Russell chats to Jack Kornfield, Buddhist teacher, spiritual teacher and best-selling author about the moral fabric of our society and the future role of AI in our lives.What is morality within our current news landscape, particularly when focusing on figures such as Donald Trump calling for peace in Ukraine or Tucker Carlson announcing he's taken zero covid shots? Plus, we engage with Sam Altman's concerns regarding AI as a 'frighteningly destructive force,' discussing ways to harmonize the tangible world of technology with the intangible realm of spirituality. If you want to find a supportive community with Jack Kornfield, check out: https://cloudsangha.co/For a bit more from us join our Stay Free Community here: https://russellbrand.locals.com/NEW MERCH! https://stuff.russellbrand.com/
Thank you so much for joining me for Stay Free with Russell Brand.
We've got so many fantastic subjects to discuss with you and a glorious guest.
We're going to talk about Trump, how he says he would end the war in 24 hours.
Off YouTube, because you might be watching us on YouTube now, you might be one of our 6.52 million Awakening Wonders that are tired of the mainstream news, that are tired of establishment power, that are tired of being lied to, And believe we can create something new and wonderful and for the first 15 minutes we will be with you.
But then we're going to migrate like a glorious miasma, like a sweet phantom, over to the home of free speech that I dare not mention.
Not because it's like Voldemort or Wicked and stuff, but case the algorithms against it.
Because guess what Tucker revealed?
He never gave himself so much as a snip-snap.
Tucker revealed he never gave himself so much as a jib-jab.
Tucker revealed, didn't he?
Allegedly.
It's not allegedly because he revealed it.
Learn what allegedly means.
I know what it means.
It means controversial.
Don't it?
Same as controversial.
It means getting in trouble with YouTube.
Not with that little guy.
That's my little, that stops me getting in any trouble that does.
If the WHO didn't interfere with us communicating openly on YouTube, this is meant to be a public platform, but we'll get to the bottom of all that along with so many subjects.
And we'll be talking about the morality that undergirds behavior reporting and systemic governance with Jack Kornfield, a world teacher.
We'll be talking about moral perspectives on AI, on Tucker's revelation?
Does he have the bodily autonomy to make such a claim?
Does he have a responsibility as a role model and as a public figure?
Is there a leadership crisis?
What does he think about Trump's stand on war?
Get your questions in now.
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I wonder indeed.
There's a chance.
There's a very high chance.
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Show them, Russell!
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Also, on Here's the News, we'll be analysing that moment when Tucker took down Pence.
And look at all the new, emergent, independent voices in media spaces.
45% of Americans, Gareth Roy, no less, say they would consider voting for a third party candidate.
Does it mean that it's fracturing?
Is the system falling apart?
Are we in a new Rubicon?
Are systems tumbling and crumbling?
Let us know!
Join us on Locals, join the chat.
Plus, you know how we believe in freedom of speech.
We're going to be bringing you some sweet, sweet free speech, along with our caffeine.
Because directly after this, guess who I'm talking to?
Go on.
They don't really call him the governator.
That was Schwarzenegger, wasn't it?
But this is a new governator on The Santas I'm talking to.
He's written this book.
I'll be talking to him a little bit later.
That's not on this show.
We'll be broadcasting that later in the week.
Join us in our Locals community.
Shall we have a look at this first story?
How exactly does Donald Trump, among all of his claims, say that he's going to end war in 24 hours?
We've also got the results of a poll that we sent you.
Post the poll in this chat as well over on Locals now so they can join in in case they haven't done it yet.
OK, let's have a look at Trump saying that he would end war in just a day.
He's like David Bowie.
He's a hero, but not just for one day.
He can end a war in just one day.
Join us on Rumble if you're watching us elsewhere.
Let's have a look at this news story.
You said you could end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours.
Yes, I could.
How would you do that?
I know Zelensky very well.
I felt he was very honourable because when they asked him about the perfect phone call that I made, he said it was indeed perfect.
He said it was... He didn't even know what they were talking about.
He could have grammed... I don't know what you like about Trump, but he does mediate everything through his ego.
Yeah.
Like if someone says something that's nice about him, he likes that.
Yeah, the perfect phone call.
Perfect phone call.
Hello?
Oh, no, sorry, you go first.
Sorry, no, sorry, I was going to say, oh, hi, hello, I'm just driving.
