David Youngren, Life Ascending

[00:00:11] Speaker A: What's worthwhile, worthy of our time, energy, belief and action. I'm Ramsey Zimmerman. To me, it's building mind, body and spirit wellness towards peace of mind, vitality of body, and joy of spirit. Let's pursue these topics together to find holistic health and wellness. [00:00:34] Speaker B: Inside. I was in turmoil. And one day I remember sitting in my home and I was sitting on my bed overlooking the canyon below me. And I remember the words that Jesus said, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. And I thought to myself, I'm not free. I am so far from being free. I have all these issues in my life. And then I started thinking about all my friends who were preachers and everything else. I thought, I don't think. I've rarely ever seen anybody free. [00:01:07] Speaker C: Hey there, it's Ramsey here. That was David Youngren. By most accounts, David was hugely successful, respected, well known, a leader in the Christian community, speaking to audiences around the world of hundreds of thousands of people. But he realized he was missing some things. So he went back to scripture, studied the Aramaic text, and learned that Jesus words meant a whole lot more than what are often attributed to them with the English translation now, David looks at and speaks about the expanding connections between people and consciousness and God. We spoke about meditation, prayer, and finding inner peace. If you've ever wondered how the broader ideas of collective consciousness intersected with the biblical ideas of the Holy Spirit or the Kingdom of God, then this is a great episode to ponder. Let's begin. [00:01:55] Speaker A: Hey, David, how are you doing today? [00:01:57] Speaker B: I am doing wonderful. So good to be with you, Ramsey, and have this conversation with you today. [00:02:03] Speaker A: Absolutely. You too. Yeah. Thanks for. Thanks for coming on the show and talking to me. You know, these days you are an author and a speaker and a big thinker. Over the course of your life, you've had a lot of success in your career and in your life. Would you tell me a bit about what your younger self was like? And at what point did you realize that these successes that you have were kind of not the. The ultimate answer? Like, when did you sort of discover that maybe something was missing? And. And what was that like? Tell me more about that. [00:02:48] Speaker B: Well, thank you again for the opportunity of being with you. And I'm not sure I can remember that far back from my youth, my age, but. But I'll try. I was raised in, of course, in Sweden and in a Christian home, very, very religious Christian home. And. And then moved to United, actually moved to Canada and where I went to Bible college at the age of 19 actually technically 18, but anyhow, and moved to Canada. I went to Bible college for three years, graduated from there, then went into ministry, traveled around as an evangelist in the beginning, and then later on I started a Church in 1995 and in, in Canada. And a couple years later we started Bible College. I was on television, I was speaking around the world, sometimes to as many as a hundred thousand people in our crusades. And I had past the seminars with thousands of pastors attending in different parts of the world. So I never like to use the word success because really what is success anyhow? But as far as what the Christian world would define as success, I guess I was success in that, in that field. And it continued for a number of years. And, and then in 2004, I had this opportunity to kind of even enlarge what we were doing, our ministry. And, and, and I decided I would go for a walk to this golf course. I said not go for a walk, but actually to play golf, but I wanted to play golf by myself. And I arrived at the golf course and I think it was a Monday morning, nobody else was there. And I said, I just want to play by myself, if that's okay. And he said, there's nobody here, so don't. Nothing to worry about. But when I arrived at the first hole, I noticed there was a gentleman about 500 yards away, and he was just finishing the first hole. So I thought to myself, well, I don't know what, I don't want to play with him, so I'm going to take my time on this first hole. And I did. And then I arrived at the second hole and he was sitting on a bench and he was waiting for me, and he said, do you like to play with me? Do you want to play together? And of course I, I wanted to say no, but that would be rude. So I, I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to give him a lengthy explanation of. I'm here to hear some, you know, wonderful, great message from God or giving directions about my life and all of that. So I kind of just, sure, I'll play. But in my mind, and this is often how religion works in my mind, I thought to myself, well, I am going to convert him to my faith. I'm going to get him converted to believe what I'm. Because it was almost like an anger inside of me. He disrupted my day. He messed with my day for four hours, and now I'm going to