EPISODE 044: What Is Your Conscience? with Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev)

My incredible guest today, is Leonard Perlmutter, Philosopher, Educator, Author and Founder of The American Meditation Institute, who teaches us how the conscience can reflect wisdom from deep within us.

Leonard Perlmutter, Philosopher, Educator, Author and Founder of The American Meditation Institute has been with me in the studio this week.
In this episode, Leonard introduces us to the workings of our mind and he describes how our conscience is the key to unlocking our own brilliant insight. By using our conscience, we can access the wisdom and creativity that is innate within us.

Leonard teaches about The Four Functions of the Mind: senses, ego, unconscious and the conscience and he teaches us how, and why, we should coordinate these four functions to live the joyful life we all long for.

This Week’s Episode

TRANSCRIPT

Hello everybody! My name is Ann Théato and welcome to the Psychic Matters Podcast – episode number 44.

Just before we begin, I tell you, it’s been an interesting couple of weeks and I’m thrilled to say that we have been nominated for a podcast award!   It is thanks to all of you fantastic listeners who took the time to vote, in the People’s Choice Podcast Awards and we have made the final slate – we are one of 10 podcast nominees in the Religion & Spirituality genre – all waiting with baited breath to see if our podcast will be the winner!  The People’s Choice Podcast Awards Ceremony is online on 30^th September at 6pm PST so if you fancy tuning in and we do win – you will get to see my one minute acceptance speech!  I mean who needs Netflix when you’ve got that kind of excitement at your finger tips!

If you are one of those people who voted and who are a big fan of the podcast and I know there are lots of you out there because I get a lot of personal emails and beautiful messages from people saying how much they are enjoying the epsidoes, perhaps you would consider doing one of two very small things for me: either get on your phone, go to itunes or Stitcher and leave a written review – because they really do help the podcast climb up the podcast charts or consider becoming a Patron of the Psychic Matters Podcast – there are some great benefits, from receiving healing, joining me for private tuition, to winning a free monthly past-life regression session with me!  Go to patreon.com/psychicmatters for all details.

Meanwhile, let me bring your attention back to this week’s episode, where my guest will teach you how to unlock the wisdom and creativity that is innate within us in order to live the joyful life we all long for!

Ann

My fascinating guest today, is a Philosopher, Educator, Author and Founder of The American Meditation Institute.  He has also written a new book called Your Conscience – The Key To Unlock Limitless Wisdom and Creativity And Solve All Of Life’s Challenges, Leonard Perlmutter, welcome to Psychic Matters!

Ram

My pleasure, thank you for the invitation.

Ann

So … Perlmutter … Mother of Pearl, what a beautiful name that is.

Ram

I’ve always been enchanted by it, and so I find it interesting at this point in my life where I am presenting these pearls that have been so helpful to me, it’s quite interesting.  It’s often a headscratcher whose lives are we living?

Ann

Exactly and you’ve also got your name, Ram Lev of course.

Ram

Yes, I got that from my, my Meditation Master Swami Rama of the Himalayas, Ram was his name, Rama, and Lev was my Hebrew name from my birth religion and so he felt that it was a way of bringing it together.  Lev means heart of a lion.

Ann

Beautiful, oh what a wonderful name.  And you’ve gone on Leonard, I don’t know whether to call you Ram or Leonard now, what would you prefer?

Ram

Whatever you’re comfortable with, it’s pronounced Ram.

Ann

Ram, excuse me.

Ram

As if it were R-O-M but it’s spelled R-a-m, it’s the Sanskrit.

Ann

It’s beautiful okay I’ll call you Ram because it’s a beautiful name. So Ram, you founded The American Meditation Institute many years ago now, tell us a little bit about how that happened, why you founded that organisation, and what you do there.

