Is Spirituality Compatible With Modern Life? - Rob Bell | Modern Wisdom Podcast 245

1. 0:00 – 0:34

   Burning Man, psychedelics, and the hidden continuity with ancient spirituality

   1. RBRob Bell0:00

      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-

   2. CWChris Williamson0:13

      Off their face on psychedelics.

   3. RBRob Bell0:14

      ... acknowledging a burning ... Yes. Saying, "Oh, man, I was in touch with the universal cosmic oneness."

   4. CWChris Williamson0:18

      (laughs) .

   5. RBRob Bell0:19

      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."

2. 0:34 – 1:46

   Rob Bell’s origin story: fascination with the ‘big questions’ and discovering preaching as art

   1. CWChris Williamson0:34

      (laughs) Can you tell, for the people who don't know, give us your background. How did you end up here?

   2. RBRob Bell0:42

      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.

   3. CWChris Williamson1:36

      You could have gone down a couple of routes there, couldn't you?

   4. RBRob Bell1:38

      Yes.

   5. CWChris Williamson1:38

      It could have been psychology-

   6. RBRob Bell1:40

      Yes.

   7. CWChris Williamson1:40

      ... philosophy, physics, mathematics, public service-

   8. RBRob Bell1:43

      Yes.

   9. CWChris Williamson1:43

      ... in some form or another.

3. 1:46 – 5:19

   Midwestern upbringing, public service, and intellectual restlessness at home

   1. RBRob Bell1:46

      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.

   2. CWChris Williamson2:33

      Where are you from? Where is home?

   3. RBRob Bell2:36

      I grew up in Michigan, so in between Chicago and Detroit.

   4. CWChris Williamson2:40

      Okay. Is that quite typical to have this wholesome, uh, sort of-

   5. RBRob Bell2:45

      (laughs) . Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. It was Midwest. You go to, uh, soccer practice, although you properly refer to it as football.

   6. CWChris Williamson2:53

      Correct.

   7. RBRob Bell2:54

      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.

   8. CWChris Williamson3:45

      It's a good way to instill-

   9. RBRob Bell3:46

      Yeah.

   10. CWChris Williamson3:46

       ... some curiosity at a young age.

   11. RBRob Bell3:49

       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.

   12. CWChris Williamson4:48

       That is not what I would have typically thought of as someone giving sermons. I appreciate that-

   13. RBRob Bell4:55

       Yes.

   14. CWChris Williamson4:55

       ... my experience in church has been limited since I was in school. Um, I- I've, I've gone when I've-

   15. RBRob Bell5:01

       Right.

   16. CWChris Williamson5:01

       ... when I've had to, I suppose, which is usually christenings-

   17. RBRob Bell5:04

       Yeah, absolutely.

   18. CWChris Williamson5:04

       ... christenings and funerals and weddings and stuff.

   19. RBRob Bell5:06

       Most people, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

   20. CWChris Williamson5:07

       Um, and also, I don't really know what the equivalent in the UK would be. I re- I'm fascinated by the concept of a mega-church, uh, and I wanna kind of-

   21. RBRob Bell5:18

       Yeah. Right, yeah.

4. 5:19 – 6:53

   What a megachurch is (and how Rob accidentally became ‘the man’)

   1. CWChris Williamson5:19

      ... really delve into that. What, what is a mega-church?

   2. RBRob Bell5:23

      Right. So, uh, um, in America, you have this phenomenon where you could say it's just religion, but it's religion, politics, economics. Generally, all these things get duct-taped together in certain places, and you get big churches, like, really big. Um, and it's a relatively new phenomenon. And when I started studying theology and became a pastor-... there were a few of them which were almost like, "Have you heard about the..." You know what I mean? (laughs) Like, there's one one state over. You know what I mean? Like, "What is that?" Um, but then when I was in my 20s I started a church. Um, so I was like, "There's gotta be a better way to talk about what it means to have a spiritual vision for life. There's just gotta be a better way to do it." It's almost like basic innovation. There's gotta be some better way to explore spaces where people can grow and learn and become better humans. (laughs) Um, but I started this church and then it grew into what is called a megachurch. So-

   3. CWChris Williamson6:40

      So what d- what defines it?

   4. RBRob Bell6:41

      ... suddenly I was-

   5. CWChris Williamson6:41

      Is it, like, the number of people?

   6. RBRob Bell6:42

      ... I was always the guy who was like ... I was like the guy sh- like, the Rage Against the Machine, like, you know what I mean? Stick it to the man. And suddenly, suddenly I was the man.