give him back. So I decided I was going to do, which obviously I knew how to do was to preach, preach to him. And so I did that. And I noticed with this gentleman that he was so kind and loving and peaceful. But he said, you know what? I'm not religious. He said, maybe your story is true, but maybe it's not true. I don't know, he said. But I said, I'm spiritual. And I notice in him that he had this incredible. I met a lot of preachers and I met a lot of people who are Christians over the years, but I had never met a person who exhibited or who exuded more warmth and love and compassion and empathy and peacefulness, inner sense of stillness than this man. And so I tried everything I knew how to convict them of or convince him of my religious beliefs. My quote unquote, my beliefs that they were the right ones and superior ones. And you know, all the things that we, we subconsciously communicate with people around us when we, when we talk about our religious beliefs. And. And so that by the time I got to the 18th hole, I thought to myself, I thought I was going to hear something from God. I was going to hear. Get some massive revelation from God in this golf course. I got nothing but disappointment. But what I didn't realize was that there was a tremendous lesson in there for me at that particular time. So that was a beginning of something. And then about 18 months later, I had moved to California with my family and I started. I was very upset because things had happened in Canada, things didn't work out exactly the way we had planned. And so I was very upset with a number of people. And I've also feeling. Dealing with a lot of issues in my own life. Guilt and, you know, shame and all these feelings of unworth that sometimes, quite frankly, religion kind of produces in us. And so I was, I was dealing with a lot of that and. And then I started having these cluster headaches. And I learned later on what causes these cluster headaches. And it's obviously there are chemical releases in your brain and lot of emotional stress and all of that which I was under causes these cluster headaches. And it felt like someone was sticking a knife in my. And twisting the knife around. Now, for people who have never heard of cluster headaches, it's not like a regular headache, nothing like a regular headache or even like a migraine, anything like that. I sometimes jokingly tell people that I learned on Google it's the worst pain a human can suffer. And of course no woman will ever agree with me, especially if they've given birth to children. They always laugh at Me and says, you have no idea what you're talking about. So I just tell them I read it on Google, and Google is always right. [00:08:55] Speaker A: Perhaps it's the. Perhaps it's the worst pain a man can suffer. [00:09:01] Speaker B: Yes, that could be too. But. But anyhow, I had this pain every second day in the beginning, and then I started having it every day and then multiple times a day and would last anywhere from 45 minutes to three hours. And I would lay in bed and scream. I said, I want to die rather than live. This is just horrendous pain. And then it then continued for a while. And then one day in 2006, I woke up one morning and I felt this heaviness. This just. It was just horrible. And out of the blue, I had this inner prompting or idea that I should meditate. Now, I came from a tradition where meditation is not permitted, or I shouldn't say permitted, but it is frowned upon. It seemed like an Eastern religious concept that as a Christian, we stay away from that concept of meditation, but when you're in a really bad state, even though you have a lot of hesitations, you're willing to try anything. So I did. And I went into my car and I visualized an image of divine love as exemplified through Jesus. And I sat there and I was overcome with this incredible sense of love, unconditional, selfless love. And instantly, within two minutes, the pain disappeared. And it never returned since. So that was. That was the second pivotal moment. Now, my life didn't suddenly just turn wonderful after that. About two years later. I'm trying to give you the backdrop to the story or to the shift that took place in me. About two years later, I was dealing with another so many different things. I was actually traveling, speaking some of the largest churches in the world, sometimes churches of 250, 000 people and 60, 000 people, you know, and I'm not saying that to both. I'm just saying that was the state I was in or the place I was in. I was able to do these different things, but inside I was in turmoil. And one day I remember sitting in my home here in. Well, the home where I lived at that time in. In here in California. And I was sitting on my bed overlooking the canyon below me, and I. And I remember the words that Jesus said, you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. And I thought to myself, I'm not free. I am so far from being free. I have all these issues in my life. I am. I said, I don't know, and then I started thinking about all my friends who were preachers and