Ram

It wasn’t my idea, I have to say first off.  I was looking, along with my wife, for a philosophy of life, and on our journey, we came across some of the writings by Swami Rama of the Himalayas.  He was teaching in the United States at that time, this was in the 70’s.  And I was attracted to his teaching because he reminded me of an experience that I had when I was in grade school into high school, and that was, I was a member of the, what they called the Cub Scouts and the Boy Scouts and I enjoyed that very much, because they taught practical skills that helped you in life.  And when I met swami Rama, I felt that the way he taught was that of a Scout Master teaching their scouts, and so I was attracted to that.  I can remember when I was a scout, I asked my scoutmaster, the motto for scouting is be prepared, what should we be prepared for?  And he looked at me and he said, how should I know?  That’s why we need these tools, that’s why we need these skills, because life is a continuous journey and a surprise a minute.

Ann

Yeah, I mean it really, really is a surprise a minute.  You talk in your book, Your Conscience or your book is in fact called Your Conscience, what is our conscience?

Ram

Well, our conscience is one of the four major functions of the mind.  Unlike the other functions, it can discriminate, it can determine, it can judge, and it can decide.  And we already know from our limited experience, that when we use the conscience as our guide, gee, we feel better, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, that, that at least is my experience, and when we don’t use our conscience, we suffer from emotional guilt and that’s very painful.

Ann

What are the four functions of the mind and how can we use them to make our lives better?

Ram

Sure, well there are four functions of the mind, and it’s critically important to understand something right from the very beginning, and that is, that the mind moves first, and the body follows, and when the body follows with an action, it always brings about a consequence that can lead us in one direction or the other.  So if we want to be happy, if we want to be healthy, if we want to be secure, if we want loving, nurturing, creative relationships, it’s critically important that we organise the mind to support that effort.  So, the four functions of the mind as we mentioned, the first one is the conscience.  The conscience operates as a mirror, and like all mirrors, it can reflect.  And what the conscience can reflect, is wisdom from the centre of consciousness deep within us, that is us having this human experience.  The conscience can reflect wisdom, from what we refer to as the super conscious portion of the mind. Now, I never learned about the superconscious portion of the mind in school, I don’t think that many of us did, but we did learn about the conscious portion, and we know about the unconscious, and the unconscious has all these memories and habit patterns stored, but the super-conscious portion, I thought initially, well maybe, maybe it’s sort of poetry, or just something imaginary, and the more I began studying, the more I began practising, I realised that well, gee, the superconscious portion of the mind, is the same portion of the mind where Albert Einstein saw mathematical equations, where Paul McCartney hears beautiful melodies.  Doesn’t mean that we’re going to become songwriters.  It doesn’t mean that we’re going to become physicists, but what it does mean is, if we can use the conscience in every situation, to base our thoughts our words and our actions, we will always be led in ways and in relationships that will enable us to fulfil the purpose of our lives without pain, without misery, and without bondage.  But that’s a challenge, to always use the conscience.  One of the reasons it is such a challenge, is the capacity of the conscience to reflect superconscious wisdom, is often hindered by the loud pushy voices of the three additional functions of the mind.  Now, these other functions, first and foremost is the ego.  The ego is anything that separates us from our essential nature, this pure consciousness, wisdom and bliss, that is me, having this human experience in time and space. And the ego is hard-wired to the reptilian brain, and of course the reptilian brain is all about the fear of annihilation, that’s what gives birth to the ego, the fear of annihilation.  When we believe that we are the body, this is us and we are our mind, we are our thoughts, then we are going to be afraid of losing what we have, and we are going to be afraid of not getting what we want.  That’s what religion has referred to as original sin, it’s an essential separation from the truth, from the whole, from the one, from the godhead, so to speak.

Ann

Yeah, and so your super-conscious, your super-conscience, would you say that, that would be the same as your soul?

Ram

Yes, exactly.  The soul is a droplet from the ocean.  And that soul then projects the mind.  The conscious mind and the unconscious mind.  And the breath then receives this energy from the ocean of consciousness, through the droplet we call the soul, and the breath animates the city of life, the body, mind, sense, complex.

Ann

I love that, the city of life.  So, what are the other two functions of the mind then if we have got conscience and ego?