   7. CWChris Williamson6:50

      You are the man now. You're the man, yeah.

5. 6:53 – 10:09

   Scale and surreal logistics: 10,000 Sundays, 80 staff, and being given a shopping mall

   1. RBRob Bell6:53

      It was ... It's a very strange ... I mean, within a couple of years, there were 10,000 people coming on a Sunday. So try to imagine there were 80 employees within a couple of years. So picture, like, people with orange vests and those lights that they use at the airport to help guide planes into space, parking cars. (laughs) And picture, um, people giving money, like, well you go to a church, you donate, right? Like, the all these sort of accustomed behaviors people had. And yet for me and my wife and friends, we were doing, like, a giant art experiment. Like, could you give most of the money away to the poor? Like, could you do giant art shows where you invite thousands of people to make art and display it? Could you write your own music and sing it? Do you know what I mean? Like, for us it was this, um, d- like a very DIY sort of post-punk, keep it lean and mean and low to the ground. And yet this phenomenon happened. I mean, uh, it was 20 years ago that we s- 22 years ago that ... So it feels like another lifetime, but can ima- i- imagine a small town in the Midwest and this thing just explodes, like, relatively overnight.

   2. CWChris Williamson8:18

      How big's the building?

   3. RBRob Bell8:18

      It was unbelievable. Uh, we outgrew the first building and so I had to start doing the sermon three times on Sunday to fit everybody, and then somebody gave us a mall. So a guy said, "I have a mall. It's not making a lot of money. There's a bunch of empty stores. Can I just give it to you and you buy the parking lot?" So we literally took over an American mall. I know. I mean, I'm telling you the story like, "Wait, that's what happened?" That's what happened. Yeah, yeah. (laughs)

   4. CWChris Williamson8:48

      What's the, what's the biggest number of people that you've sermoned to at once?

   5. RBRob Bell8:56

      Oh, over, uh, the whole ... What an interesting question. I remember speaking in my early 30s, um, getting invited to speak at, like, outdoor festivals. And I remember speaking at a festival in between all these bands and, you know, like, when you're speaking on a stage, people are gonna be familiar with this, the, you look to your left and then you sort of look across the crowd to your right. And I remembered while I was speaking, a second voice in my head going, "Man, when you look far left and then you swing over to look far right, that takes a while, does it-"

   6. CWChris Williamson9:32

      (laughs)

   7. RBRob Bell9:32

      "... and afterwards ..." You know what I mean? I was like, "I think this might be a lot of people, I'm not sure."

   8. CWChris Williamson9:38

      (laughs)

   9. RBRob Bell9:38

      And then afterwards I said to one of the promoters, like, "Hey, just out of curiosity, like, how many people was that?" And he s- I remember he said, completely deadpan, "I think we sold 120,000 tickets." (laughs)

   10. CWChris Williamson9:57

       (Laughs)

   11. RBRob Bell9:57

       Like, like, he was a little fuzzy on it, you know what I mean? "Yeah, I think we sold about 120,000 tickets." So I'm sure, I don't know if I was ... eh, who knows? (laughs)

   12. CWChris Williamson10:06

       That's insane.

   13. RBRob Bell10:07

       Who knows?

   14. CWChris Williamson10:07

       So, I mean-

   15. RBRob Bell10:08

       I know.

6. 10:09 – 11:35

   From parish vicars to festival crowds: rethinking what a ‘pastor’ looks like

   1. CWChris Williamson10:09

      ... uh, again, for, for me, thinking about the way that I would consider, like, a typical vicar, you know, like in the UK-

   2. RBRob Bell10:16

      Yeah.

   3. CWChris Williamson10:16

      ... like, you know-

   4. RBRob Bell10:17

      Right.

   5. CWChris Williamson10:17

      ... kind of this, uh, very sort of regal, older gentleman-

   6. RBRob Bell10:22

      Yup.

   7. CWChris Williamson10:22

      ... who, he's-

   8. RBRob Bell10:23

      Yep.

   9. CWChris Williamson10:23

      ... he's got the, the white, the white collar, um, and, you know, i- is surrounded by oak. Everything's oak. And you've got sort of-

   10. RBRob Bell10:31

       Yes. Yes.

   11. CWChris Williamson10:32

       ... v- very kind of baroque architecture. Um, uh, that-

   12. RBRob Bell10:37

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson10:37

       That, like-

   14. RBRob Bell10:38

       Mm-hmm.

