My Interview on the Conscious Fertility Podcast

I want to welcome Eli Recht to the Conscious Fertility Podcast. Now, Eli was born and raised in San Diego, California, and he currently resides in Carlsbad, California. He’s a licensed psychotherapist, LMFT, EMDR clinician. That’s the Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing therapy, which has a lot of evidence with PTSD. He is a spiritual counselor and editor and a teacher of Self-realization. Now, in 2020, Eli experienced what he calls a falling away of ego identity and awakening to his true nature. And as a result, he’s now dedicating his life to this kind of service. He wants to help people alleviate suffering, cultivate connection, guide people through that often-confusing journey of life, and invites others to recognize our shared unconditional essence.

I wanted to talk to Eli because on the Conscious Fertility Podcast, many of you have heard this before, that I want that inner peace. I’ve learned rather than going into the outside world, I had to go into the inside world to kind of find that peace. On the Conscious Fertility Podcast, this is one of those episodes where even if you’re not trying to grow your family, I think you’ll benefit a lot, and if you are wanting to grow your family, you’ll definitely benefit a lot. So welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much, Lorne. I appreciate you inviting me, it’s great to be here, and hi to everyone listening and watching.

Now, I think we got to kind of set the stage a bit because I don’t even know if you know exactly why or what I want to talk to you about, right? I think that there is an awakening going on on an individual level and a collective level. Can we start with enlightenment, awakening, self-realization? What is the definition? And maybe your story is important at this point. Why should people care? Why do we want to know about this? My hint is people are suffering. I see it in my practice. People want peace. They realize the relationship doesn’t bring it to them. Maybe temporarily. The money doesn’t do it, even the health or the job doesn’t do it. So can you share a little bit about your personal story? And right off the bat, what are you talking about or what is this word, Self-realization or awakening, that we’re referring to so easily on this podcast?

Essentially, Self-realization… there’s a lot of words that are synonyms for that. You have spiritual awakening, enlightenment, satori… there’s just a million, and if you want to go in depth, I do have a really good blog on my website about Defining Enlightenment.  I list all these different spiritual teachers who are awake and show how they define it. Steve Taylor, who I know you had on your show as well, said that if you lined up a hundred different spiritual teachers, they would all define enlightenment or awakening in their own way. And I agree with that. So I’ll do it my way.

Basically, my understanding is that it’s realizing our true nature. And what is our true nature? It’s spirit, awareness, pure consciousness, being. So self-realization or spiritual awakening is really about getting in touch with truth, our truth, our true nature, which exists beyond the world and also within the world. So it’s essentially everything. When you wake up to your true nature, you realize that your essence is the same as the essence of everything and everyone else.

We’ll have some skeptics here. So before you had this awakening, what had changed? What was your life before and after years ago? I would think if somebody was awakened or enlightened, they would never admit it, right? They just wouldn’t. There would be some halo around them. They can move. They can walk through walls. They’re enlightened. They have superpowers. So I’m curious, do you have superpowers?

I do not have superpowers, no. I’m just an average human here. There’s nothing really special about me other than the fact, I think, that I can really listen carefully and tune into people and try to understand deeply where someone’s coming from. I do have that. I would call that a gift or an ability to be able to just connect with people. So if you want to call that a superpower, sure.

I guess I would say, somebody’s trying to be happy. So if you have this awakening, somebody may be struggling right now, and they’re like, “If I just make this much more money, I’ll be happy. If it changes, I’ll be happy.” Do you have another view on that? Are you at a place of peace? And is it only on the inside or is it also on the outside? Are you experiencing it in your external world or is it only internally that you experience it?

Yeah, great questions. If one is Self-realized, that means that there is no suffering, that suffering is actually impossible for someone on a personal level because they don’t identify with the ego, which is what is the origin and cause of suffering. So if you no longer identify with ego, then suffering is not possible for you anymore. So there is a deep inner peace. The nervous system is calm and regulated at all times. That doesn’t mean you don’t have emotions or thoughts, but there’s just a different relationship to those components of life. You kind of put everything in its right perspective. So to go back to kind of what you were asking about and my life, I can relate to what you’re saying. There was a time in my life too where I felt like everything externally was really nice. It was good. It was almost perfect in a way.