Ram

Senses, the eyes, the nostrils, the mouth, the ears, the hands and the feet, these are the organs of the senses.  And the mind extrudes our creative energy.  Just like you squeeze a tube of toothpaste.  It is easy to get the toothpaste out but not so easy to put it back in.  And so the senses: look, smell taste, hear and touch, whatever it can, as part of exploring the material world, to try to find objects and relationships that will make me happy, that will make me secure, and that is a journey that is fraught with failure because there is no object, there is no relationship in the material world that is subject to change, that has any power to make us happy.  The truth is, that droplet that has come from the ocean that is our soul, that is me having this human experience, it is already by its nature blissful and full we just don’t know it yet.

Ann

Yes, it’s like we have to remember who really are.

Ram

That’s right.  In fact, the whole process, the whole journey is a remembering process.  It is not like a memorising process like in school, it is a remembering.

Ann

Yes, I love that.  And then so you have got conscious, ego, senses, then what is the fourth?

Ram

The unconscious mind.  The repository for all our merits and bemerits.  These channels in the unconscious mind where our habit patterns are stored.  Our concepts.  Some are accurate concepts, some are faulty.  So the ego, senses and the conscious mind, each of them only has a limited perspective of what is to be done and what’s not to be done. The conscious has a 360 panoramic view of what’s to be done and what’s not to be done, so the key to successful living is to co-ordinate the ego, the senses and the unconscious mind with the unerring wisdom reflected by the conscience from the superconscious portion of the mind.

Ann

Wow.

Ram

And that is work.  It is analogous to becoming a parent.  It is our job is to parent the ego, parent the senses, parent the unconscious mind.  We don’t want to get rid of any of them, we need them.  Why we need a very strong healthy ego in order to drive an automobile. And we have a body, we have senses, life is to be enjoyed and some of the power of the habits stored in the unconscious mind are very apt, and are very helpful, but because each of the other three functions of the mind: ego, senses and unconscious mind only have a limited perspective, you never know whether what they are trying to convince us to do, or to see or to smell or to taste or to hear or to touch, is going to lead me to my highest and greatest good or not.  So how do you tell?  You tell by sitting all of the participants around the kitchen table.  You have the conscience, you have the ego, you have senses, you have the unconscious mind, each makes a little presentation and we try to train them, we try to train them like we train our children, to be respectful and listen to what the conscience has to say.  And then, simply, for the sake of a scientific experiment, the ego, senses and unconscious mind defers and supports the wisdom of the conscience.  And that means that sometimes the conscience will tell us that the ego’s limited perspective is correct at this moment.  You are going to get into the automobile, you are going to a restaurant, you need a health ego. Let the ego drive the car.

Ann

So, Ram how… so we have got all our friends at the dining room table, we’ve got our conscience, or our super conscience, our true selves, and then we’ve got the ego, the senses and the unconscious mind, we need them to be trained, we need to get them to listen, how do we do that?

Ram

We practice.  We practice. And we recognise that the whole process is an ongoing process of experimentation.  Now, in order to do that safely, we have to remember that the highest principle in all of yoga is a word called ahimsa.  Ahimsa is a Sanskrit word, there are two parts to it.  The prefix Ah always denotes a negative or not and the word Himsa means violence, so if you couple violence with the prefix Ah which means not, the highest principle is non injury, non harming, non violence.  And so, when we do these experiments, we are asked not to take on too much too soon.  So, you do simple experiments. Every day experiments.  Such as, perhaps you have just finished dinner and the question comes up, are you going to brush your teeth?  Well, let’s take a poll here.  What does the ego say?  No, I’m not interested in doing that right now.  What do the senses say?  I’d just like to have another slice of apple pie.  What does the unconscious say?  Oh, I’m with the ego and the senses.  And then I say, well what about the conscience, what does the conscience say? Because I am sort of orchestrating these children.  And what does the conscience say? Well right now, for your highest and greatest good, you’d better go upstairs to the bathroom and brush your teeth.  And then it’s my job, is to try to encourage the ego, senses and unconscious mind, for the sake of this simple, no-brainer type of an experiment, to follow the lead of the conscience, just to see how you feel.  And after the experiment, after you brush your teeth, you can come back to the dining room table and everybody can share, how do you feel?  And what the ego is going to say, oh well that wasn’t so bad.  The senses say, ah yeah well you know actually I don’t have any moss on my teeth.  And the unconscious mind says, well I think that you’re right, maybe the conscience knows something and they have an experience.  And instead, going forward, instead of having such a myopic perspective, they’re perspective all of a sudden expands just a little bit.  And with each simple experiment, their panorama broadens, broadens, broadens.  We don’t want to annihilate the ego, the senses and the unconscious mind, we want them to expand their definition of who we are.

