Dr Shefali at THE HUMAN GATHERING

0:02 This girl is on 30 years that I've been doing interviews, the best I've ever heard. Her name is Dr. Shah Fali. It is time to change the parenting paradigm. The moment is now. We have the power to create a different kind of resilience. Awaken yourself to your own healing, heal your own baggage, discover your own wounds, resolve your own unmet needs and turn the spotlight within.

0:42 We're just going to go right into it. How are we going to fix the world?

0:46 The way to fix the world is through parental evolution. Because the core of all dysfunction that you may or may not choose to witness in yourself really was a legacy left behind by your very generous, unconscious parents. And you are suffering only because they were suffering. And this is the generational pattern of pain and unconsciousness that needs to end. So to zone in on the parent child dynamic is to heal the planet.

1:24 When you say consciousness. Yeah, let's give that up. We'll talk about my parents later. When you talk about consciousness, obviously, or not being conscious, obviously, the opposite is consciousness. What does that mean?

1:40 Consciousness is a profound process and it's multilayered. And as someone working in the field to raise it, inevitably I become hopeless and helpless because I'm looking for the ultimate level of consciousness, which in my opinion, the ultimate level is the liberation of the self from all external identifications. When the self is untethered to the opinions of others, to social status, to beauty, to age, to dogma, to religiosity, to any beliefs that limit and reduce it, then you are conscious.

2:22 So that is the ultimate level of consciousness. To reach there, you have to untrap, unburden, unfold unlayer all the bullshit that culture has put on you to reach that floating balloon in the vast expanse of the sky that you deserve to become. But to do that, you have to unpack so much and you have to be willing to be a Martian, an alien, lonely, isolated, and give up everything you knew to be familiar. Because what you to be familiar while it's comfortable, is really burdening you and un liberating you and suffocating you.

2:57 You just don't know it. So that's the ultimate level, which you can only reach through a profound process of transformation which inevitably and only can involve meditation, which is the encountering of yourself with your highest potential. So that's the highest layer. And I judge everyone with that. And then I inevitably become depressed for days. So I've learned to say, okay, not everyone can get there. I mean, if even one a room gets there, I'm happy. But Then there are many other layers.

3:27 So then we come down the totem pole and we talk about just waking up. Can you just wake up to the reality that you are creating it every moment? That you are not a victim, that you are in charge, that no one is doing anything to you? You are creating every second of every relationship and the energy you bring can shift things in the moment. Can you just wake up to that? Or how about just wake up to the fact that your child, right, if you're a parent, your child is here to teach you, right?

3:59 Can we look at every relationship as a mirror for you to grow up? Can we look at every person you meet as your teacher? Even if you don't invite the lesson in or cannot bear to change, can you begin to just shift your world just slightly? And then at the most basic level, can you just be a kind person? You know, can you just not say anything rude or judgmental for one day? Try it. We cannot even be non judgmental for an hour.

4:21 So it's breaking down. The conditioning of the mind. You know, the mind has been so mired in blind conditioning that we've inherited from two sources, our parents, unconsciousness and culture. So deconstructing this at whatever basic level to the highest level is the process of unconscious, of moving from unconsciousness to consciousness.

4:47 Even when you say bullshit, it sounds poetic, like the word bullshit. I was just like, oh, she swore. But it sounded like poetry. That's so pretty. I have so many questions and so many things of rabbit holes that we can go down. And when you and I chatted last, we talked about advancements in technology and robotics and AI and all the things that are happening. And I loved your response to that. So I just want to mimic that.

5:10 So as we're talking, and I mean, we're in one of the, the tech spheres of the world here in la, and we're constantly talking about robotics and automation and all these things and that's going to save the planet. You had an amazing comeback for that. And I just, I loved it with talking about, that's great that we can make that, but if we don't do

5:26 this right, we can do all that. When the basic inner self can sit with the self and is healed, then go explore another planet. But if you can't sit in the planetary inner landscape of your own being, you have no business traversing outside of that. First clean this up. Like, why are you going to another world, another planet or do that when this is taken care of? We are a humanity that is suffering. We're suffering because we simply don't know that we are divine.

