Ep.003 Is meditation Spiritual? LifeWave & LightWave. Sex, Gender & Spiritual Growth. Spiritually Yin or Yang? We are one?: Live Show Discussing Spirituality with Mark Zaretti

Episode transcript:

Welcome to The Way Back live show podcast discussing spirituality with me, your host,
Mark Zaretti. Each week I answer your questions, and though I may not have all the answers,
together we’ll make more sense of life one episode at a time.
What you’re about to hear is the audio from the live show.
Visit thewaybackgroup.org/live-show/ to find out more.
It’s Thursday night and hi, everyone, and this is Mark from The Way Back. And thank
you for joining me. And straight away, we’ve got some people in the chat, which is absolutely wonderful. So I’ll say hello to Toshee. “Hi from Herne Bay, still eating, but present”.
That’s fine. I totally understand. And scottish bird, “hi here in waiting from Thanet”.
So it’s great to have you with me.
It’s been a very busy day at this end, and so I thank you all. I thank you all for coming. What I
mean is, it’s 09:00pm it’d be easy to just kind of put your feet up. But I’m really glad that you’re here to join us. And I can tell you we’ve got quite a busy show. So if you’ve not been on this live show before, then this is episode number three. It’s all still quite new. I’m figuring things out as we go along. But what I want to encourage you all to do is to use the live chat to ask questions, and
that way we can interact.
I’ve also been sent questions. So what I was just showing you here is the first
question that we’re going to be looking at today. And this is actually from a guy called Shahram
in Iran. I hope I pronounce that well.
But basically also if you. Hi from Faversham, from K. Gogerli as well. So it’s great to
have you joining us. And I. Yeah, if, by the way, everything’s still quite new. So if the audio is too
loud or too quiet, please do feel free to give me feedback in the live chat and so that we can just
make sure that this is the best possible experience for all of us. But we’ve got quite a lot to dive
into today. And what I’ll do is I’ll just quickly just show you. Wrong button.
There we go. Just to prove that it is a live show.
And I’m still figuring things out. But what I wanted to show you is if we go back to this
and I click on this button here, then, and I do that, get rid of that, then what I wanted to show you
is we’ve got quite a few questions to get through today. So without any further ado, it’s 09:05.
Let’s get stuck into this. But as I go do pop questions in the live chat and I’ll try and answer them
as well. So if I’ve kind of skipped over something and you want me to go into a little bit more or
you need a bit more clarification or you just want to give us thumbs up or a hello or give us
feedback, that would be great. So I’m going to start with this question. By the way, these
questions, if you look at the notes in the description below, there’ll be a link to our website. And
on there, there’s a page dedicated to this show, and there’s a contact form where you can
anonymously or otherwise send us questions for the show in advance. But as I said, you can
also ask questions as we go. So, Shahram, and again, I really apologize if I’m not pronouncing
that right. So he has asked, hi, Mark. Can you explain what kind of experienced, what kind of
experience you got through that reached you? The result that meditation doesn’t give spirituality.
Now, bless him, because I know that English isn’t probably his first language, and I’ve had
emails from him over the years, so I’ve had a little bit of dialogue.
And so I really appreciate the effort to try and write this in English. So let me just
paraphrase it. So, Mark, can you explain what experiences you’ve had that led you to reach the
conclusion that meditation doesn’t give spirituality? And I think that’s a very, very good question.
And let me give you a little bit of context behind that. So what he’s talking about, I guess, is thathe’s, you know, he’s known me and been following my teachings for a long time. And those of
you that have known me for a long time, I started off as a meditation teacher, and we’re going
back about 26, 25 years, and I was teaching advanced forms of meditation. And that’s how I kind
of got known. And even more recently, until probably the last few years, I was still including
meditation in my teachings. But in that time, I started to realize that spirituality and meditation
are not necessarily the same thing there. And I’ve said this before, there are people who are
meditating who are, they’re doing lots of meditation. That doesn’t make them spiritual, and
they’re people that never meditate, and they are very, very spiritual. So clearly, spirituality and
meditation are not one and the same thing. And so it’s a good question, and I’m pleased to be
able to have the opportunity to discuss this a little bit. I don’t think there was one specific thing,
and I might jump around a bit because I know that the next question may overlap with this, but I
would say, and again, if you saw episode one, then you’ll know that the journey I took was I
started off going down the classic religious route. It wasn’t something I chose. It was just what I
was born and grew up into. And cue ball, 78. Good evening. Good evening to you. So I started
off with that kind of religious background. Then I went kind of into what kind of real hardcore. I
say that because the amount of hours of meditation on a daily basis, Washington immense, you
know, two to four to 6 hours every single day, and then five day meditates here and there and
stuff like this. So I went from a quite religious experience. I was definitely looking and seeking.
And then I started doing very advanced forms of meditation. And they were kind of poles apart.
One was talking about God and Jesus, but in a very abstract, sort of, you know, storytelling sort
of way. And the other one was saying, like, it’s all about light and sound and stillness.
And, you know, the teacher actually used to say things like, there’s no such thing as
God, and Jesus was just made up and things like that. So poles apart. And somewhere through
all of that, my own experience led me to the discovery that, yes, there is light and sound
meditation. There is profound states of awareness and consciousness, and meditation can
reveal amazing stuff. But there was more. And the more would be that, you know, in a spiritual
way. I’m not talking about religion, but there is God, the source, the fact, which really can’t be
named or labeled or adequately explained in any kind of intellectual way, but something that you
can start to know from your heart. And so it was, I guess I’m lucky in the sense that I’d had these
different polar experiences because I could compare and contrast and also kind of find out what
falls through the cracks of all of them. And yet there was always this thing in the background,
you know, that greater space, that greater stillness. And, you know, there are a lot of people that
talk about being spiritual, and they like the meditation and the. The sense of doing something
spiritual that that brings.
