Welcome to part one of our conversation with Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo, founders of the Non Duality and Science conference which puts together scientists and mystics to explore the nature of the classic spiritual experience of the non dual nature of reality. Zaya and Maurizio are also brilliant filmmakers and we discussed our film on guru Nisargadatta Maharaj, their film on healing trauma with Gabor Maté and their heartbreaking documentary on the situation in the West bank in 2021. This was a very powerful conversation. Welcome to Deep Transformation Self, Society, Spirit. Life enhancing, paradigm rattling conversations with cutting edge thinkers, contemplatives and activists. With Dr. Roger Walsh and John Dupuy.

Welcome to Deep Transformation Self, Society, Spirit. I'm Roger Walsh and our co host is John Dupuy. And with us today are a remarkable couple who have touched so many lives. Certainly mine included Zaya and Maurizio Benazzo and you may know them in many roles. They are filmmakers, they have put on numerous conferences. You may have even attended the SAND conference, Science and Non Duality, also trauma conferences and online events. And most recently they have been creating a beautiful series of films on both indigenous cultures, colonialism and a very powerful film on the mistreatment of the Palestinians in the West Bank. They've just done a lot of beautiful work and it's been really fascinating. Diana Maurizio, kind of tracing the trajectory of your work from your early concerns and the creation of your film. I think of Nisa Gadatta, the great Hindu sage and then moving into the San Science and Non Duality conferences, then trauma work, then your current filmmaking. I'd love to just have you speak to this developmental arc you've been through. It's an open question, but please.

Love that you call it...

The same.

Thank you, Roger.

Yeah, thank you.

It's nice to pause and reflect. So I appreciate the invitation to reflect on the arc, which we don't get to do a lot. We work very much as we follow the flow. We could be also quite instinctual and we respond to what life is pointing to. That's been one.

We are always on the edge of the wave. Eventually, you know, our sensation. We try to be on the edge of the wave, but it's beautiful too.

And everything we've offered is like a bits on a necklace. Right. So we were called to go to India to with Stephen Volinsky to do a documentary on Nisarcade.

Let's start differently. That was our first date. That's a little detail which is, I think Is kind of revealing. When I, when I met, we decided to go to make this documentary and we just met and I said, I'm going to make this movie. Oh my God. I'm a camera person.

I heard.

So we worked together on this movie. Was our. Yeah. Please continue.

Yeah. We were where we met with students of Nisargadatta Maharaj. We wanted to understand because he was way past when we visited was what, late 90s, I don't remember 2000. Yeah. And he was gone in late 80s. So we wanted to understand what continues to live in his students and also. Yeah. In India.

What's your takeaway from that experience?

Very interesting. So what we found is actually his students have split in two different groups. Let's say one, they have taken his ashes and they have created an ashram. And they would do twice a day puja. And they very traditionally practice their path through bhakti. And then the others that followed what Nisar Karata said and he said, I don't want any ashram. I don't want anything to be worshiped. Once I'm gone, I'm gone. Leave the ashes, throw everything in the sea and just follow what I have given you. Like the little I have given you as teachings is enough for you to.

The seed I planted in you is enough.

So that was. We met with both groups and it was very interesting to be with them and also to understand how he wouldn't have one size fits all teachings. He would really work with each student and feel what's the right path for this student and give them the little practice, the knowledge or the practice that they need to wake up on their.

Journey and on a personal level on the other end. Sorry, Roger, you were saying something?

No, I just thought it would be nice to get. I was just wanting to give a little context, thinking some people might not know Nisa Goddard just to acknowledge that he really was one of the great Hindu sages of the last century.

That bite of it, the book he wrote, I am that T H A T I am that.

He never wanted an ashram. He would let his student come in and stay for 10 days, not more. And then he said, you have everything you need in his living room and practice.

Yeah, in his living room.

When God. Amazing. Yes.

Yeah. People were asking, do you want an ashram? I pay for. The people bring him money. Sati kicks them out. Get out of here. I don't want your money. I'm not doing this for my. And he was saying, if I have an Ashram. You know how many windows I have to open and close every day and every night Here, I only have two window. That's perfect.

