This is a transcript from our podcast episode with Paul Hurcomb about meditation, love and wisdom.

Axel Wennhall
Hi and welcome to the Swedish podcast, “Meditera Mera”, which in direct translation means “meditate more”, with me, Axel Wennhall, who asks the questions, and sound producer Gustav Nord. This is a podcast made by the Swedish meditation app Mindfully, and we are currently in Stockholm and sitting and waiting to welcome back our next guest to the podcast, Paul Hurcomb. Paul Hurcomb is a spiritual teacher in the lineage of Ramana Maharishi, Papaji and Mooji. Since 2010, Paul has been holding retreats and meetings, especially in the UK, in Spain and in the Nordics. On his Facebook group, Meeting in Stillness, he’s sharing reflections and pointers on spirituality and everyday life. Now Paul has published his first book, The Union of Love and Wisdom A Journey Through the Spiritual Heart. And in this episode, we’re going to explore the book and some of the pointers in it. How can we explore human consciousness and who we truly are? What is ego? What do we mean by the spiritual heart? How can we reconcile doing and being? And what advice do Paul have for all of us who wants to live an awake and compassionate life? Paul, it’s nice to have you back in the podcast.

Paul Hurcomb
Thank you. It’s good to be here.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah. I realized that it was almost certainly like exactly four years since we talked in the podcast.

Paul Hurcomb
Yeah, four years. It was after we had a retreat in Shansund. And yeah, a lot has happened in those four years.

Axel Wennhall
And despite it was four years since we talked last in the podcast, we’ve been in touch and I’ve been participating in one of your focus groups. And we also had a private meeting and we’ve been reaching out to each other a little bit. So yeah, I’m really happy to see you and to explore your new book. But before we dive in into your book and the pointers and the teachings and the poems in the book, would you mind just taking a few moments and land? Sure. So for you who usually listen to the podcast, you know that we usually have just a short landing meditation in the beginning. And this is a meditation that you can do wherever you are. And we are sitting here in Stockholm, Gustav, Paul and I. And if you have the possibility to just stop, physically stop for a while, I would recommend you to do that. But let’s just take a few moments in silence. So instead of listening to your mind’s noise, see if you can pay attention to the silence that surrounds the thoughts, the space around the thoughts. So just for a short while, just listen, fill in and be with and as this silence. And you can start now. And if you had the chance to physically stop, perhaps close your eyes, you can just gently end this short landing meditation by opening your eyes. And yeah, redirect your attention to wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, hopefully listening to this podcast. So we’re sitting here and I’m looking at your new book, Paul. How was it to write it?