everything else. I thought, I don't think I've rarely ever seen anybody free except for maybe that guy on the golf course. They all had this mental unrest. It was like there was something missing. They did not have the peace that surpasses understanding. They did not have that. And, and, and I remember thinking to myself, if Jesus is correct, either, you know, I was in the place I even doubted. I said, if Jesus is correct, if, if Jesus is to believe, and he says, you shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free. If I'm not free, then I must be missing something about the truth. That's the only logical conclusion I could make. And, and that kind of troubled me. I don't know what the truth is. And so that began a kind of a journey for me of. I had no idea and I kind of forgot about it. And, and then two, three years later, I started meditating purely by chance, really again, on a regular basis. And I continued to do it. And then I introduced a meditation program and that took off. And then I continued to meditate. And then in 2016, I kind of resigned from church and really had come to a whole different level of understanding and inner peace that I had never experienced before. Was aware of this inner loving presence as I meditated, a peaceful presence. And I noticed that many of my old habits and thoughts and emotions and tribalism and all those different things that separated me from others, that put me on the good side and other people on the bad side, so to speak, they just begin to vanish. And so that's the beginning of my story, I guess, to how my journey evolved spiritually from, from kind of the more traditional Christian background to more like a, A, I don't know, some people call mystical whatever, but it, it doesn't really matter. But the different kind of experience, yes. [00:13:56] Speaker A: That is, that is quite a story. And there's a lot to unpack there here on what's worthwhile. You know, I think a lot about mind, body and spirit connections, and I think a lot about seeking and after seeking after peace of mind and vitality of body and joy of spirit. And I think a lot of those things you're. I think you're speaking to a lot of those things using, you know, slightly different words as, as we do. But I'm really, I think it's a really profound kind of idea that, you know, when Jesus says, you shall know the truth and the truth shall set you free, but you don't Feel free. And so it really. It sort of begs questions on. On both ends of that equation, you know, what does it mean to be free and what is the truth that we shall find? So I'm curious to hear what you have learned since then about what it means to be free and about what the. What the truth is. [00:15:07] Speaker B: Well, couple of things. First of all, freedom to me is being mental. Well, being in the sense of you have an inner peace at all times, essentially. And that doesn't mean that nothing bad can happen, but you kind of walk in kind of a place of inner peace and stillness and you're not easily swayed by the things that happen. Even. Even in me, I noticed sometimes something bad can happen, but it doesn't last. It lasts for five minutes or something like that. And I. I kind of. It's more of a continuous peace, and I'm very grateful for that. As far as what truth is, there's kind of a couple of things here that I discovered. First of all, the word no here means to be aware of. Now, there's a difference between knowing and knowledge. It's completely opposite, actually, in the thoughts are completely opposite actually. And. But in the Greek, it's even more evident than is, of course, in English, because it sounds like it's the same thing. Knowing is about being aware of something. So right now I'm aware of you. I'm not depending on knowledge that I talk to you, whatever few weeks before. I'm not aware of anything except that I'm just looking at you. I'm just aware of you. Knowledge requires memory, information, experiences of the past that you have gained. So a lot of times when we think of our religious thoughts and ideas, it's based on knowledge. The things that we have learned, the things that we have, the information we have gathered. Our childhood, our upbringing, our go into our religious places of worship. We have accumulated a lot of knowledge which we depend upon. And then we associate that to be the truth. So in most cases we think of, well, my particular faith is superior to all others, and therefore it is the truth. So we assume that truth has to do, as I said, with something that we have learned, something that has taken place. A story, a narrative, a dogma. But the word know means to be aware of. So if you look out and at, you know, if you sit at the beach or at the ocean beach, and over sunset, and you look over and you see the sun setting, now you're aware of it. You know, you don't have to say, well, that's the sun setting over There. And I remember in 1953 how the sun was setting. You. You. You just aware of it. You're just conscious of it. [00:17:42] Speaker A: So to know is to be aware of not necessarily what we've