I like this guy a lot. Thank you.

Oh, he's a character.

He was actually very moving. To be in the room where he spent so many years teaching. And to see there is one TV screen in the room and it's empty. Is really his family really fold. His desire to strip all the pointers that represent consciousness. He's like, just. You don't need any of that. So when we were there, you want.

Yeah, one thing that. Thank you. One of the things that happened on a personal level, one of the translators said that Nisargadatta used to say, which we never got that. We got that from the books. From the book. But not that clearly. The guy said specifically one day, what I'm teaching is not spirituality. What I'm teaching is science. One day scientists will come and understand all this. They said that. And that sentence stick to us sort of deeply, marginally, God knows where. Right. When destiny hits you and you don't realize. And then we went back home. We were having a dinner for my birthday, actually. And at the dinner with another friend, with a friend of us, we said this sentence. And this guy said, hey, why don't we do a conference? Why don't you guys do a conference about put together scientists and mystics? That's a great idea. And we told. But we said, there has to be one year from now. Because otherwise those things become, you know, I'll do it. I'll do it. Yeah, don't worry, I'll do it. Don't worry, I'll do it. No, has to have a deadline. Otherwise, if you put something. If you put something without the deadline, then it's easy to find a way out. So we said, okay, a year from now, we toasted. And next morning, literally, I called in Marin. In Marin. There was a hotel with the space. And they said, no, there is no space. And there was a cancellation that morning for the date we wanted. And so here we go. Science and non duality was created.

How many years has that been going on now?

We did the conference.

Conference for 13-15... with COVID We stopped.

Doing it in persons and we move online. And in those, I would say, 17 years, we went through confidence. Quite a few. True evolution. I would say, yeah, the first five years. Five, six, seven, seven. You know, our chronology is not very good, but it was very much scientists and spiritual teachers talking about consciousness, really, that was the main focus.

My friend Diane Hamilton said, if the practice doesn't kill you, the Sangha will.

Yes. So we want to make sure between one and the other, you hit one.

We had some incredible meetings of scientists and spiritual teachers. Beautiful debates, deep conversations. It was really, it felt very powerful for that time. And then we also started waking up to the reality that the room was filled with 80% men and it was mostly white men and 95%. There were not many women, even teachers that were sharing. So we.

Yeah, yeah, now I'm saying non duality was completely at the beginning.

And yeah, the western version of non duality was many male teachers really explaining the nature of reality. That was the approach, the spiritual approach, which in time it felt very limiting for us and for our audience. So the evolution went from science and non duality. We slowly started expanding, bringing a lot of experiential modalities, body centered. So expanding our body from here to the body. Expanding the body. And once we included the body, we hit the trauma, which is inevitable. And not many spiritual teachers were addressing it back then, if any. There were a few, but they were minority. And then that became a big portal that needed a lot of work to open and to bring the therapies. Bring the, Bring the. Yeah, the conversation of what trauma is and how trauma is expressed or not expressed. Once we're in the spiritual path. Often many people who are on a spiritual path are trying to.

We.

We're trying to avoid pain. And behind that pain there is trauma, usually. So when you mask a pain, when you mask a trauma, it finds different ways to come back and say, I'm here, I need attention, I need care.

And I must say for clarification that this journey, everything we do since the moment we met, is not that we do it because there is a calculation. We do it because it feels right for us personally. It was our journey that we were trying to reach. I mean, we've been mystical since we were kids, the two of us. And because we were covering our trauma, but we didn't know. So we realized going into the body that this trauma has to be addressed. And so we moved in that direction. Not because there was a calculation, oh, yeah, it's enough for the organization to start talking. You know, it was our personal journey. It's our personal journey, which still now is our personal journey. We put out through our work. That's what we. Where our body and our minds are.

Yeah, we had Dr. Gabor Maté and we felt like there was a shift in the room after he spoke, like something happened in the field. And like, oh, we need to follow this, we need to listen to this.

We need to listen to this. Start exploring, you know, doesn't mean revolution, but start explore, listen to it.