Sorry.
Oh, no, it's going from the headphones to the car Bluetooth.
None of that!
Not with Trump.
Straight in there.
I just like the idea that Zelensky, after talking to Trump, you know, when the Russian invasion was mooted and all these things, that there would have been a call between them.
But Zelensky got off the phone and he went, you know what?
That was the perfect phone call.
How do you even analyse that?
What is the metric for evaluating the perfect phone call?
Like it's an ice dance that you could hold up a tent to.
Oh, I felt threatened.
Well, that's not going to be enough for Putin to stop bombing.
No, no, no.
No, I'm not saying that.
What I'm saying is that I know Zelensky very well and I know Putin very well.
So like the idea that knowing people well is the way to solve these problems because actually what Trump suggests strategically and tactically is saying to Putin we would give Ukraine so many weapons that they would win this war.
So in a sense he's just saying he would amplify what's happening.
So what do you think about that guys?
Particularly those of you that love Trump.
Because it's interesting isn't it because we're now living in a time where there are emergent independent voices and in a sense you can say Trump was the harbinger of that.
Whether you like Trump or not there's no doubt that he was a berserker in the system, a bull in the china shop.
He is not the preferred candidate of the establishment.
I think it's safe to say that now and perhaps in his wake we have the emergence of figures like RFK Friend of the show, if you've not donated to the fund for me to do pull-ups against RFK, for God's sake donate now.
Let's post the link to that in the description because, not in the description, in the chat on locals, because baby, I am gonna pull him up so hard.
I am ready to pull up.
I'm telling you.
Perfect pull up.
The perfect pull up I'm going to do.
Perfect.
Look at the form.
All the way down.
Full extension.
All the way up.
Chin above.
Chest out.
That's the kind of pull up competition that I'm interested in.
So let's see how Trump actually would end war in 24 hours.
And I had a good relationship, very good, with both of them.
I would tell Zelensky, no more.
You've got to make a deal.
I would tell Putin, if you don't make a deal, we're going to give them a lot.
We're going to give them more than they ever got if we have to.
It's good that he sort of publicly tells us as well exactly what the strategy is.
Zelensky, no more.
Putin, more.
He goes from diplomacy to the complete opposite of diplomacy in about three seconds.
It's a strange tactic and strategy.
In a sense, Security is the perfect indication of the times that we live in.
The old systems are dying.
We're becoming weary of the rhetoric of systemic power.
The US are pressuring the Ukraine to push harder in the counter-offensive.
Gareth, you had a point to make on this story.
No, I just think it's amazing that this is going on, that the US government and the military are getting frustrated with Ukraine for how the counter-offensive is going, despite Mark Milley saying that the counter-offensive is not a failure, which is already going quite far, isn't it?
It's not a failure in my view, I think it's way too early to say that kind of thing.
I think there's a lot of fighting left to do, and I'll stay with what we've said before, this is going to be a long and hard bloody battle.
Give war a chance.
For God's sake, let's really give this war a chance.
Also, the whole thing was proposed as aid, but there's not even a war anyway.
So this war that's not happening anyway, and certainly not a proxy war, they're now disappointed with the results of it.
If it was like famine aid, you wouldn't go, oh, we're not giving them any more famine aid.
They're still bloody hungry.
Look at them.
We've sent over all of this flour.
They're still skinny as rakes.
It's meant to not be a proxy war.
So you should have no skin in the game.
It should be like, we've given you you the aid. What's the problem?
Look how that's happened, hasn't it? It's crept in, week by week by week, this is how
it gets to it. The start is, this is not our war, it's not American troops, we're just
providing aid exactly as you say. And then the creep comes to the point where you've
got the government saying, we're angry about how slow this is and how badly that you're
doing and that this is going to be a long hard battle.
Starting to look like a proxy war now.
No wonder they require absolute control over media institutions, and in particular social media.
You know that federal judge passed a law saying that your free speech had been impeached by Biden administration actions, that true information had been censored, in particular during the pandemic period.
And the federal judge said it had to stop, that the Biden administration could only interact with social media platforms if it were matters of criminality, Well, that has been overturned.
The Biden administration will be allowed to continue to collude with social media, continue to demand they censor, even as new legislation is being passed to permit it in your country, the United States, in Canada, in Australia, in New Zealand, in our country, the UK and across the EU.