But if there isn’t God in the equation, then it doesn’t matter how still neutral, how
personally responsible they are in terms of a positive way. If they’re nothing actually
acknowledging God, you could call it God or the source, then it’s not spirituality, because, and I
think we talked about this in the first episode, but spirituality, what I’ve come to understand is
fundamentally the desire and the intention to.
You could tear this apart philosophically to say to move towards God, but it’s an
adequate way of explaining it. It’s not that you actually move, because God is one thing
everywhere, so, you know, you’re not moving more in a direction, but what it means is in terms
of your orientation, in terms of how your heart is focused, moving towards God. And you could
also say to love God, because if you love anyone, then they are the focus of your attention. They
become more important than you yourself. And so you could say that spirituality is falling in love
with God in a very real way. In a very real way. Okay, so in terms of specific experiences, making
the observation that not everyone that was sitting down and doing a lot of meditation was
necessarily transforming in who they were. So it was almost like meditation was an exercise or a
distraction or an action, but it didn’t result in change for everyone. Those that changed were
those that were coming from the heart and seeking something beyond the activity of meditation,if that makes sense. So that observation over many, many years of meditating with many, many
people and noticing not everyone is transformed by it. So the meditation itself cannot be the end
result. There must be something greater. And those that were transformed seemed to be the
people that had much more of an open heart and weren’t looking to intellectually validate
everything, but were rather looking to be more experiential. And, you know, another nice way of
putting higher meditation is the act of letting go. And so if you start off as an identity, a person,
your arms, legs, head, and you go inside and you start to let go and let go and let go, what are
you going to find? Because if you go beyond your own limits, you’re going to find what you know.
I leave that as an open question.
Rambo 365. Good evening from Boston, Massachusetts. Hello, America. It’s great to
have you with us. It’s probably breakfast time or something over there. I’m guessing 5 hours. So
04:00 in the afternoon. Okay, so, yeah, I’ll come back to what Shiran has asked here, because
it’s, I think, a very, very good question, and there’s real depth to it, but hopefully I’ve kind of given
you a little bit of an insight.
And I think the final thing I would say on that is that having whatever it was that gave,
that moved me beyond just thinking of meditation, spirituality as one in the same, I can look back
now having nothing, been teaching and doing meditation. And I can honestly say that I. Well, I
mean, look, I can’t qualify this, you know, but I’ve had a lot of people go through the same arc of
being very, very meditation focused and then starting to embrace things like the six virtues and a
lot of the teachings that I talk about on the way back. And they’ve said this is a revelation
because they thought that they would only be spiritual if they did meditation, but they’re actually
finding a more profound level of spirituality. And I think it’s because it’s in, it’s inclusive of the
lives they are living. It’s not something that starts and stops on a cushion. Okay? So it’s kind of
like, with hindsight, I can look back and say, yep, there’s definitely something to do with
spirituality and a desire and intention towards God that has nothing to do with meditation. I’ll just
close on this by saying, look, meditation itself can be very, very useful, can teach you a lot about
stillness and neutrality and letting go and all of these things if it’s a higher form of meditation. But
in and of itself, it does not a spiritual person make. Okay, so, so those of you that were here right
at the start of the show or tuned in earlier, you probably got the rolling video. And right at the end
of the rolling video, it says something.
Keep it positive and do not feed the trolls. Okay, so I’m gonna break that rule now
because I’m gonna show you this. So whenever I post a video, I’d say about 50, 60% of the
time, I normally get a troll or two who are putting up comments. And the comment, every
comment that comes to our website automatically gets blocked until it’s approved. And quite
often I’ll try and validate whether it’s a real person or just a troll or this kind of thing. And so we
got this comment on the live show article that I put up, and it says, this is the same mark that
was part of the LW group and now has decided he’s going to guide others as a celestial authority
and R O t F l, which I believe stands for roll on the floor laughing. Okay, so Mike Evans.
I have no idea who Mike Evans is and a little bit of background and history on these
things. So whenever we get these, you can kind of track the IP address. And normally, I mean, it
was hilarious. At one point, I was getting three or four of these in quick succession from different
people, but they all came from the same IP address, which means that they all came from the
same building, probably the same computer, so I don’t take them too seriously. But I actually
thought, no, you know what? This is, I’m not going to respond in a negative way. This is, I’m
going to treat it as a legitimate question. So let’s turn it into a question. So is this the same mark
that was part of the LW group? Now, I don’t know who Mike Evans is, so he’s obviously
associated with other people and has his own agenda. And, you know, I’ll leave it at that. But
when people put this kind of stuff up, I guess what they’re trying to do is maybe intimidate people
or, you know, maybe he doesn’t want people to know about his past, that he was part of thisgroup. So I think the best thing to do with anything like this is always be honest, always be
truthful, don’t set out to judge people. So I’m not going to judge his motives here, but he’s, he’s
posted this on a public forum on our website. So I’m just going to respond to it with truth. So
what I. If you bear with me a second, because we’re just going to have to juggle the keyboard a
little bit here. But what I’m going to do, because I think it’s actually quite interesting, is I’m going
to see if I can find this. Yeah, so this is a little bit about me. And I’m using this bullet lists, this
slide that I’ve got as a reference slide simply as a framework to explain what the LW group is
that he may be referring to, because there’s actually two of them.
So we’ll skip the stuff.
Born in 1974, started meditating in 1981, went to Manchester University in 93, and
through someone that I met actually in 93, but became a good friend in 97, I was introduced to
this thing called light and sound meditation.
And then I started teaching, got initiated, spent a lot of time meditating. 2009, attained
enlightenment, and by 2013, I left that light and sound group.
