Modern WisdomIs Spirituality Compatible With Modern Life? - Rob Bell | Modern Wisdom Podcast 245
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
90 min read · 17,690 words- 0:00 – 15:00
You have Google engineers…
- RBRob Bell
You have Google engineers who are the whole comfort of rationalism and would mock anything spiritual or religious, but then can't wait to show you the photos of their weekend at Burning Man where they ran around half-naked in (laughs) the desert-
- CWChris Williamson
Off their face on psychedelics.
- RBRob Bell
... acknowledging a burning ... Yes. Saying, "Oh, man, I was in touch with the universal cosmic oneness."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) .
- RBRob Bell
It's funny that you would say that because that's a direct quote from the Old Testament, the Bhagavad Gita. And Buddhism even actually has a very sophisticated 2,000-year-old way of naming what you think is just, "I had mushrooms and felt one taste."
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Can you tell, for the people who don't know, give us your background. How did you end up here?
- RBRob Bell
How did I end up here? I, from a young age, was utterly fascinated with the big questions of what we're doing here. How does this whole thing work? What is this wondrous, strange experience that we are having on a ball of rock hurtling through space at 67,000 miles an hour? And in the world I came from, if you're interested in those things, you become a spiritual teacher, a pastor. Uh, you help people explore the big mysteries. So that's what I did. That's what I've been doing for a long time now, and I love it. So books, tours, films, events, um, however I can help create spaces where people can discover who they are and what we're all doing here, I'm in.
- CWChris Williamson
You could have gone down a couple of routes there, couldn't you?
- RBRob Bell
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
It could have been psychology-
- RBRob Bell
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... philosophy, physics, mathematics, public service-
- RBRob Bell
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... in some form or another.
- RBRob Bell
Yeah, and it was interesting. My dad was a judge for 44 years. So he woke up every morning, put on a suit, went to a courthouse, and presided over trials. So, so he had, uh, this ... I'm trying to think of the right word. This old-school sense of public service. You know what I mean? Like, there's this proper dignified role that you play in society. You know what I mean? Where you, you give yourself to the greater good as an act of service. In his case, the ad- administration of justice. So I sort of grew up in this setting where you're here to help contribute. Like, that was, like, baked into the DNA of the home I came in, came up in. Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
Where are you from? Where is home?
- RBRob Bell
I grew up in Michigan, so in between Chicago and Detroit.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. Is that quite typical to have this wholesome, uh, sort of-
- RBRob Bell
(laughs) . Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It was Midwest. You go to, uh, soccer practice, although you properly refer to it as football.
- CWChris Williamson
Correct.
- RBRob Bell
Um, you take piano lessons. You go to the, the public school, which for you all, like, like, the school that everybody goes to, not, like, a private thing. You just, um ... you ride your bike to school. You know what I mean? (laughs) Like, there are ... Like, it was, um ...Yeah, you do your homework. You have a dog. Yeah, it was, yeah, it was ... Yet my parents, though, I'm trying to s- think how to say this. There was a- an intellectual restlessness, an intellectual, spiritual restlessness. They were always reading, having interesting people for dinner, like, giving me ... I remember in high school, my dad being like, "There's this guy, C.S. Lewis. You might find him interesting." (laughs) Like, there was this sort of searching, exploring, endless conversations about the big things. It was sort of just normal part of life.
- CWChris Williamson
It's a good way to instill-
- RBRob Bell
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... some curiosity at a young age.
- RBRob Bell
Yeah, yeah. And my dad used to say, you know, um, he had all these, like, phrases (laughs) that, like, sort of it etches a kid stuff you're told over and over, like, some of it sticks and some of it you're like, "What was that?" But there was one thing he used to say, "The greatest gift you can give yourself is to find work that you love." So your original question, I- at around the age of 20, I gave my first sermon. And I'd been in a band, and the band broke up. And I was trying to figure out what I was gonna do with my life, and I volunteered to give a sermon at, like, this chapel service. And suddenly, I saw the sermon as an art form, like, a revolutionary, poetic, uh, counter-narrative, subversive art form. And I was like, "Oh, I'm gonna do that." (Laughs) "That's what I'm gonna do." That's how it started.