5:59 And we don't know we're divine because we've never been taught how to sit still with the inner self. So let's go inward before we go outward. The, the movement toward increased robotization is actually creating a greater disconnection to the self, right? I mean, it is robotization. It's anti human connection, it's anti inner awareness. It's the mechanization of the self which is our problem.

6:29 It's devolution, not evolution. Evolution is the human connection. It's oneness, it's understanding. There is no separation between you and me. The separation is an illusion. It's a construct that we have inherited from the unconsciousness of culture. This needs to break before anything else changes.

6:50 You know, it's so interesting is A. I 100% agree with you and I do agree that our need to explore and expand and scale and all these different things is because we can't stand to be here. So we want to be everywhere else. Right? Even as I said this morning, the feedback was it's hard to connect with some people. It's because people want to scale. They want to just be on their phones and be safe in these environments.

7:12 And it's the one to one connection. I feel that there's so much, and I'm going to use the word, it won't sound as poetic as you make it. There's so much bullshit in this conversation of be one with yourself, be okay with who you are, have this self worth. This whole self help industry is just filled with bullshit. How do we get through that noise into core things that actually work?

7:37 The reason why the self help industry, which sometimes I am associated with, inevitably, I'm a psychologist. We are the feeders of what I'm about to say. We are the perpetuators of the madness and the sickness. The reason why the self help industry and psychologists and the psychiatrists and the educational industry that it's become is actually toxic is because in a very subtle and sometimes not so subtle way, it is perpetuating dependency on an external source.

8:10 Right? You go to a therapist, the therapist in her or his own subtle way creates dependency. Because it's a business, the educational system, the religious institutions, it's hierarchical, it creates dependency. What is dependency? It's an abduction of your own inner autonomy and Right, So self help gurus out there first, if they call themselves a guru right there, you should run. If they call themselves with any title, you know, I don't even like being called doctor, but you know, the people are like, you are a doctor.

8:37 But I'm like, but don't say it all the time because it creates separation. It gives you the illusion that I know something that you don't. And that's, that's total bullshit. Because, Because. But you see, but the self help guru, in a subtle way, is full of ego, right? Because in a way, the guru wants you to crane your neck and look at them as if they have the answer. Just like every parent wants the child to look at them.

9:07 This is why we have children. We have children because someone can adoringly look at you as if you know something. Finally, right? This is why you have children. And then when the child turns on you at 12 and says, you don't know anything. And I finally figured it out where like, oh my God, you know, I have a teenager at home. And then we all sympathize with each other. No. The other day my daughter said to me, mom, not only is your opinion irrelevant to me, she's 14.

9:31 She said, you are irrelevant. And to me, I looked, my husband couldn't believe her audacity. And I looked at him, I said, this is a conscious parenting success story. It is. I want to be irrelevant. I should be irrelevant because my ego should never substitute. My presence should never take over yours. You are a sovereign being fully dominating the universe. Your universe. And you find it, even if that takes you to homelessness, that's your destiny. I'm just here to be my most conscious self and to mirror and radiate with that and show you how messed up I am.

10:04 And you figure out you like, you've been here before and you're going to be away longer than I am. Who am I? So the self help industry against this, right? This is anti self help, right? But the self help gurus are not about self help. They're about depending on me. Help, like, please depend on me. Come follow me. Be part of my cult. So it's up to you as the follower to be intelligent and go, no, I'm not following that.

10:30 If you smell of enmeshment and dependency in your message and you encourage me to look up to you, I'm going away, right? So it's up to you as the consumer to understand who the self help guru is, right? And don't buy it. Don't go to the therapist who encourages you to be there more than two months, I fire all my clients. I go, no. If I announce to the world that I have a client for more than Six months.

10:55 I'm actually a failure. Because the potential to activate yourself is so ready within you, a skilled therapist can activate it within two or three sessions. It's the therapist who is mired in her or his own crap that cannot activate it within you because it's not activated within them. So any guru or cult leader or these fancy people that you're going to and say, I go to his seminar every year. Oh, no, you should not be, because you should be out there leading your own seminar by now.