Of course, they have to amplify their message.
But there is a requirement for censorship because without censorship we will openly communicate, and of course there are bigoted people in the world, there are people saying hateful things, I wish there weren't, but there are.
But the biggest threat is our open communication.
Not our bigotry, not our potential hatred towards one another, but the fact that we can collude, cooperate, present new alternatives.
Let me know in the chat right now, press the red button, join us on Locals, and let me know what you think about this.
The Biden administration overturned a rule.
What's the point in having a ruling if they can instantly overturn it?
It's not overturned.
So they went to the Court of Appeals, the 5th US Circuit Court of Appeals, and it's been temporarily suspended.
So all hope is not lost.
It's been suspended for now.
But they're going to continue right now to do what they were doing, what they were told immediately to stop doing.
Yeah.
So, once again, there's a legislative quagmire that can be fired up that's anti-democratic, anti-judicial, which reveals precisely what we continually tell us and what we continually tell you and what you continually tell us.
These institutions are failing, that they're not fit for purpose.
Remember, we're going to leave you in a second, we'll be exclusively on Rumble to talk about Tucker's admission.
Acknowledgement that he has taken no shots.
Oh, you're surprised by that?
Let me know in the chat how many shots you had.
Let me know in the chat what you think about that.
Is he allowed to do that?
Is that even possible?
Obviously we can't talk about that openly on YouTube because where do YouTube get their community guidelines?
From the WHO.
Where does the WHO get its fundings?
What's his biggest funder?
Some of the funding of the WHO comes directly from you, of course.
Remember when you voted for that?
Of course you didn't.
But, significantly, the funding of the WHO comes from, well, let me know in the comments.
Jill Bates, exactly.
J. Gwynne Wilde.
That's right, we're going to send you a t-shirt saying you are free.
Free, sweetly free.
Shall we have a look at Donald Trump's reaction to the January 6th there?
The number one thing that bothers Trump about potentially being arrested over the events related to January the 6th is that he received the letter on a Sunday.
Let's have a look at him on Fox News.
And you released on Truth Social earlier today that they now, that you are a target of this January 6th grand jury.
My first question to you is, it doesn't seem to bother you like I think it would bother so many other people.
What is it about you that it doesn't?
No, it bothers me.
It bothers me for everybody in this incredible sold-out audience.
He's brilliant.
He's like a WWF president.
He's like a wrestling president.
He's pitching.
It's P.T.
Barnum.
It's extraordinary, actually, telling you while it's happening that it's a sold-out audience.
Yeah, it's so skillful.
the way he does it. But the issue with Trump is that is it just that? Is it all just rhetoric?
And maybe that's enough, but maybe it's not. You know, the position on lethal aid to Ukraine
is exactly that, that there is an issue there. When his strategy goes from, you know, it's
about diplomacy and peace talks to I'd just send Ukraine loads of weaponry, because Trump
sent loads of weapons to Ukraine in the first place. You know, he sent like $47 million
of weapons in the first place. So you've got to have, I guess you've got to have something
to also back that up. It can't just be the rhetoric, which I admit is very funny and
skillful. He's also saying that he would end that war in 24 hours. And maybe these are
Oracle tricks that they perhaps wouldn't send any more weapons after all.
What do you guys think?
Let me know in the chat.
We'll be talking to Jack Kornfield in a minute.
Jack Kornfield is a world teacher, a fantastic spiritual teacher about the morality behind
these kinds of positions.
And where are we?
Where do we stand now where Noam Chomsky and Donald Trump have the same political perspective,
where Cornel West and Tucker Carlson have the same political perspective?
Where it's taking increasingly peripheral figures to point out that there should be an alternative to ongoing war.
That the establishment, whether it's Mike Pence or Joe Biden, are advocating for forever wars.
That it takes now people from outside the establishment.
And do you even agree with that analysis?
Is Trump outside the establishment?
Let me know.
Let me know.
I got the letter on Sunday night.
Think of it.
I don't think they've ever sent a letter on Sunday night.
And they're in a rush because they want to interfere.
It's interference with the election.
It's election interference.
Never been done like this in the history of our country and it's a disgrace.
What's happening to our country, whether it's the borders or the elections or kinds of things like this where the DOJ has become a weapon for the Democrats.
