Harry Turner 0:05
Welcome seekers of truth to another season of "Is That SOO?" Here we embark on the journey together a quest not just for answers, for the right questions that lead us to the core of who we are. Season Four unfolds with many insights and revelations that challenge us to peel away the facades and meet our authentic selves. Let's be illuminated, transformed, and indeed become lit. The knowledge of our true selves, welcome outlier.
Harry Turner 0:35
I'd like to bring on my guest, Jorge Padron on the intersection of spirituality. I took myself out, and then I bought his book back in how are you doing today?
Jorge Padron 0:46
How is it going? It's nice to be here.
Harry Turner 0:48
It's a pleasure to have you on stage Brother. I want to just step off for a moment. I'm grateful to have you talked about this topic that's so dear to me, that I truly, that's part of my truth. I want you to brag on yourself for a second man. Like show us how to how to actually appreciate ourselves by telling the people about you, you know, I see some degrees back there, tell them about some of the degrees man and why this topic of the merger between mental health and spirituality is
Harry Turner 1:15
so dear to you? Well,
Jorge Padron 1:17
Harry, it's a pleasure to be here. And if I had to say a little bit about my story, it started very early. I, like many people was looking for answers, you know. And if you're curious enough, you usually get into trouble early on in life. And it was a case for me, I was always considered very good in school, but kind of a troublemaker, and would frequently my mom would get calls, from my behavior, be told what to experience, but I needed to experience it myself. I was born and raised until the age of eight in Cuba. And then I had to come to the United States by the background, right. So that exposed me also to the harsh realities of life, such as it's not always safe to find that American dream, you really are going to be confronted with death. And I was confronted with death very early on, which marked me in a way, it's a primordial wound that we all sometimes carry. And for me, that wound allow me to be the person I am today, when I came to the United States, the system of education here was very different than what I was used to I was used to a more, at least the teachers back home, they had allowed me to kind of manifest the way that I was, even if I was kind of a troublemaker. Here, if you manifest that way, they immediately will diagnose you with ADHD or some sort of other condition. Luckily, my parents never really wanted to medicate me. Instead, they sought to understand the way that I learned, they took me to a psychologist. And the rest is kind of history. From that moment on, I was very opinionated. But the psychologist at that time, which was my first mentor, told me, Well, that's all nice, but you don't have any degrees, you don't have any, anything to back up what you're saying you don't have enough life experience. So maybe we'll have this conversation. When you get a little bit more experience under your belt, I always work towards understanding things, not just from the theoretical point of view, but really experiencing them for myself. So I was engaged in meditation very early on since the age of 14. And I've continued to today, and I was a cardiac ICU nurse as well as a trauma ICU nurse for 10 years. It allowed me to also look at the perspective of health, and also how people respond to death and dying, that really, ultimately, along with my childhood wound, convinced me that what we really suffer from is soul loss. And we, we always mentioned that in this society. But I don't think it's a problem. That's just from us. I think it's a primary problem of human nature. We suffer from soul loss, you know, the loss of soul. So when I saw people dying, and I saw people that way, before their time, had already died, by the time that they were physically dying, they had died many years ago. And that convinced me that instead of just trying to heal the body, I needed to try to engage with the mind and bring the practices that I had learned as a child and I had cultivated into the mental health field. I then went on to get my masters in mental health, from Anderson University, and that was a great experience for me. But then I also came to see the fallacy of the mental health system, which is actually indicative of the larger problem as a whole, which is that we want to compartmentalize everything. We want to explain life and reduce and ruin the magic of life by having to have an answer for everything. We cannot allow Question to go unanswered. And magic requires a true magician or someone that truly is in line with life, or with nature, just lets nature run its course, you no need for answers. There is no, there is no question really, the mind when given a task will never stop. So spirituality for me was the next logical step how to incorporate that into mental health. And how I did with
Harry Turner 5:30
the mind, the mind will never stop will never stop when there was time. Gotcha, gotcha. Okay. Yeah, we
Jorge Padron 5:36
often find, well, when I get the answer to this question, then I'll be okay. No, then there's another question. Because the mind was never meant to be the ruler of your entire story. It was supposed to be a tool. And we took it to be like, Well, I think there's still therefore i The worst thing that ever happened, I think, to Western society is I think, therefore I am. No, I Am, therefore, I think should be the reality. Right? Because I think therefore I am, is the whole reason why we're in this mess with mental health. People think that other people should behave the way they think. And that is what started the downfall of at least industrialized society. It's I am therefore I think, really the way that it should be, it was understood backwards. So then I tried to marry. Figuratively, I tried to and maybe physically too, I tried to marry spirituality with mental health. And that led me of course, to the field of psychedelics, psychedelics are very famous for really walking that thin line between mental health and, and spirituality. It's the intersection, I would say, isn't the only path. Absolutely not. There are many paths, but it is a very prevalent path. And it's a path that's very popular nowadays. So I went ahead and got my degree from CIS California Institute of integral sciences, I was a part of their psychedelic research program, which is one of the most respected programs here in the United States, even then, I wasn't done. And after finishing that, I went to a wonderful program that allows me to also learn from indigenous cultures, which have been doing it. And these cultures have used expanded states of awareness, not just with psychedelics for 1000s of years. So being able to learn from them, specifically the CO Fang, in the upper Amazon Basin, where I was Ecuador, and most recently, the witches in Mexico and ricotta. So learning from these wonderful cultures completed this journey that I've had both worlds. Hold