11:25 But what if there's like a seminar that enters and then there's another one

11:28 and then another if. Yeah, but you know what I'm saying, it's this mentality we have to belong to a herd because we have this deep inner desire to belong, period.

11:40 Right.

11:40 And the belonging really is to be in this universe and to feel like you have a right to be here without the external structure.

11:48 Right, right.

11:49 You don't need to belong to any institution to feel worthy. Right?

11:54 Yeah. No, I wholeheartedly agree. And I think, and even going back to, you know, change, we see this with youth all the time. And actually today is special day for me. We had a child who was suicidal for two years. Literally every day of their lives they would say, I'm going to commit suicide, I'm going to commit suicide. They worked with therapists, they worked with every type of thing. And this morning I got an email from her, from this girl, and it's email 25.

12:19 And every week for the last 25 weeks she's been telling me how amazing her life is because 25 weeks ago we had an intervention session. Actually, it was 28 weeks ago, her first intervention session. And then we had another and on the third one, everything unlocked for her. And for now, 25 weeks, she has been in gratitude of her life and who she is. She now volunteers for the 1-800-suicide number. And in three half an hour sessions she took ownership of herself and that's it.

12:48 And the only communication I get are these weekly things that she set up as a barometer. So it's. So what you're saying is so incredibly important. Both children, but also adult. And there's not enough conversation. And it's why I wanted to bring this kind of conversation to the table is because everyone's talking about, be a better you. Be comfortable with who you are. Here's the book. Be a better you. Here's the program. And the reality is that it starts with a decision inside the person.

13:16 And it is work. Unglamorous, unglam. Entertaining work you'll ever do. I mean, try sitting with yourself in silence for even 35 minutes. You won't be able to. And this is the travesty, and this is what I teach.

13:32 But when you like yourself, do you find the same? Because I love talking to myself. I'm happy with that.

13:37 No, but it's not. It's not even just having a conversation with yourself. It's truly just sitting with your formlessness. It's entering your breath and understanding.

13:45 Can you take us through that really quick?

13:47 Like, do you want to?

13:48 Of course we do.

13:49 Of course. I teach meditation all the time. So we close our eyes and I'll teach you while I'm asking you to do it. So, typically I'm in silence myself, but since you don't. So just sit with yourself how you are. Don't anticipate going into some fancy state of being or changing your body into some comfortable position. Wherever you are. Close your eyes. This is what I teach. You're washing your dishes, you're on the pot, you're changing a diaper, you're burping.

14:18 We meditate. You understand because they teach you that you have to be on a mountaintop to go meditate. No, you meditate where you are. So close your eyes as you're sitting. And experience the silence, which is really full energy. Nothing is ever empty. Bring yourself to this room, to this moment, with every pore and cell of your being.

14:58 Try to experience the fact that you are here now. Say to yourself, holy shit, I'm in this room right now. How did I get to be here right now? I am here right now. And feel what it means to be here right now. And now you're going to take your awareness to the thing that is with you in the now and is your pathway to living in presence, your breath.

15:36 So take your awareness to your breath as it enters and leaves your chest. It's one thing to say breathe, but it's another thing to understand that you are your breath and your breath is in the now. So as you breathe, understand that you are in the now. Because when you breathe, you're only in the now. So breathe on the breath on the breath in the now.

16:13 Stay on that breath. Be on that breath in complete stillness. There's nowhere to go, nothing to do. Just stay on the breath.

16:48 Okay, when you're ready, you can open your eyes. So now do that for five minutes, every hour, on the hour, and your life will change.

16:58 I'm so mad. You have to get on a flight like we just need to keep talking for hours and hours. Questions? Let's get some mics around. I know there's questions. Let's grab the mics and jump around. Where's the mic? On this side. All right, go ahead.