Ann

I mean, that is fascinating and in theory sounds brilliant.  But in real life, when you are going about your business, you’ve said already, life is to be enjoyed.  I totally agree, but also people have very difficult lives, and how can we remind ourselves in the midst of trauma and drama and challenges, to keep returning, how do we train ourselves to do that?

Ram

Well, there is a portion of ancient scriptures in the upanishads from the Indian culture that says this, you are your deepest driving desire.  As your deepest, driving desire is, so is your will.  As your will is, so is your deed.  As your deed is, so becomes your destiny.  You are your deepest driving desire, as your deepest driving desire is, so is your will, as your will is, so is your deed, as your deed is, so becomes your destiny.  So, it begs the question, what is your deepest, driving desire?  What do you really want from life?  What do you want from this relationship?  And as the truth be known, we waste a tremendous amount of our creative energy after small insignificant desires.  You know, when we’re children and we’re young adults, you know, we’re given a little extra creative energy to experiment, but every time we go for a brass ring, gee, the reward seems to fall short. It’s very much akin to the tavern that is advertising free beer.  In fact, in front of the door at the tavern there’s a big red neon sign flashing 24-hours a day, free beer, free beer, free beer!  So, I say to myself, well I’m going to go get a free beer and as I’m walking through the door, I look up and there’s a little, small little note tacked underneath the big neon sign, and what does that note say?  Tomorrow. Free beer tomorrow.  And it’s always tomorrow.  So at a certain point of maturity, we realise that chasing after all of these individual desires that are not bringing me the satisfaction that I’m really looking for, maybe I oughta think again, and instead of keep on looking outside, maybe I ought to start instead of the evolutionary journey of going without, looking for my happiness, maybe I ought to turn it around and proceed with the involutionary process of going within, and seeking within and finding that truth and that happiness within.  And so what is my deepest driving desire? It is to be free of all the charms, attractions and temptations, to be free of the pain the misery and the bondage, right? And so in order to do that, I have, through experiment, realised, that if I can coordinate the four functions of the mind to allow the conscience to reflect superconscious wisdom, and then to employ that wisdom, I feel better physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and I know as a matter of fact ,that if I were operating, if my mind were operating with the same software package I had when I was 14 years old, you know, 14, that’s the crown of creation, that’s when we know everything about everything.  Not that we were always right, but we thought we knew everything, right?  So, I know, that if I had that same software package today and had not updated my software over these years, through this type of a practise using my conscience, two things, one of two things would be true.  One I would be dead or two, I would be seriously ill.  So, what does that mean?  It means that I no longer eat food that I love, I eat food now that loves me, that loves my eyes, that loves my brain, that loves my kidneys, that loves my liver, that loves my joints, and I’ll tell you something, I love that food now

Ann

That’s beautiful, I love that, I eat food that loves me. But Ram, I have to take you back, because I’m a human being struggling with this, you know, what is your deepest driving desire and if, it’s interesting, coz right now it’s my biggest question, what am I doing with my life, what do I want?  What is it?  Sometimes I think it’s this, oh yeah I’m definitely going down this path, and then I’ll get quite a way down that path and I will think hmm, I’m not sure about that now, maybe I need to change track, go somewhere else, and I think a lot of my friends and a lot of people listening to this podcast will be in the same boat, you know, what is our deepest driving desire, so how do we find out what that is?

Ram

You don’t have to find it out, it’s already looking for you.

Ann

Oh good.

Ram

You’re perfect.

Ann

Thank goodness for that.