Harry Turner 7:45
on a second man, I'm digging it, I'm going with it, man, I'm looking at the time and we got some questions to get to, you know, I want you to give me an intro, you're getting the whole autobiography, man,
Jorge Padron 7:53
let's get into the questions. Let's see what know what is kind of messing
Harry Turner 7:58
around with you. I just know that we have you know, that time that time. I'm gonna watch out for that time. But I appreciate that whole journey, you know, and I'm definitely going to put your links down and part of that journey down at the bottom here. So y'all check that out. But Jorge, let's get into it. Could you share your insights on how spirituality intersects with mental health healing, which you actually you've already hit on? But since the question is up here, can you jump on it again? Absolutely.
Jorge Padron 8:28
It's like the right hand and left hand, you know, it's better to have two hands that you said, I have one hand. And really, the reality is, without spirituality, you just have a brain, you have no mind. Spirituality is of the mind is not of the brain. So the intersection is NOT enter an intersection, it's part of the whole system. Without spirituality, some form of spirituality, you really cannot ever heal the brain, because the brain can't heal itself. Only the mind and the brain have to working together can really produce someone that has equanimity, and is able to really meet the challenges of life. So it there is a role there. But it's very fast. Well, I'm Cuban. So Cubans speak very fast Spanish, so when I speak, it's very fast. Huh? What
Harry Turner 9:24
led you to explore the connection between spirituality and mental health in your own life or practice?
Jorge Padron 9:28
I will make it more concise, which is because the mind never stops. You know, the brain never stops. The only thing that could stop it is what we call God the unknown of the mystery. The mystery can stop it because you sit there for 1000s of years, you'll never figure it out. It's not meant for you to figure it out. The moment you figure it out, it's not the mystery. The Dow that can be explained is not the Dow It is that same principle. So it was the end Thought of wanting to find peace and peace is found in its outside of the brain that does not produce peace. Hmm. Like most Cubans, I was raised Catholic, yet my parents were extremely open minded. So they exposed me to many religions, Buddhism, basically, you name a religion, they expose me to it, it led me to believe I am pretty much a heretic or would be considered a heretic because of the beliefs that I have about God, which are not something that I necessarily, will bring to a professional setting. But because we're talking mostly about spirituality, I will tell you, if you're asking me to explain my belief system is this, that God is not perfect, that for God to be perfect, he needs you to wake up, or she needs you to wake up, right, depending on on your favorite version of what God is that, according to your nature is the nature of your God, there is no god other than your God for you. And that nature of that God is very much shaped by experiences. If God was interested in being one, he would be, or she would be, right. But it's not that way. For me, I know, from everything I've ever experienced, whether it be deep in the Amazon, in the Mexican desert, wherever else in life, I have gone, I have not found that to be false psychedelics, not psychedelics meditation, I do believe that the whole reason for this entire game, this play, the reason we're here is to establish that relationship. And from that relationship, the birth of whatever is born from that relationship is the Perfected version of what we're seeking by God by itself is not perfect. And man by themselves, has no life. So you must marry that. And what the union is what produces what we call the enlightened being, or the individuated. person. So it is really that union that produces perfection, but by themselves, they're a part of a hole is only a hole when all the parts come together. So we are no different. That is my belief. It's a little bit more complicated than that. But basically, in a nutshell,
Harry Turner 12:08
no, I was curious, you know, because for me living in truth is it doesn't, you know, I had a real well, actually, it wasn't for real, I would just speak and so let me just speak the truth. My truth, as I said, when we all go deep enough, we all reach the same center. So it doesn't matter where we really stand that we just have to go deep enough. And then we all reach that same center. So this pot of I bring on a diverse spectrum of guests with diverse experiences and diverse belief systems. Because I'm not looking at what divides us, I'm looking at what connects us. And as long as whatever it is, a person believes if love is present, that's really what I'm connecting, I'm connecting with, because for me, the connective tissue is love the substance of what God is love, you know, and so that's where I operate from, I even have a tattooed on my arm love never fails. So my whole philosophy, my whole belief surrounds that love, you know, love and truth. You know, and forgiveness is an integral component component of that, because unforgiveness leaves us with erroneous vision. And so we look at things from the past, and then that becomes our present. And so we can't really take advantage of the present. Because the past is history, the future mystery, and today is a gift, which is why it's called the present to begin with. So how can I enjoy my present if I'm living in the past? So you know, love, man, love, so appreciate you sharing. I appreciate you sharing. I really, really appreciate Sharon. She said that. That has beautiful. I'm assuming that's what you say. So maybe it's what you said. It could be.