- CWChris Williamson
That is not what I would have typically thought of as someone giving sermons. I appreciate that-
- RBRob Bell
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... my experience in church has been limited since I was in school. Um, I- I've, I've gone when I've-
- RBRob Bell
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
... when I've had to, I suppose, which is usually christenings-
- 15:00 – 30:00
Oh, I love it.…
- CWChris Williamson
you're not- you're not exempt from it either.
- RBRob Bell
Oh, I love it. I mean, let's talk about your Premier League right now. Like, look at Manchester United. Ole, all Ole's gotta do is win games, but then is that comment that he made actually a reference to the board? Is he actually saying to Ed, "You need to give me more money in the transfer window?" And then how about the academy? And there is no director of football development, who should be developing an academy. That's why we're having to go out... Like, y- it's like, "No, no, just win games." And he's like, "No, no, no. This thing has got more layers. I've got more pieces." Um, yeah, yeah, the thing gets unwieldy at some level.
- CWChris Williamson
It really does.
- RBRob Bell
Very normal thing. So- so religion is not unusual in that regard.
- CWChris Williamson
No, not at all. What does the word spiritual mean to you?
- RBRob Bell
That this experience we're all having here, it's dodgy and awkward and heartbreaking and strange and takes all these unexpected twists and turns and failure and pain, and yet there's something just below the surface that never stops inviting you to some sort of new creation. So when I ask people, "What are the three or four or five events that have most shaped you into who you are?" What people always... People never talk about, "Well, I got a pay raise," or, "I went on holiday." When I say, "What are the events that most affected who you've become?" people always talk about suffering loss, heartbreak, and pain, and they always witness to something happening in the midst of it. So, spiritual is the depth of life. It's this animating energy that's been moving the universe forward for 13 billion years as it endlessly expands, present, around, and in each of us, and never stops inviting us to new futures and new imagination and new possibilities. That's a really short/long answer. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, and I-
- RBRob Bell
So for many people, spiritual... For many people when they were told spiritual, they think of something otherworldly, leaving this place, not... But spiritual is economics, politics, art, earth, soil, regenerative farming, how we care for the vulnerable and our needs. Spiritual is the depth of all of life. It's the thing happening just below the surface in pretty much everything.
- CWChris Williamson
I think the difficulty that a lot of people have with the word spiritual is that it kind of comes attached with a ton of baggage, right? Like, it's-
- RBRob Bell
Absolutely. Absolutely.
- CWChris Williamson
... a word- a word which has grown out- virtuously grown out of established classic spiritual practices and then also more recently kind of just been hijacked by anyone who wants to talk about spooky stuff and, you know-
- RBRob Bell
Woo-woo.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- RBRob Bell
Total woo-woo.
- CWChris Williamson
Precisely, which-
- RBRob Bell
It's-
- CWChris Williamson
And when you... That's, like, a kind of a- a double-ended attack, like a pincer movement-
- RBRob Bell
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... of two different groups, one which is completely entrenched in tradition-... and unchanging, and has set this very kind of, um, firm foundation for what it could or should be. And then you have this total new wave version of it that's kind of thrown the establishment upside down. And you, you're suspicious of the old, the old guard because maybe they haven't updated their thinking in quite a while.
- RBRob Bell
Right. Well said.
- CWChris Williamson
And you're suspicious of the new guard because they've been around for so long that how the hell can they know what they're talking about?
- RBRob Bell
(laughs) You have just done a brilliant job of s- summarizing a world of philosophy and current thought. Yeah, the one says, "This is how it works. There is nothing new or innovative or adaptive. Just follow these rules. Come to our services at this time. Obey." And it misses the adaptive, ongoing, inviting aspect. It doesn't know what to do with quantum physics. It doesn't know what to do with what we now know about the condition of the earth. It, it is sometimes paralyzed in the face of the great questions of the day. The other rejects that completely, and often rejects any depth. It surfaces. It is reductionism. It is, "You are just a collection of cells, neurons, and synapses. Get over it. Your brain created all of this anyway. It's just a series of impulses firing up there." But the problem is that leaves a person disconnected from the depths and a little bored, and it doesn't know what to do with the great mysteries of life. Consciousness itself, you and I are aware that we're aware. Um, that is the mystery at the heart of the human experience that continues to be an elusive mystery. So, there is an integrative path that takes the strengths of both of what you just pointed out, leaves behind the weaknesses, and duct tapes them together, which is what I'm trying to do in the book.