My finances were in order. I had a good group of friends, good family. I was finding my way through life. I was successful, but I was deeply unhappy. I was incredibly anxious. I was depressed. I was suffering really badly, and I didn’t understand why. And that’s when I came onto the spiritual path and started seeking. I realized fortunately early on, that all these external things weren’t going to give me happiness. That being said, it’s still okay to live a full and good life and have success and pursue goals and things like that. There’s nothing wrong with that. The only caveat would be just don’t expect those external things to provide that deep, ultimate fulfillment and inner peace because they’re not going to, it’s impossible. They’re not designed to do that. Inner peace, and suffering for that matter, are entirely internal experiences. And so if you’re wanting inner peace, if you’re wanting that true unconditional happiness, then you have to go within because that’s the source of peace and happiness. It’s not from the outside.

So many of the old traditions and teachings encourage us to get rid of all materialism, right? And you’re saying from your experience, no, you can have the external world just don’t be confused or attached that this is your source of happiness. Realistically, when you’re awakened then – and let’s say you won the lotto or you got some great awards or just the synchronicities start happening on a material external level – you can still have pleasure out of that and enjoyment. You’re just aware it’s temporary. Because you get a new car, it’s so exciting, but after a period of time of driving it, it doesn’t give you that excitement anymore. Or you go on a trip, you can’t wait to go on the trip, right? A holiday. A long holiday. Then three weeks after you’re like, “I can’t wait to get home.”

Right, and then you need a vacation from the vacation, and we bring our baggage everywhere we go. So even when we’re on vacation, if we’re in Hawaii for example, or Paris, we’re still the same person. We’re bringing all of our stuff. So if we don’t deal with that inner stuff, then we’re just going to bring it with us everywhere we go, and we’re not going to find happiness. So we have to deal with our inner stuff, our triggers, our suffering, our subconscious processes, so that we can find happiness.

Now, what was your process? I heard you say somewhere, “I got it. I don’t got it.” I think it’s somebody else’s quote. I got it. I don’t have it. And when I use the term, I get glimpses. I’ve had glimpses of not just peace, but profound peace, outside of this ordinary state of the world. It’s something like, what was that? Or in that bliss state where it’s the love, the light that people describe. I’ve been non-medicated, so I’ve had glimpses, which has kept me very curious. Are you there consistently then now? And how did it happen for you, and why do you think it happened for you?

Yeah, it’s Adyashanti’s term, “I got it, I lost it.” The answer is yes. There’s an abiding peace. There’s an abiding awareness of my true nature at all times. I never leave the center, you could say, because the journey is really about going so far in that you reach the center and then you anchor yourself in the center. So I would say that yes, there is an anchoring in the center.

What drove me to the spiritual path was really my own inner suffering. I realized that everything on the outside wasn’t going to give me what I wanted. I thought there has to be something more to this world than just this sort of rat race. And I think I had this very strong thirst for knowledge ever since I was little. So my suffering really propelled me. I was raised obviously with Western principles, and the west is very much focused on outer success. So I found myself drawn towards the Eastern teachings and philosophies like Buddhism, Taoism, Yoga, because they offered the internal, they charted a course towards inner happiness.

And so I was guided in that way, but I was also always very balanced in terms of my left brain, right brain. I was very scientific and still consider myself to be quite scientific and rational and grounded, but at the same time very artistic and creative and open to spiritual ideas and things like that. So I gravitated originally, this was around college, towards Paramahansa Yogananda’s Self-Realization Fellowship path because he talks about Self-realization and spiritual enlightenment as a scientific process; that it’s not just this outer-worldly kind of thing that happens. You don’t have to go to a cave, you don’t have to go to a mountain. You can stay right here. This very room could be your cave where you attain enlightenment. And so it was really appealing to me because he outlined some of these scientific steps to get there.

And in his teachings, he also has a great balance of Eastern and Western thought. So that’s what I gravitated towards. I practiced his Kriya Yoga technique for quite a while, and then as time went on, and there’s of course more to the story, my meditation started to shift as I became in touch with my intuition, which I consider to be an essential aspect of one’s spiritual path or one’s evolution. As I got in touch with my intuition, which I call my inner teacher, the outer teaching started to fall away, and I started to trust my own inner guidance, and I just followed the breadcrumbs. One step after another, I would do my work, I would look at myself, I would meditate. I started doing energy healing and psychotherapy and all those types of things to kind of open up this subconscious mind, trapped energy that was in my body that was causing my suffering.

