.

Yeah, incredible. What we Yeah, just created. I'm very, very

happy. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. It's really an

honor. Yeah, if you have any questions, if you got curious

about Jeremy's podcast, please reach out to him or just check

it out on Apple podcast or anchor or wherever you can find

podcasts. And yeah, you know where you can find me. Thanks

for listening and until very soon