- CWChris Williamson
I think especially in the 21st century, I'm on this flex at the moment, a lot at the moment, thinking and talking about this particular viewpoint, the value of being cerebral in 2020 is so high that I think it can disconnect us from the-
- RBRob Bell
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... the m- the sort of magic that we have around. Now, I'm not someone who is religious. I would class myself the worst, like the absolute worst classification, which is someone who's non-religious but spiritual, which just sounds like somebody-
- RBRob Bell
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... somebody who wants-
- RBRob Bell
I knew ...
- CWChris Williamson
... wa- wants to have all of the enjoyment of sitting on a meditation cushion, all of the wonder of looking at the night sky, but none of the discipline of having to stick to any commandments. Like, that's what it sounds like I want to do, which isn't the truth. I promise you it's not the truth. But the sad s-
- RBRob Bell
No, that's not what you wanna do. No, no, no.
- 30:00 – 45:00
Good. …
- RBRob Bell
we're having. What does matter? Is it headed somewhere? Yeah, yeah. I love it. I love it.
- CWChris Williamson
Good.
- RBRob Bell
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
W- where do you see-
- RBRob Bell
And, and actually, to be honest with you, this is what happened to me going back to that mall and all those people, is I kept noticing, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, this whole giant machinery, this thing that I'm a part of...It's actually, at its heart, about having a fully human experience. That's actually the thing that, that I'm trying to do here. Do you know what I mean? (laughs) And it's got all these layers of stuff, but underneath it all, what's it mean to be human? What's it mean to be fully alive? (laughs) Where is the joy and meaning and satisfaction? And that all of this apparatus and tradition and lineage I come from, if it doesn't help that and serve that, then I'm not bringing it with me. (laughs) It became this like, does it help? Does it? Okay, great. Otherwise, not interesting. But yeah, that was a huge thing that happened to me.
- CWChris Williamson
Where do you see most people going wrong on a spiritual journey?
- RBRob Bell
Wrong? Probably s- stuck in categories that, that it's right or wrong. (laughs) Versus who are you, what has ... what's in front of you, what's the next step, what's it look like? So, okay, let's use the phrase wrong. My experience, most people, it becomes way too complicated. They get stuck in their head and they literally argue their way out, argue themselves out of the next step, which is generally fairly straightforward. So oftentimes, they have a script they were handed, family, authority figures, professors, mentors, experts, their boss, that's like, "This is, this is how you play the game." And yet something within them knows they're here to do something slightly different. So there's this tension. Or they simply kept going and the people around them at some point stopped and settled. Uh, they kept exploring, kept growing, kept searching. And most of the time, that's what's interesting. So your path, if we were going to h- why you're doing this today, talking to me, I imagine there were key moments when you were like, "Um, I sense this is how Chris does it." And there were probably key moments when you were like, "I know everybody around me is like, 'This is the direction to take,' but something within me knows this is the direction to take." (laughs) And you either don't take that direction and something within you dies, or you take it and all the risks and pleasure and everything that comes with it. Yeah, that's how, that's why I would say for many people it got way more complicated than it actually is.
- CWChris Williamson
I think this loops back to what I was saying before about how much we value being cerebral. Um, you know, I, I love you, l- l- you being-
- RBRob Bell
Yes. Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... a, a utilitarian. I love the, um, the cold comfort of rationality, as Pierce Brown puts it in his fantastic Red Rising series.