And little by little, I started to open that up, and that’s essentially what happened. I just followed the breadcrumbs, and whether I “popped” or not… from the outside, someone could say that it was like a pop. From my perspective, I was desperate for Self-realization. Once I realized that the outer world wasn’t going to give me that ultimate fulfillment, I thought… I still, of course, lived an okay life and made sure that I did all the things I needed to do to be a good citizen. But I realized that the inner work is really the most important thing, and so I just went full force into it. So for me, I would say it couldn’t have come soon enough. From others on the outside, it would look like a pop maybe.

Well, I compare it to Eckhart Tolle, who was on the bench, the author of The Power of Now. Or Loving What Is by Byron Katie, right? She was at the lowest point of her life. So in a moment, she was aware. It didn’t take… she suffered, suffered, suffered. Then in a moment, she was awakened, whereas my experience has been that I keep getting glimpses. I’ve had glimpses and glimpses. It wasn’t like I hit rock bottom and then had glimpses.

I’ll share with you my question: how does somebody know if they’re awake? I had these preconceived ideas of superpowers and such. But I know my life is so different than it was, and I still experience pain. But very rarely would I say I experienced suffering and I wanted to define it. So I’m saying this first because I don’t want to be like, oh yeah, that’s me too. I don’t want to because I still have my doubts. How does somebody know if they’re awakening from your experience? Again, for our listeners and for myself, how is your life so much different? You said you were suffering now, you said you feel tapped in, so you’re at peace. Is your life different? Because some people fear that if I do this, that I’ll never go out and do work, and I love my work I’ll never do. I’ll never enjoy anything material. I’m just going to be so happy sitting in my cave called my bedroom. Is that a true statement or fear?

No, that’s not true. I mean, it depends. Everybody’s experience is different. Some people who might awaken might feel called to just be in isolation, and that’s fine. But most people are, maybe I shouldn’t put a label on it, but many people would certainly feel the call or the pull towards service and to go back out into the world. I really like Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey. I think it’s a really great metaphor for the spiritual path because you kind of go down into the depths, you have to work through all your traumas and fears and everything, and then you come back around, you come out of it and you have this newfound wisdom. But that’s not the end of the process. The Hero’s Journey is circular, so you come back out with new wisdom, and then you come back into the world and you give that wisdom to everybody.

I find that that’s usually the case, but not always. There are no hard and fast rules with these things. I think there are some people who have gradual awakenings, some people who have big explosions. I think most of the time it’s gradual and there are glimpses along the way. But there can also be awakening events where there’s, like you said, these sort of big glimpses or these big happenings, and I think most of the time there’s both on someone’s path. That it’s very subtle, very gradual, that you almost don’t even recognize it. Then you have these big moments of recognition and things like that. That’s how it was for me. I think that’s how it is for most people. So I think it’s both.

How to tell if you’re really awake? There are several pointers. Number one, I would say there’s just a deep, profound unshakeable knowing that you’re awake, that you see everything now as sort of a dream, that everything is awareness, everything is consciousness. You see yourself in everything. So there’s a oneness that you experience. There’s a deep intricate interconnectedness with everything that you encounter. And you see everything that you encounter as your own self or as an aspect of yourself. There are those pointers.

There’s also peace, there’s understanding. Francis Lucille, who’s a non-dual teacher here in Temecula, who I’ve seen before, has a great quote about that. He says, “The way to the discovery of our true nature varies from one seeker to another. It may be a sudden and dramatic experience or a subtle, seemingly gradual path. The touchstone, in all cases, is the peace and understanding that prevails at the end of the road.” So how to know if you’re realized? You experience oneness, you experience peace, there’s no more suffering. There’s a deep love for all things, for the world. Nisargadatta also has a great quote. It’s one of my favorites. He says, “Love says, ‘I am everything’. Wisdom says, ‘I am nothing’. Between the two my life flows.” So if you find your life flowing between love and wisdom, between nothing and everything, there’s a deep humility where you don’t feel like you matter at all, but then there’s a deep love, which feels that you are everything and you matter immeasurably, then I’d say you’re awake.

First of all, so then I’m definitely not awake. So we’re going to have to talk about how to get there, that peace. But it reminds me of that, and I don’t know it well, but I heard it, and it really stood out, a rabbinical story expression that you’re supposed to carry a piece of string in one pocket. Maybe it was a gold piece in the other. And it’s to remind you, when you look at it, you’re nothing, you’re absolutely nothing, insignificant in this world. You’re nothing but a thread. And then with the gold, you’re the center of the universe. You’re everything and everything.