17:14 Hello, thank you for your suggests and it's very, very great thing. So the thing not to allow anyone to identify yourself is absolutely gorgeous and understandable for us adults. But what do we can suggest for the smaller one for people who just start their life when it's age of 12 or 13 and they come through bullying, through relationships, tough relationship at school, it's not so easy just to say them.

17:46 Don't allow everyone identify yourself.

17:49 No, it's not something you say. You see, it's the air that they breathe. It's not something we say. It's how you live your life. It's how you energetically are in the world. That's what your children will absorb. And this is not to say your children will still not fall into the world of form. You see, we are living in a world of form. You understand? Form is the label, the identity, the belonging, the person, the relationship, the marriage, the function.

18:17 Who am I? I'm a this, I'm a that. That's the world of form. And what's missing is the wisdom that we are formless. And if we understood that we are actually formless playing in this world of form just for a moment in time, timelessness, then all of this would alleviate all our suffering. Would alleviate our suffering comes because we mistaken that who we are is form. It is that I'm a mother. It is that you are my child.

18:48 It is that you're my husband and I possess you. It is that I'm my Mercedes and now I only have, you know, Honda. It is that I need a PhD to feel better. That's an illusion. And we have been fed this delusion and wisdom is undoing this mass delusion that we have been seduced by. It's the Kool Aid. It's a lie. And now we need to teach humanity to forget that and remember that they are formless.

19:19 So with your children, it's not something what you say, it's how you are. And even then they will encounter pain and be seduced into the world of form. And then we remind them that this pain is transitory. This pain is because you forgot that you are not your grade. And you just forgot that you're not your dependency on me. And it's my job to extricate you from any illusion. And I try my best. You Know, I raised my daughter to not be dependent on any religious belief, for example.

19:50 But then she came home the other day and she was like, you know, I want to be this kind of religious person. So I'm not going to yell at her or not yell at her. I go, okay, you're being seduced in the world of form to believe that you want to be part of this institution. And I'll help you to remember who you are, but you still have your own destiny. Or if she comes home crying because someone called her fat, ugly and stupid, I'll go, oh, you forgot that.

20:14 You know, you're getting caught up in this. I understand. This is the human condition. This is our problem. We get caught up in form. And I see your pain. Your pain is coming because you got caught up in form. And I'm here to remind you. Get caught up. I'm here to hold your hand. I'm not afraid of pain. You're not going to break with the pain, but I'm going to remind you that you are not your body or your beauty or your brain.

20:36 Beautiful. We got a question over here.

20:38 I would like your. Your PayPal account so I can send a check for the therapy here.

20:43 I think that's really nice.

20:44 Yeah.

20:46 So sweet. Thank you.

20:47 So I'm just gonna. I'm gonna.

20:48 It's a minimum six figure.

20:50 Yeah, no, you know what? You know what your payment is, is just your transformation and the liberation of your child. That's it.

20:57 Well, I'm gonna. I'm gonna try to ask this question. I don't know if I'm gonna be able to. So I spent a lot of, maybe the last 10 years of my life trying to not be dependent on others and grow my. My wealth and my family and. And so on this whole, like, subject of human connection. So I've decided a couple years ago that I wanted to try to connect with people more and as part of that, maybe depend on them more, including my wife.

21:28 And so I just wanted your comment on. So I'm actually. I was not affected by others at all. And now I'm trying to go back in to be more dependent on others. I'm a dad, too. Poor human connection, is that.

21:42 Yeah. So let me, Let me try to understand what you're saying, and if I'm wrong, you'll tell me. It sounds like you were on one end of a spectrum. Right? It's all a spectrum. However, the condition spectrum, I believe you were anti connection or anti dependency because

22:01 it was a reaction, not connection, but dependency.

22:03 Correct.

22:04 I Have this thing in my head where I'm like, I don't want to depend on anybody.

22:07 Correct. But it came from this reaction. You were reacting to something that happened in your past that made you feel, I'm not going to depend on anyone anymore. I'm not depending on anyone. It came from a place of a reaction against something lack based. It was lack. I don't pronounce the word lack properly. Sometimes I have this accent, sounds great. L, A, C, K. Okay, it sounds like lack. And you know, so my accent screws me up sometimes.