- RBRob Bell
Absolutely. Absolutely.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, I, I like the, the comfort blanket that having input process output gives me, because it allows me to try and bring some sort of order to chaos that's going on in the world. But what you've touched on there is a very easy test for people that are listening and are thinking, "Yeah, this sounds good, mate, but I'm not really for that whole kind of spirituality thing." Many of the best decisions that we've made are built on gut instinct. Now gut instinct is like this weird, bizarre aggregate of all-
- RBRob Bell
Yes. Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... of the subconscious experiences and the, the-
- RBRob Bell
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... wisdom that we have accrued. You know, you, you're speaking to someone and yo- if- you just feel something's off. I don't know what it is. I just don't feel ... Walking down the street, you see some guy on the right hand side. You're just not really too sure about what it is. And if I said, "Why did you cross the street? What was the reason for you crossing the street?" You would say-
- RBRob Bell
Thank you. Right. Right, right, right.
- CWChris Williamson
... "I don't know. I don't know the reason that I crossed the street. I just felt something was wrong." Right, okay, so what are we talking about here? Are we talking about super spooky plasma energy like Rhonda Byrne in The Secret? That he was giving off the, the magnetism that was negative to my polarity? Or are we just talking about the fact that your body is able to sense things that the prefrontal cortex, right at the begin- the front of your head, isn't able to rationalize and isn't able to articulate? Now, really, that, I think, helps us to redefine spirituality away from all-
- RBRob Bell
Thank you. Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
... of all of the trappings that it perhaps had before.
- RBRob Bell
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
And it's something that's a little bit-
- RBRob Bell
Yep.
- CWChris Williamson
... easier for us to understand.
- RBRob Bell
Abs- You have done a lovely job of summarizing my work for the past 25 years.
- CWChris Williamson
Yes. Yes.
- RBRob Bell
Some ca- Some call it s- Some call it, uh, transrational. This is the rational and the logical fully engaged, fully all, all systems go. And yet, transrational also allows for those other ways of knowing that can't be measured with the standard metrics and data of cold rationalism and yet are just as real. Namely, you crossed over to the other side of the street. Something within you knew something. You can rationally explain it to me to a certain point, and then what you're going ... And especially the person who's like, "I'm just about the facts." Yeah? You just told me that you know so-and-so is lying. Give me the facts on how you know they're lying. "I don't know. It's n- I mean, it's just a feeling." Oh, it's interesting. You pride yourself on your facts, but actual lived experience you dip into something you just called feelings, which sounds a little squishy to me. So apparently what you're actually doing is integrating these different modes that are present within you. And sometimes you're gonna move to that town because the rent is cheaper and you got a better job and you can be closer to people you love and there's a very rational process, and sometimes you went there 'cause you just knew, "Dear God, it's time for a new start." And spiritual is the acknowledgement that all that is in play with all of us. It's just the degree to which you own it.
- CWChris Williamson
That's a nice-
- RBRob Bell
And, and this is the-
- CWChris Williamson
... that's a nice way to put it.
- 45:00 – 53:35
Yes. …
- CWChris Williamson
And one of the arguments for why psychedelics are so successful at giving people these transcendent experiences that are life-changing is that these blockages, the restrictions upon what you sense are dropped away. Um, so by its very nature, your brain is kind of already playing this reductionist game. And one of the things that-
- RBRob Bell
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... I'm quite keen to try and do, I, I, I'm kind of, uh, this is me rolling on the crest of an hour, trying to talk about what's something that isn't fully formed, so it might come out messy. But my goal is to try and experience as much as I can in the moment to try and get rid of that-
- RBRob Bell
Yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... reductionist funnel, to try and permit myself to experience the color as vibrantly as possible, to feel the wind on my skin as fully as I can, to smell the trees as I walk past. But to do them all at the same time, not to just pick on one and pick on another, and pick on another, to constantly have that sense, that immersion in experience, the immersion in being alive. And one of the things that was really interesting to me was a cue given by a guy called Mark Walsh, uh, who runs the Embodiment Conference, and he said, um, a lot of the time when we're, when we're looking at something, we'll narrow our vision. And one of the cues that he gives people is to just allow their peripherals to open up. So you're looking at whatever's in front of you, but you allow your peripherals to open up, and you can see that, I know that's a very kind of basic example, but that's a perfect, uh, representation of what happens when you just realize that there's more beyond the, the realm of senses that you have at the moment if only you had the mindfulness to be able to let it in. And when he g- as soon as he gave me that cue-
- RBRob Bell
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... the penny, the penny dropped. And I was like, "Holy shit. I'm doing that with all of my senses." I'm choosing to only smell the things that I'm expecting to smell because I live the world through mental models. I don't live the world through experience because it's a shortcut. Our brains are there to make life easier for us. We don't need to make the choice of, "What am I going to do with this? How am I going to think about that?" No, no, no. This situation's similar to the one that you had five years ago, so just use that model. You don't need to think about this. I don't need-
- RBRob Bell
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
... to learn something new. I can just do this. You've walked-
- RBRob Bell
(laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
You've walked down your street 1,000 times before. You don't need to look at the color of the trees. You don't need to feel the s- the wind on your skin. You don't need to be able to hear the birds in the trees because you've heard them before. You've seen them before. You've felt it before. And I think one of the goals that I have-
- RBRob Bell
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... certainly over the next few years is to try and work my mindfulness practice and my ability to be present up to the point at which I feel like I'm feeling more in the moment.