Now, the interesting thing is LW could refer to a group called Lifewave, but lifewave
was disbanded around about 1980, so I never knew of that group until many years later when I
was told about it. But he’s suggesting that maybe I was part of the LiveWave group. Now, LifeWave was actually set up by a guy called John Yarr.
And John Yarr, I believe he. Well, he refers to himself as the perfect master. And prior
to LiveWave, his group was called the Ishvara Society. And prior to the Ishvara Society. His
group was called Sotumental, which I believe stands for society of the teachings of the master.
And he goes back a long, long time. Well before, I think he, he was teaching when I was born.
So he started teaching the same year I was born, from what I’ve researched and learned. And
so this character, John Yarr, was based down, I believe, in Brighton. And he had a number of
groups and he kept on getting in trouble or, well, I don’t know if he’s getting in trouble, but from
the stories I’ve heard, he would rebrand his group and whatnot. And then he got exposed, I
believe, on Private Eye magazine. But again, this may not be accurate. This is just what I’ve
heard from people who were involved. And so he disappeared and went up north. And after a
few years, he created a new group called the path. And that was post 1980, after LiveWave fell
apart. And the people, I think he left quite a few people behind and started afresh. And so when I
heard about light and sound meditation, it was actually through this person who was quite new
on the path, the group that John Yarr run. And so it was introduced to me as the path. Now, I
didn’t meet John Yarr for the first. I think she introduced me to a couple of people from memory. I
think it was a woman called Maria. Yeah, Maria and Jens, who were teaching. And, and they
taught me great people, taught me a lot to do with mantra meditation and stuff. And for about 13
months I did mantra meditation. Heard about this guy, their teacher, but I never even, I don’t
think I even knew his name at that point. And they said, well, you might meet him one day, but
he doesn’t even meet people unless they’ve got access to light and sound energy.
And so I went along to their little meetups once a week. It was quite nice. We’d have
some biscuits and tea, talk a little bit, do a little bit of meditation, discuss what we were noticing.
And after about 13 months, they said, you want to get the energy? And I said, sure. And this was
in Manchester because I was up there at university, and the main teachers of Manchester were
a couple called Nick and Mary. And anyone who was in this group had to be taught by Nick and
Mary. So I think it was once a fortnight, they had a discourse where everyone in the area had to
go to their house and you had to wear a shirt. And it was all very serious. And they kept all the
newbies downstairs, but the people that had been around for a few years, on the next floor up.
And they had a different meeting. So I was one of the newbies. We go there once, I think it was
twice a week, every fortnight to their house. And there’d be a lot of esoteric teaching. There
wouldn’t be much meditation there, but there’d be esoteric teaching about alchemy and astrology
and all this kind of stuff. Anyway, so I got access.
They said, you want the energy, you’ve done enough, you’ve proved yourself. So
we’re going to give you the energy. And I had an interview and they agreed to give me the
energy. And so I sat at Nick and Mary’s house for three days and I got given access to this
energy and it was fantastic. Okay. After that, I was then said, right, you can. Part of the deal is
you now have to give, I think it was 25 pounds a month to this master. And, you know, now
you’ve got the energy. And I think it was probably another year before I met him. And when I met
him, it was all certainly for the first few years, it was maybe once, twice a year at best, every four
months while I was up there. But I left Manchester in 2000, and so I’d meet him occasionally,
and it was normally in the company of other people, not one on one. And, you know, they used
to say, before you go, make sure you’ve got a good question. Because I think. Because what I
learned years later is, if you didn’t have a good spiritual question, he’d just talk about anything.
The weather, who’s moved into the house down the road, anything, really. And it’s
understandable maybe, because he was meeting lots and lots of people.
And I think it’s quite hard to always be, you know, on the ball spiritually talking about
stuff. So part of it was just to meet him and get to know him. So I, over the next twelve years or
so, I met with John at his house or at restaurants or cafes. You know, there’s normally agreed,
we’ll go to his house, I drive him to the restaurant. And it was Norman. I’d say 60, maybe 70% of
the time it was me and others. Once or twice it was just me. But then there would normally be
other people in his house anyway. So it was very seldom that it was one on one. And we never
meditated. He talked a lot about esoteric stuff.
He shared insights into things. And he was John, the, you know, the perfect master
whose name given, you know, that he had taken for himself was Ishvara. And he was the one
that had set up lightwave and also lifewave.
And prior to that, the Soterman Ishvara Society, so.
But it was only after a few years I met him, and a few years later, I started to learn a
lot more about the past, you know, and that a lot of the people who were his primary teachers
had actually, they’d all been teachers at school, at a school. And when a local, I think a parents
group or something, found out they were all part of this meditation group, they all lost their jobs
because I think the parents were worried there was a cult. And so that’s one of the reasons that
his previous group had been disbanded and then restarted and things like this just to get out
from the public eye. Anyway, I digress. So I was never part of the LifeWave group, but I was
taught by people who were taught by John Yarr, who founded the lifewave group. And I did meet
with him, probably I could go through my emails because I kept a record of absolutely
everything. So I probably met, but off the top of my head, I’d say it was about twelve to 16 times
over, probably twelve year period. And, you know, interesting, interesting to talk to, I think
especially at that age, I was one of the youngest people ever in his group. And so there was a bit
of awe as well because everyone’s, you know, I was fresh and wet behind the ears and
enthusiastic, and I was teaching and picking people up, and people were staying in my flat when
they were flying over from overseas. And I was right in the middle of it all and got a bit swept up
in it all as well. So, yeah, I knew him. And then I think the key thing is on this note down here. So
in 2013, I left the group. And the reason that I left was because by then I was enlightened, been
enlightened for a number of years. And I’d stuck with the overall group to teach people because I
brought a lot of people along. But I was increasingly frustrated at the lack of professionalism and
lack of duty of care shown towards people. And because I was out there teaching and bringing
people along, I felt personally responsible as well. And I thought, well, how can I do this? Howcan I bring people into this group where there are all these problems, you know? And in the end,
I couldn’t.