22:31 So it was lack based. It was a reaction. I'm not going to be dependent. It wasn't organic. And now you're still reacting to that now. And you're like, now I want to be dependent. Both are coming from reaction. When one is truly connected with the self, one is out of mind. One is not making decisions. I'll connect or I won't connect. There's no agenda. When you're truly connected to the self, your field opens up because you're without judgment.

22:59 You see, the thing that blocks human connection is this mind based conditioning is our ideas. Who are you? We're always ascertaining, what can I get from this person? It's transactional. This is what blocks connection. Are you like me? Are you not like me? Deluded. Because we're all the same. All these barriers we put come from mind because we're not truly connected to the self. We have fear. It's all fear based, lack based. When you're truly within the self and connected as I'm speaking and you understand that you are divine being connected to, to formless energy.

23:31 And we're all that. We all come from that. And we're part of that. And there's so much of that. It's boundless. There's no competition. My judgmental fences break down. My field of energy opens up. You radiate with the power to connect. You're connected. You don't have to connect. It's not a doing, it's a being state.

23:56 Again, I'd like your PayPal account.

23:59 And let's pass, let's pass the mic around again. Remember, remember as we were talking with Dr. Drew yesterday, talking about being Heidelberg of the conversation and this is more of that, that self being, understanding. So let's keep these questions going because I know we're running on time.

24:16 Thank you so much for gifting us with such a brilliant conversation and using such beautiful language to articulate everything that you've been saying. I was wondering, so I Highly believe in disassociating ourselves from the associations we have with labels that identify us. Yet we have to operate within the structure of society. So if you want to be so far removed and be free form, how do you still operate within the confines of form?

24:58 Of form?

24:58 Beautiful question. And please notice men are talking to me. You know how refreshing that is? It's because women are often my audience. So to have men evolving with me is beautiful.

25:11 We're pretty awesome.

25:12 You're a pretty awesome gender when we get to see your awesomeness. But your question is the question, how do I live in this muck? Understanding it's all a delusion. But I have to live here, right? We have to brush our teeth, we have to wipe our ass. We have to. Okay, so how do I do this? De identifying. Correct. That's your question. So this is the power of meditation because it teaches you to detach. This doesn't mean dissociate.

25:43 You use the word dissociate means to detach. And detachment means allows you to be a witnesser, understanding that you are, I am, we are energy, we are awareness playing in this world of form. So we send our kids to school and even frown when they get a D grade or a smoking pot under the bleachers. But we understand that this is not something to suffer by, right? We will guide and we will teach them. But we're not going to get all wrapped up in reactivity and hatred and anger and bigotry and stand up, you know, and take arms because that's all delusion.

26:16 So if you learn to detach and be non reactive because you're forever in the witnessing state with a smile, the Buddha smile, you know, here, but not off it. Part of it, but not in it, you understand? So this is the beautiful duality in this non, you understand? We are non dual, but we're living in a dualistic world. So we dance the line. We're in but we're out, right? I put my lipstick, but I really don't give a shit, you know?

26:39 Understand, you do it, but you're not. You're not attached to it. You play with it. And we should play. This world is beautiful. Play. But understanding the wisdom mind always there that we are one. There is no separation. All identification with label, form, religion, belief. Dogma is the madness, right? You can go to the church, go to the school. Understand the wisdom though, of what you're doing. Keep the wisdom. We're losing the wisdom. We have no wisdom.

27:08 If you keep the wisdom, play with anything, right? Drive Your Bentley, but give up your Bentley if somebody else needs it or if it crashes, walk out like, that's it. It wasn't mine in the first place. When you buy a home, understand, you don't possess it. When you get married, understand, there is no control.

27:26 So please calm down.

27:28 Let's not go too crazy as your playing. You have to understand, you cannot play in this world and not suffer if you don't have wisdom mind. Now, if you play in the world and you have wisdom mind, your suffering is immediately mitigated because you're not identified, you understand? So when you buy that house, understand, it's not your house. When you have that child, understand, there is no my child. When you get married, understand, this is just.