The DOJ is a weapon for the Democrats.
Difficult to query that analysis when there is the temporary suspension of verdicts that had been reached by legitimate judicial figures, allowing the Biden administration to continue to censor.
Astonishing.
If you're watching this on YouTube right now, click the link on your description.
We're heading over to Rumble to talk about... Did you see this?
Did you see Tucker talking about He's zero jabs.
What I like about that chat most of all... See you later, YouTube.
Click the link.
Join us over there.
Join us over there.
And if you're watching us on Rumble, click the red button right now and join us in the chat.
What I like about this is in his chat with who I can only assume is a delightful old gentleman, in the chat he sort of says, how many jabs did you have?
And that fellow went, "Well, how many jabs did you have?"
Which shows, like, that's real playground negotiation tactics.
Let's have a little look at this clip.
And once more, it's another example of how it's independent, now independent,
media figures like Tucker Carlson, who are able to handle the national
and, indeed, international conversation a lot more deftly than supposed political figures.
Remember when we showed you yesterday Mike Pence talking about how he would double down on the militarisation of Ukraine, continue to perpetuate this war mentality.
It was Tucker that points out, well hang on a minute,
have you not looked around American cities at the moment?
Yeah, a lot of people are saying, Tucker for president, or Davros 200 actually.
But I get a general impression that what your appetite is for now
is anti-establishment political figures because the establishment itself is the problem,
not the minor differences between establishment entities.
Would you agree with that analysis generally?
Let's have a look at Tucker Carlson's stance on the jabs there.
One of the powers that government did usurp over the past several years
is the right to decide what medicine you take in the form of COVID mandates.
How did you feel about that and how many COVID shots did you take and how do you feel about it now in retrospect?
How many COVID shots did you take?
Zero.
Oh, Tucker, going in hard with a zero.
Now, what I know from when Tucker Carlson joined us on this show is he is able to align his easy, convivial manner, his fluidity and eloquence as a communicator with authenticity.
He feels like when you're speaking with him, whether it's on camera or off, you feel like you're dealing with a connected person who you may not agree with on everything, but you can speak with in good faith.
That's why I'm sort of astonished by people that say that Tucker's a white supremacist and that kind of thing, because it just doesn't hold up in person.
And particularly something like this now.
Is this the first public figure you've seen say zero shots?
Maybe so.
I also think he's in that amazing position at the moment.
Obviously he's a highly skilled broadcaster, but now that he's left Fox and has no ties to the mainstream at all, or getting kind of told what he can and can't say, he's able to point out, he's in this incredible position of basically just pointing out hypocrisy.
And so when he's asked by Asa Hutchinson, Like, how many did you take?
He can say, I didn't take any shots because he knows from the Republican position and all these Republican candidates that he's interviewed is that they live in hypocrisy, whether that's the war or COVID.
Again, coming back to Trump, you know, again, I don't think there's another figure in politics who could weather the storm of the lockdowns that Trump imposed, the way in which he took great pride in those In the vaccines you know I don't think anyone else could kind of still come through that with the fan base that he's got when there's so many things that you could say his party did at that time and their position on war that just feels very hypocritical.
Certainly he's granted incredible grace by the surrounding environment of ongoing hypocrisy a lot of people in the chat asking did that politician ever answer the question do you feel increasingly now But we're approaching a point where you don't want to be governed people that even look like that.
A kind of sort of drabness, the hollowed-out, pallid complexion of these cookie-cutter, off-the-conveyor-belt, political figures who, from either side of the aisle, parrot the same talking points, support the same ideas, went to the same schools, are funded in the same way.
Isn't there a kind of appetite now for raw rhetoric?
Let's have a look as well, just based on that issue.
Tucker's vaccine revelation, we asked you.
Does it make you like him more, less, or just the same?
65% liked him more, 33% of you already liked him, less 2%, 98% of you found this made you warm to Tucker a little more.
Let's have a look at the rest of that clip.
But I think it's fair and I can see that you look at the zero.
Is it like they're still applauding him saying zero?
That's the reaction.
I asked you that question.
Take that to mean like this is everybody supporting let's not get vaccines.
That's everyone supporting authenticity, open discourse, clear communication, because we live in a time of obfuscation and deception.
Have you seen all these stories about Joe Biden?