I had, you know, my conscience thankfully got the better of me and I wrote him a very
long and professional and courteous letter and basically explained my concerns. And this
probably this isn’t public knowledge. It wasn’t broadcast at the time. This was between me and
him. And I’ve still got a copy of the letter and record, you know, of him acknowledging by email
that he received the letter. And I basically said, look, these are the, these are the problems. And
fundamentally, the meditation is fantastic, but how people are being treated in your group and
the, the culture that’s created isn’t very healthy and it’s, it’s harming people. Now, what you have
to remember is at this point on the planet, myself and everyone in that group truly believed
because, you know, he, we’d certainly had these phenomenal experiences in meditation. And so
when something positive and amazing is being revealed and you’re told this guy is responsible,
then you accept that guy as a package. But there are all these problems. Okay? But we truly
believed partly because he told us and everyone else in his group told us the same thing, that he
was the only way, he was the only one that could reveal this stuff and it was his way or the
highway. And to be kicked off the path, which actually happened to me, I think definitely once,
maybe twice, to be kicked off the path was spiritual exile. It was considered the end of your
journey. And if you’re seeking something that is the focus of your life, then that’s a massive thing
to contend with. And people fall apart if they feel that that rug is pulled out from underneath
them. But at this point, I was one of the main teachers and I was supporting people in Kent and
I’d moved over to the Leeds at this point. And I had people in Leeds and friends in Manchester
still. And I’ve got to be clear, there was a lot of wonderful, really nice people on this, in this
group. And, you know, I’m still in touch with some of them today. But it just, it got to a head
where I thought I’d grown up a lot as well over those twelve years. And I detained the states.
And so in a way, he couldn’t take anything away from me. I had nothing to lose. So on behalf of
those people that still felt they had something to lose because they hadn’t completed the journey,
I spoke up. And from then on, really, I couldn’t proceed. And I left his group. And then in 2015,
and I’ll jump back to that slide there where it shows you. In 2015, I started making contact with
what we can refer to as ascended masters. And I can go into what that means another time if
you want. But basically even he in his literature refers to them. Back in 1980s, he wrote an
article referring to them as well. But basically it meant I started getting good guidance from
above. And by 2018, I’d founded the way back. Now, what’s important? To answer this question
that I was.
Let’s see if I can bring back the original question.
Here I go. It’s keyboard time. Oops. So the. So the original question, where did it go?
Oh, yeah, this one. Yeah. So, you know, are you. Is this marker as part of the LW group? This is
why there’s a bit of ambiguity here, because, you recall, I said I was introduced to a couple
called Nick and Mary in Manchester, and they had also left John Yarr’s group previous to, you
know, to myself and around about 2015, 2000, well, I think 20, 1314. They had also made
contact with things on higher dimensions and they had actually set up their own group and were
starting to explore the fact that they could reveal the energy independently of John Young.
And I got in touch with them. I was. I was guided by a mutual friend to speak to them.
And when I came back to England from Italy, I actually went down and visited them.
And I thought what they were doing was very positive and, you know, my background
is it, and things like this. And they were having trouble with their website and in the email
system, so I helped them out to kind of get their website fixed and working. And they said, well,
look, we’ve got a lot of inquiries coming from around the world. Could you manage Africa so you
can take care of the Africa emails? And I said, sure, I’ll just pass, you know, filter them out andpass them on to the relevant parties. So I was answering questions on behalf of their group and
passing them on to other people in their group and putting them in, you know, people in Africa in
touch with whoever.
And so that group was called “LightWave”.
So they’d… And these people had been around right back at the start with John Yarr. So
they’ve been part of LifeWave as well. And they were his right-hand-people, really. They’d been
with him and been his primary teachers for a long time. So they were now teaching under the
umbrella of LightWave. And so that could also be what this guy’s referring to, because in the very
early days, I helped them out, but I was never part of that group, really. I was helping them out,
but I was doing my own thing and I was sharing a lot of what I was getting. So I was doing my
own work and I’ve been teaching for many, many years and I continue to do so. But increasingly
their way of doing things clashed a little bit with my understanding of things, and I’ll give you a
few examples. So they wanted to initiate children. And I said, “No!, absolutely not”. At least 18. And
they said, no, we want to, you know, and some of their, some of their followers were in these
foreign countries, were initiating school children, five and six year olds. And I. I had a real
problem with that. And the other thing is, I’ve always invested heavily in the people that I’m
teaching. So if I’m preparing someone for meditation, then I work a lot, one on one with them,
because I believe that everyone’s on their own journey and there isn’t a blanket solution for
people. You need to work with the person where they are. Whereas they were doing these big
events where they’d go into a town in Spain or Africa and put up signs saying, look, next
weekend we’re going to be giving energy to everyone. Just turn up. And I’m thinking, no! I’d
normally prepare people for a year or two, or at least six months, and make sure that they’re
ready. And they were literally initiating everyone. There was one event where they told me that
they’d actually initiated the people that were doing the catering as well, you know, and look, they
believed in what they were doing, so there’s no criticism, but it didn’t sit with me. That’s the point.
And in terms of what we are responsible for, we’re only responsible for our own choices. We’re
not responsible for other people. So if there is a conflict, then you can talk it through with people.