Jorge Padron 13:51
It could be that what you said was very beautiful. So I like that. I might borrow that.
Harry Turner 13:55
So I don't own it, man. It flows through so please feel free. Oh, all truth. Ultimate Truth comes from one place. And it's, I'd say both. It's both. We both speak beautifully. But yes, man, I love the passion, brother. Okay. All right. All right, you will get to answering the questions. Before I gave you the question. I'm still gonna ask the question just to you know, make it more concise for people.
Harry Turner 14:25
How do you define spirituality in the context of mental health recovery? And why is it important?
Jorge Padron 14:30
Well, to make it interesting, I'll give you a different spin on it. Spirituality isn't inherently good or bad. It's a moral. A lot of people think that spirituality will save them. It's not interested in saving the individual. It's not you could put it in service of mental health. But if you think that that's all that it is, is not there's many, many examples of how spirituality can be used to further put you in pain, or further put you into a context that maybe it's not the best. Right and What I believe is that spirituality is amoral, because it is so vast, it really doesn't just look at one individual, it looks at the greater good, or sometimes the long game, you may not be around to experience that. So spirituality in the mental health context really has to be looked at very differently than spirituality Overall, like I explained just earlier, that my personal concept of what God is, it's not something that I would bring to a patient when I'm giving them therapy, because they might be very traditional in their core values, that you talked about how important values are, would actually be wrong. And it would be the opposite of what we're talking about. It would not be loving, it would not be good. So
Harry Turner 15:39
yeah, well, yeah. Like when you said, bring it into, you know, what I bring into the session? Yes. Like, yes, because we understand that in certain settings, you know, definitely Christian settings. I don't know about other religions, but deftly Christian says certain Christian settings, they would be yelling stuff. Were you saying heretic, so you're just talking about No, but you the mind is like a parachute. It only works when it's open, you know. And so again, we can get lost in the defense of positionality. Or we can understand what truly connects us. positionality is the identity, you know, like, it's, you know, I can say I am a Christian. But that's not really truly accurate, because who I am can't really fully be described. But it is the path for me to my truth and my knowingness. And so that's my path. You know, my path, just like, I'm not concerned about what other people are doing right now with their path at this very moment. That's my path. I don't believe unless there's a collision that happens in life. And that opening there, I don't believe is my role ever, to pull people onto my path, because my path is my path. My favorite author says, No one can teach you anything except that which is half asleep and the dawning of your being. You see, my wings will never make you fly. And so you have to see for yourself. But please, continue, brother. I know I stopped you and an Iranian, but please continue. So
Jorge Padron 17:13
I liked what you said. And to build on top of what you said, while still continuing the question. It's important to not vilify religion, either. Why, because I look at religion as this, I still consider myself a Catholic, even if they would probably stone me, if they heard me, the reason for that is, religion is at its best when it is Foundation, or your own personal faith, or as an agent of change. And religion is at its worst, when it actually prevents that change within you from happening. Right? A lot of people mistake the foundation for the entire house, it's supposed to be a solid ground that you could land on. Right? So that when you build in your house, you're building it on top of that. But if the whole goal was to do it once, we wouldn't need to become enlightened. Why is it that everybody has to wake up? It's because everybody has to build their house, everybody has to build on top of their foundation, if you're a Christian, build on a Christian foundation, if you're a Muslim, build on a Muslim Foundation, if you're a Hindu, build on a Hindu Foundation, don't think the foundation is the house, the moment you do that you become infantile. And I hate to say that, but it is true. It's an infantile notion that God is going to build your house for you. No, he won't. Or no, she won't. You have to do it yourself.