Paul Hurcomb
It’s been a journey. Let’s say that it’s been a journey. Basically putting this book together felt like putting together a huge jigsaw puzzle because I’d already had all the writings from the Facebook group, Meetings in Stillness. And Ulrika spent a long time downloading all of the posts. And then it was a case of choosing which posts were going in which sections. And one day it felt like a certain post should go here, another day it should go there. But in the end, this book is based around a circle diagram, which has these four levels of consciousness. And in the end, I just had to let it go and say, you know, it’s good enough. I can’t keep changing it around and moving it around. And so I’m happy to have finished it. A lot of people have been asking me to finish a book, you know, for many years. I’ve been writing since 2010. So it’s the writings in that book, 2010 to 2020, I chose those 10 years to pick out some poems, some short texts, and also some stories about my own journey, my own travels through India, my own spiritual awakenings, all that kind of stuff.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah. Yeah. First of all, congratulations. I know what kind of effort it takes to finish a book. And I had a good fortune to read it for our meeting today. And it’s lovely. It’s wonderful. Thank you. So, yeah. And I mean, we met in the podcast in another episode called, I think it’s called Meditation and Stillness. So if people want to find out more about you, I highly recommend that episode because we dive in your background a little bit more then. But today I thought it would be more of interest to explore the teachings in your book and your text. And you said it yourself, you have this, what I find a very useful diagram of human consciousness. Perhaps we could start there and you can just perhaps tell us and explore a little bit about how you use that map. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Paul Hurcomb
Well, it is a circle. It’s four circles. Each circle is within another circle, so to speak. So on the outer circle is the most, let’s say, the most gross level of consciousness, the most, the level of consciousness that most people are familiar with, which is the egoic level of consciousness. You know, the belief that we are just this body, mind, we’re just this conditioning and we’re just our personal history and there isn’t anything else beyond that. That is all we are. You know, our nationality, our education, our history, our profession, all those kinds of things. And the four circles, they go from the outer, the one on the outside is ego, then comes into humaneness, into presence, then into the self. I mean, just touch on them just very briefly. So our humaneness is just our own authentic, unique expression in the world. Just who we are, who we were born to be without all of the conditioning put on top. So just our most natural embodied expression of ourself. And, you know, for some people that may express itself, you know, with a lot of fire, someone else maybe with a lot of compassion, someone else maybe with a lot of silence. The next layer in is what I refer to as presence or the being, which is, that is the same within all of us. Like we all have this level of consciousness, which is before the persona, which is like this, just this kind of field of stillness, this field of conscious presence. And to begin to awaken to that level of consciousness, that brings about a very deep shift in what we’re taking ourself to be. So most spiritual paths are about kind of moving our sense of self from a personal identity into more the beingness identity. And, you know, the moment we’re resting in being, that is felt to be a very deep sense of peace, of sacredness, the silence, the stillness, a deep sense of oneness, if you like. The final circle, the inmost circle, is what I’m referring to as the self. And the self is not an object. The other three are kind of objects. They can be seen, they can be felt, they can be known. They have a kind of flavor. But the pure self, which is the witnessing consciousness, the recognition of that is a non-dual recognition. It’s not one thing recognizing another thing. It’s the subject awakening to itself. And when we awaken to that, we recognize what we’ve always been, what we choicelessly are. And we come to see that actually we can never, ever be separate from that. So those are the four levels, if you like. The truth is they’re all consciousness. But the vast majority of people are not awake to their deeper levels of consciousness. So that’s why I say levels.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, no, it’s. I also kind of like the model because it splits up the humanness from the ego part, which I find valuable and helpful. Because those can be kind of mixed sometimes. So how do you define ego?

Paul Hurcomb
Well, first of all, I agree with you that this is an important distinction to make. So ego is when we’ve got strong identification with our conditioning, with our body, mind, our education, the person who we believe we are. There’s strong identification with that. And there’s a complete absence of the deeper Noah in us. Whereas our humaneness is much more just naturally what we are. It’s almost like we don’t even have to try to improve that. Because when we begin to see who we truly are, we begin to recognize that actually our humaneness in its simplicity is actually very beautiful. It’s very simple. We’re not trying to make it better. There’s just a kind of congruence in resting in our natural state, which is really in one way the union of love and wisdom, which also incorporates our humaneness. It allows our humaneness to be as it is. And when we’re no longer fully identified with our humaneness, there’s this very deep acceptance of who we are. And in that deep acceptance, that kind of brings about a healing. And it stops this sort of constant, you know, self-improvement program. Just say, okay, somehow this is the way God made me and I’m just allowing myself to be that. But I’m allowing myself to be that in alignment also with my being. So I’m sort of fully human and fully divine. I have both.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, it’s interesting because my oldest daughter, she’s going now to, you say, kindergarten. So yeah, she’s in kindergarten. She’s only one year and nine months and her buddies or friends at kindergarten are at the same age. And she just learned the word mine. Like the ego is starting to kind of build up or the understanding that, oh, I can put a label, it can be mine. So it’s starting to happen, but still she’s in a sense, obviously very innocent in that age. But it’s also interesting to see our friends that they are, I mean, the personality and their humanness is there, of course. Yeah. And it’s very natural. I mean, in one sense, if you think about a small child, it would be so strange to in one sense think that they should behave in a kind of way. Yeah. As we do when we become older.