Ram

That’s right, your purpose of life is looking for you, you simply have to prepare yourself, and so my experience, and I’m just talking about myself, I used to ask to myself, really, well when I was a younger person I constantly asked myself, gee why can’t people see me for who I really am? And I finally came to the conclusion that they can’t see me, because I can’t see me.  And so what I began doing was coordinating the four functions of the mind, coordinating the ego, senses and unconscious mind, to support the wisdom of the conscience, and if we can just bring yesterday and tomorrow into today, and bring today into now, in the now when I have a relationship that requires an action that’s going to bring a better consequence, if I can base my outer action on my inner wisdom, reflected by the conscience, and I do it the next moment, and the next moment, and the next moment, staying focused, staying out of the future, staying out of the past, watch the mind, bring it back, bring it back to now.  Very shortly, within a few days, within a few weeks of conscientiously practising that, this purpose just appears into my consciousness.  My purpose is to serve these kinds of relationships in a skilful manner.  So instead of acting based on the narrow perspective of ego or senses or unconscious mind, or somebody does ego, senses or unconscious mind, what did Shakespeare say, above all else to thine own self be true.  Well what does that mean?  To thine own self be true?  It means, serving the wisdom of the conscience, because it is reflecting our own self, you know, the droplet that has come from the ocean we called the soul.  So, I no longer consider myself self-employed, I have become employed by the higher self, I have become an instrument.  I am no longer the doer trying to find my purpose, and lo and behold my purpose is right in front of me in the now.

Ann

I mean, that’s brilliant, is just so brilliant, and it all makes perfect sense, but…

Ram

Let me say ..

Ann

..there’s a but …

Ram

Let me just say, that right now, for your listeners, it’s all hearsay. And I’m telling you, don’t believe a word I’m saying, but if you’re interested and if it piques your interest, experiment, then you’ll own it.  That’s the only way, that’s the highest knowledge, is through personal experience.  Test it, then you don’t need me, you have your own inner wisdom.  

Ann

We are so used to finding a fast-track way though, in this modern society.  You are…

Ram

How is that working for us?

Ann

Not great, not great.  I mean you are this wonderful, wise gentleman, with all this knowledge, and you’ve had fantastic learning from these, these teachers, and we aspire to be more like you, more like the way that you think, but it seems hard, it seems like there’s a lot of effort in that, it’s like, oh, God ….

Ram

Where home is, it’s hard.

Ann

Pardon?

Ram

Which function of the mind is authoring that thought that you speak? That it is hard?

Ann

The thing, that thinks about self-discipline. How do we constantly remind ourselves?  So what I, I guess what I’m asking you, like a life, like a coach or a coach down the gym, do you have a plan of action we can put in, I know you keep saying and have said and I understand, go back in in every moment, just, just be in the moment, and remind the mind, and be in charge and all of that but, will meditation help?  Because you founded the Meditation Institute after all in America or the American Meditation Institute… is there another, other things we can take to assist and help us to get to that place, to remind ourselves in the moment?

Ram

Well, you bring up a very important point, very important point.  If I wanted to start a business, I would start with a business plan and I would contact the bank, see if I can get some financing.  And maybe I would ask some people whether they thought my product or my service was something that they would be interested in, to see if anybody’s interested.  So, do we have a business plan for life? I don’t think so, not too many people are or have a philosophy of life or a business plan.  Your conscience provides us the beginning of a philosophy of life and a business plan to follow, one moment after the other, in the present moment, watching the mind.  Now you say that it’s, it’s a challenge because of disciplining. Words have power.  Discipline is one of those in our culture, it has a very negative connotation in our culture.  Self-discipline equates with denial, I’m denying myself some joy, but that’s the farthest thing from the truth.  Self-discipline is about letting go of obstacles that are inhibiting my experience of happiness, my experience of health, my experience of security.  Self-discipline is how I let go of old faulty concepts, that’s what I’m disciplining, I’m disciplining the ego, the senses, and the unconscious mind, that are afraid to let go of the ground upon which they stand, because they believe that it represents a death to who they are.  And that brings up a very important point because all death is very powerful, because our culture equates death with annihilation.  But if we look at our own experience, by our own life’s experience, we will see that in our lives, we have experienced many, many, many deaths.  I remember that 5-year-old Lenny Perlmutter.  

Ann

Ah!