learned in the past, but what we are aware of now. [00:17:49] Speaker B: And so that is. That was the first lesson I learned about it. And then I started reading the Aramaic as far as what truth meant. And truth literally means a light that rises, a inner light that arises in the now. And I thought, wow, that's interesting. A light that arises in the now. What is a light? A light is that which illuminates. So we could say, you know, we could say that light without consciousness, you would see nothing if you weren't conscious, if you were not, if the I am of Ramsay or David, if, you know, if our bodies were here but we were dead and we were not conscious, there will be no light. There will be no experience of life. There will be no experience of thoughts or emotions or sense perception. So at the very core, this light, you could say, is the very core of who we are. In fact, Jesus said, you are the light of the world. He said, I am the light of the world. But he also said, you are the light of the world. So you are that which illuminates the world. So the very true essence of who we are is that which illuminates reality. [00:19:10] Speaker A: So light is like consciousness, and we are the light of the world, and God is the light of the world. Keep going. [00:19:18] Speaker B: And then I started thinking about this truth. So this inner light is that which illuminates reality. And then I thought, well, what else do I know from my religious background about light? Well, God is light. And often we think of God as up there somewhere. And, you know, that's especially, I think, in religious circles, evangelical circles, we always think of God as being somewhere else, even though we have thought theology to the contrary, and we realize, no, he's omnipresent. But most of us think of God as up in heaven. I'm going to see God when I go to heaven. But it's interesting when you actually study Jesus and when you study Paul, they rarely talk about when you go to heaven. In fact, I don't remember any place. You're going to meet God. You're going to go to heaven and meet God. What it says in the Bible is that in God we live and move and have our being. The Word in here means inside of God. You live and move and have our being. All of us, we live inside of God. Wow, that puts A whole different flavor on things. Right. And then it says in if Jesus said, the kingdom of God is within you, Paul said in Ephesians 4. And I'm sorry, I'm using a lot of scriptures, but I think if people come from a Christian background, it's kind of useful for them to hear these things. So I'm not just because sometimes people say, oh, this is some whatever. So I want to make sure that if there are Christians who are watching this or listening to this, they have a frame of reference. And in Ephesians 4, says God the Father above all. I can live with that Most Christians can live with. God is above all, through all is a little more difficult. Through all. You mean through all just Christians or you mean everybody? Well, it's very clear. It's through all and in all. So it's not just through all, but in all. So God the Father people may accept God the Holy Spirit if you come from a Christian background, but God the Father is above all, through all and in all. So God is not just the presence. Presence sounds like a nice little thing. Well, he may be far away, but it shines through. The presence shines through to where I am right now, like a. Like the ray of sun, but it's not the sun itself. But actually, if you want to take this literally, what it says, God the Father is above all, through all, and in all that his presence, God is everywhere, is including in me. And God is light. God is that which illuminates reality. And I am light. So the problem then is. And Jesus is the light of the world. So the problem then, to me, if I'm using my rational mind here, is not. Is that we are not aware of God, that most of humanity is not aware of God. [00:22:29] Speaker A: So God is not only far away, he's here and inside us and everywhere. [00:22:35] Speaker B: And that he's all over. And. And if you believe that God is love, if you believe that God is peace. And I hope that your audience is okay with this. Using a lot of these religious terminology here. I speak to many different audiences, so sometimes I address it differently, but I hope they're okay with this. So if you think of God being everywhere and I'm not aware of God, why am I not aware of God? What causes me not to be aware of God? And so we use words like. Such as sin, but sin is like a. It's a complicated word. It just simply means to miss the bark. And so as I began to think about this, and there's another scripture says your mind, you have Been you become enemies of God in your mind. In Colossians, as you have become enemies, you have been alienated, you have become enemies in your mind or because of your mind of God. So God's presence everywhere, but the mind has caused us to not be aware of God. So then I started thinking about if God is everywhere. And this light, this illumination, so the very source, the very