And I did. There’s, you know, and again, I kept all the kind of emails out of interest, but there’s a
lot of two way conversations between us where I’m saying, like, guys, this doesn’t feel right, I’m
not comfortable with that. And in the end, we went our separate ways. And so the way back was,
or is the, the vehicle for me sharing the work that I do. So, yeah, it is actually true that I was part
of. Well, I was loosely affiliate. It’s not even affiliated. I was supporting and assisting in the early
days with the lightwave group, which is run by Nick and Mary Howell, who were ex teachers and
members and very closely connected to John Yarr, who was also the founder of the lifewave
group. But I was never a member of Lifewave, and I was never officially part of Lightwave. I was
more just someone who was doing parallel work and I was sharing my I.T. experience with them
and trying to help get them established. The. In the, in the end, what was happening was I was
asked…, oh, here we go, ScottishBird. Great to see 18 people viewing. A good evening to
everyone. Yeah. Hello, everyone. And again, look, guys, thank you for being here. And I
appreciate these comments because it’s nice to know that there are people, you know, joining,
joining this live chat, this live show. So, yeah, you know, personally, I’m very comfortable with
the journey that I’ve been on. I’ve gone along with things sometimes that with hindsight and
wisdom and experience, I’d go, you know what? If I could wind back the clock, I might have just
walked away from that a little bit earlier.
But that’s the whole point of the spiritual journey, is to learn through experience.
And, you know, with the, we talk about The Six Virtues, actually, and I’ll just bring it up
on the screen here so we can, let’s just see if I can find this.
There we go. So look, Six Virtues. I’ll just pop it on. Pop it on the right screen. Sowe’ve got humility, gratitude, respect, non judgment, compassion and unconditional love. And
humility is at the start. It’s the first one. It underpins everything. So when we’re in situations,
sometimes it is a mistake, but it might be that we’ve been guided into that so that we learn
something from it or that we realize something that will help us in the future.
When people post stuff, and I don’t know if their intention is to do so, but it seems or it
comes across that what they are trying to do is intimidate you by threatening to reveal your past.
I personally don’t have any real problems. There isn’t a one amongst us. There isn’t a person on
this planet that probably doesn’t have something from their past that they wish they’d done
differently or they regret. And I’m, you know, I’m the same. I’m a human being, learning and
evolving. So even with this person, if they were willing to come and ask a sensible question and
have a sensible conversation, I’m not going to pre judge them. I’m not going to assume that
they’re bad or that they’ve got, you know, they are where they are at. When I was part of the
path, you know, taught by teachers who were taught by John Yarr, that’s where I was. And
because of it, I’ve now got experiences. I can draw on the, so that I can make a choice. Do I do
things the same way or do I do things differently? And that’s part of growing up spiritually and
also just the whole experience of life. And, you know, earlier I talked about going back to that
other question where, what is it that made you realize that meditation, you know, and spirituality
are two different things. Paraphrasing the question, because spirituality is life. Life is spirituality.
If you’re awake in life, then you have the capacity to make choices where you are awake. And if
you are awake to the choices you are making, and you are only ever making a choice that brings
you closer to God or further away from God and closer to God. You might not even have the
concept at that point of God. But good choices, when made consciously and awake, make your
soul, well, don’t make your soul. They result in your soul growing in its qualities of goodness.
And what we are doing in life is we are expressing the qualities, you know, to be a human, to be
spiritual is to demonstrate the good qualities. And the root word of good is God. In other words,
the godly qualities. So when we demonstrate anything that’s good and positive, compassion,
kindness, tolerance, patience, all of these things, then we are starting to demonstrate what it
fundamentally means to be spiritual and human. Okay, so we went on a little bit of a journey
there down, kind of.
Let’s see if I can bring that up again. So we went on a little journey there back down
to, you know, the past and the journey, you know, explaining a little bit more about my own
background and hopefully that will put a few things to bed, you know, and all of these people, I
mean, I’m not going to second guess the motives of them. I can genuinely say that, you know,
for example, Nick and Mary, they absolutely believe in what they are doing and that what they
are doing is positive. You know, I absolutely believe that. But personally, I see things differently
in terms of how to proceed, teaching people spiritually. And so, so as adults, when you’ve had a
discussion and you’ve laid your cards on the table and said, look, you know, I think that this is
wrong. This is why. These are my experiences. And if there is disagreement, then you can agree
to disagree and carry on. Because the other thing is like this comment on the website.
The one person I’m worried about upsetting or letting down is Jesus, and Jesus is
God. So ultimately, my conscience is between me, me and Jesus, you know, and that doesn’t
mean that it absorbs me of mistakes. And obviously, if I do anything that affects another person,
then I have to be responsible for that as well. But ultimately, the Internet’s great. You know,
people can post comments and they can make up their name and have anonymity, and that’s
wonderful, but we don’t answer to them.
God, you know, there is a saying, it’s like, God knows what is in our heart. God knows
the truth behind our actions, and Jesus is God. So, you know, that’s how I live my life. I say,
look, as long as it’s all square between me and Jesus and he knows what’s going on and I trust
him, you know, then I’ll just do the best I can. And if I’ve made a whole load of mistakes in thepast, and I’m sure we all have, I’m not gonna. I’m gonna learn from them. Number one, can I
learn from them? Number two, can I let go of them? Because I’m sure that my higher self is
more interested in the choice I’m gonna make next than the choices I have already made, you
know, so anytime there’s kind of negativity about, oh, you know, anxiety or worry about the past
catching up with you or anything like that, that negativity, though it may be valid, you’ve got to
remember that negativity, any negative emotions and feelings based on thinking actually reside
or come from ego. So we have to kind of let go of everything and say, yeah, look, if I made
mistakes, I’ll own it, but I’m not going to be tied to the past. And therefore, there’s no fear,
because fear is, again, is a negative thing. And when you live without fear, then it’s a lot easier
to just say, okay, if I’ve made mistakes, I’ll learn from them. If I’ve done something wrong, I’ll
apologize, but it’s Jesus and God that will forgive me, and it’s Jesus and God that I have to
answer to no one else. And it’s not. That’s not dismissive of responsibility. That is actually
bringing everything into alignment with the highest responsibility that I am living, or trying to live
as if it is Jesus and God that are watching what I think and what I do, you know? So I’ll share
that with you. And let’s jump onto the next. Sorry, guys. I keep looking down because I’ve got to
find the keyboard. Let’s jump onto the next question here. So, that’s Shahram’s question
answered. And the reason why I said they might overlap is a lot of what I experienced from that
lion sound meditation group that really showed me that being able to meditate and being spiritual
are two different things. You know, it overlapped with answering this question about, was I part
of this llw group? So now on to something else. We’ve got 20 minutes left, so I apologize if we
don’t get to the end of everything. And I am firing on. But please, you know, do ask questions,
because we’ve got the chat running here. And, you know, if anyone else has joined and they
want to just say hi, then that would be wonderful. But it’s good to have you all here and joining
me. There’s, I believe, 18 of us at the moment. So is it possible. This is a question from Nick. Hi,
Nick. Is it possible that people come back as a different sex to experience being more yin or
more yang, and therefore grow in more widely and completely? Okay, so I’m going to take the
headphones off. Hopefully this doesn’t affect anything.