I, I would say our audience was becoming a bit too comfortable with non duality with. It was predictable, it was comfortable. We knew, here's the meditation, here's the practice, here's the non dual teachers explaining us how things are. It was almost like bubble, a bubble. And people were almost like falling asleep in that bubble. That's how it felt after a while.

Yeah. Was there an evolution within that? For example, you mentioned the dominance of white male teachers initially. And yet one of the interesting things that's been happening as say some of the eastern traditions have migrated into the west is a feminization. More and more teachers, there are more and more women teachers. Let's take Buddhism for example. It's become democratized, less hierarchical, it's become feminized. Significant number of teachers are now women. Did you notice an evolution over the time of the decade or more of the conference?

Absolutely, yeah. I would say an evolution to an extent that we actually had at the end, majority, you know, more women than men. And Absolutely, we gave the stage to many female teachers and we brought voices also of indigenous teachers. And I just want to say that prior to becoming a more male oriented, most spiritual traditions, the women were the mystics, you know, but because of patriarchy, because of, you know, colonialism, empires, you know, the male were the one whose voice is really counted kind of, that was the structure of society. But women were always the mystics, you know, in every tree.

Julian of Norwich was one of my favorite mystics, and her writings didn't come out till hundreds of years after she'd passed because it was just too radical. It started coming out in the late 19th century. It had been buried, had been hidden.

Yeah. With the creation of the church. I mean, even in Judaism, you know, when the temple was created and everybody had to follow the scriptures and then you had the male figure, you know, that's where femininity got suppressed. And femininity and earth and nature are one and the same kind of women. We always move with earth, with mother earth. So that got suppressed. And spirituality that came to the west was disconnected from tradition, from nature, from. From the body, from the body, from the senses. And we got a sterilized version of what spirituality is that invites people to stay.

If you disconnected from the earth, all of a sudden the spirituality goes higher and higher until the spirituality stays from here to here and then reflects in the body so I can eat vegan. But.

Yeah.

And.

And how did that, how did that work out? You know, I, I think about the. The horrible things that happened in the Catholic Church with just this problems of all male cut off from the body, cut off from sexuality and all this stuff. And it just manifests itself in the shadow of the abuse of children. You know, huge. It wasn't this or that. It was all over the place. And so when you do that, eventually it really comes out in very horrific and damaging weight. So.

Yeah, the end. Killing all the witches. The witches means the wise.

The wise of the forest.

The ones that knew how to be with the forest, how to heal with the forest. You know, that knowledge was uprooted.

That's one of the first stages of colonization. First you colonize Europe and then. Then you can move those. Yeah. Conversation there too.

Before moving from sand. You brought to us some of the great spiritual figures of our time. And some. Some of them we're being fortunate to have on this, on the podcast to dialogue with like Amid Ali and others. But, you know, you were exposed to some amazing people who are the people and teachings that really impacted you.

To me, it's more of a thought, a sum of. Instead of an individual, since a kid, I never been able to have a guru or a santila. It was always a sum of the things I've always been like picking. I'm buffet style, kind of the person. Other than Nisargadatta for a while. Yeah. I don't know. For you.

Yeah, I could say a specific, you know, other than Nisargadatta. Yes. What's moving is really to see when a teaching is delivered, how community, how the audience responds, and how the teaching continues to live. That's to me, very fascinating to feel and follow. But that was the beauty of sen, that we didn't uplift one teacher. We said every teacher has a pointer and you have to find what's right for you. And we also made sure people don't project on teachers like, it's so easy, especially.

Yeah, good luck with that.

That's amazing when we haven't dealt with our own trauma to project on a male teacher, father figure, and to give our authority. It's so easy. So I think part of our work was also educating the audience to know how to be with a teacher and how to not lose themselves in following a teacher.

One of the things we were saying also at the event, there is people tending to the big world, but the real message, maybe you'll get it while you're having lunch over here in a conversation about two people next to you. I mean, what I'm saying, our point was not to give answers as an organization, as a conference, but to raise better questions and be open to listen. We are here as a community in a safe place with people that seem capable to have an understanding of something and they are open to listen and to, you know, interface with one another.