I love that. That’s great. I’ve never heard that one before.

That’s what you were sharing. So that duality, when you’re in the duality, you’re either nothingness as in the thread, that’s what your experience is, you’re worthless. Or you’re focusing on the gold, totally. But the non-duality is that you’re aware of being all of it and none of it at the same time. Right?

I would say that, yeah. I would say most people, depending on their personality, tend towards one particular aspect or the other. We’re either more head-based and more wisdom-based, like logical thinkers, or we’re more heart-based and love-based, like feelers and emotional and empathetic. But awakening is a balance of both. It’s a merging of the wisdom and the love, of the head and the heart, of the masculine and the feminine, is another way that you could say it.

I’m curious if you have a process. I know that in the material world you work as a psychotherapist, so you have that practice where you do counseling and therapy, and then you’re a teacher of consciousness. Talk about the words you use, teacher of Self-realization. What’s your term?

Yeah, I just say teacher of Self-realization, but it’s interchangeable with consciousness or awakening or true nature or inner peace.

In that, are you teaching a process to support the awakening process? Is that what you do?

Yeah, that’s the idea.

Can you give us a bit of an outline or idea of what this would look like? We’re not going to do practice today, just so we can get some concepts down.

So as a psychotherapist, I kind of focus on people’s personal goals. If they have mental illness or anything like that, anxiety, we focus on those goals. If I’m operating from the teaching mode, then the ultimate goal is Self-realization. But how that looks is totally different from person to person. So I really just try to flow with whoever’s in front of me and meet them where they’re at and listen very intently and attune very deeply as best I can to really hear where they’re at. Depending on what my intuition feels or senses, then we’ll go in a particular direction, or if they have a particular direction they want to go in, then we’ll just kind of flow together in that way. So it can look so different from person to person.

With some people, I just answer questions that they have. With other people, I’m like a companion on the spiritual journey with them. Sometimes I just allow someone to share their story and to provide space to be heard and seen and understood. Other times we’ll meditate together or I’ll refine their meditation technique for them or help them add some concepts or simplify things for them. And then every once in a while, maybe I’ll offer a tip or a technique. So there’s certainly things that we could do. I focus on emotional release as well. I think my main thing is to help people release their emotions and come to a place of acceptance. So there’s a number of ways that we can do that.

But when you say releasing emotions, I want to unpack that a bit. I’m getting a sense that it’s a little different than coming to cry in front of you or screaming. I have this sense, and again, it’s only my experience. I love breath work, like the holotropic as a way to release, I call it stuck energy, but if you looked at me, you would say, I was releasing emotions. And so can you unpack a bit when you say, when people come to release emotions, why is that helpful? Finding their pillows at home, why do they need to come and talk to you and have it here?

Yeah, it’s a great question. So let’s start from maybe how energy gets stuck in the first place, and then that’ll lead us in the conversation. So essentially, we all go through life. We have different experiences, different situations that we encounter in each life experience. We’re always feeling something. So the heart is always feeling something. There’s always some emotional resonance happening in every moment. When events or situations trigger negative emotions or emotions that we don’t like, that we don’t want to feel, we close up around them, we resist, we defend. So we have what’s called these defense mechanisms, these psychological tools that we use to shove our feelings out of our awareness. But what happens when we do that is that they get stuck in the body. Bessel Van Der Kolk wrote this book called The Body Keeps the Score. And that’s really important work because if we don’t feel the feelings that arise in every moment, they get stuck in the body, in the subconscious mind, which is in the body, in the energy system.

So that’s what ends up causing these problems. That’s what causes suffering. That’s what in the eastern traditions you would call karma, right? It’s karmic energy or subconscious energy. Carl Jung would call it the unconscious. So we go through life, we avoid our feelings, and they get stuck, and then they cause health problems, mental problems, emotional problems, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. So we have to unravel that. We have to undo that. So the way I like to work with people is, okay, first let’s see what’s blocking us from awareness of our feelings? So I like to go into defense mechanisms. What are all the ways that people are avoiding their own emotions? Once we can illuminate that, then we can drop into the body and start to release that energy that’s trapped in the subconscious mind. And that’s the process of releasing karma, of becoming more aware.