People saying, oh, Joe Biden, he's foul mouthed and filthy tempered in public.
He's being abusive to his staff while making declarations in public that anyone that's rude in his team will be out on their ear immediately.
You don't even know for sure whether or not this is a tactic to make Joe Biden seem more dynamic.
We live almost entirely in a spectacle.
Integrity and authenticity are becoming the currency of our time.
I'd say I'd rather deal with people that I disagree with but trust that they're telling the truth than people that parrot the points of the contemporary ideology and will parrot other points when they come into fashion.
And I don't think, honestly, you should be asking people about their medical care, but that became a matter of public policy.
And I do think that the whole country ought to pause and assess, like, what did we just go through?
How do we feel about it now?
And so it's a very straightforward question.
Authenticity and integrity fundamentally are spiritual matters.
We've Living, I believe, in a kind of spiritual vacuum.
We're living in a time where trust in all of our institutions is waning.
People don't trust the government anymore.
People don't trust the mainstream media.
Faith, even in God, in parts of the country.
Remember, we talked to you at length about 50% of Americans no longer identify as Christians.
This is a time of crisis.
I think what people crave more than anything is integrity.
We've got some fantastic content coming up for you over the course of the week, but it's time now for me to interview my guest.
Yeah, I would love to interview my guest now because, yeah, look at the time.
This is Jack Kornfeld, who is a Buddhist monk, a best-selling author, a world-renowned spiritual teacher.
Jack, thank you so much for joining me on Stay Free with Russell Brand.
Thank you, Russell.
I wanted to start by talking about some of the subjects we've already discussed in this episode.
Donald Trump is almost the very definition of a divisive figure.
In some areas this man is regarded as the embodiment of anti-establishment force.
He's for many of our viewers their The only opportunity we're going to have to stand up against hypocrisy and corruption within the establishment.
Notable that he is one of the few voices within the mainstream that is advocating for peace at this time.
How do you, from the perspective of a spiritualist, a man who is devout and dedicated to spirituality, Ethically deal with the subject of Donald Trump and what he represents.
How do you deal with the subject of militarism and forever wars?
What do you feel it tells us when you have figures like Donald Trump and Noam Chomsky saying the same things about war, Cornel West and RFK saying the same thing about war and yet the establishment still advocating for ongoing wars if it's a duty, a responsibility and the only moral thing to do?
Well, Russell, you've got the establishment on one side, and you've got the anti-establishment on the other side.
Let me say two things to start with.
First, no amount of technology, of nanotechnology, AI, biotechnology, war technology, is going to stop continuing warfare, nor business as usual, because the source of warfare is the human heart.
And we can get better weapons.
We can elect other people.
But if people are still divisive in their heart and not connected in any way, don't have a society that represents and fosters care, then we get what you talked about.
You talked about it on the playground.
When kids are, you know, hitting each other with blocks, you say, use your words.
You actually teach people that there's another way to be.
And we have a society that's tremendously divisive, and it's not going to be changed unless also people change inside, which is what I've learned as a Buddhist monk, that in fact, if you want the world to be more peaceful, you also have to step out of the... stop the war inside yourself.
Otherwise, you could have establishment and anti-establishment, and it just carries on.
Yes, it seems increasingly plain to me that the prima materia of our reality is consciousness itself and the external world, an expression of some ulterior force that is privately accessible to all of us through the subjective experience.
And perhaps in this spectacular age, and I use that word most literally, Jack, this thirst and hunger for integrity and authenticity comes from Our shared realisation that what we're being presented, whether it's from a Republican perspective, or a Democrat perspective, or from within the mainstream media, or by our judiciary, or from within the corporatist, globalist world and its evident influence within media spaces, is a lack of integrity and authenticity.
That's why a figure like Tucker Carlson, I believe, who came on our show and was absolutely fantastic, He and I had sort of a real connection, and have a real connection.
I would say that whilst there are areas of, you know, policy and social matters where he and I would disagree, what I'd accept is that he's a person who comes from a place of integrity and authenticity.
What do you think of this modern currency of integrity and authenticity?
And do you feel that it's something that's lacking in public discourse, and in particular in political discourse?
Of course there's something lacking, partly because we live in an addictive society in which the best contribution you can make, you know, is to continue to consume.