Harry Turner 18:29
We all work our own path. Sometimes they intersect, but they Oh, they are all roots of the same tree. Hmm, thank you for that comment it all routes to the same tree again, like what you're saying, you know, and maybe this is the focus is going to be like this. But what you were saying, say we each have our own house. And our own foundation, of course, that house stands on a house has to be in one location. And so it sits still, if you study particles, you know that when a particle collapses, in order to be observed. And so just for us to have physicality, we essentially are particles that collapse and we collapse into a specific position. And that allows us to be observed. This me, Harry Turner, this is what I believe this is what I identify as this where I live. What spirituality for me does is, again, I love the sky level, it allows me to see me not only here, but over there too. And over there too. And over there too, and over there too. And then you begin to understand certain things that sounded like riddles early on, regardless of where your position is. And so you heard something like this from the positionality that I was introduced and experienced throughout my life. Love thy neighbor as thyself. Wait a second. I can actually see myself and my neighbor. And I'm noticing that that's correlating with the level of love Have that I'm extending to myself, and allowing myself to receive. And so now I want to love them as much as I want, because I want the same thing for them that I want for myself, because I see me in them, and they in me. And then I realized that the other is no more than a reflection of who I am. Absolutely.
Harry Turner 20:17
Oh, well,
Jorge Padron 20:19
there is, but I don't want to take up too much time I did feel inspired by what you say to me, myself and I, and I look at myself and I in this way, right? And you look at it, you can look at it as the Holy Trinity to right, me, myself and I. So the me that is aware myself is the sustainer of awareness. And I is undifferentiated awareness. Right, I did that. I did that I did not do that. Right. So undifferentiated awareness is the third dimension, which we currently live in. But we constantly compact ourselves to be one dimensional. And the more dimensions you go down, the worse you feel you feel more compressed, right? So two dimensional people might experience awareness and sustain that awareness for some time period. But the reality is, unfortunately, there's a lot of people that are living just me, me, me, me, me. In fact, I have this practice when I treat patients that I actually have them write their life story, and I will count the number of times that they say mee, Mee Mee Mee Mee Mee Mee, Mee Mee, and that's how I know how much neurosis is involved in their mental health process, because the more you refer this back to yourself, the more you're trapped in a prison of your own making, where you're basically it's like taking a ball and just throwing it against a wall, having the ball come back to you, but you're not playing with anybody else. You're not playing with the universe, you're playing against the wall, throwing the ball and you're complaining that it's boring, of course, it's boring, you got to turn around, and start playing with everything that's around you.
Harry Turner 21:50
And the more we get trapped into me, and look, from that perspective of the me, we're the way that it's conceptualized and digested, if I can put it into words for me, is we're trapped in the ego. And the ego is a survival mechanism. It was created for survival purposes. And so if you look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you see that survival is at the very bottom, self actualization at the very top. The ego is not concerned with self actualization, or you returning to your actual self, the ego is designed to keep you in survival mode, it's superpower, it's spinach, if it's pie pie is fear, whereas spirit, it's love. You know, and so you can see, when you look at situations, when you have this experience enough with truth, when you intersect with truth, you begin to have these experience where you can see that there's really a choice and that choice has always been there. And
Harry Turner 22:44
that is fear, or faith. Mm hmm. But from me, we
Harry Turner 22:50
can't see that because me is not concerned with that me is only concerned with keeping me alive, surviving safe, even if that means that I got to attack me. See, these are the mechanisms. Do you know?
Jorge Padron 23:05
What Yeah, let me can turn into a cancer like you said, it eats itself, eventually, it has no other enemies. So cancer is you know, the ego can turn cancerous, right? So, but yet, you must develop an ego a lot of people want to give up the ego before it's fully formed. And you know what, the universe doesn't take half of the sacrifice, we leave for you sacrifice your ego, it must be worth something right? Like the way if you look at the ancient practices of rituals, you don't really put out food for you know, what we call the gods or you could call them archetypes or you could call it you know, you don't put out spoiled food you don't put out you know, worth it, you put the very best, right the very best that you can have. And a lot of people didn't spend enough time building their ego to the point that it's worth sacrifice, the universe will not take a sacrifice studies, not really worth anything. So as much as the ego can be a problem, you must still build it to then sacrifice it.