27:59 We just want to invite the people and have a feast and get the gifts, you know, it's. There's no ownership here. There's no possession. Maybe this is the problem, right? We're doing all the world of form deluded, and then we suffer. So it's a choice we have to make at one point in humanity. Do I want to suffer or not? Do I want to be part of the pack and suffer? Or perhaps just be with one or two, but I'm not suffering.

28:23 We get to choose.

28:25 I think that you've given so many nuggets, but. But honestly, that could free everything. Just that realization, that wisdom, because then it allows you. I mean, it's kind of what Tom Billy was talking about last night with the Matrix, right? It's like, I don't know if you've seen that movie, but it's like playing the game with the power, with the knowledge, with the wisdom. And then all of a sudden, things are just irrelevant. And it makes you present in the time, makes you not have to be on your phone while this kind of conversation is being had.

28:53 It makes whatever's on your laptop so less important to connect. It gives you the ability to be present and to be with that wisdom and to gross exponentially. I love that. One more question we have time for.

29:07 I think I'm questioning my homosexuality, hearing you talk like I'm in love with you. And I joke about that. Like, I'm like, I think, don't be

29:16 identified with your gayness. Come over.

29:18 But, Joe. Here you go. There you go.

29:22 It goes right into what you're saying, though, because I'm like, wait a minute. I'm actually bigger than my label.

29:27 Thank you. Thank you.

29:29 And that I was able to feel you and not have it mean. I mean, because what I was feeling was the Me and you and that. We all felt that so very hard for me to put in words, but that pierced through my heart. And when I'm working really hard to be in my body more and more to use this, my heart, and there was moments where you were touching your heart. Is there anything you can share about how powerful our hearts are?

29:53 And, like, something that we can just be in that body space? Because it's. It's like something that's, like, so vast and cool and. Yeah, yeah.

30:03 So the breath is the most elegant. And this is not my wisdom. It's the wisdom of the Buddha. He. The Buddha did not teach Buddhism. The Buddha never taught any ism. All the isms are anti Buddha's teaching. The Buddha taught to kill the Buddha, okay? He said, if you see the Buddha on the road, kill it, because there's no one more enlightened than you. You are the Buddha. Okay? So when I talk of the Buddha, I'm talking about my Buddha.

30:30 Your Buddha. I'm not talking about the Buddha because the Buddha didn't care about the Buddha. He was like, I just want the teaching. So he taught how to enter the breath because the breath is the most elegant pathway first into the present moment. Yes. It's happening every moment. Second, the breath is constantly impermanent. Yes. So it teaches you that life is in the now and it's impermanent, Then the breath is the only thing we have that we carry with us all the time.

31:07 Meaning the Buddha is in you all the time? Yes. No dependency on an idol on a chant, on a phrase, on any trinket, nothing. It's with you. Then the breath is the mediator between the outer world of form and the inner world. Yes. So it's teaching you that the illusion of separation is an illusion because the breath is coming from in and out. Then the breath teaches us that we're all breathing from one breath, from one air, so we're all breathing the same breath.

31:41 My breath is totally contaminating yours and glorifying it and purifying it. So we are one. Right? So look at what all the breath teaches you. Okay. Then the breath teaches you many other things, such as when you breathe and you meditate, you begin to see how your thoughts influence your breath, how your breath influences your thoughts. And you're like, oh, there's this thing called cause and effect. Oh, my mind and body are one. Oh. So if cause and effect are working all the time, I am creating my cause and effect all the time.

32:11 So no one is doing anything to me. So this through this one portal of the breath. If you breathe and do insight meditation, Vipassana. That's all I do. I don't read any books, I don't watch YouTube. I just do Vipassana, which is just focusing on the breath. And you go for silent retreats and you will transform your life. And they don't take any money. It's all on donation. You see how you get to know something is real because there's no form identified to it.

32:39 Just a breath and no money.

32:43 Thank you so much.

32:44 Thank you everyone.

32:45 Amazing. Thank you so much.

32:47 Thank you, thank you.