So our emotions have energy. They’re intelligent, they know what to do. So all you really need to do is kind of get out of the way. You relax your body. You have to be aware, you have to be relaxed. But one thing I like to do with people who work with me is, okay, where do you feel tension in the body? Or is there a certain situation in your life that’s causing suffering? Let’s go there. Hold that image in your mind. Notice where the tension in the body is associated with that image or event. And then open up around that tension and see if you can release the energy that’s hiding there. There’s always some energy or some emotion that’s hiding, that’s causing our suffering. So if we can open up the energy body and release that energy, Eckhart Tolle calls it the pain-body, then we’re on our way towards spiritual evolution and awakening. Does that make sense?

Totally. Actually it’s validating some experiences and what I do in my practice. But your idea of releasing, I have the same. One day I had an ‘aha’ moment. So in the process of Notice, Accept, Choose Again… I’m definitely past the place where I think I came up with these ideas… I feel like a receiver. I had an ‘aha’ moment for my process – Notice, Accept, Choose Again. And it was one of those moments where you’re like, where did this come from? And you just knew this is good stuff. And so when you’re sharing, releasing the energy, that’s when on my table and for myself, that’s what I see for my patients. However, I realized, when you say get out of the way, I don’t believe I’m releasing it. I believe it’s letting go of me. And it’s in the word “e-motion,” energy in motion. It’s very natural to move up and out, like you shared, if I understood it correctly. When we’re younger, these feelings come in and they’re uncomfortable and we don’t have the skillset to deal with them, to metabolize them.

That’s right.

We depress them. We deny them, we project them out, which in a way energetically gets them stuck in our tissues. So when you’re activating them, you still experience them. If you’re able to get out of the way, which I have a process and I’m learning about your process, I believe I’m not releasing it, not ego-Lorne. I believe because I’m no longer feeding it or holding this energy anymore, it can finally move through me. It was meant to move through me in 90 seconds, not for the rest of my life.

Exactly. I think that’s a great clarification. Yeah, I agree.

I always say we’re releasing, releasing, and then one day I had this ‘aha’ moment that I’m doing shit. I’m not releasing. This is just moving and I can just observe it and not try to analyze it, judge it, not try to not feel it. It will just move through and then it’s just gone. And I realized it was letting go of me. I was the one holding onto it. And now that I’m not holding on, it could finally move through its process and be released.

Exactly. The emotions are intelligent. They know what to do, we just have to be open enough, and then they will release themselves really. And then little by little, the identity, the ego that we believe that we are ,will start to dissolve because the ego feeds off of those trapped energies. That’s what reifies it, right? When we have this trapped energy, we get this ego construct. It’s a mental construct that’s created from our unprocessed energy. So when we release, when we process the energy or when the energy processes itself, you could say, then the ego just naturally starts to dissolve and fade away.

I have a metaphor. I think I’m getting a sense of how that intuition feels, the difference between an ego idea versus some important idea coming through me. So the metaphor, to understand it, is when we do this conscious work and we’re becoming really good at paying attention to what we’re experiencing and feeling non-judgmentally with kindness and curiosity, you’re tuning into the witness consciousness. So I believe it’s that part of me that’s metabolizing these emotions, not ego Lorne. And so my apple metaphor is that the effort comes in that Lorne Brown’s ego has to pick up the apple and Lorne has to bite the apple. But after that, I’m not saying, “Oh, Eli, can you pause? I got to release some salivary enzymes from my, hold on, hold on. I can’t go on the bike ride because I have stomach acid now. I can’t go to bed for two more hours because I have to absorb all these vitamins.” Something other than ego Lorne Brown, my autonomic nervous system, there’s something else that’s going to digest and metabolize the apple no matter what my ego does.

Exactly.

Bring this to Self-realization work, I have to activate the emotion, so I have to bring it up, activate it, and I have to just notice it. That’s pick up the apple and bite it. And then when you said get out of the way, after that, you’re not doing anything, the ego, it’s something else. And I think it’s because you’re so practiced at observing, you’re tuning into the witness consciousness, which is what’s going to do the metabolism. That’s my understanding of my experience, that I’m helping the patient’s experience, is that accurate?

That is accurate, yeah. Another way that I would say it would be that spirit is the doer, right? The ego is not really the doer here. It thinks it’s the doer, but it’s not the doer. And what I mean by spirit is awareness or consciousness. So witnessing consciousness is sort of an approximation or it’s a step towards pure awareness or pure spirit. And if we want to see it from that perspective, then yes, it’s the pure awareness that is doing all the work.

There’s that phrase, how I interpret it when they say light can transform the darkness, light will transform the darkness. I think it’s from Buddhism. My interpretation is light is awareness and darkness are those uncomfortable feelings or those subconscious programs that you inherited when you were younger.