The best person in the society is neither dead nor alive, but more like a zombie and doesn't want to stand up and say, this is what matters to me, whether it's eating carcinogenic food or polluting the environment and so forth.
So we're missing that because we're being trained In some way, almost as if the society itself is an addict.
And then secondly, when I was living in the monastery during the time, one of the times of war in Southeast Asia, and there was a firefight near the monastery, and the monastery was a zone of peace.
In the morning, I went out with an old monk, and there were some helicopters dropping canister bombs where the so-called terrorists were living.
And, you know, the firefight was close enough you could see the flashes at night.
And I said, oh, the military is bombing those terrorists, you know, that we saw fighting last night.
And the monk said, oh, they don't live there.
They're in caves down that way, further down the ridge.
I said, well, why are they bombing there?
And he said, well, If they killed them all, then no one would continue to give them all these nice helicopters and weapons.
And you could feel that underneath the war was also this huge economic engine.
The U.S.
is a warlike nation, and there's this tremendous emphasis on keeping war going.
We have to teach our children to look honestly and say, all right, what are the values you want to live?
If you want integrity, do you want to live with continuing warfare?
Or is there an alternative to it?
Do you want to live with continuing consumer addiction?
Or is there some way you can find a connection to each other that's caring and in yourself?
And that's the kind of thing that's needed in the society as much as anything.
There is a requirement for that, but we live also during a time of approaching immersive censorship.
It seems to me that there are genuine globalist forces that are trying to slowly, softly, and maybe not so
slowly or softly, introduce social credit score systems, introduce control of digital currency,
maintain control through censorship, a time absolutely lacking in integrity and authenticity.
Whilst I recognize that an inner personal revolution is the most important thing that any of us can do.
And it's very empowering to hear that.
Because some of the subjects we talk about on the show, I think people feel like, what am I supposed to do about--
NATO and the WHO and the WEF and the military-industrial complex and these centralised media institutions that lie.
The funding of both political parties comes from the same sources.
How can I change that?
But what is deeply empowering is the fact that all of us, through the private alter within us, do have access to a deep force, can cultivate a different mentality, do have access to a power that actually is the only thing that can meaningfully alter reality.
Nevertheless, Jack, there are, I would say, accumulating forces of opposition, not least through technology.
And I understand that you've been communicating a lot with Sam Altman about the potential destructive power of AI, which of course could be utilized like any tool for good.
But I suppose the fear at the moment is that AI could wreak economic havoc could annihilate a lot of jobs, could be used to impose
further control, could be used to divide people further. What are some of the topics
and subjects you're discussing with Sam Altman and what is coming out of those
conversations?
I'll answer that briefly and then I would throw a question your way.
The question, and the leaders of AI don't know how to do it, is how do you build in honesty, integrity, and ethical values within a computer?
All systems and with artificial intelligence.
And I think it all needs to be slowed down, which is what Sam also agreed to in some way until that can be established.
I had a conversation with Charlie Oppenheimer, who's the grandson of Robert J. Oppenheimer.
There's a film that's just coming out.
And in 1945, Oppenheimer suggested that there be an international group that hold the Nuclear explosive power of the bomb rather than any particular country And there was a two-year period when the US was the only holder of nuclear power And then we said no we're gonna we're gonna run the world with our nuclear power and the nuclear arms race started The same thing is happening with AI right now And it's possible to pause and say let's collaborate and do this together rather than make a AI
Artificial intelligence, global war of whose AI is more powerful than whose.
The question for us is, do we continue down the path of conflict with one another?
Or what are you helping?
You know, you pointed out, Russell, you point out how things are messed up and the establishment, this and that.
What's the solution?
It's not just individualism, is it?
I mean, we need So how do you how do you create a wise society that's not just individualistic and where people are responsible and ethical caring for the community as a whole?
I feel that individualism has perhaps reached its apex and perhaps in the reification of identity that is enshrined in identity politics which for me holds many truths We ought be free to become who we truly are and nobody should impede the self-expression of individuals.
Our freedom is perhaps one of the greatest principles around which we can organise our lives.
But there is more to my personal reality than what I want and what I don't want.
And as an addict, I've fallen into the trap of treating my own preferences and aversions
like a kind of inner dogma imposed by instinct, impulse, and cultural conditioning.
What I suggest is that our systems and institutions need a radical re-evaluation of their ethics,
that it seems to be, to me, that our media and our systems of governance promote the ugliest aspects of our nature.