   15. CWChris Williamson10:38

       Trying to picture my vision of the guy that stands and gives a talk at a rock concert is, oh, there's a-

   16. RBRob Bell10:47

       Yeah.

   17. CWChris Williamson10:48

       ... discontinuity there.

   18. RBRob Bell10:51

       Absolutely. I remember the first time I came to the UK, fall of 2006, and I was doing a short tour and somebody had set up little gatherings and the vicars that you described would, like, show up 'cause they'd been listening to the sermons or they'd seen the films I was doing or read the books and they would have questions. And it was so great 'cause this lo- like, kindhearted, lovely folks, like, "So, um, is your baptistry like ..." And I'd be like, "Mm-mm. You know, whatever you have in your head, man, dude, love you, but, like, just get rid of everything you have in your head 'cause that's ... I'm not gonna have any idea what you're talking about." (laughs)

   19. CWChris Williamson11:34

       What are the, um-

   20. RBRob Bell11:35

       Yeah.

7. 11:35 – 15:40

   Megachurch pastor expectations: stability, branding, and the pressure not to evolve

   1. CWChris Williamson11:35

      What are the, what are the preconceptions of a megachurch pastor? I know that in your book, Everything is Spiritual, you talk about, kind of, subverting those expectations.

   2. RBRob Bell11:43

      Right.

   3. CWChris Williamson11:43

      People come up to you and basically say, "You're not what I expected." What did they expect?

   4. RBRob Bell11:49

      Right, right, right. Well, what happened, like, in the book when I talk about ... this ... I saw it as an endless discovery, like you're a student. So-... um, well, what does quantum physics have to tell us? How about biology? Look at art theory. Look at this ancient text. Look how these people interpreted this ancient text. Um, for me, it was this endless process of evolving and growing and following it where it leads. And the expectations of a megachurch pastor was, you're building something and so you say what you say to build it. So, you're not growing or changing, it's stability you're offering people. That's how you build an institution. So, I can... I- I mean, I literally would do interviews and the person would say, "It seems if I look at your work over the past few years, like you're growing and evolving." (laughs) And I'd be like, "Yeah, that's the job." And the interviewer would say, "No, I think the job of mega..." Like, they just had never... You know what I mean? It was like, "Wait, you're a spiritual leader. You're supposed to be the exact same person you've always been." It's like, "No, the job is to grow." (laughs) That's- that's what we're doing here. Um, so, uh, I- I just kept noticing there was a game face that megachurch pastors would often have, like y- y- what you say to keep the organization going in the, quote-unquote, "right direction." And then there was the personal life of the megachurch pastor, which was what they were reading, what was happening in their life, and generally like a split. Almost like they'd step on stage and have a p- persona and step off the stage and be this other person. And right away I was like, "I'm- I can't- I can't do that." The only way it works is to have it be this authentic, genuine path of discovery, and I'm sharing with people what I'm learning and you follow it where it goes. It's the- that's the only- only game to be playing here.

   5. CWChris Williamson13:54

      I get it.

   6. RBRob Bell13:54

      Yeah, and it was d- very difficult, very painful, very... Yeah, it wa- it- it was very, very difficult to be in this. I'd even created it, so it was very, I don't know what the word is, limber or flexible, and yet it still had all of these cultural assumptions that I couldn't do. Yeah, it was- it was very painful for a while there.

   7. CWChris Williamson14:16

      I think typically whenever you have an organization that gets large, anything, like a big sports team, you know? Like, you have a big sports complex-

   8. RBRob Bell14:24

      Yes.

   9. CWChris Williamson14:24

      ... that's got a- a bunch of different junior leagues in it and a adult academy and a junior academy and a fourth, second, third, you know?

   10. RBRob Bell14:31

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson14:31

       Like, when you have that, inevitably it's harder to enact change. There's more politics that need to be played around with. And the realm of religion, spirituality, uh, metaphysics, n- that is not... Uh, th- there is like a, you know, the, um, law of conservation. There's, like, some sort of fundamental law to do with the amount of bullshit that you're gonna have to deal with when an organization gets to a certain size-

   12. RBRob Bell14:57

       Absolutely. (laughs)

   13. CWChris Williamson14:57

       ... and it gets this kind of critical mass.

   14. RBRob Bell14:59

       Absolutely.

   15. CWChris Williamson14:59

       Uh, and you're not- you're not exempt from it either.

   16. RBRob Bell15:03

       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.

   17. CWChris Williamson15:36

       It really does.