That’s my understanding as well.

You’ve used the word ego. What is your relationship… and I use that word purposely with ego because growing up and all the books I was reading, it kind of made the ego the villain, and I’m not at that place anymore. But I’m curious, are you one of those teachers who’s like “we’re going to annihilate the ego,” or what’s your process and relation with the ego? You’ve heard mine, I obviously have a bias here, but I want to know what is your take on that and can we hear more?

Yeah, I actually agree with you. I think the ego has been villainized in spiritual circles, and that unfortunately creates a lot of confusion for people because they think, well, how do I annihilate my ego? I mean, how do I get rid of this? It’s impossible. My understanding is that you’re not really annihilating the ego, you’re just not identifying with it anymore. You no longer believe that it is what you are, that it’s your true self, right? You realize that awareness is your true self, and the ego is sort of one aspect of your true self that’s very useful. It helps us navigate life. It helps us cognize and learn from the past and plan for the future and things like that. So I like how you described it like a flipping on its head, because normally for most people who are living in separation consciousness or duality, the ego is forefront and the awareness is way back here.

And when you awaken, it flips. So the ego goes to the background and the awareness comes to the foreground. So the awareness is now directing the process, and the ego is sort of along for the ride, and it’s now a useful tool, but it’s not what we are. It’s a wonderful servant, but a terrible master is another way to say it. So you don’t get rid of the ego, but the ego changes in a very significant way because it’s no longer in the foreground.

One of my students, shout out to one of my students who uses this terminology, which I really love. I think it’s helpful to make this distinction between different aspects of ego. So you’ve got this sort of separative ego, which is when the ego is up in the front, that’s what perceives things. In terms of duality and separation, there’s me and not me. That’s the separative ego. And that separative ego, the one that causes suffering is what falls away after awakening. So there’s no longer this sense of separation or fear or suffering, but there’s still a psychological ego function that remains after awakening. It’s almost like a shell of what it used to be. It’s very thin, it’s transparent, it’s not personal, it’s just an interface or an organizing principle, whatever word you want to use, for navigating life in 3D, 4D reality. So the psychological ego function is what remains, and it allows you to continue living your life in virtually the same way as before, but there’s just no longer this separative ego which sees things as distinct or divided.

And I picked up on your words… and therefore, you don’t take things personally.

That’s right. You don’t take anything personally.

So you’re not reactive.

That’s right.

There’s peace.

Exactly.

You could intellectually say, I don’t like that, but there’s no visceral body response.

Right. You still might have preferences. You’d rather have a good night’s sleep than sleep terribly, but you’re okay no matter what happens. There’s an acceptance and an inner peace regardless of what happens, because you know that everything is perfect. There’s a perfection to the universe, and it’s only the ego that superimposes onto reality how it thinks it ought to be. It says, this is good, this is bad, this is right, this is wrong. When the separative ego falls away, you don’t have that anymore. There’s just the experience of What Is, and there’s a serenity and a contentment in every moment.

Even the way you’re talking about it, it’s like, I want that thing out there. But one distinction I like to make is that it’s not out there. It’s in here, and it’s actually what is. So the spiritual process or the path of Self-realization is not an additive path. We’re not adding something. We’re not trying to attain something. What we want is already there, already here. We just have to let go of what’s in the way. We’re taking away the veil, right? We’re taking away what’s preventing us from perceiving reality as it is.

I liken it to a sculpture. You’re a sculptor, you’ve got this big rock and you’re chipping away, and then there’s the beautiful piece of statue.

Exactly, like Michelangelo. True nature is always there. We don’t need to attain it or get it. We just need to let go of what’s standing in the way of it. And I find that to be really beautiful. It’s very empowering to think of it like that. So I just wanted to add that to the conversation.

And then do you finally arrive? Because many of the teachers say they still have challenges, they are just different challenges than they had before awakening and their process through it is a different experience also on the timeline.

It depends how you define arriving.

Well, they laugh because they said there’s no arrival. But that’s why I wonder what you’re thinking.

I would say both are true. In one sense, you arrive because you realize your true nature. You’re anchored in the center of your being. There’s no more suffering. But at the same time, there is no arriving because you’re always learning, you’re always growing, you’re always refining and deepening your alignment with truth, with your true nature. So it really kind of depends on how you look at it. I would say it’s both.