Ram

I do, I remember him fondly, but he is no more.  But I still am.  So I have taken the best of that little 5 year old Lenny Perlmutter and I have kept it and I have tried to self-discipline my mind to let go of some of little Lenny Perlmutter’s faulty concepts.  So now to me, death is not annihilation, it is change and growth, and the only way that we can change and grow, as we are intended to, to fulfil the purpose of life, is to discipline the ego, the senses, and the unconscious mind, you know, we call it tough love, right?  But it is love, because it’s in their interest to, they want to be happy too.  The ego, the senses, the unconscious one mind, they want fulfilment in life too.  Okay, so have the slice of apple pie, and enjoy it without guilt, but when your host comes by and asks you how did you enjoy that apple pie?  And you say, well, that was the best apple pie I’ve ever had in my life, and then she says, oh great, have a second piece.  Well now, wait a minute.  What’s the, what’s the conscience going to say about the second piece?  It looks like the first piece, so maybe I should have it too?  And the ego, the senses and the unconscious mind, are going to agree, oh yes, it’s exactly the same.  And we had a green light before for the first piece, so maybe the second piece, but what does the conscience say? No, no, no, no you just had the first piece, it was delicious, that’s great, you had the experience, now the second piece is entirely different.  Sacrifice it. Self-discipline yourself in this regard, and just see what happens.

Ann

Very, very interesting.   Try not to go to Ireland whilst practicing that self-discipline, because they’ll be like, have another piece of apple pie, arrah, do! Have another piece.  Have another piece!  Which reminds me, I want to ask you about learning to die to our attachments.  Now, my mother for instance, she lives in Ireland, she’s very old now but she loves kitsch jewellery. No jewellery that’s got any value, you understand, just anything that sparkles and glitters, she loves it more than her children, because it doesn’t speak back to her, it doesn’t have an opinion, she can just sit there and admire it and she loves it.  She’s very attached to it but how do we, you know that’s, I’m light hearted about that, but how do we actually let go of the things that we are really attached to here?

Ram

Well, attachment is, is the greatest challenge that we have, and attachment means to hold on, to grasp, to clutch.  And when we’re asked to give up the body, if we have spent a life holding and grasping and clutching, it’s going to be painful to let go of the body, but if we have lived our lives with open hands, if something comes, thank you very much and if it goes, thank you very much.   There is a very lovely Native American story, it goes something like this.  There was an Indian, an American Indian, who was friendly with one of the settlers, one of the white settlers, and as an expression of his friendship, the Indian gave the settler a beautiful handmade pipe.  The settler accepted it, thank you very much. And time passed, years passed, and the Indian through his journey came back to that town, and visited his old friend, and the friend brought him into the house and the Indian noticed the pipe that he had given this settler years ago.  And it was mounted on the wall above his fireplace and the Indian was very upset and he told his friend that.  And what was, what was the upset that he was dealing with? Well, the Indian said to him, in our tradition when you are given something, you are also obligated then to enjoy it, and then give it to someone else to enjoy.

Ann

Fascinating.  How then, can we love without attachment?

Ram

We can love only when we are not attached.  Because attachment comes with limitations/ Because in our culture, attachment is more like a legal agreement.  So when I meet you and I fall in love with you, what I do is, I take out a little pencil or a pen and I create a little sketch of you, who you are right now, at this point in time, because you make me very happy, right? And I put that I put that little caricature in my breast pocket and I always have it there.  And whenever I have an interaction with you, I always check with that little caricature to see, to make sure that you still look like, like that caricature, making me happy.  Bit when you disagree with me, and I look at the caricature, oh this is not the caricature, you’re disagreeing with me, you’ve broken our contract.  So, attachment is like a legal agreement in our culture.  It’s great if you keep on agreeing with me, but it and if you if you do I’m going to keep on loving you, but if you break the contract, I can no longer love you like I did before.  So, love knows no bounds like that.  Love is our essential nature.  It’s eternal.  It travels from eternity to eternity.  It’s the most ancient traveller is love.  Love is the origin of all of our powerful emotions, for food, for sex, for sleep, for self-preservation, love is the origin, but if I believe that I am the body, and I believe that I am my mind, in my thoughts love became becomes objectified, and creates desire for an object, for a person, and if that object is received, and I have it, then what then? I’m afraid I might lose it, and if my desire is thwarted, it burns to anger, so love, the most ancient traveller within us that is us, changes based on the ignorance of my own mind, and comes out through attachment and desire and fear and anger.