They promote desire.
They sustain fear.
Powerful forces that are very, very difficult to overcome and impossible to overcome without a spiritual experience.
simply the realization that the inner life is the real world and the outer phenomena
is on some level a deep expression of this inward experience.
It takes a great deal of discipline and surrender to access this point.
The only way for us to proceed at this time, I believe, is to acknowledge what is truly
happening.
Decentralization and devolution are making themselves felt through the technological advances
of the last few years.
It is no longer necessary to have centralized institutions of finance, capital and power.
We have real fascism now, if you take Mussolini's definition that fascism is the reconstituting
of private power and state power into one oppressive fist.
We stand on the brink, I believe, not of an Orwellian dystopia, but of a Huxleyan dystopia,
high on SOMA we lay as passive blobs in our cells, our energy harnessed, our consciousness
directed towards the lower and basest aspects, most base aspects of our nature.
An individual awakening is not a luxury, it is a necessity.
When people ask what can I do, what I respond is the thing you can do is the most important
thing available, personally awaken.
What concomitant with this is the necessity to break down and attack these institutions
of corruption, to replace centralized power wherever possible with localized power, democratic
There is a fusion to be had between the apparently opposing ideas of libertarianism, which is
generally associated with the right, anarchism, which is usually seen as being to the left
of the leftist most politics, and recognizing that when we have individual freedom meshed
with community duty, we have the possibility to build new societies.
But that is not going to be possible without a significant spiritual awakening at the level
of the individual.
I believe that there will be a tipping point and I think that we can approach it through spiritual practice and a kind of unity against central corruption.
That's what we're trying to convey on this show, Jack.
And that's what I want to talk to you about.
And that's why you're here.
If you have questions for Jack in the chat, join us, press the red button, join us over on Locals and speak at That team stay free so that I find your questions in there and guys out there bring the questions for Jack in, proper questions.
Jack, what do you think about my little diatribe there?
I loved your diatribe, and I want to say to people that we can always start again, that we can always begin again.
It's one of the great spiritual truths.
If you listen to Lehmann Gbowee and those who won the Nobel Peace Prize in Liberia, where she said, Liberia used to be known for its child soldiers, And now it's known for its women leaders.
That revolution is that combination of inner revolution to realize that you can step out of your own fears, you can step out of your own addiction.
James Baldwin put it this way, he said, I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hate and ignorance so stubbornly is because they sense that once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with their own pain and fear.
And if we can honor that we're human and we can actually stand up to that, we can look in our own hearts and say, yes, we have our measure of pain.
Yes, we have our fear.
And there's something bigger that we can be a part of, which includes then not only the inner freedom, but the sense of connection with others, not based on fear, but based on That's beautiful, that James Baldwin quote.
Let's find that and let's post that when we are sharing this conversation with Jack.
We've got some lovely questions for you.
Let me just find them, Jack.
Loads of questions flooded in just then.
Excuse me, because they're sometimes difficult to locate.
So you guys could write them down for me in there if you don't mind.
Easier for me to locate them.
Ah, here we go.
Imagination.
How do we reduce dependence on the state and the system, Jack?
That is one of the questions that's come from.
How do we reduce this dependence people are asking for?
And GELD says simply, you look like my dad, Jack.
That's what GELD has to offer.
And how do we reduce dependence on the state and the system?
Well, I look like somebody's dad anyway.
You know, that's partly the question of empowerment and trust, that if we actually start to build within our communities, that there's something about both the global system that we have to pay attention to and step out of in some way.
But we also need to rebuild at the very simplest level.
How do I live?
In the environment I'm in, with the neighbors that I care about, one of the best things of what happened in the pandemic is that people at the beginning started to care about each other for a time.
And there was a kind of cheering for that.
People, you know, on the balconies in Italy singing to one another in the evening.
And you realize part of what's missing is that deep sense of community.
And we've been swayed by the media, We've been swayed by the consumerism of the society to say, this is going to make you happy and it doesn't.
Go for a walk in nature.
Go spend some time with the trees and the wood and the Community of nature that you're a part of.
Connect with those around you.
Quiet your own mind and tend your heart and then stand up and we get overwhelmed.
Here's what you can trust.
You can't fix the whole system as an individual.