So just learn that, that resonates with me. I have a saying. Trust those who have questions. Be wary of those who have answers. Flee from those who have the answer.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Yeah. And beautiful that you deliberately fostered that attitude and atmosphere of inquiry which of course was. Inquiry was so central. Nisargadatta was, you know, look, look at your own experience. Yeah, yeah.

I used to say about spiritual teachers, when I met one, I'd grab my pants and my wallet and get out of the room. So yeah, I had some very negative experiences when I was young with spiritual teachers and it's taken me a while to get over that. Of course we've spent many hours dialoguing with ah, Alamus or Hamid. Right. And that's been very impactful. He is not on that kind of ego trip at all. Just speaking from his, his knowledge, he's very smart intellectually but from his first hand experience he's sharing and it's. You can feel it when you're with him.

Yeah, yeah.

And thank you actually because our first interview came out of I think the last sand conference because he was there and we asked him if he'd do a dialogue and he said yes. And it's blossomed into this year long ongoing dialogue with him that we've had as we've, it's been incredible privilege. He systematically worked through his whole teachings with us. So. And our audience has been a priceless gift. So thank you.

Yeah. He's a beautiful creature, that man. Beautiful, beautiful person.

Yeah. And you gave a sense of how you moved into the work with trauma. As you said, you. There's a kind of evolution of bringing in more of a somatic, centered, body centered approach or bringing awareness to that and becoming aware of hidden trauma. And it seems like that was, was that the doorway then for you to move into your focus on trauma?

Yeah, I would say the doorway was again inviting Dr. Gabor Maté and starting to invite that conversation into send. And when he came, Maurizio and I suddenly thought, wow, his message is so powerful and so important, we would like to make a film about him. And he wasn't very sure at the beginning, you know, he was like, I don't know you. How do I trust you?

You don't make sense.

So it took a while for him to be convinced. And we were like, well, let's just start with one interview and see where it goes. So that's what we did. And then the COVID hit and we were like, okay, let's edit the footage we have. So.

And we find ourselves missing a lot of footage. So we had to became creative.

Yeah.

And yeah.

So during COVID we actually finished the movie because we stopped with sand conferences in person and we released it. And it was like it became viral overnight. Really. Like we didn't expect. We thought maybe 20,000 therapists in the US will care to see the film. We had 5 million people. Like first service fell. Everything fell asleep just like when. Because it was Covid. Because people were alone at home and people were like feeling it. It was close to everybody's skin.

And what.

What is the name of the film? So everybody.

The Wisdom of Trauma.

And it's still available online on our website. The wisdom of trauma.com one of the things that happened. We offered this movie by donation, including zero. So if somebody needs to watch one hour of our work, participate one of our event. We always have the include in $0 because it makes no sense otherwise. So.

So I would say that really extended the audience. Our audience. Because the movie when everywhere where was needed.

Universe translating 34 languages now addiction recovery centers, prisons.

It just. It was needed in the collect in the collective psyche. And we thought we'll be done release the film and then we move on and continue with Sen. That's not what was asked. Like we spend the next four or five years really diving and providing a lot of courses and education around trauma and online. Online.

Because mostly online.

Yes.

With Gabor and. And other. And the film was released. When we released the movie, we had online event with over 40, 50 top therapists in the country.

So conversation. And so there's a package of conversation which is very rich. Super rich. And as you said, the. The. When everything fell apart. The amazing thing that. I mean, 93% of the people put zero because the server everything fall apart. And. But still in this big number, we were able to cover the cost of the film and be able to continue our journey. And now this. Like for example, we heard. Yes. A few days ago we heard that the movie has been seen by 27,000 inmates in prisons in the United States and actually also in Germany. I think 27.

That's really, really awesome. You Guys.

Yeah. There is an organization, compassionate prison project that brings use the movie amongst other other work they do. A beautiful organization to support inmates.

Beautiful. Yeah. Yeah. And this is one of the beautiful things about your work is that it's clearly both a response to whatever is being called for and coming out of your own heart and passion and an intertwining of beautiful intertwining throughout your work of this personal. The personal and the professional and the contributory. It feels like you've melded those in a beautiful way and that you've just turned your work and your passion into. Into a spiritual practice in a beautiful way. Yeah.

Yeah, definitely.