Paul Hurcomb
Absolutely. But for a lot of children, they do have to behave in a certain way. I mean, you’re a very conscious person. So you’re probably giving your child the freedom to be herself and find her way and validate her and support her and, you know, give her a lot of love that she’s okay as she is. But not everybody gets that. And if people don’t get that, then somehow they begin to adapt, they begin to adjust, and they begin to sort of feel on a very deep level that they can’t be who they are because that isn’t allowed. And this is often where, you know, some sort of a split happens in the psyche and we begin to just split off from our authentic self. And then this is often where codependency comes in later on in life or perfectionism or approval seeking, people pleasing, all those kind of traits which often helped us survive, often helped us get through situations. But in one way, they alienate us from our authentic expression in the world. And that is often where a lot of people then come to the point where they recognize deeply that something isn’t working and they need some sort of intervention. And for me, that intervention is the spiritual. And in discovering the spiritual, that helps us recover, reclaim, and retake, if you like, our original human expression.

Axel Wennhall
I also find it quite interesting and fascinating on the spiritual path that it’s so easy to also grab on to ideas of that you should have certain kind of attributes to be calm or you used the word fire before. Like that’s a word that resonates with me. But it doesn’t kind of make up to the idea of like, okay, well, you work as a meditation teacher. So shouldn’t you be in the zen mode all the time?

Paul Hurcomb
I really love what Adyashanti says about, Adyashanti is a spiritual teacher. And I really love what he says because someone asks him, what is the role of the teacher? And he says, just to be themselves. And it’s like, that is a very beautiful invitation. Because, you know, if you’re leading something, if I’m leading something, anyone’s leading something, then the moment we go into a role, then somehow we’re separating ourselves from who we are in one way. So the most intimate, the most vulnerable, but the most real is just to be as you are. And that in and of itself is a profound teaching. I mean, I had a therapist once who was the most natural person I’d ever met. She was just herself. And she never made any excuses for that or tried to be other than that. And she taught me some valuable lessons about self-acceptance.

Axel Wennhall
Would you say that being as you are, how do you see that in your former therapist? How does that go hand in hand with also self-realization? Yeah. Would you say that she was self-realized in that way? Or was it another kind of self-realization that she had a lot of self-acceptance and perhaps not as much ego identification, but perhaps not as strong inside or deep inside into the nature of consciousness or ourselves?

Paul Hurcomb
It’s a very good question. I can’t speak for her because we never really used to have talks about spiritual awakening. Yeah. But I can speak for myself. And I’ve seen in myself that having had the spiritual awakening into presence, then the spiritual awakening into the self, that if you like is what I refer to as the journey up, up the mountain, the journey of ascension, of discovering who we are beyond our sort of conditioning. But there comes a certain point and there came a certain point for me many years ago where I felt like actually I had to come down the mountain. And coming down the mountain is to make our humanness conscious, to liberate it, to bring our spiritual awakening right back down onto the ground. And to release and reclaim and undo some of the strong conditioning that’s happened to us in our lives. And for me, what that meant was coming down into the gut. Like my spiritual awakening, my first one was into my heart. My second one was into the formless. But the third awakening really is to come down into the gut and make the gut conscious. Because for me personally, that’s where a lot of repression was and a lot of denial. And so to come back to your question, for me now they go hand in hand. Like a spiritual, you can be spiritually awake to who you are. And on this, it’s one coin. Yeah, maybe you could say it’s two sides of one coin. Your own spiritual awakening enables you to be completely who you are as a human. That they’re almost irreplaceable. And now I’m going to say one more thing. Because if you don’t take that journey down the mountain and you don’t open to your humanness, then it can be very possible to have had a very deep spiritual awakening, yet still be emotionally very immature. Or in a worldly way, not be able to kind of deal with things. So for me, both of these are so important. Both the journey of going up the mountain and the journey down the mountain.

Axel Wennhall
The gut area, could you elaborate a little bit on that? In what kind of sense? Because now we’re speaking about an experience, right? Like you felt there was something down in the gut area. So, how did you work with that? And how did you kind of release that? And how did you kind of make that conscious? And how could that kind of process look like?