Ann

And so our answer Ram then, is to go back to the superconscious.

Ram

That’s right.  That’s always the key.

Ann

Always returning, yeah always going back in.

Ram

That’s right.  What’s to be done and what’s not to be done?  What’s to be thought and what’s not to be thought?  Because thoughts are our most powerful resource.  We can’t even lift our hand up without first entertaining the thought.  Think about that.  The body can’t move unless and until there is a movement in the mind, that’s powerful.  So which thoughts am I going to give attention to?  Am I going to give attention to self-willed desire, my will, at the exclusion of thy will?  Am I going to give my attention to fear and worry unnecessarily and poison my entire physiology?  Am I going to give my attention to anger and judgement and similarly poison my body?  How’s that working for me?  Not at all, it’s poisoning me, it’s making me sick.  So what to do?  I have to transform that energy.  There’s nothing wrong with fear, there’s nothing wrong with anger, there’s nothing wrong with selfish desire, it’s just that it comes to us in our relationship in a contracted and debilitating form and it needs to be transformed.  It’s nature is to be transformed, it wants to be transformed, and the only way that it can be transformed is through the act of sacrifice, sacrifice.  And like discipline, we have a negative connotation, that’s, you know that’s, that’s denial, I’m sacrificing something.  No.  Sacrifice goes back to the ancient Latin and Italian sacrificii – make it sacred.  Repurpose it.  It’s like having a goldmine in your backyard.  What good does a goldmine in the backyard do, if I don’t dig and get it out and turn it into fine jewellery?  Nothing, it doesn’t do me any good. So we have to repurpose it.  So, when driving an automobile on the highway and some maniac is speeding at about 90 miles an hour, cuts me off in the middle of traffic, I have to slam on my brake in order to avoid an accident, and a bubble from my unconscious mind comes forward, I am aware of intense anger.  What am I going to do with that energy? I know that I cannot create energy like this, I know I cannot destroy energy like this, but I can transform it, I can transform it and repurpose it and if I offer it back to the origin from which it came, because my conscience is asking me to do that, instead of letting it poison me, that debilitating and contractive power can be transformed into an expansive and a creative form healing energy, increase in will power and an expansion of my access to the super conscious portion of the mind.  But nobody ever taught us how to do that.

Ann

I know, we weren’t taught were we?  We should be taught from the minute we are born really, how to handle the world and we’re not taught those skills at all.  In your book Ram, you said destiny is not a matter of chance is a matter of choice.

Ram

That’s right.

Ann

I find that really interesting because I wonder if, as a soul, that drop that that comes down, do we have our destiny mapped out already, so our little soul droplet knows where we meant to go or …

Ram

Well, we have come from the ocean and we are all destined to return to the ocean.  In the process however, we have this human life, so I believe that predestiny and our own desire are one in the same.  So not everybody has every option available to them, we all have a limited number of options in every situation and that too, is part of pre-destiny, so that my free will can dovetail to my destiny, and then all roads lead to where I stand and ultimately I will return to that ocean and become one with the metaphoric father.

Ann

And personally, I can’t wait to go home, because this life is so challenging, I always feel completely lost.

Ram

Well, no don’t, don’t cast it away, because this is the great gift, this is the great gift, this is school.  All these forces in our unconscious mind that are seeking resolution in this lifetime.  If they are not resolved, they always, they are going to have to be resolved in another incarnation, because it is their nature to be resolved, so that they can go home.

Ann

Yes, well that’s true.

Ram

So, this, this human life is a way for the supreme intelligence that we refer to as God, to experience all this, the infinite number of possibilities and to know the truth.  So don’t undersell, the value and the purpose of each and every life.  There’s so much to learn, there’s so much to do, there is so much to resolve, that all comes in the midst of relationships,

Ann

And meditation, which helps us return to our super consciousness, our soul, so would you say that is should be a daily practise?