image of who we are, consciousness, the very fact that we have life. Because life is consciousness, consciousness is life. That's the very source of life. So if we are not aware of God, but it's still the very fact that consciousness is the very core of who we are, is the very essence of who we are. So the mind has blinded us or darkened us to seeing this reality. [00:24:22] Speaker A: Consciousness is the core of God and us. But sometimes the mind causes us to be unaware of God. [00:24:31] Speaker B: And I started thinking about what that means. So what does a mind do? The mind and the word. There's a great word in Greek and also many traditions, and that word is ego. That is the I, the self. My personal sense of self. My personal sense of self always seeks to distinguish myself from others. If you believe God is one and that love flows out of an awareness of oneness. So when we feel a warmth of love, when we feel a sense of connection with others, so if peace comes out of sense of oneness with others that we want together, the mind then causes us to separate or from being unaware of this reality. You remember the story, sorry here, but you remember the story in, in Genesis, chapter three, when the. The aid of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which is metaphorical language for what the knowledge is. Remember, the knowledge is something that we learn about the past. It's knowledge from the past. And well, what. What is the knowledge? What. What do we keep in our memory? In other words, it has to. Has to be involved memory. What is knowledge of good and evil? It's a judgment that we have made in the past about someone, something or yourself, whether good or bad. And whatever you judge, you condemn. And whatever you condemn, you turn into an enemy. And whatever you turn into enemy is you separate yourself from which is contrary to God as being one and the one that fills the universe. So your mind. Every time we make a judgment, we push away from God. When Jesus said, I'm in the naked, I'm in the stranger, I'm in. So on I'm in the Father we push. We separate our sense of self so we can Even. Even the bad we have done, we suppress into our subconscious. We make an enemy out of that, that we don't want to be part of us. We detach from it. We say, no, that's. I don't want to own that. That's not me. But what happens is the brain now is stored here. And so subconsciously you still carry that image. And now you project it onto somebody else. You project your own insecurities, your own failures, your own weaknesses onto others. You see it because it's in you. So I hope. Hope that makes sense. I hope I'm so cut off anytime here because I need to. [00:27:22] Speaker A: Yeah, no, you've said a lot. And some of the things that I'm. That I'm getting, you know, working backwards is that within our minds and within our brains, we tend to do things like separation and tend to look at things from. This is not. These would be my words, but look at things from a. From a worldly perspective and look at separations and, you know, see boundaries between us and them. But I think what you're describing as more of a natural state or a godly state is one of oneness and connection. And it's a. It's a really terrific point that you made about God, even God the Father, being above all in all and through all, and having that kind of. That kind of omnipresence. It kind of. It lends credence, I think, to ideas of consciousness and connection that many people sort of believe and experience these days. I. I was struck, too, by kind of how you were describing to know in terms of. To know being as being aware of something. Even if you don't understand all of the details and you don't know, you know, intimately how everything works, you're still aw of kind of how that exists. So, yeah, you know, you. You definitely got into a lot. And I. And as far as the audience and people listening, I think some people will have kind of traditional Christian worldviews, and many others will have a more sort of expansive belief about things kind of how they are. But what I find so interesting about what you describe is that you are kind of bridging that gap in many ways, I think, between typical conventional sort of Western Christian ideas versus the more kind of Eastern or sort of consciousness kinds of connections. And. And I appreciate that because I kind of feel sometimes like I'm somewhere in the middle, that I'm somewhere on that bridge walking along. And, you know, I myself have a Christian worldview, but I'm also sort of open and expansive to other ideas, especially about consciousness and connections and oneness. And, you Know, I believe that our God is a very big God. I just find it hard to believe that he would have just one very, very specific way of connecting with us, you know, his creation. But what have you, what, what has your experience been speaking with people with, with Christians and, you know, what, what kind of a. What kind of a reception do you often get when you are perhaps sharing these ideas with people who haven't really