Yeah. And we do feel like there is no spiritual work without trauma work.

Really.

That's right.

The same. And I think that awareness now, it's. It's everywhere we see it.

Yeah. And not only there is no spiritual work period. There is life. Every breath we take is spiritual. The way we buy a piece a milk instead of. Everything is spiritual work. Everything we do is spiritual. If you start separate spirituality. Oh, this is spiritual. This is social, this is politics, this is ecology. This is. Does division are, you know.

Right.

Initially a lot of the spiritual teacher at SEN did not want to deal with the human pain. Was like, let's just, you know, spiritual bypassing. I'm sure viewers conversations on that was very real.

And I like the expression you run over an omelet on your way to yoga, right. You run over that because you are late to your yoga class. I have to be spiritual. Get away. You know, this kind of behavior that we have separated, you know, compartmentalize our moments of our lives. Now I'm gonna be spiritual for 10 minutes. I can continue and then I can continue.

You know, respect.

Yeah. And my.

My native American teacher, Wallace Black Elk. But you know, there was nothing for the native people that was not spiritual. Yeah, there was, there wasn't that separation. Modernity helped us to do that, you know. So.

Yeah.

And if you talk about non duality. If everything is spirit, everything is connected, everything is spiritual. Everything. The air, the water, the. Everything is. So how can something not be spiritual of those things? Right. Of those relationship of those moments.

You have been immersed in the world of trauma for several years now. How has your own understanding developed over that time?

Yeah, well, we all have traumas. Nobody is spared. We all carry traumas. Some of them started in our childhood, others started way before in our grandparents, parents, like now there is also science that talks about epigenetics. So we all carry those wounds. Indigenous people would say Their soul wounds or.

And blessings.

And they're both. They're pain, they're wounds, but they're also our gifts. I would say with the wisdom of trauma, with the work of Gabor Maté, what really that film did help people understand. You are not alone with your pain. We all share pains and it's not your fault because often when we feel the pain, it comes with shame. It comes with a self doubt. And when that is released, then we can be with the pain we don't need to fix. It might not be a work of our lifetime. We might be, you know, it will continue from generation to generation. But whatever we can do in our lifetime will advance the.

And the release of trauma. In my experience, we. It was a big part of my work with addicts was that when you, you release it, there's so much energy that's released. It's a lot of. It's held there. And Dennis like there's so much more energy for living, for creativity, for loving, for being a human, for seeing the world as it is.

Yes, it's our life force that is caught in that. And every. All our energy goes to keep that wound. And yeah, that's a lot of people came to us that struggle with addiction, all kinds of addiction. And addiction is just trying to soothe. Everybody knows that today it's not the fault of this individual. It's just their way of soothing the pain. And it's a coping mechanism because when you feel alone and isolated, that's what helps. And once that blame on the individual is released, then they can begin to actually heal the wound. So they don't need to reach for self medicating and, and, or self harming, which often happens as well.

Or self annihilating.

Yeah, yeah. And then that is a spiritual work because once we kind of, you know, healing means wholeness. Like once we connect to the parts of ourselves that we have lost, that they have been fragmented because of the trauma, we begin to feel more whole and more here, more present, which is what spiritual teachers are inviting us be here, be fully present. But we often cannot be present because of the pain. And that pain needs a voice, needs space to be held, to be loved in a way.

You, you've just been giving a very beautiful description of some of the factors of healing and some of the ways in which healing can occur. I'd like to just invite you both. What else have you learned? I mean you were, you've really been immersed in this field of trauma for some time and you've been this very interesting Perspective having imbibing from some very smart therapists on the one hand and spiritual teachers on the other. What else have you learned about that's really crucial for healing from trauma?

To me personally, I had to go deep to find the little boy who was terrified in the living room of my family's house at the age of six. And he was paralyzed in the middle of the living room for my mom died when I was six. And that boy was left there, was left there. I felt it that he was left there parablocked. And when I saw him, it was a 2D figure. And it took time to be able to make it become a 3D figure. And it took time to invite this little part of me and being able to hold him and take him with me in the U.S. if you wish, take him with me present now, in this day, to know that when the little boy get in a panic, get scared, I know I have to be able to. To call on him and reassure him. You know, he's a part of me. So that for. To me personally, for example, just one thing of the many.