Harry Turner 24:01
It is a tool. That's what needs to be understood. It is a tool, you know, and so ego strengthening you want to strengthen up that tool. You don't want to like a doll knife if you have a knife, you know, so you want a sharp knife. So you want the eagle sharp because it's truly not your enemy. It only becomes it's more self sabotaging but it has no idea that it's doing that. And that's because there's there's two different parties, one being survival, the other one being returning to the frequency of love. It's it's it's about being in that presence home internally because the external is no more than the game that we play. It's the internal world that's that's truly real as Jung said before, you know, he that looks without remains asleep. And he that looks within awakens you know it's really when you look in you know the ego for example, they we have learned about North out east, west, north east, Southwest, you know, these nautical directions in school part of these institutions, because that's functional, especially if you're looking at a map. All of that is ego functioning. If someone has a disability from a cognitive standpoint, they may not be able to read a map, that means that their cognitive function is impaired. And so you want healthy cognitive functioning, you want healthy ego functioning, but then there is something self actualization of your true self authenticity requires you to go beyond the ego, not beneath it, beyond it, which then you recognize that it is a tool. And so then you reconnect with the actual captain. And then the eagle becomes the first mate. In that space, the eagle is of great benefit to you, and becomes less self self sabotaging. But until that, that restructure happens until that reorganization happens, then we get lost in these chronic like states, we throw fits, you know, the more egotistical we become, the angrier we become, the more narcissistic we become, because the ego by itself by design is narcissistic, because it had to prioritize this thing called me, which requires us that that energy of narcissism to be there to healthy levels, again, look at these words, the way that is used and the public, the colloquial use of it is 99.9%. Usually wrong, because a lot of them are speaking from unhealed places. And so there's a negativity bias that's filtering even the mental health information, a book that they're reading. And so it still comes out slightly distorted know this, that the best lies tell the truth. So you got to be careful about what you know about the truth, what is actually true. And so from a real like psychotherapy standpoint, and me being a psycho spiritual guy, merging the two because I've admitted like, this is my path. This has been my path. You know, I know for me, that the ego must be transcended without it get trapped in these lower frequencies, because it doesn't need these higher frequencies to keep you alive. It can keep you depressed for your entire life, but you still alive. Hmm. It can keep you anxious, scared your entire life, but you still alive. That's the priority. Sir, please jump in him. Well,
Jorge Padron 27:12
you know, not shut you up. I mean, I love everything you're saying. And I think that is so true for me. Like while I was talking about relationship, it's all about it. Right? When people have chemistry, I love it. So I do see the chemistry between us flowing and I enjoy it. And for me, that's part of the magic, too. What I would say is, I know that you want it to ask a question about what practices are effective. I think that would take an entire episode if I really were to get into it. So I would just keep it simple, which is meditate. If you can and meditate. If you feel you can't meditate, then you should meditate more. Right and understand life is meditation. Meditation is life. To talk to your point, why is it so effective? What you were just talking about plays perfectly into this, I really believe and I think the great masters that have come before us confirm that the ego is a movement of the mind, which is why when your mind is still the ego disappears, that ego cannot be good or bad because it is a movement of the mind, the moment the mind stops, or the mind is still the ego disappears like a phantom yet, it's a movement. So a movement can be good or bad, depending on the direction. When you move towards more negativity or more self centeredness, the ego becomes Of course, the ego can also be used to move upwards in a direction that is more aligned with what nature wants from us, right, which is, obviously we wouldn't have the capacity to have these brains to think these thoughts to even put so much emphasis onto the spiritual path. If it wasn't built into nature for us to do so. Right? It's all Columbus about nature. So meditation is extremely important because it will help you move the ego in the direction that it needs to go for you to really get better instead of worse. Because the ego is the horse. The ego is the monkey mind the ego is all these things. Yet it is the same thing that can take you to heaven, it is the same thing that could get you enlightenment. But yet, the movement must be directed because the ego is not conscious. It's never been consciousness. We are not the originators of consciousness, we are the receivers of consciousness. And we never get that it's like a TV screen. And you see this all the time patients that get Alzheimer's maybe I see this a lot because I do deal in psychiatry where patients don't have a fully functional brain. Maybe their brain is not wired neuro typically, or their brain is a little bit you know, a we call them bipolar, schizophrenic. We call them all these things. But what do we really know about this? We are thinking that consciousness eradicates in the mind, or at least not in the mind and the brain. Yet we've never been able to find that no matter how much we look. It's because it's a receiver. It's like a television set. The consciousness is coming from outside of it. We're picking up on it, then the signal might not be as clear. Or maybe who knows, sometimes the receiver gets damaged. And it picks up a channel that was announced the programming list. Now it's picking up something else, right. And we call that a disorder. But the reality is, I think that there is no such thing as a straightforward disorder, just a process that is not understood currently by our medical system, or by our mental health services. Meditation, I would say. And of course, there's other practices that I engaged in, but they're very complex. So
Harry Turner 30:34
I would sit with, you know, when I would do assessments in the psychiatric department of er, I would sit with those who suffer with schizophrenia, or having a psychotic episode, and I would stay up and a little bit longer than most. And the reason being, is because I wanted to understand their language and understanding that if they also to a reflection of me, what part of my human nature reflects them, you know, if everything if the other is a reflection of who I am, even them and got them in common with them. I mean, they are the mind like, no, just like they live in non truth, or they live in what we would call a delusion, because they're seeing things that we don't see.