Paul Hurcomb
Yeah, yeah. Well, for me, I speak about the gut area because that’s where all my unconsciousness went. It went kind of down into that area. And as a child and as a young adult, I went up into my mind, basically the furthest place away from my gut. So to make the gut area conscious, what I would do, and for me, the gut area is synonymous with my inner child. I feel the gut area and the inner child for me is the same. So I have to learn to hold my inner child with love, with compassion, with presence, and also do a lot of self-soothing. Do a lot of almost just speaking to myself in a way of kind of reassuring that part of myself. Now, I’ve also done a lot of different trauma modalities to get in touch with that as well, like EMDR and some sort of breath work and all these kinds of things, you know, done these different things. But on a very day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis, there’s just this kind of deep holding from the heart which reassures, holds, loves, brings compassion to the wounded parts. And also this invitation to open, to open and to allow consciousness to go there. Because the more consciousness is allowed to go there, then something is kind of opening up by itself. So I don’t think we need to kind of say, right, you know, I’m going to go on this kind of, you know, journey and heal all my trauma and I’m going to do it straight away. It’s more just when things get triggered, in the same way that you’d hold a little boy or a little girl who was triggered, just to hold yourself in that way. And what that does is that brings about a kind of loosening up of that area. So instead of it being like a tight fist in the gut, which is kind of a holding, there’s more this sort of opening and letting go and more just this feeling that of kind of being able to relax into the gut. Now, what I’ve found, because you also just brought this up about power, what I’ve found is that as I’ve made my gut more conscious, I’ve found this incredible power there. So before, I have always had this kind of very open, loving presence in the heart. But now I’ve kind of found this power within me, which is much more direct, much more, you know, it can kind of shift into another gear. If I need to go into another gear, and it kind of brings about a balance. So I feel this, yeah, best way of describing it, it’s almost, for me, it feels like masculine energy. Not, you know, I’m not saying that only men have this, women have this as well, but it feels like a masculine sort of drive and directness, but it’s a conscious masculine directness. And for me, when I was unaware of that, I kind of felt that I became too soft. And I needed that to balance out my own energies, my kind of feminine and masculine energies. And I feel, just personally speaking, there’s more of a balance because of making that area conscious within me. And also, you know, it’s real, it’s very, very real. So you mentioned that, you know, if you’re a meditation teacher, you have to be calm all the time or whatever. Well, there’s something very liberating in just being real, you know, just allowing yourself to be who you are, including the power and what I refer to as red energy. You know, I was wearing a red top today because red is my, and I put it on the book, the red, it’s kind of something I’ve had to integrate because it was kind of deeply hidden in me.

Axel Wennhall
So I think most people listening to this episode have had some kind of awakening experience. So in that sense, waking up. And then we’re all faced with the integration part, the waking down part. Yeah. And it kind of goes hand in hand with just what you said, because with inner child or past traumas or triggers or whatever it can be, is that, or at least for myself, that I can see that what happens is that I kind of lose the presence in certain triggered situations and become reactive. And in that way, it’s in one sense, it’s too late because the reaction has already started. And in a sense, I become unconscious of my reactions. So how would you say that you could practice opening up and be with the gut in order to not be as reactive?

Paul Hurcomb
Yeah. Yeah. You know, this comes back to the willingness to meet our pain, the willingness to open to and be with our pain. And, you know, pain isn’t going to kill us. It might feel uncomfortable. It might not feel very nice. But just the willingness to actually own the fact that actually there’s, you know, there’s pain in me. There’s emotional pain in me or there’s trauma in me. And what does that pain need? Well, it needs my acceptance. It needs my opening to it. It needs my love of it, if you like, because it is just like an inner child. And the more comfortable you are in just being with that, just allowing that without getting lost in identity, without getting lost in a kind of victim story about sort of poor me type stuff. But just the willingness to really just hold yourself. And often I kind of put one hand on my heart, one hand on my gut, and I just kind of feel, you know, get established in my heart and then just move into the gut.

Axel Wennhall
From the heart down. From the heart down, yeah. That makes sense. Yeah.