Okay. So what this is acknowledging is that we incarnate, we keep coming back, and
that there’s an idea that we are evolving, growing, growing spiritually.
And we. Well, I want to be actually very specific. So growing in terms of our soul,
which is about gathering positive experiences that increase our qualities that we can draw on in
this life and the next and the future lives. So, for example, if you grow in courage, then you’ll
have more courage in your next life to draw upon. And therefore, you can be more courageous if
you grow in patience. And you can have more patience if you grow in forbearance, for example,
then you’ll be able to forbear more.
Life is constantly giving us these experiences. Now, I think what he’s alluding to also
ties in with the next question. And so he’s asking about.
He’s referring to different sex to experience being more yin or yang. So female or
woman is yin and male or man is yang. And if you look at the whole of duality is actually just a
division of yin and yang. So, for example, we got a light on here. So that would be yang. And if it
was, all the lights were off and it went dark, that would be yin. If you have hot and cold, then hot
heat is yang and cold is yin.
If I am talking to you right now, I’m being yang because I’m projecting information.
And you’re being yin yin because you’re receiving information. So the interplay of yin and yang is
happening all the time. But as an archetype, when you look at humanity, then you can divide
humanity into masculine and feminine, male and female. And these are the. Because it’s like as
above, so below. So again, when we look at the whole of humanity as one thing, then half of it is
yin and half of it is Yang. And what Nick is asking, I believe, is that, do you, if you keepincarnating, are you sometimes yin to learn yin lessons. And I use sometimes Yang to learn yang
lessons.
So I don’t know if Nick’s listening or watching the show at the moment, but if anyone
want. If he is, or if anyone wants to agree or disagree with my interpretation of the question, feel
free. But taking it as that, then I would. Then this is what I know from the work I have done, and
this is evolving. So it may, you know, be that more information comes to light in the future.
So. And that’s kind of a caveat. I say, look, I’m constantly looking into things and
finding more out from inner experience and from the work that I do and bringing down
knowledge. But it’s. If you’ve watched the Stonehenge documentary, there’s a bit in the
documentary where I break away from the main flow of the documentary to talk about this, how
it’s like putting together pieces of a puzzle. So my caveat is that this isn’t the. The.
Maybe it’s a never finished, never a finished piece of work, but this is what I
understand so far, based on the work I’ve done so far. So human souls, they tend to incarnate.
So if you incarnated as a man, you will generally keep coming back as a man. If you incarnated
the first time as a woman, you will keep coming back as a woman. There is a small group that
sometimes are a bit more jumping around between the two, but generally, about 95% of them
stick to that trend. Now, every. Well, there are exceptions, and the most notable being Jesus. So
Jesus incarnated as a man, and he didn’t need to incarnate as a yin female to grow more widely
and completely, he is God. But if we take him out of the equation, and there are a few other
notable exceptions, but if you take him out the equation, then generally speaking, humans are
encouraged to have at least one incarnation where they are the other sex to the norm that they
normally experience.
And so if you’re predominantly female, then you will have at least one incarnation
where you are male. And that is so that you can experience a much more yang existence. And
this goes back to what I was talking about previously, where the point of life is to develop our
soul qualities, these qualities of, say, how do we respond to adversity? How do we respond to
challenges? And you can respond in a yin way, yielding, accepting, for example, or you can
respond in a yang way, which would be, say, resisting, opposing. And it’s not that one is better
than the other, but to be a well rounded human being, and I’m not talking about the incarnated
person sitting in the chair or, you know, wherever you are right now, I’m talking about you and all
of the lifetimes that you’ve had before.
That is the sum of who you are. Then to round that off nicely, then, if you’ve always
been yin, you need to have a bit of yang. And if you’ve always been Yang, you need to have a bit
of yin. Now, bringing this back down to the physical and who we are, you know, I’m a man, but
that doesn’t mean I’m devoid of yinness. And just as if you’re listening and you’re a woman, that
doesn’t mean you’re devoid of yangness. But there is a natural leaning, a propensity towards
being, if you are a man, to approaching life from a yang perspective, a more doing, active, you
know, kind of way, whereas the feminine way is more yin. So being more listening, receptive,
softer. These kinds of qualities, it’s not that one is better than the other, and the most rounded
people have both.