And do you have a sense then that, because tapping into this true nature of yourself, what is the purpose? I mean, what is the purpose of our life?

Again, it depends on who you ask, they’re going to define everything differently. But from my perspective, my intuitive knowing says that everything is consciousness seeking itself. And this is what a lot of the great masters say as well, that everything is awareness in pursuit of itself, knowing, it wants to know itself. So in that way, Self-realization is the goal of life. But you could also say that happiness is the goal of life, or inner peace or experiencing or being is the goal of life because they’re all synonymous with Self-realization. So that’s how I see it, everything is a play of consciousness, but you have to zoom out and see the big picture in order to be able to perceive it that way.

Well, when you say consciousness is seeking itself, I’ve heard that multiple times. I would say it’s not a loving source. It’s a dark and terrible source, because if it’s seeking itself. And all the experiences we’re having are grotesque. So can you talk about that? If it’s seeking itself, then it likes scary movies, it’s into violence and action. So I’m curious from somebody who Self-realized, what is your perception of what you’re seeing?

This is a big question and we might not be able to get to the full answer here. Again, everything is consciousness seeking itself. But each form, each individual person or being or soul, whatever word you want to use, is on its own journey. And so in order for evolution to occur, we have to go through different experiences so that we can learn about truth. Each experience we have, if we’re open and aware, is going to contribute to our increased awareness of true nature. So that’s one piece, we have to go through these dark and these light periods in order to realize what’s beyond the darkness and the light. I’m thinking about the Tao Te Ching written by Lao-Tzu who talks about the Yin and Yang. He says that without good, there’s no evil. Without evil, there’s no good.

So consciousness has manifested this world to have this duality, this good and this evil, so that there’s contrast, so that we can have something to compare to. If we don’t have one, we don’t have the other. And so both are necessary. In order for this world to even exist, you need to have aspects of consciousness that are lighter and finer and higher vibration. And you need to have aspects of consciousness that are denser and darker and lower vibration, so that you have contrast, so that you can start to see what’s really there. So it’s almost like suffering is built into the fabric of life, but from a certain perspective, you can see that suffering is Grace. That doesn’t mean that you allow suffering when you see it. In some cases you have to, like if someone has to hit rock bottom in order to change, that would be an experience of letting suffering happen in order for that person to learn and grow. But for the most part, if we see suffering, with our hearts, we want to do everything we can to reduce that suffering. And that’s part of the process too. Everything is perfect, but then we can add to the perfection. We can make the perfection even more perfect. So with the head we see that everything is perfect and with the heart we want to improve the perfection. Does that kind of answer your question?

It does. And I know because of time, I’ll lead the witness with some questions on this. It reminds me of Einstein’s quote, you can’t solve problems at the same level of thinking it was created at. And so you really have to just do the work. If you’re at a certain stage of evolution, awakeness, you’re going to see it a certain way, and there’s not enough evidence or language that you can share that’s going to shift that view. As you said, releasing the stuck energy, tuning into this witness consciousness of yourself by yourself, your perception changes. You get new lenses, and therefore you have a new perception. But you can’t think your way through this. You have to feel your way and do the process work to do this.

Yes, because the mind is part of the problem. It’s part of the subsystem. And if you want to understand the meta system, you have to get out of the subsystem. You can’t understand the meta system, the greater system from the perspective of the subsystem.

And so that’s Einstein’s quote, right?

Exactly.

And so you can’t think your way, you can’t debate your way through it. We can’t podcast our way through this. I was the guy that read all the books, went to all the workshops, but didn’t do the process work.

You have to do the work. You have to cultivate the awareness and release the karmic impressions, or the subconscious energy, in order to be able to realize this. I think some people can have glimpses, and there are non-dual teachers that say just be aware and you’ll get there. And that works for some people. There are different paths, but I think you have to do the work. However, talks like this are very important because they point the way. I think they illuminate that it’s possible. And so I think the service that they offer to people who don’t have this perspective is to have faith that it’s real, to trust that there is another way to see things.

What I really admire and I’m excited about, and we want to let people know more about where they can find you is, I think of talk therapy, and I’m trained as a clinical hypnotherapist that works the body up. It’s a body up work, you’re going into the subconscious and as you said, the subconscious in all your cells, people think the brain, it’s in every cell of the body. And when you go to talk therapy, that’s a top down. And again, some people are like, “oh, top down is good or not good or bottom up,” you are doing both. And I really think that’s the thing. That’s the integration when you could do both the top down, so talk therapy, but I think that alone is not enough. And then you’ve got the bottom up to really release stuff. And that’s why I think healing will happen, with your experience, you are spotting both.