Paul Hurcomb
And it’s almost like then it’s like you’re bringing that energy of presence into the area of the gut or you’re bringing your consciousness to the unconscious places. But you’re not doing it and saying, right, you know, I’ve done this now for, you know, three days. And why is the pain still there? No, you’re doing it because somehow there’s this deep calling in you that you just want to face yourself. You want to meet yourself and you don’t want these unconscious patterns to keep, you know, maybe ruining relationships or coming out sideways. And this is the really important thing because something else I’ve done a lot of over the past three years is men’s work. I’ve done a lot of men’s work. And in men’s work, what we’re really doing is we’re owning the fact that we’ve got a wild man inside of us. All men have. All women have. We’ve got a wild part of ourself which society has kind of sanitized, pushed down and said it’s not okay to have that here. What we need to do is we need to get in touch with the wild man, wild woman, wild energy and make it conscious. So then it’s not just coming out inappropriately. It’s not coming out sideways. It’s like we know it’s there and it can come out if we want it to come out, but we’re choosing it now. And in the, I think in Zen, they speak about, you know, having your knife sheathed, having your sword sheathed. So you know you’ve got this sword, you know you’ve got this kind of dangerous part of yourself which could really kind of do some damage sometimes, but you keep it sheathed. As opposed to saying, oh no, no, no, I’m just all nice. I’m all sweet. I’m all goodness. And I haven’t got any of that in me. And then, you know, kind of when it comes out sideways, you’re shocked. Everybody’s shocked. And you wonder where it’s come from. You know, it’s kind of, there’s nothing more liberating than truth. What does truth mean? It means opening to all of you, owning all of you, and also recognizing that there is something within you which is untouched by any of this. That is truth. And again, I’m using this term fully human, fully divine, because that’s where I think this is all heading.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, no, but it’s, it resonates with me to that extent. And I could see, and I think it’s probably the human predicament that when you get in touch with spirituality and you have awakening experiences and you kind of taste and feel, and live the freedom and the love and the compassion, then there’s also this kind of tendency that, which has been a tendency even before that, of course, but now you know that another way is possible, another way to live is possible, but it’s this tendency that to kind of, in an unconscious way, to resist the pain and not to perhaps judge or see that some parts or some experiences are more spiritual and good, whereas others are, they raise the question, why are they here? They shouldn’t be here. I’ve been meditating for so long. I’ve been going to a therapist and now this part is coming up and coming up. But it’s when I remind myself that, okay, well, if this part would be here forever, can I accept it? Then I know, okay, then I’m in touch with something more true.

Paul Hurcomb
Yeah, yeah. What you’re talking about now is you’re talking about spiritual maturity. You know, and when we, maybe when we come into, we begin our path, our spiritual path or our personal development path, maybe we have some maybe naive idea about what it might be. And maybe, you know, we’ve seen the Buddha sitting under the tree looking very peaceful and we think, oh, you know, that’s going to be me after this weekend retreat, you know. But the truth is that truth is a very demanding thing. It demands everything of us. And, you know, it requires that we really surrender to that. And we really, you know, we really say, are we up for it? And I remember, you know, many years ago when I was really seeking awakening and I used to make that prayer in myself was, all I want is the truth and I don’t mind how it comes. Like that’s a powerful prayer because that’s, you know, that’s not saying, oh, you know, I want truth and, you know, can it come sort of candy wrapped with a nice girlfriend and, you know, a nice house and, no, it’s just saying, actually, the most important thing to me in this life is awakening and is living a conscious life. And give me life, consciousness, God, give me the circumstances that are best suited for that life. And that’s, you know, when you really start to get your head around that kind of imitation, you see, aha, this is something.

Axel Wennhall
You write in the book, we spoke a little bit about the heart, the spiritual heart. And you write quite a bit about the spiritual heart in the book. How do you define the spiritual heart and what do you mean when you speak about it and how we can access it? And what’s that kind of experience? Yeah, yeah, spiritual heart.