You know, when I was, when I was a child, young boy, I had a dream, it's very powerful dream that never. I could not, not remember it. And in the, in the dream, I'm standing in front of this black pit of all this darkness and horrible stuff, and I fall into the pit and I just go down and down through all this horrible stuff and then finally I break out into this beautiful ocean of light. And all, all the, the gore and all the stuff just washes out of me and washes off me and I'm in just wonderful ocean of light and love. It's just spectacular. And I, I didn't know what it meant for a long time, but I think I don't have to explain now what it meant, but that, that one of those dreams that really marked me for life. A real gift.

Beautiful, I would say for me also, it's. I've learned that we, we're never healed. Like healing never ends. Like it's a lifelong journey, that this is why we have this human body, this is why we're here. And so that's also a good way to counteract modernity because modernity is like, okay, if you do these three things, you're going to be fixed on the other side. You can actually start living. It's like, no, it doesn't work that way. We need to live now with the pain, with the wounds, and keep loving life as it is in a way which is not always easy. And the other big learning is that trauma is not individual. You know, we have our trauma that started in childhood, but now we know trauma is intergenerational, is collective. Yes, it's historical. And no trauma work can really be holistic without including the history that we all carry. And they're very unique, depending where we come from, what happened to our ancestors. So starting to see that kind of a more deep time perspective is very important in, in our healing journey. And just one more deep time. Yesterday we were speaking with the Māori elders, which was part of the release of our latest film Māori. And they traced their genealogy to back to the stars. So it's like who are we if our ancestors are the stars? You know, 13 billion years. And at the same time they also know 15 generations the name of their ancestors.

They know the name of their ancestor for 15 generations? Yes, most of that.

That doubles what the biblical things. That's what the Native Americans say. They usually say seven generations. But these guys took it further.

It's unbelievable. I remember they were, when we went there, they were making jokes about some people in the west, they barely know the name of their grand grandparents. And I realized, oh.

Yes, sorry, interrupt.

Because.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because we are made of those ancestors. They live in us. So as if we want to know ourselves, we need to know who they are and, and, and how do we.

Spell Mauri so people can find this film.

M A U R I.

Okay, that's what I thought. Okay, thank you.

Vital essence of all being.

Yes. Is Māori is the culture. But M A U instead of O. M A U R I is the vital essence of, of all beings. Means eternalsong.org Māori and the uri.

Ah, okay, great. Let's see. I just want to make sure a couple of things you said were so important we don't get. They don't get lost. One, you talked about the way in which there can be this belief that. Well, first off, you pointed out that healing is a lifelong process, which is really important to acknowledge and that so, so often there's the presumption that at some stage I'm going to be through this and then I can live, which is what you're saying. And the transactional analysis analysts have a great term for that. They call it the until game. I can't be happy until, I can't live until, which is a very limiting belief. So I just wanted to emphasize the importance of what you were saying there. And then the second theme you brought in that the systemic and generational nature Of. Of suffering and trauma, that these things can be communicated across cultures and across generations. And of course, we see that. And we see that underlying so many of the conflicts in the world today, so much tragedy and suffering.

Part of my understanding of the trauma work that I've done is that when we do trauma work, often it's not just for our own individual trauma. It's for the collective trauma. And I was meditating in Berlin one time, homes of a friend. And I just started feeling all the stuff that had happened. Berlin. You know, you just go back through the whole history, and they. They just. I was just trembling, you know, and I came through that, and it was a very powerful release. But I got more than my own stuff. I got, you know, the. The trauma of a. The suffering of a whole city in a whole history there. And I, you know, I tossed into that in some way.

Yeah. A lot of indigenous people and healers say, as we heal, we heal backwards and we heal forward. We could heal things our ancestor couldn't heal because of where they are, because of their circumstances. They were more in a survival state. And as we heal, we release that burden from continuing to the next generations.