Harry Turner 31:14
We also have our own delusion, but it's just so common. It's masked illusion. So if you're in a insane if you're in asylums, and everybody's sane, and that's what it's like, you know, that's where a lot of great sages and teachers, like there's a narrative of one who didn't speak for two years after having this experience would say it enlightenment. And it was just, like, even though they explained why later, I understood immediately, it's like, how can I talk, using words that you would understand, but talking about a reality that you can't see yet. Because if I see something you don't, and I tell you about it, you're gonna think I'm crazy. Because that's the natural sort of move from a more love rooted heart centered space and say, these are not disorders like that, like, the profession has to move towards that. If we're going to evolve as a profession. And as these evolutions happen, you'll notice this realignment with love, the compassionate thing, the loving thing. And so as we move there, we're moving back into alignment with love. And people actually begin to heal to have higher opportunities, more chances, more healed people, because again, love never fails. Like that's the answer to every single question. Like, what's the solution? Love. But what does that mean? Like I'm going through x, y, z, how does love never fail in this situation, sit still pierced, that barrier of noise and the noise of the silence, sit long enough to get to that barrier. And when you see that big ol ice block of the noisy silence, be patient, which is the capacity to hold pain or discomfort, when extended period of time without becoming dismayed, do not be dismayed by the noisiness of the silence. Allow yourself to pierce through the silence sit still. And then when you pierce through it, you'll experience this stillness. And you'll realize in that stillness, that that stillness speaks to you. Because now you're being guided by your intuitive awareness, which is different from the intellect. The intellect has limits, the mind has limits, and is designed to think not know, until when you drop down to intuitive awareness. Now you're dropping down to True Knowingness. And then you'll have more solutions to your answer, which, honestly, you always see that love is the path no matter what how was expressed in his physical reality, it's always gonna come down to a recontextualization of your experience through the filter of love. I don't even know where the question begins. But all that just came up just now. It's beautiful. Beautiful. Thank you, brother. Was there anything you wanted to say? I'm gonna keep on toss it back to you to give you that opportunity, man, because I know I can flow with it.
Jorge Padron 33:56
No, you know, I guess what I would say is like, you're you can never lose your own actual original path, even when, even when you think that it's wrong. In reality, there is no losing your path. Because the moment that you look down on your feet, you're on the path, you're on your path, the problem starts to happen, that life is like a blank book. It's given to you even before you have the ability to read or write. So you start to write logically with the people around you, usually your parents or family members. They're kind of writing in their books, and you start to copy their books, and then pretty soon you're copying your schoolmates books, and then you start to copy your coworkers books, and you lose the narrative of the story that you really can write. So for you to really bring that story back sometimes meditation solitude is required. This may not be understood that what you were talking about because there are no words for this, even though we're trying to put it into words. This is an experience this cannot be put into words. It's like I could describe to you how the ocean smells. How It looks like the color. And I could be very good and very detailed like some of the great masters are. But he will never be a substitute for you putting your feet on the ground, feeling the sand, actually walking towards the ocean, smelling the ocean, the all your senses engaged, that is the experience that we're really seeking. When people have such an experience, it provides such a deep meaningful and, and robust way that even if life is difficult, it seems to, it seems to be the perfect antidote to the pain of being alive. Because being alive is hard. Being alive is very hard. And if you want to look around the world today, there's a lot of pain, there's a lot of people suffering, the reality is for us to be more humble, and allow the solution to present itself to manifest itself through relationships through flowing through collaboration, like what we're talking about here, the moment that you think that because you have some sort of degree, because I'll tell you, these degrees are great. They're not to me that they're like, they're maybe a prerequisite. They don't mean that much when it comes to this.