Paul Hurcomb
Yeah, You know, the spiritual heart is different from the emotional heart. It’s not the physical heart I’m speaking about. I’m speaking about a kind of energetic center, which I feel very strongly right in the center of my chest. Even as I’m speaking this, I put my hand there and I can feel it immediately. And for me, Awakening to the spiritual heart is the first thing that is important, because the moment we awaken to the spiritual heart, then we discover something inside us which has never been wounded, has never been conditioned in any way. It’s completely pure. So awakening to the spiritual heart, it gives us a really firm ground for opening to our humanness and opening to all parts of ourself. I mean, Christ spoke about this when he said, you know, build your house on firm ground, so when the winds and the rains and the bad weather come, they will not blow your house away. So meaning, build your sense of self on your own presence, on your own spiritual heart. Now, how to get in contact with that? You asked. You know, for me, it’s to stop, just truly stop and be still. Don’t identify with mind. Allow feelings and emotions to be there, but don’t identify with them. And you can just place your hand right in the center of your chest. And you can just feel the sense of existence. Or the feeling like I am or I exist before that becomes, you know, I’m poor and I’m English and I’m, you know, 56 years old and all these things. Just the feeling of natural presence. And at first that might be quite small. People might not feel that very strongly. And maybe a lot of resistance will come. But even if you just spend 10, 15 minutes a day just putting your hand on your heart, not following your mind, allowing your emotions to be as they are, and just resting in being, then just by doing that, you will begin to retrieve all the energy that has gone to the false self, that has gone to the mind, that has gone to the egoic persona. And it’s actually very beautiful. You know, it’s not like you’re not being asked to, you know, right, do a thousand frustrations or something. No, just stop. Even five minutes just of no mind resting in being very powerful.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah. I myself been inspired by that teaching and I think within the Buddhist tradition, they call it the Buddha Shita. And this kind of also, I kind of tend to call it some kind of heart presence sometimes. And because you write in the book that resonated with me that the spiritual heart, it lights everything up and can hold it. Yeah. And that’s my experience as well that when I face problems or difficult situations that when I can access the spiritual heart, it is bearable. Yeah. It’s okay in a sense. Yeah. And it’s also very interesting to see that when I have arguments or conflicts, if I can reconnect with the heart and it opens up possibilities and it kind of takes away my strong views and beliefs and how life should be or the other person should be, it kind of makes it a bit tender, more tender and more open and more in that sense, more true.

Paul Hurcomb
Yeah. Yeah. It sees things as they are rather than how we are seeing things. It sees things in an unconditioned way. And to have access to that, just in what you’re sharing there, that’s a profound thing. You know, that you have access to something within you which is unconditioned. You know, for most people, they don’t have access to that. Or they might think that I need a therapist or a spiritual teacher to give me access to that. But this is almost like when you begin to awaken to your own spiritual heart, it’s like you find your own therapist, you find your own spiritual teacher, you find your own in most self. And every time you face a challenge or any kind of situation, doesn’t even have to be a challenge, but when you face it from the spiritual heart rather than the egoic persona, then you begin to see, wow, you know, I could never have kind of navigated that situation in that way. But the thing is, what it requires, it requires a big letting go of control and it requires that we go into situations almost naked, not physically naked, you know, we still wear clothes, but we go into situations without an agenda, without, okay, you know, I’m going to get my point across and they need to listen to me. But no, all of that, we just go into situations as presence and what will come out of that will be something better than we could do as the egoic self. And every time we see that, it gives us great courage and it gives us this kind of loyalty to the spiritual, to the spiritual heart. Begin to say, wow, you know, this is saving me. And in my own situation, I probably shared this in the first podcast we did, but the spiritual heart, I awakened to the spiritual heart when I was in real deep pain and illness. Like it came to me when nothing else, I don’t think anything else could have saved me at that time. And this was 21 years ago and It’s never left me. I’ve always felt that. It’s like that is a given and not that I take it for granted, But I just know that that is my most trusted friend, my ally, and always wants the best for me.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, would it make sense to say that it, in a Experiential way, can be kind of a viewpoint, But also a kind of felt sense like a- I think I refer to it in a conversation as almost like a portal.

Paul Hurcomb
Yeah, I like that word. It is a portal into the great mystery of who we are. It’s a portal through the kind of hard shell of ego into some other Aspects of ourselves, which for most people is is hidden.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, because it’s still. It’s still also felt sense. Yeah, so it’s in in that, in in your model or your diagram, It’s in the present sense, right? Yeah, so, and I think that’s very useful. Also to bear in mind that, because you, you described, you put your hand on the chest and it’s, but also you can feel it and I Sometimes I can almost feel it as it comes in from the back, like it’s a back door on the back towards the heart.