thought about that, thought about things that way before? [00:31:02] Speaker B: It's a great question. A couple of things. A lot of people, surprisingly, it's actually surprised me, but a lot of people have an intuitive sense of what I'm talking about to be correct. Just, you know, so they kind of already, I guess on some level felt it, but they have not been able to hear it articulated the same way as perhaps I articulated. And so in that sense, it's almost like, oh, this, this is so incredible. Like, I heard someone, someone call me that I've known for many, many years, Christian recently. And she said, I just finished reading the book. He says it's. And she gave me incredibly high praise for the book. And she started crying. She said, I felt this for five years, but never been able to put words to it. So that is a response that I get from a lot of people. So, of course, some people who are very traditional Christianity, very belief, as far as mental concepts, that that is ultimately the reality, who may not really have a kind of a deep spiritual experience, but more of a religious idea of, I go to church, my parents went to church, I'm an American, this is what we do kind of thing, and often maybe involves politics as well. They're obviously not as crazy about this. And. Yeah, so there, there is a combination, I would say. [00:32:37] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense. Tell me more about your meditation practices and how you experience kind of the power of stillness. And, you know, what. What is meditation like for you and how do you sort of share that with others? [00:32:59] Speaker B: I'm glad you brought up meditation, because it's such an important role within what we're talking about. So you think about how do you connect with that deeper essence, consciousness? Because the mind is so active. The mind is constantly, you know, you have voices in your head. Most of us have voices in our head. It keeps talking and there's like a millions of different thoughts go through our head. And so to come to a place. So if we think we. Which is. Which makes it so hard for us to be aware of God. So if God is in the now, is present at all times, right now within us through us. Because presence here. But if I am to preoccupy, if I'm preoccupied with my mind, with my thoughts and the mind and the thoughts is what causes separation from you. And if you actually view your thoughts, you will see that most of the thoughts are either you are a hero or you are a victim. Both of those separate you from others. It's a comparison with others. And, and so it can be both positive and negative. You can judge yourself as bad, you can judge yourself as good, but there's a form of judgment in all of that. And that causes always mental unrest. And because of that mental unrest, it fuels the emotional limbic system that causes sensations in your body and then it returns back to your mind and you have these ongoing thoughts over a feedback loop. All these ongoing thoughts that lead to mental unrest. So it's interesting, in Psalm 4, I don't think too many people have read that it says, be still. No, sorry, meditate. And the word here is also used, commune, Meditate within your heart and be still, meditate within your heart. So the heart is the place of. In other words, it's obviously the place where you reach when you do meditation, when you commune with the heart. Now why is the heart so important? Because the Aramaic they. You've heard, of course, spirit. We all know the word spirit, the joy of spirit. You mentioned earlier, the way they, Jesus background interpreted this was that, okay, so there is a universal spirit. And they call that the ruach. The ruach or breath, the ruach of God, the universal spirit of God that is everywhere. Think of it as like the breath, the wind, you know, it's everywhere. The oxygen, what we now understand is the oxygen is everywhere. Well, not everywhere, but you know what I mean. And then they had a different word for your individual soul or spirit, the breath, which was nafsheth. And they say, well, there's no separation between the two in one sense, but there is a field in between. And they call that labor which we translate as heart. So they saw the heart, maybe they saw the physical heart, I don't know. But they saw the physical heart as recipient of consciousness. You could put that in words that we understand today of consciousness that now becomes localized within our form. And they call that the soul. So the heart could either be close to the ruach, the, the, the. The all encompassing one life of the universe, or it can be opened. And what will close it, the mind, the mind closes it, are thoughts that speaks of separation. So meditation then is to commune with the heart until it becomes still. And when it's still you. You. The. The. The thing that flows like this life that flows. The. The consciousness that flows from God, from the source, from being. And God will live and move and have our being from. From the ground of being that flows into us. The very life that flows into us that