Ram

Daily practise no question about it, it’s a dire necessity.  Meditation, the act of meditating provides us four very important skills and tools.  The first, it teaches us how to focus the energy of the mind on one object, one-pointed attention, one-pointed attention equals genius.  Because only a one-pointed mind can access the superconscious portion of the mind through the body, one point of detention is a skill that we gain in meditation.  Second, detachment.  We create a space between stimulus and response.  Our culture has a different notion.  Our culture is in the business of collapsing the space between stimulus and response, because if there is very little or no space between stimulus and response, when you see it, when you smell it, when you taste it, when you hear it, when you touch it, you’re going to want it, and I’m going to sell it to you, so it’s good for business to have no space between stimulus and response.  But if we have learned through meditation to create a space between stimulus and response, then we can use that space to be free, to check with our conscience, to determine right now what’s to be done and what’s not to be done, that’s a great freedom.  So you gain one-pointed attention, you gain detachment, stimulus and response, increase that space so that you can check with your conscience.  Third, you begin to be more creative because you can increasingly and reliably rely on the wisdom reflected by the conscience.  So you’re wiser, you’re more creative, you’re more self-reliant  and in that process of doing the experiment, you build up the muscles of will power, to do what’s to be done, when it’s to be done and not do what’s not to be done when it’s not to be done and that is meditation.

Ann

Yeah, it’s brilliant, of course, because it just takes us back to our soul self all the time, back to our super conscience which is who we truly are in first place.

Ram

Yes.

Ann

Ram, you’ve written a fantastic book about all of this, it is called Your Conscience: The Key To Unlock Limitless Wisdom And Creativity And Solve All Of Life’s Challenges.  How long does it take you to write that?

Ram

It took me 75 years.

Ann

Yeah, it is packed full of wisdom.  I have read it and  it was just brilliant.  Where can people go and buy a copy?

Ram

Anywhere there are booksellers that sell books, Amazon and any fine store.  We have a website called www.yourconscience.org, your conscience dot org, you can read about the book there and you can order there or you can order from whatever bookseller is most convenient for you .

Ann

And it’s on sale Ram, from the 7th of September.

Ram

September 7^th, yes from the 7th of September, earlier you can, you can pre-buy and reserve it.

Ann

And if people want to find out more about you, the institute, the American Meditation Institute what is, do you have a website for that?

Ram

Yes, it’s https://americanmeditation.org and we have a weekly guided meditation that I do and in the second half of our get together from 9:30 to 11:00 AM Eastern Time, we have a little conversation, just like you and I are having today,

Ann

And that’s a free resource isn’t it, Ram?

Ram

Yes, and you can get a free link on the homepage of https://americanmeditation.org

Ann

And so, people can sit afterwards and just have a chat?

Ram

Yes, yes, it’s called a Satsang, company of the wise, company of the truth.

Ann

That is beautiful for people to go and have that wonderful experience, on a regular basis as well.

Ram

Yes, yes.

Ann

I could talk to you forever and ever and ever, I just want to thank you so much Ram Lev, Leonard Perlmutter for coming onto Psychic Matters and sharing your incredible knowledge.  It is going to be so useful to people, I know, I just want to thank you from my heart for your time.

Ram

Well, thank you for making it happen, I really appreciate that.

 

I hope you have enjoyed this episode with my wonderful guest, Leonard Perlmutter (Ram Lev).   Please do go out and buy a copy of his book – trust me – you will learn so much about the Conscience and the conscious mind.

All resources for this episode, including a full transcript and plus importantly, how to reach Leonard, are over on my website under podcasts, so do  head over there and you can pick everything up on the show notes www.anntheato.com.  Have a little explore while you are over there, and take a look at my upcoming courses and audio meditations that are available – you might find something you love.

To carry on the conversation, please do head over to the Psychic Matters Podcast Group FB page and join in the discussions – you will be very warmly welcomed!

For now, I would like to wish you all a very peaceful couple of weeks until we meet again.

Remember Leonard’s advice, that daily meditation is a dire necessity, helping us to become  wiser, more creative, and more self-reliant.  The answers are always within.

My name is Ann Théato, and thank you for listening to Psychic Matters!