I agree with that. Yeah. And I would also just add a couple things, which is that the field of psychology and psychotherapy has really transformed significantly. So it’s not just talking anymore. There is a lot of talking that goes on, of course, but there’s so much deep work that happens now on the level of energy and emotions and subconscious releasing. And most research says that the most effective therapies are those that have some sort of deep core emotional release. So I would say talking is a useful tool, but it’s not everything. You got to have it both ways. And that’s why I really like what I do, because I’ve got the psychological piece and I’ve got the spiritual piece, and I see them as two sides of the same coin. I see that psychological work is working within the framework of the mind and how to navigate life and tools for being successful and things like that. And then the spiritual piece is sort of how to see things from beyond or behind the mind. So you get both, right? You get the psychological tools to help you navigate in the world, in the mind, in that paradigm. And then the spiritual piece helps you beyond that paradigm and you put them together and you have a full, happy, successful, engaged life.

Before we share where people can find you and some of the happenings and offerings, I want to tie this into fertility and just health in general. So I always like to do a tie-in. When you’re having these emotional blocks and your body doesn’t feel safe, you go into a state of sympathetic overdrive, and your energy or your resources are being mobilized for survival, which means not as many resources are available for healing, creativity and reproduction. And when you release these emotions, these energy blocks, you’re now freeing up resources for great healing and reproduction. So your thoughts and feelings impact your nervous system, your immune system, and your hormonal system. And so when people ask, really, can this help? Yes, because it’s your thoughts that have caused your health. And your history with colitis and the anxiety is visceral, you feel it. But colitis is an organic disease that we can test and measure for. And you found through your emotional work that it was able to support it along with conventional medicine.

Yes. And the western mode of thinking says that ulcerative colitis has no cure, and yet through the emotional work I found healing. So there is a cure. I love what you’re saying. The mind-heart-body system is intricately interconnected. It’s deeply embedded within each other and from the perspective of spirit or awareness, they’re actually all one. It’s all spirit, it’s all one process that’s happening.

And on that note, you have some resources to help people realize that they’re all one, and I wanted to let them know the things that you offer. So first off, shout out to your website. It’s Elirecht.com. We’ll put that in the show notes. It’s got a great blog. By the way, you’ve edited some books as well, hopefully one day you’ll write your book. People can reach out to you. So what are the methods that you offer? Because you have counseling, do you have group work or meetings? At of the time of our recording, what are the ways that people can have access and support?

Yeah, I have my psychotherapy side, which is available for anyone who’s living in California in person or virtual. I have this spiritual teaching side, which is for those who are interested in particularly Self-realization and that process. And I work with people as well in person and internationally. And then I am currently facilitating a group on Self-realization in person. And I haven’t created a virtual group yet, but I do hope and plan to do that. And then people can just reach out to me and we can have one-on-one sessions, and I just help people with whatever they feel they’re needing in their journey.

The psychotherapy is California only virtually or in person, the Self-realization piece is worldwide, where you can do that virtually or in person. And there is some group work and maybe you’ll go virtual. So I’m smiling because by the way, everybody, I’m doing the Self-realization work with Eli in a couple of days. I think we have something scheduled.

Yeah, I’m looking forward to it.

My plan though, the smile when you said that is I have a whole business called Healthy Seminars and online stuff, so I’m smiling. Oh, I’m going to help, and see if I can get Eli to get involved in that virtual. I’m like, oh, cool, Eli. So stay tuned through the podcast because hopefully I’ll work something out with Eli.

Yeah!

Eli Recht, everybody, check out his website Elirecht.com. His blogs are excellent, and you can reach out to him to schedule your appointment. So go to his website to find out more. Eli, thank you so much for spending time with me today.

Thank you so much, Lorne. I really appreciate you having me on, and you’re so easy to talk to, and I appreciate all the beautiful work that you’re doing for people. Thank you so much. And thanks to everyone for tuning in.

Full Transparency. This is an after production edit into the original podcast. It wasn’t mentioned during the podcast that Eli’s teaching service is donation based. So that’s the teaching that he does around Self-realization and consciousness. So he has a day job, which he calls his psychotherapy, his counseling job, which you pay for, but the teaching service he offers is donation-based and all the proceeds go to the Rancho Coastal Humane Society, which is a local animal shelter in California.