And more to it. That in healing is not individual like spirituality is not individual. Nothing is individual if you. I try to be spiritual until it's bogus as much as I gonna heal until it's the same pro. The same issue. We are interconnected in the Dene tradition, in the Navajo tradition, there is the circle. There is a specific name, but the peacemaking circle basically effect child in school as an issue. You don't go to the child. The principal don't go to the child, say. No. He calls all the family, calls all the community in a circle. And everybody take responsibility for why the child did that action. So grandma will say, oh, yeah, I should have given more attention. I was not present two years ago. Blah, blah, blah. The grandfather said I wasn't. Everybody takes responsibility. Healing is collective. I mean, now if you have a mother with three single mother with three children, we do therapy to the mother and ask her, what's your problem? I mean, come on. It's.

It's.

It's.

It's a collective issue. It's a collective issue. We need community.

And that's the modernity. That's capitalism made us believe we individual, we're separate. We have to struggle alone. We are the only one who is struggling.

Divide and conquer. I mean, like the Roman taught it, right? The individualism is perfect. To continue divided. He divided and destroyed indigenous culture worldwide. And he's destroyed. First he destroyed all of us. And then once we have been destroyed enough capitalism expanded enough to be able to destroy everywhere in the world. I mean, it's just.

And that's what we're seeing today happening, you know, on a big scale. The fragment.

Yeah. Very dark times. Very dark times.

Yeah. Yeah. Francis Weller calls it the long dark. We're in the long dark at the moment. It's not a time for, you know, ascending is not really the time to search for the light, but really be where we are. Because, again, part of the spiritual bypassing is like, let me just get to the light. Let me just awaken and then feel good. And, you know, don't deal with the messy world.

Don't reincarnate. Just get off the wheel and be liberated. Yeah, that's very attractive.

Yeah. But it's not the real story.

It's not real.

And there's a beautiful metaphor in the. Historically. The great historian Arnold Toynbee, who looked across cultures and centuries and civilizations, said the characteristic that. The characteristic that was common to the people who had most impact on history, and he felt those people were the prophets, the saints, the sages of history, was that they went through what he called the cycle, withdrawal and return, that they dove deeply into a query, question, search into the great questions of life, really wrestled with that, came to some sort of illumination, understanding, and then returned to offer what they'd brought. So it speaks very much to what you're saying about. About the need for contribution in this dark time. But maybe I would say there's. There's real value in the integration of both, which is what I see as a beautiful characteristic of your lives. You really are integrating both the spiritual, you know, your karma, yogis, you're doing your work is your spiritual practice in a very beautiful way. And there's no. As you said earlier, there's no separation between your work and your life and your spirituality. It's beautiful. It's service. Service done from a beautiful place of wanting to relieve suffering and service as part of your own practice. I really respect that.

There's no other way.

I kind of think this. I don't know, maybe I'm jumping. But we are all here for a purpose somehow. We are all here on this planet for a purpose, in this incarnation, in this time, for a purpose. If you find this purple, it's not a big purpose.

No.

But if you. If you are capable to listen and do the step, one step at a time, that brings you in the direction of your purpose. If you're listening. If you are at service of whatever is that, you have to be at service, which is all different from each and every one towards your goal. That's all you can do. It's one step at a time. It's one step at a time, and you'll be amazed of the return of investment. If you want to talk in capitalistic terms, it's amazing what life gives you back. You basically, if you do the right action, following the path that is required to you by your ancestors, what you get back, it's unbelievable.

And if you don't find that it causes great suffering.

Great suffering, then you go into what you were saying, the addiction and all the stuff, because you cannot fight, you know, hopelessness. Yeah, yeah.

Depression, despair, acting out your shadow. I mean, it's despair. Yes, exactly.

And I also love the. Yesterday we had this conversation. We use the word finding, and indigenous people say listening. So that's something like in the west, we have forgotten how to listen. You know, we embed it in this web of life that is alive and is constantly communicating with us. And the first skill that actually we learn by sitting with indigenous elders, Just listen.

Just listen. Slow down and listen to the elder.

But also listen to everything that is around. The wind is communicating. The water is, you know, the birds. We. We are constantly being guided. If we could just listen. And again, that's. We're young in that. Because of the Western mindset that has disconnected us from.