   18. RBRob Bell15:36

       Very normal thing. So- so religion is not unusual in that regard.

8. 15:40 – 17:33

   Defining ‘spiritual’: depth, suffering, and the universe’s invitation to new creation

   1. CWChris Williamson15:40

      No, not at all. What does the word spiritual mean to you?

   2. RBRob Bell15:48

      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)

   3. CWChris Williamson17:08

      Yeah, and I-

   4. RBRob Bell17:08

      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.

9. 17:33 – 20:59

   Escaping the pincer: tradition-bound religion vs. shallow ‘woo-woo’ vs. reductionism

   1. CWChris Williamson17:33

      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-

   2. RBRob Bell17:41

      Absolutely. Absolutely.

   3. CWChris Williamson17:43

      ... 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-

   4. RBRob Bell17:58

      Woo-woo.

   5. CWChris Williamson17:58

      Yeah.

   6. RBRob Bell17:58

      Total woo-woo.

   7. CWChris Williamson17:59

      Precisely, which-

   8. RBRob Bell18:00

      It's-

   9. CWChris Williamson18:00

      And when you... That's, like, a kind of a- a double-ended attack, like a pincer movement-

   10. RBRob Bell18:05

       Yes.

   11. CWChris Williamson18:05

       ... 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.

   12. RBRob Bell18:31

       Right. Well said.

   13. CWChris Williamson18:31

       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?

   14. RBRob Bell18:37

       (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.

   15. CWChris Williamson20:08

       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-

   16. RBRob Bell20:25

       Yes.

   17. CWChris Williamson20:25

       ... 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-

   18. RBRob Bell20:40

       (laughs)

   19. CWChris Williamson20:41

       ... somebody who wants-

   20. RBRob Bell20:43

       I knew ...

   21. CWChris Williamson20:44

       ... 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-

   22. RBRob Bell20:57

       No, that's not what you wanna do. No, no, no.

10. 20:59 – 31:06

    Transcendence beyond intellect: why poetry, stories, and metaphor communicate what science can’t

    1. CWChris Williamson20:59

       The sad thing is that I think enjoying the fact that you can have transcendent experiences, even if they're just biochemically produced, even if the only reason that I feel a sense of awe, or a sense of wonder, or a sense of connection, the connection's the oxytocin, and the sense of awe is the dopamine, and da, da, da, da, da. Like, you can just, uh, deconstruct it all the way back down, but it doesn't help anyone that isn't you to understand phenomenologically what that sensation feels like. And that, that is the challenge, that you, you've got to rely on people who are the best wordsmiths on the planet to get 1% of the way there to explain what awe or dread feel like.

    2. RBRob Bell21:42

       (laughs) Yes. Absolutely. Absolutely. There is something about this experience we are having that the intellect can follow it a certain distance down the road, and then it always transcends your cognitive capacities, and you're into some other space, which is why poetry, art, you think about all of the most helpful expressions generally move you beyond the narrow parameters of linear logic. I love how you're (laughs) about to say you're spiritual but not religious. You were already throwing up in your mouth that you were gonna be the guy saying this. (laughs) And yet, it is how you would describe this experience. Yeah, I get it. I get it. (laughs)

    3. CWChris Williamson22:32

       But the problem with that, tha-

    4. RBRob Bell22:33

       Yeah.

    5. CWChris Williamson22:33

       ... the, the fact that I have to say it identifies the fact that spirituality-

    6. RBRob Bell22:37

       Yes.

    7. CWChris Williamson22:38

       ... has been, uh, carabiner hooked onto religion, that if you say, "I'm spiritual-"

    8. RBRob Bell22:44

       Yes.

    9. CWChris Williamson22:44

       ... people presume if you're not wearing elephant pants with dreadlocks, i.e. new wave religion-

    10. RBRob Bell22:50

        (laughs)

    11. CWChris Williamson22:50

        ... that you must, you must be just, like, a slightly non-normal, uh, non-religious-looking religious person. Um, so the caveat there, again, is more really just a semantic one, um, uh, that, that is, uh, part of the etymology of where that word has grown up through the years.