now we experience, experience in this form with. Within our minds and within our bodies. We experience this. It. Ultimately we can open our hearts through meditation. So for meditation, for me, then is when you begin to meditate. You are. [00:37:26] Speaker A: Just to recap, you have. So you have sort of the wider, broader spirit of God or the breath. And then we as individuals have our own spirit. And what I'm hearing is that the heart is like the door or the connector to that. And if our hearts are open, then we can make that connection. But often our hearts are closed, perhaps as a result of our mind. Did I follow the bouncing ball correctly on that one? [00:38:01] Speaker B: That is very good. And I think of it this. When I take a deep breath, I'm breathing in the universal spirit, so to speak. If, you know, in the picture of how they saw it and took it. But when it comes out, it may be foul, it may be whatever I have inside of me, whatever I've been eaten, could be raw and ugly and lots of onion and garlic or whatever else. And so my breath, when I'm breathing out is different, but it's the same wind. But the mind has now darkened or caused it to be, whatever, not very good, very foul, but. And they saw the heart then as the place of where if you open your heart. If you open your heart, and you know Jesus said, out of the innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. If you open your heart to the Ruach, the spirit of God, and let it flow through you into your individual self, then you are in tune with the light. The light now shines through you. [00:39:07] Speaker A: Yes. [00:39:07] Speaker B: And that lines then transforms your sense of self. [00:39:11] Speaker A: And it's through meditation that helps us to open or align our heart. Well, to receive that. [00:39:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Let me clarify that. Meditation is the tool. It's not. It's a. It's a tool to become president. And by the way, if you study Aramaic, you know that prayer and meditation is the same word. There's no difference between the two. Contemplation. You Catholics use the word contemplation. It's the same word. It has all the same meaning. We have, you know, Protestant Evangelicals, we have put the emphasis on using words when we pray. But a lot of traditions, and even the Aramaic tradition was much more of coming, you know, the silent prayer. [00:39:59] Speaker A: I'm curious how you've seen things change in the last five or 10 years. You know, is the world a different place than it was, you know, a few years ago, five years ago, ten years ago? In your experience, like, how have you seen sort of the ways that people are today versus how they were, you know, even a few years ago? [00:40:30] Speaker B: Well, obviously, there's. There's a greater polarization. There's no question about that. From what I remember any other time in my life, I have never seen such polarization as I see right now. And I understand, I think, to some extent why. And I kind of. Is a whole different teaching. It probably is like a whole. That's a whole another hour of teaching to be able to understand the reasons for that. [00:40:59] Speaker A: Well, let me ask you a different. In a different way then. Do you think that people's hearts today are more open or less open than they were kind of a few years ago? And if it's different now, kind of why and how do you think that is? [00:41:22] Speaker B: I think it's important in some ways. You know, there's always pushback. When there's something new, there's always pushback. And religion operates through fear. Politics operates through fear. Fear of the other is based on separation. Ultimately, the ego is based on separation. If I can separate myself from you, if I can make you into an enemy, and if we can agree on the same enemy, then we form a group and this is who we are. So religion do the same thing, as I said, politics do that. We find ways to separate and separate people and races and religions and so many different things. And one of the reasons is because there is also a change in the world toward more inclusiveness. And a lot of times the inclusiveness is still. Even though it's a great thing, but it's still wrapped in ego. So then it becomes making people feel like they're stupid if they don't belong to this or they feel like less than you. We portray people as being less than because you're not as enlightened, not as informed as us who see the world more as an inclusive place. So then you create this friction between people and between the old and the new. And ultimately all of it is rooted in the ego, as far as I'm concerned, and to me, and with ego as being separation. And unless you awaken to something deeper than your mind and tap into the infinite wisdom of God from within that is ultimately expressed through peace and selfless love, the world will not change. So we have to move from religious to spiritual. So to me, I. I brought up the story of Nick in the beginning as you or. I didn't name his name. The guy on the golf course, I call him Nick. I don't actually