Harry Turner 36:13
Please continue, I want you and stop you. Please continue.
Jorge Padron 36:16
Well, you know, I really encourage people to not even allow our imperfect understanding of a perfect process to stop them from following what they really feel is their calling. Whether that may not look like much, maybe they may not be able to put it into words, but really go out there experience for yourself when you can in life. Forget, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. But forget what you said, Only keep it as a reference point. But then move past that, right like they always say if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill the Buddha. So feel free to do that to any person that you're hearing that you're taking inspiration for go beyond them, go towards your experience, because your experience is so much more beyond what those people's words can mean. Words are like scraps from a table. Whereas when you have the experience yourself, it's like having a feast. So don't accept scraps forever. Maybe when we're very hungry spiritually. We all accept scraps, but eventually move past the scraps, get yourself a seat at the table and get yourself a real meal that's meant just for you.
Harry Turner 37:24
Stay tuned again,
Harry Turner 37:27
love never fails. And so that experience, when you like you say the scraps words are the most limited form of energy. It's the most basic form of energy. And so when you take the power, when you take this mass, it's like trying to shove an elephant into a tiny box or put it an elephant in a cup. You know, like you can't do that, you know, all you can do is the scribe really components of it, you know, as best you can, you can language it, but language itself, it's a function, you know, it's necessary for human functioning. But again, the experience of liberation goes beyond what the ego is understanding of what it is to exist means,
Harry Turner 38:13
you know, like it's moving from existing to existence, like, understanding truly, like the tapestry of the cosmic web, that you are a part of, you know, as Rumi said, the ego thinks that we think rather,
Harry Turner 38:33
that we are one drop in the ocean, when in reality, we are the entire ocean and one drop, Rumi said the ego is the veil between and God, you know, and that's what we're talking about. But that really can't be truly language, we can do our best. And some are very skillful at it, you know. But ultimately, it has to be an experience. You can't arrest truth, you can't trap truth, you have to experience it, just like you can't trap the wind on one hand, like you just can't trap it, you have to experience it. You know, and don't try to hold on to it. You just go with it. And I'll stop with this. My favorite author again, he says, Say not that I found the path to truth, but rather I found the truth along my path, say not that you know, the path to the soul, for the soul walks on all paths, and it unfolds. You'll see. This is the challenge. You know, even though I walked the path of Christianity, that's my path to go deeper. You see truth can't be arrested. And so when an institution any institution, no matter what they are, tries to teach truth. It's like what's listening? Because if it's ego listening, then it's gonna turn into a Santa Claus naughty and nice list. Good, bad, good, bad, good, bad 101001. It goes beyond that 01 functioning by on that good bad functioning. It goes beyond language itself,
Harry Turner 40:02
rather well
Jorge Padron 40:03
ever to build on everything that you're saying, truth is change, change is truth. And the moment you try to trap it, it's dead, the only thing that static is dead. And for truth, it has to be alive, we talk about the living word, or we talk about things being alive. God is a process, you know. So it's, that's why it's eternal. It's a process. And I really urge everyone to start their process, in whatever form they can. So with that, I hope your listeners are able to really just maybe use this for inspiration to or feel to get kept them whether they're on the path or maybe thinking about it. Hmm.