Okay? And to be honest, if you were really, really young, then you’re probably going
to be falling into darkness. And if you were really, really yin, you would be completely
overwhelmed by the world. So, you know, to be a well rounded human, you would have both of
them going on. So to answer next question. Yes, the short answer is that it is possible that a
good human or a human will come back as a different sex to experience the opposite of what
they’re normally experiencing. Now, now I have to make it clear, look, this isn’t the root of
someone feeling like they’re in the wrong gender or the wrong body, okay? That has nothing todo with this. If you think about incarnation, it’s deliberate. Your soul chose to incarnate. So if
you’re predominantly, always incarnating as a woman, and then you incarnate as a man, it’s
because you chose it. So you’re not in the wrong body, you’re in the right body. And since we
forget everything purposefully to come into that incarnation, then there wouldn’t be a I’m a
woman in a man’s body, something’s not right. Similarly, the flip side of that, if you’re
predominantly a man and you’ve chosen to incarnate into a woman’s body for that incarnation,
you are in the right body. So when people talk about feeling like they’re the wrong gender in the
wrong body or that kind of thing, this has nothing to do with what I’m talking about here. Humans
are yin and yang. And it’s about experiencing one or the other with a bias towards one or the
other for the purpose of learning and becoming more. And so if you in a lifetime thought, well, I
need to fix this, I’m in the wrong body, you would basically be saying something along the lines
of, my soul, my higher self has made a mistake. And since it’s guided by God, God has made a
mistake, and that’s not really what’s going on. So to answer the question, yeah, it’s a very, very
astute question. And yeah, absolutely, you do have a predominant lean towards masculine or
feminine as a, as your higher self. Over many, many lifetimes, you will favor whichever one was
the first one you experienced, but you will be encouraged to have at least one experience where
you are the opposite for the obvious benefits that that brings. And look, there are other stories.
So I actually know two children who are incarnated at the time, two girls. And in a previous life
they were husband and wife. And in this life, the husband is now obviously a girl and he came
back to be with her, but in a completely different dynamic. Whereas in the previous dynamic,
obviously as a husband and wife, that would have been a particular type of relationship, now
they’re siblings and it’s, you know, there’s a lot of different layers to why people incarnate and
what the choices they make and the lessons that they’re choosing to learn at that particular time.
So again, what you’ve got to remember in answering this question is it’s not just in relation to,
yes, you’re choosing because you want to have a yin or a yang experience. There’s other factors
being taken into account and it’s the, you could consider it. This is one of the factors that gets
considered when you are choosing the next incarnation that you’re going to have. So great
question. Thank you for that. They’re all great questions and I’m really appreciative of them.
So let’s have a look at now, this is a, this is one question that is actually about seven.
So I’m going to see if I can break this down a bit. So, Daisy, thank you for your
question, Daisy. And Daisy says, let me just read this out.
So I’ve noticed over the years that my way, in quotes, spiritually, was to be accepting.
So bearing in mind what we just discussed, she’s describing being yin to let go readily. It comes
naturally and brings peace, like a, like a default setting.
So the reason why it’s a default setting is Daisy is a woman. And so there’s naturally
going to be more of a propensity towards being yin, and that means things like letting go and
being accepting and seeking peace. Okay. But more recently, I’ve noticed a spiritual path calls
you to action in the form of righteousness, hope, and courage. Now, there’s a little bit more
context than in this question, but this particular person has.
I’ve had a little bit of discussion with them prior to this live stream. And, you know,
they’ve been, as well as meditating, seeking higher spirituality and living it and putting into
practice things like the six virtues that we discussed. And so she’s found that at this stage in her
life that she’s actually being more yang. So she’s talking about righteousness, courageous. I
think hope kind of sits in the middle, really, between yin and yang.
But what she’s observing is one feels more yin and the other yang and much more
uncomfortable. So she’s finding being yang more uncomfortable, yet she’s feeling herself
spiritually called to action to be more yang. So she’s asking, is one more important than theother? Are both necessary to grow spiritually? Does one come from another? So there’s a lot of
questions here, and does it help to be more conscious of where you’re coming, coming from?
And then a final question. Are women and men more like, I think that’s more likely to
unconsciously lean towards a way of being if they aren’t present. Okay, let’s work backwards. So
if someone’s unconscious, then they’re always going to be working from their default. And the
default for a woman is to be yin, and the default for a man is to be yang. Now, obviously, society
conditioning, life experience can skew that massively. So if you’ve been a woman who’s been
put in a very tough situation from a very young age, and you’ve had to be Yang to survive, then
even if you’re not present, as in awake and you’re spiritually asleep, you’re probably going to be
more Yang, even though you would think as a woman, you should be more yin. So again, taking
out the specifics and the outliers as a general way of looking at it, yes. Women unconsciously
are more likely to be yin, and men unconsciously are more likely to be young. Right. Does one
come from another? So the Yin Yan single, pardon me, the yin Yang symbol is a circle, you
know, and it’s the squirrely symbol with the two circles in it. And they’re chasing each other.
They’re always moving around. So yin is always chasing Yang. And Yang is always chasing yin.
To be more specific, Yang action movement is always falling into yin space, stillness, and it
keeps moving around. So it’s not that one comes from another. Both Yin and Yang resolve down
to neutrality. So if you took all the yin and all the yang in the yang in the world and you brought
them together, they would be perfect. Pardon me? They would be perfectly balanced and they
would cancel each other out and you would just have nothingness. So they actually come from
God. So Yin doesn’t make yang and Yang doesn’t make Yin. But there is an interplay between
them, a constant dance, and they should be in balance. And when they are not, for example, if
you’re in an environment where there is more yang, then there’s more likely to be more darkness
and evil. And if there is more yin, then there’s probably more peace, but not a lot happening. So
there has to be balance. Okay.
So does one come from another? Are both necessary to grow spiritually? So I don’t
know if you guys can see this. Let me bring, bring this down here. So we’re just looking at this bit
here, and I’ve made a bit of a hash of that. But basically, are both necessary to grow spiritually?