remember his name, but I call him Nick. And I bring up him because that's what he. That's what he exuded. He exuded this incredible peace and love. And I didn't because I was in the camp of religion that operates through fear, through control. Another thing too, that fear leads to control. We want to control people, and we want certainty in life and spirituality is that which Jesus talked about, knowing the truth. It's nothing to do with knowledge. It's nothing to do with what. All you know is about being aware of a. A, A more trans. The transcending presence of the universe, if you prefer to use that word rather than God. Something that is beyond us, beyond us or consciousness. The infinite consciousness, as we hear people in quantum physics talk about, is to be aware of that which transcends all of us. And recognizing it is in me, and then being able to see it in one another, if we can, if we come more aware of that, then it affects how I see you, how we sec. We see one another. And that leads to inner peace that then spills over to peace with one another. [00:44:54] Speaker A: That is all really beautiful. And I think it's a message that is really important for now, for our time, because what I hear you suggest and what it makes me think is that coming to know and be aware of and to sort of tap into God and the wideness and broadness of him, and whether you think of God as, you know, something like a person, or whether you think of God as more like the powerful creating force of the universe, you know, beyond personhood, you know, having and looking at. At that as a sort of a foundation of connection and oneness and, you know, you can call it consciousness if you want to, and really seeing that as a foundation and a bridge that can be used between and among people and, you know, this notion of opening our hearts as a, As a means, as, as like, as that bridge and that, you know, when we can potentially get in our own way with our minds and our thoughts and all of those cluttered voices in our heads, that that sort of disrupts that peace and harmony and connection that we could have between and among people. You know, my. My whole sort of desire and purpose with this podcast is to help people to find holistic health and wellness and to find peace and joy and vitality and you know, I'm also really, you know, really into and respect and look at the importance of building bridges between people and not looking at and framing up the world according to tribes or us versus them. If we're going to sort of make it as a people, we're going to have to do that together and working with each other and do it through love and kindness and goodwill and not do it through force and division. So David, thank you so much for all of your thoughts. Thank you for coming out and talking to me. I got a lot out of that. How can people learn more? Where can they find your book? How can they get in touch with you? What are all of those details? [00:47:56] Speaker B: Well, thank you again for the opportunity of being with you, Ramsey. I really have enjoyed myself and here is my latest book called Life Ascending Unlocking Mental well Being Through Timeless Wisdom and New Science. And we I refer a lot of to their make interpretations of what Jesus said and also talk about quantum physics, psychology, philosophy, timeless wisdom and all the perennial traditions so to speak. But you know I, I'm come from a Christian background as you probably can tell. So I'm still very tied to that language. You know I was a pastor, I was, you know I taught Bible college. So I'm was a president. So I'm still tied to that language. But at the same time I'm open, I'm changing terminology, I'm opening to speak whatever language that people identify with. And so this book is kind of gives an overall picture of some of the subjects that we talk about. So we encour people can get it on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, I all kinds of places. I don't know all the stores you can get it at and you just Google Life Ascending or My Name David Youngren and they'll be able to find it and they can also go to my website daveyoungren.com and if you go to daveyounger.com you can download a I have a short little five minute I think it's five maybe ten minutes. Take me ten minutes together a guided meditation around be still and know that I am God and be still and know. So you meditate around that and they can get that for free as well if they go there and of course many other resources there as well. But that, but that's a nutshell how they can get hold of me I guess. Thank you again. [00:49:44] Speaker A: Absolutely. Thank you. Where to go from here visit whatsworthwhile.net to learn more about me, Ramsey Zimmerman and please reach out to me and let me know what you think I don't want this podcast to be some message in a bottle thrown out to sea. I want to hear back from you. Please send me a message or an email or hit me up on X, LinkedIn or Instagram. And please leave a rating and review for the what's Worthwhile podcast on Apple, Spotify, iHeart or Amazon. Thanks.