    12. RBRob Bell23:09

        Yeah, what's interesting though, if I come... Like, uh, last summer, I was on tour in, in your fine land. And, (laughs) um, I wa- and I'll, I w- I will interact with all sorts of people from all sorts of backgrounds, and some of them are rooted in a lineage, the Christian mystical tradition, Judaism, Buddhism. Some, uh, come out of yoga. Some are acade- come out of academia. But a sense that there's something about the soul that is transcendent and timeless. Um, there is a common space where all these people meet, exactly what you're describing. And some came in through science 'cause they were like, "Wait a second. This can go pretty far, but then there's something else going on here." Some came in through religion. Some came in through Joseph Campbell and mythology and look at this experience we're having and look at the ways in which people have named this. Some ha- just have a- had an intuitive sense their whole life.... of what you're saying, of the transcendence. So they're just like, "Just give me a cushion. Let's talk about that." (laughs) Yeah, yeah. There, there is a new space with all sorts of people who are exactly what you are describing. And it's not weird and it's not woo-woo and it's... Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So that's, that's... That, that is, um, it's a pretty exciting thing happening.

    13. CWChris Williamson24:42

        I think so.

    14. RBRob Bell24:43

        But your analysis, your analysis is spot on.

    15. CWChris Williamson24:46

        Good. G- I'm glad. Um, when-

    16. RBRob Bell24:47

        You had also... (laughs) You, you know, you might, um... I was thinking when you were just talking, you made an interesting point. I do these sessions where people, um... I was doing them in person, now with the world the way it is on Zoom, where people tell me what they're working on and how they're stuck, and then I sit with them and, and watch while they get unstuck. And the whole premise is I don't know who they are or what they do or any background on them, so they just tell me, "Hi, I'm so and so. This is what I'm working on." And it might be an artist, it might be a CEO, it might be a heart surgeon, it might be a guy who has a podcast like you, and then they... It generally takes them about two minutes to explain wha- what's the stuckness. But what, I think what you might find fascinating is, eh, when I invite them... Sometimes I'll even use an image like, to sink down from head into heart, um, because there's all this chatter in our heads. There's self-doubt, there's there's the voice of the expert on our shoulder telling us how it's supposed to be done.

    17. CWChris Williamson25:58

        Mm-hmm.

    18. RBRob Bell25:58

        But you would find it fascinating how many people, when all I say is, "So sink down into heart, whatever that means to you, and tell me what you find," how many people instantly find clarity. Like li- it's almost like they go into a deeper part of their being than just that lovely synapse firing. You know what I mean?

    19. CWChris Williamson26:22

        Absolutely, man. I mean-

    20. RBRob Bell26:23

        And, you know, t- ... I mean, I, I see it again and again and again and again and again. There's all this clarity right there in the person.

    21. CWChris Williamson26:32

        Again, to, to drive home the point that I made earlier on, 'cause I'm reflecting on it as you, as you speak, I don't, and you don't need to either, attach some other worldliness if that's not your inclination. You don't need to attach something-

    22. RBRob Bell26:49

        Right.

    23. CWChris Williamson26:49

        ... in order for this to not be effective and real. It can be an accurate-

    24. RBRob Bell26:56

        Right.

    25. CWChris Williamson26:56

        ... representation of the way that we operate within the body to say that if you are able to mindfully reduce chatter, like, i- i- you could reflect it as going from the, uh, what's it called? The t- well, not the typical network. What's the thing that you switch off when you meditate? People are gonna be screaming it into their-

    26. RBRob Bell27:19

        What a great question.

    27. CWChris Williamson27:19

        ... into their AirPods.

    28. RBRob Bell27:20

        (laughs)

    29. CWChris Williamson27:21

        Uh, there's, there's two s- there's two systems at work in the brain, and, um, when you meditate, you turn off one and you turn on another one. That is a, um, a way that a neuros- a neuroscientist would look at you and say, "This is what is specifically-"

    30. RBRob Bell27:35

        Yes.
11. 31:06 – 33:02

    Where spiritual journeys go wrong: overcomplication, scripts, and arguing yourself out of the next step

    1. CWChris Williamson31:06

       Where do you see most people going wrong on a spiritual journey?

    2. RBRob Bell31:13

       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.

12. 33:02 – 44:40

    Transrational living: gut instinct, embodied knowing, and the limits of cold rationalism

    1. CWChris Williamson33:02

       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-

    2. RBRob Bell33:09

       Yes. Yes.

    3. CWChris Williamson33:09

       ... a, a utilitarian. I love the, um, the cold comfort of rationality, as Pierce Brown puts it in his fantastic Red Rising series.

    4. RBRob Bell33:19

       Absolutely. Absolutely.

    5. CWChris Williamson33:20

       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-

    6. RBRob Bell33:49

       Yes. Yes.

    7. CWChris Williamson33:49

       ... of the subconscious experiences and the, the-

    8. RBRob Bell33:52

       Yeah.