Harry Turner 40:47
Heidi says the world is overflowing with words, and people are starving for understanding the eagle doesn't mean to be, but when it's trying to be the captain, and doesn't realize that it can't see. And it's very prideful. So confuses thinking, with knowing, we end up going into some uncomfortable spaces. You know, that's the whole feeling loss thing, but you're not truly lost. Because sometimes we lose ourselves in order to find ourselves, it's really a matter of unfolding. And so again, as Lao Tzu said, It's only when I let go of who I am, that I can become who I might be. And so you have to let go of the who I am in order to truly experience who you might be children. Yes, the ego, it'll give away from ego function, and we give away what we truly need. That's ego functioning. It's so attached. Buddha said that attachment and desire are the two sources of human suffering. It's so attached to the sensation of experiencing life through the senses, it's so adept, attached to sensing, and know that it must eventually come to an end, because that's the part of us that is mortal. Even though the ego itself does not exist, it is that frequency had to exist for mortality to happen, but comes to weigh in, but it gets addicted to just being here and experiencing being a human. And it's that prioritization of the addiction to the experience and sensations to life, that lead that leads it down this road of making erroneous choices that are not aligned with truth. Because pleasure is different from truth. And truth. You will have pleasure. But from the egos standpoint, and what pleases the senses, that's not in alignment, oftentimes with with as any other like, last thought you wanted to, like, leave with the people, I'd even go down a list of questions, because we were just, we were just following how we fly man. But is there anything else you would like to leave with the people man to
Jorge Padron 42:46
build on your point, you know, like, we talk about addictions, and we immediately think drugs or other things, but we don't realize that addictions are a part of the ego structures, and we're all addicted to something I myself, addicted to even books about spirituality. So it was a funny story that happened to me a couple of months ago, is I have a beautiful library right here in Winter Park Library. And it's gorgeous. And they always have all this great section of books that you can buy, and they have these beautiful spiritual books, and I'm like, Oh, I'm getting all of them, I'm getting all of them, you know, like, because they give them to you for a good price. And I'm like, I even the bag, the ladies told me, I don't know that the bag can hold these many books. And I'm like, well, but I gotta get all these books, you know, because like, the dollar for like, you know, the Diamond Sutra. Like, how can you beat this beautiful book. And then so the books were so heavy. And as I was walking back from the library, because I live like only a block away from it. I was walking through the park, and literally the bag fell out, you know, because so many books that I had bought, it just broke open, and it fell on duck poop. And I immediately understood the message from the universities, like you're being greedy with it. So this is not Yeah, that's nice words. But that's all they are words. And I then come to realize, oh, maybe addicted to books. So funny story just ended up kind of ended on a lighter note.
Harry Turner 44:10
I appreciate you saying that. And I'd be remiss if I didn't say this last comment from Heidi, she said, You need to empty or clean the cup before you can pour fresh water in. I wanted to highlight this. And I'm glad she brought this up. Because he brought a light I'm gonna go deep one more time. Deep Dive real quick. You know, in my faith, Jesus was basically speaking truth to the Pharisees and he says, You seek to keep the outside of the cup clean, clean the inside of the cup, and then the cup will be clean. And immediately with this comment that he made. I thought about that, because the ego is focused on appearance, whereas the Spirit deals with essence. That's why you can't fool Spirit, you know, but appearances if if I'm a Go driven, that I can't, I could be fooled, because the ego only sees appearance. But when I operate from Sky level spirit and I'm seeing the essence of things, that right there that's truth, you know in the naturals when you see it, it makes you free. I'm gonna stop right there, man. It's been such a blessing to have you on the stage, brother. I appreciate you, man. The audience loves you know, audience loves you, man. So, sir, I really appreciate you. I'm gonna invite you back. If you don't mind. Do you mind us sitting backstage for just a moment? Oh, real quick. Can you tell the people where to find you out again?
Jorge Padron 45:37
Yep. Jorge, padrone and www.assistedintegration.com is my website.
Harry Turner 45:41
I appreciate you, man. And if you don't mind, can you sit backstage for just a moment? Absolutely. Outliers. Again, it says the ego is
Harry Turner 45:49
(reading comments from the audience on the livestream) a poop holding glitter. Yeah. Facts. But understand that poop also serves as fertilizer, you know. So life truly is paradox. Outliers. This has been another amazing episode of Is that so season four. I'm inviting you out to live streams for the first time, because I want you to be a part of the conversation. And so please share, please let other people know about it. Please tell them that we enjoy comments. We want you all to comment, we want you to ask questions. It's about realigning oneself and allowing oneself to be recontextualize. From the context of love, you know, it's that realignment with the authentic self. So one would even one can even call it is the path of enlightenment. If that's what you want to say, for me, it's the path of liberation. It's the path of freedom. It's the path of truth. And it's also the path of forgiveness. It's a path of love. You know, so this has been another amazing episode. Please, y'all reach out to my guests. I'll leave the links, y'all check out the links at the bottom of this. But Jorge Padron, he said it faster than me but or Jorge Padron on the intersection of spirituality and mental health one more time for the people. Appreciate y'all Outliers.
Harry Turner 47:05
As we continue another chapter of Is that so? I hope our journey today has left you with more than just thoughts but a call to live intentionally, live intentionally deeply, authentically and truthfully. The path of self discovery of Self knowledge is infinite, a labyrinth where each turn reveals more of who we are and can be lead this conversation via lantern in the dark guiding you back to yourself time and again, until we meet next outlier. Continue to seek question and live in the profound truth that defines your existence. Agape, and stay lit. Live in truth