Yes. So this goes back to what I was saying, that the reason why in the previous question,
sometimes you would choose to incarnate in the opposite sex is to experience more of the one
that you’re less familiar with.
The key thing. Are both necessary?
Yes.
But again, if you said grow spiritually or grow in terms of soul, because the spirit and
the soul are two slightly different things. So I would say, yes, you cannot have a dominance of
one or the other. You’re much better off having both. And as I said, if a man, if a person, not
necessarily a man, it could be a woman. If a person was to yang, they would probably become
very aggressive and spiral into negativity and eventually become quite a dark person. If they’re
too yin, they’re going to be walked all over. So as above, so below. In terms of being spiritual, if
you think about wanting to be more like or closer to God, then God is the neutrality into which
both yin and yang cancel each other out. So you would aspire to. To be both. And then is one
more important than the other? The answer is no.
Wisdom.
So what she’s saying is, it’s uncomfortable to be young, but I’m being called to action
in the form of righteousness and courage and hope. So righteousness does not mean self
righteousness here. I think what she’s referring to is righteousness, as in knowing what is right
and feeling that you should stand for what is right. And that’s why she’s mentioning courage, Ibelieve, because you need courage to act on what is right. Okay, so is one more important than
the other, yin or yang? No, they’re both important. And summarizing what she’s asking, I would
say, look, if you want to be spiritually mature, if you want to be higher in terms of your expression
of your godliness or your goodness, your spiritual alignment with God, so not saying that you are
God, but you’re aspiring to reflect the good qualities of God, then you would be yin and yang,
and you would be wise enough to know when is it time to be yang and when is it time to be yin?
Because sometimes you want to yield and sometimes you want to push. Sometimes it’s right to
say no, and sometimes it’s right to do nothing and just listen. And it doesn’t mean that you
suddenly, one day you’re the warrior and the next day you’re the poet.
It’s subtler than that.
But I would say keep it simple and keep it at a very high level. Don’t start analyzing
everything and saying, oh, am I being in right now? Maybe I need to be more yang. What’s the
right thing to do? Because that’s all happening up here. You want to be always coming from the
heart. And so, because the reason I say that, I mean, look, it’s a big. But the reason why we
want to be coming from the heart is because then you’re more in tune with your higher self and
you’re guided. It’s time to be more yang. It’s time to be more yin. Okay, so we’ve actually just
looking at the clock, we’re coming up to 10:00 and we still have one more question. Okay, so
we’re going to get a bonus couple of minutes on this one, and then we’re going to wrap up. So
anon says some spiritual traditions use the phrase we are one. What is your view on this? Are
we? Are we really one? Well, look, I just talked about cliches, people saying, come from the
heart. We’ve always got to look a bit deeper to understand the truth. And I would say the phrase,
we are one. No, I think it’s a nice idea, but it’s not spiritual truth. You’d have to first of all say,
well, who is the we?
Okay, and if you’re saying, well, humanity. Okay, well, you as an expression of
humanity, are just one of many lifetimes that your higher self is having or has had. And so you
talk about that we and all the humans at that level. Are you talking about all the humans down
here? So I would rephrase it and I would say, look, talking spiritual truth, we are all in the same
environment. And therefore, whatever we radiate affects everyone else, and we are affected by
everyone else.
But you could be dropped into an environment where everyone is really, really bad.
And some people have to endure this, but you don’t become bad. You just have to make many
more choices. Employ spiritual wisdom, stick to the virtues, aspire, you know, kind of keep your
radar locked on Jesus and God. In other words, you are nothing one with everyone.
You are only responsible for your choices. And the environment may impact on you. It
may coerce you, push you, deceive you, trick you, force you, but you still always have free will.
And as a human with free will, yes, you are affected by the environment. And so you could say,
look, everyone in the environment is in the same boat. So we’re all in the same boat. There’s
one boat, yeah, but you are always free. Might not seem like it. And sometimes to exercise that
freedom might be the absolute hardest sacrifice, the biggest sacrifice, but there is only one thing
that is one and that is God. And the spiritual journey is about you seeking to get closer to
goddess. You can be doing all the fluffy stuff and all the idealistic stuff and all the meditation and
all the good speaking, but if you aren’t acknowledging God, you’re not being spiritual. So I would
say.
I would phrase this spiritually as saying spirituality is the desire to be one with God.
And if you truly attained it, then you would know the truth, which is that there is just
one thing everywhere, and that is goddesse. The we are one, I think, is a simplification of the notion that we’re all in this together.
And the choices we make do impact other people, but we always have free will to overcome the
choices of others and ultimately demonstrate our own choices. So there we go.
Wow. We just about managed to get everything in. And look, I touched on a lot of
stuff here and talked about the past and a whole load of other stuff.
Hopefully it’s useful, hopefully it’s inspiring. And if it has raised questions, please go to
the website. There’ll be links in the description, or you can just kind of go to the website and
you’ll see a film strip. Click on that on the homepage and you’ll find the form there. Or just
message me directly if you can. Do. So if you’ve got any questions of a spiritual nature that
you’d like to share with other people, and you can do so anonymously, as this person has done.
But look, this, I really would like to thank everyone who’s been watching, and if you’re watching
after the show, that’s equally really, really valuable and important. And I’m really blown away by
the support. And people have asked, how can we help? Just share this, even if it’s after the
event, share the video with others. Do comment on the video, please like subscribe. All the usual
things that just helps the algorithm get this out to more and more people. But equally, just asking
questions either before the show or during the show is a really good way of just getting involved.
So this is Mark, and this has been discussing spirituality with Mark Zaretti. And Thursdays we
broadcast. So I’ll see you next Thursday at 09:00 p.m.
and now I’ve got a, now I’ve got to figure out how to end the live stream. So bear with
me…
We’re all learning all the time. There we go. Take care. God bless.