Yeah, yeah.

And we think listening is happening here.

Yeah.

So it's.

And we have been more and more isolated, more and more individual. So we don't even listen to each other. I mean, because I'm on the phone, although, you know, I'm not listening. Can you imagine? Listen to a bird, to a tree now the fog coming. Listen. What do you mean?

So it's like finding the path, but it's more listening. The path is there. It's like, how do I listen?

So I stop searching for the path and do the next step, basically, you know, listen and do the next step. And if you need to stop for a while before you do the next step, stop for a while and do the next step. It's just. And then it also is. Yeah. It's a privilege, I must say. Yeah. In this culture, in this day, it's. It's. It can be hard. It can be hard.

Yeah. And just to acknowledge with the importance of what you're saying, that taking the time, which, as you say, retail is such a. I mean, it has to be intentional in this Culture, we are living in this attention economy with so many intentional distractions trying to grab our attention and hijack it. And it really takes an intentional effort to set aside time, to settle in, to feel in and to feel out into the world and to. To listen for that call that you're describing, whether it's a still small voice within or however we want, whatever words we want to give. But yeah, just to acknowledge the importance of what you're saying.

Yeah. I've been thinking about writing a book on how not to lose your soul. You know, because there's so many diversions, there's so much. I read a study where poor black kids in America do this for 11 hours a day on it, you know, and it's. It's so addicted. And you. They call it AI slob. YouTube has become majority of stuff produced in YouTube. It's not even produced by human beings anymore, produced by AI. And you watch this stuff and I mean, it's, you know, it's captivating this, that and the other. But you find yourself totally drained. You're done. It's like, you know, what happened? My soul just went. So you really have to make a conscious effort to live in a way that's more soul centric, that acknowledges our deepest parts. And we will be. Will get completely lost in this age. And that's a very scary thing. So many of our young people, heck, older people, are getting drowned in this trap. And the technology keeps getting more powerful and more powerful and more addictive. And how do we keep our souls? How do we find our souls? How do we nourish our souls?

Well, I'm glad you're bringing young people because, yes, they're suffering from this world and they're at the mercy of these funds and AI. And again, indigenous communities, the elders are present. The elders walk with you. There is initiations, there is a living knowledge that is passed down so a young person doesn't feel isolated. They feel like they belong to a community, they belong to a culture. I'm not saying in indigenous community addictions doesn't exist. Of course it does because of trauma and colonialism and all of that. But, like, how do we support our youth in remembering that they belong to a larger web of life, that this is not because for them right now, this is their connection to life, that. That's the part that creates all the suffering that has replaced real communication, real wisdom, real experience. So I think for those of us who have been on spiritual paths and we want to be of service, let's turn towards our youth and see how we can offer to them.

Yeah, we have a spiritual. We have no elders anymore. There is no elders. There is no community. I mean, they did a study a few years ago, I read. I was applying. It says grandparents are good for children. A scientific study. Wow.

We need science to tell us that.

Who would have thought, right?

Who would have thought.

Have thought that?

Really? Oh, yes. Let's see. We could go a number of ways here, but to bring some threads together and also move into a very powerful recent, more recent part of your work. I've watched several of your films, starting with Nisa Godada. And out of all the films you made, the one that really impacted me, touched me, pained me so deeply was Where Olive Trees Weep, your film about the tragic mistreatment of some of the Palestinians in the west bank of Israel and kind of apartheid there. What brought you to film this? How did this start?

Stay tuned for part two of our conversation with Zaya and Maurizio where we talk about their film Where Olive Trees Weep. Thank you very much for being a part of this conversation. We hope that you were moved, as we are moved, being part of it ourselves. We'd also like to say that this is being funded by Roger and myself. It comes out of our pockets. So if you would like to help us to mainly to get this podcast out to more people because the bigger audience have, which is steadily growing, but the more people we can reach and the more marketing we can do, the more positive effect we can have on the world. So we've done a couple of ways. But we'd like you to buy us a cup of coffee. Very simple. And I do that with podcasts that I support and I find it's very satisfying. So thank you for your help. Thank you for your presence. Presence and thanking for all you are and all you do. We love you.