That would be hubris.
But you can make a difference.
You can reach out and mend and connect and start to build a web of connection from goodwill in your community with others.
And that's partly the real revolution of changing how we live with each other.
Very beautiful answer and it's reassuring for me because I have a lot of conversations, I know you do Jack, I know that you communicate openly, that you have an ongoing communication and you're continually teaching and involved in discourse with other great thinkers and like very recently on here we had the survivalist and leader of the global scout movement and former SAS soldier Bear Grylls on here and he's Saying almost the same things as you.
He's not quoting James Baldwin, but he's saying get out in nature, experience nature, find connections in community.
We have a saying in the 12 Step community, look for the similarities, not for the differences.
I think that what our culture continually invites us to do is to focus on the differences and not the similarities.
Question now from our community here in Locals, and if you want to join us on Locals, press the red button at the bottom of your screen now.
No Dugganoku asks, Jack, how do you keep in touch with our beloved Ram Dass after his passing and what in Ram Dass' teaching could help us now?
So Ram Dass was a good friend.
And the thing is, we keep in touch with each other when we're alive and after that.
So I can get quiet in meditation.
And maybe it's just imagination.
I'm not going to try to sell you some philosophy.
But I can hear Ram Dass' voice saying, yeah, you're upset about that.
But who we are underneath all that is bigger.
And you know that, and I do too, Russell, that it's really the play of consciousness and the state of the heart.
And when we tune in and ask ourselves, as Ram Dass would, what's your highest intention?
What's your best intention?
That begins to guide your activity.
But it has to be courageous and fearless.
I was working at a retreat with some other great Teachers for young men coming out of street gangs in Los Angeles and Oakland and Chicago.
And I was working with a great Latino poet and a mythologist.
And they're sitting there with their hoods up and their hats on backwards saying like, yeah, man, you're going to give me a poem.
You're going to teach meditation.
I'm on the street.
People got nine millimeters.
You've got to give me something better than that.
And so we said, listen, first take a few breaths.
And before we can start, we lit a candle and put it on the table.
Go out in the parking lot and bring in a stone for every young person you know who's been killed or died.
Drug overdose, you know, gang conflicts.
These kids came in with their hands full of stones.
No young person should know that many dead people.
And they'd put it next to the candle and say, this is for RJ, this is for Tito, this is for homegirl.
And the pile grew.
And when they sat back down, the hoods came off and the hats came off.
And it's like, OK, we're going to get real here.
We're actually going to talk about what we're living and not just in the cycle of violence.
What do we care about?
And you could feel when they saw that circle of stones that they actually cared about each other.
And it began an entirely different conversation.
But it means a kind of courage that's not just the outer courage, Russell.
But it's really the courage of heart to be able to see the suffering that you talk about and to say, I will not contribute to that divisiveness.
I'm going to listen in a different way and stand up for what really matters and connect not only inner freedom, but that community around me in a different way, a heartful way.
So maybe Ram Dass is speaking through me in that regard.
It is an astonishing paradox that the seemingly insignificant gesture of personal awakening can have such a profound effect.
But under investigation, if we acknowledge that individual change collectively undertaken means that reality is entirely altered, that's a very beautiful anecdote.
And I'd like to add to it this question from Judy Denmark, how Our individual awakening will not affect Biden and Putin or those who hold the nuclear codes.
How do we control them?
But already Jack has offered us this.
Our individual awakening is what we have to offer.
It will change reality.
In a sense, I think we trap ourselves in a sort of cycle of impotence by refusing to acknowledge and embrace our personal power.
How useful it is for us to say, oh well, there's nothing we can do.
What if Malcolm X or Gandhi had taken such a position?
And as Jack has already said in one of his previous answers, it would be hubristic to think that any individual can make a difference.
And even some of the most great leaders, Martin Luther King, have always acknowledged that it is as one of many.
that we are powerful. Of course this is the perpetual dynamic that needs to be retained.
How can a small establishment elite dominate an entire planet? Only by creating fracture,
impotence and despair among that population. Jack, thank you so much for joining us today.
And the belief that you can't make a difference.
And actually, each person who's listening, and this is what you're trying to say right now, Russell, that each person who listens actually has the power to act from a kind of inner freedom and well-being and to contribute.
And that's what will, in the end, it's going to be us together that will make the change.