    9. CWChris Williamson33:52

       ... 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-

    10. RBRob Bell34:10

        Thank you. Right. Right, right, right.

    11. CWChris Williamson34:11

        ... "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-

    12. RBRob Bell34:47

        Thank you. Yep.

    13. CWChris Williamson34:47

        ... of all of the trappings that it perhaps had before.

    14. RBRob Bell34:49

        Yep.

    15. CWChris Williamson34:49

        And it's something that's a little bit-

    16. RBRob Bell34:51

        Yep.

    17. CWChris Williamson34:51

        ... easier for us to understand.

    18. RBRob Bell34:55

        Abs- You have done a lovely job of summarizing my work for the past 25 years.

    19. CWChris Williamson34:59

        Yes. Yes.

    20. RBRob Bell34:59

        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.

    21. CWChris Williamson36:31

        That's a nice-

    22. RBRob Bell36:32

        And, and this is the-

    23. CWChris Williamson36:32

        ... that's a nice way to put it.

    24. RBRob Bell36:34

        And this is the problem in the Western world, and particularly in the intellectual traditions that so prized the one way of knowing over other ways of knowing, that you end up with super smart people with two PhDs who literally don't know how to have a relationship. Because what is the data on that? Show me the research on that. It exists in different categories. (laughs) Or in the America we, uh, you have Google engineers who are the hard, like you said, the cold comfort of rationalism, and would mock anything spiritual or religious, but then can't wait to sh- to show you the photos of their weekend at Burning Man where they ran around half-naked in (laughs) the desert-

    25. CWChris Williamson37:23

        Off their face on psychedelics.

    26. RBRob Bell37:24

        ... acknowledging a burning effigy, yes, saying, "Oh, man, I was in touch with the universal cosmic oneness."

    27. CWChris Williamson37:30

        (laughs)

    28. RBRob Bell37:30

        It's funny that you would say that because that's a direct quote from the Old Testament, the Bhagavad Gita, the Upanishads, 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."

    29. CWChris Williamson37:48

        (laughs)

    30. RBRob Bell37:48

        So that's why anytime someone starts banging on about religion, but then tells me about their transcendent experiences of freedom and liberation, I'm like, "You realize that in the Book of Exodus, 3,000 years ago, they were telling a story to try and name the emptiness and boundarylessness of the formless divine." (laughs) And that's where it gets real fun. (laughs)
13. 44:40 – 53:35

    Presence and ‘allowing’: psychedelics, mindfulness, and Rob’s concussion that forced him into the now

    1. CWChris Williamson44:40

       Um, one of the things that I've been thinking a lot about recently is the fact that one of the primary jobs that our brains have is not to allow us to perceive things, but actually to stop us from perceiving things. There's far too many signals going on for our brain-

    2. RBRob Bell44:58

       Yep.

    3. CWChris Williamson44:58

       ... to allow us to take them all in. 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-

    4. RBRob Bell45:24

       Yes.

    5. CWChris Williamson45:24

       ... 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-

    6. RBRob Bell45:42

       Yes.

    7. CWChris Williamson45:42

       ... 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-

    8. RBRob Bell46:46

       Yeah.

    9. CWChris Williamson46:46

       ... 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-

    10. RBRob Bell47:12

        (laughs)

    11. CWChris Williamson47:12

        ... to learn something new. I can just do this. You've walked-

    12. RBRob Bell47:15

        (laughs)

    13. CWChris Williamson47:15

        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-

    14. RBRob Bell47:29

        Yeah.

    15. CWChris Williamson47:30

        ... 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.

    16. RBRob Bell47:43

        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.

    17. CWChris Williamson50:12

        (laughs)

    18. RBRob Bell50:12

        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?"

    19. CWChris Williamson50:55

        (laughs)

    20. RBRob Bell50:55

        "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)

    21. CWChris Williamson51:46

        Yeah, man. I mean, again, to, to-

    22. RBRob Bell51:48

        Yeah.

    23. CWChris Williamson51:50

        ... 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?

    24. RBRob Bell52:05

        Right. Right.

    25. CWChris Williamson52:06

        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?

    26. RBRob Bell52:24

        Well, whatever that graph is, they don't just follow each other neatly.

    27. CWChris Williamson52:28

        (laughs)

    28. RBRob Bell52:28

        There's some way in which they start wherever and then they just-

    29. CWChris Williamson52:30

        Diverge .

Episode duration: 53:35