- RBRob Bell
Absolutely. And there's something really interesting you pointed out. There's a, there's a sutele- a subtle energetic posture that he invited you in that actually is radically different than the dominant energies of the modern world, because what he did is he invited you to allow. And what's interesting about allow is he didn't say create, make, hustle, force, dominate. He said, "Allow," which is counterintuitively a letting go. It's losing your life to find it. And the dominant energies of the modern world have often been mastery. So, like, this is the thing, most motivational speakers, as lovely as they can be, (laughs) underneath it all, the message is, "Try harder."It is do more. It is reach within you and when sometimes very, very helpful, but nevertheless also can be destructive, override whatever you're feeling in the moment with energy, um, passion, whatever the language is you use. But what's interesting is counterintuitively, he said to you, "Allow yourself to have an experience of that which is already present and requires less energy," which is the really interesting thing happening now. So this man inviting you that at that conference is people are realizing this modern project that taught us how to achieve, how to build podcasts, how to talk to each other across the ocean, how to build hospitals, and airports, and put an iPhone in your pocket, man, we did all this great stuff. And yet there is something in that that formed these neural pathways of the answer is always do more, hard, try harder, network, hustle. And yet there's also sit, become aware, allow, and there's a world of wonder and mystery. So being in nature, psychedelics, meditation. I hit my head when I was 30. I had a closed head injury. I was doing back flips water skiing and I hit my head.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RBRob Bell
And I had a concussion closed head injury, and I was introduced to my kids. It, so I saw my life outside of my life. And when they brought me back from the hospital to my house, my wife gave me a tour of our house. This is 30 years old. And then they brought our two boys into the room and I, I met my kids. Even though I knew that they were mine at some like cellular level, the brain was perceiving. And then I would s- seriously, Chris, I would say to Kristen, my wife, for, for ... It took about a week for my brain to go back to normal. I would ask K- Kristen like, "How did we meet? What is my job?"
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RBRob Bell
"What do I do?" And I had an altered state of my brain couldn't, um, do the past, that was too much energy, and past is where regret is. And my brain couldn't do future, which is where all the worry is. My brain could only be here. And like you're saying, all the brain could do was allow the moment to be what it is. And it changed everything for me. It was (laughs) that was right when the mall thing was like at its sort of fevered peak. And it was like, oh my god, this whole thing that I'm doing over here, there's these present moments that I'm in endlessly, 'cause the only place you can be is now. And there's more than you could ever handle right here. I should probably be talking about that. (laughs)
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, man. I mean, again, to, to-
- RBRob Bell
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... uh, how, to paraphrase Naval Ravikant's quote about the hustle porn people, like they wouldn't have put the wick all the way through the candle if you weren't supposed to burn it at both ends. If you're working so hard, why aren't you happy?
- RBRob Bell
Right. Right.
- CWChris Williamson
Like if your, if your work and the volume of work that you're getting done is some form of achievement, why aren't you happy? Surely you should be more happy. You're working harder. Like the work should be in service of something which is fulfilling and enjoying. So if you're working so hard, why aren't you happy?
- RBRob Bell
Well, whatever that graph is, they don't just follow each other neatly.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- RBRob Bell
There's some way in which they start wherever and then they just-
- CWChris Williamson
Diverge .
Episode duration: 53:35
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