Paul Hurcomb
Yeah, yeah, I mean, that’s good that you say that, because I wouldn’t want to locate it in any particular place. I mean, there are other people who might say it’s on the right side or the left side, but it’s just this sense of you know, this almost unconditioned energy, this unconditioned presence is the best word really I find that is just within us. And the most important thing is, are we in conscious connection with it? And are we trusting in that? Are we surrendering ourselves to that? And the more we’re able to do that, then a kind of a life is coming out of that which we couldn’t really plan, you know, from our ego. And I remember years ago, you know, when I was, I left my job as a school teacher. I used to be a school teacher and about three or four years after that, I met one of my old colleagues and he said, you know, what are you doing with yourself these days? And I kind of just say I’m a meditation teacher to people. And he asked me, where are you teaching? And I was teaching all over Europe. And I was teaching in Germany, I was teaching in Spain, I was teaching in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Scotland, England. And he said, well, how on earth did that happen? I said, I don’t know. I don’t know. But somehow people can feel when people can feel where you’re coming from. And if you’re speaking from mind and spiritual ego and conditioning, or if you’re speaking from a deeper place, people will feel that energetically because that awakens their own presence. And in fact, for many people, the purest teaching is not really in words. It’s more in that felt energetic connection between people where one person’s presence is kind of awakening another person’s presence. And then there is a kind of meeting of that presence. And words can be there, but they’re secondary to the being itself.

Axel Wennhall
For those who still feel that, okay, well, I don’t still get it like this spiritual heart, like, how does it resonate with you? Because my experience is also that we touch it or we feel it or we experience it or live from it, but perhaps don’t really know it. And that could be when, for example, when we feel gratitude, it can be a kind of felt sense in the heart area. Yeah. It can be when we are generous, kind, when we have fun and laugh. Like there’s some kind of connection in the heart. Yeah. So for me, that has also been kind of pointed that what we are talking about here is nothing, it’s not esoteric in that sense. It’s something that we do experience from time to time, but perhaps we’re not used to see it as, okay, well, you can access that literally when you remember to do it.

Paul Hurcomb
Sure. Sure. And for different people, they have different ways of accessing that, as you’ve said. You know, the main thing is, you know, find something which is going to break the hard shell of ego. Find something that is going to help you kind of get in touch with your deeper essence, whether that’s meditation, dance, yoga, playing golf, running in the woods, spending time with your pet, whatever it might be. Anything that allows you to just kind of just relax and just rest and just sort of stop grasping at the ego itself and just begin to just get a felt sense of actually, you know, there’s something in me that is already at peace. And maybe all I need to do is to stop grasping at the other thing. And this is what I love actually about this path, that it’s not that we’re putting stuff on top of ourself. It’s more that we are letting go of what’s been put on top of us because in our natural self, in our natural innocence, we’re already that being. I mean, we’re already that presence and we’re already that self and we’re already the human expression of that. You know, like you mentioned children earlier on, they kind of, they kind of know a lot of this. They, you know, the whole idea that they have to be other than who they are. You know, if you take a healthy child, I mean, it’s just, it’s like asking a lion to be a giraffe. It’s just, it’s just insane. Yeah.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, it’s ironic and quite funny when you think about it. And that sounds.

Paul Hurcomb
And tragic. And tragic. And tragic. Because, you know, I used to be a school teacher and I’ve gone back into schools recently, actually, I was really missing it over COVID period. And I went back into schools two or three days a week. And it broke my heart to see how many traumatized kids there are in schools now. Totally closed down by the system and the system of a lot of academic work, a lot of focus on results and very little focus on just allowing children to be as they are. It’s kind of hard to see. Yeah.

Axel Wennhall
So perhaps before, because I want to go to the deepest level with you as well.

Talare 7
Yeah.

Axel Wennhall
But before that, I think it could be useful just to perhaps speak a little bit about the identification. Because one thing that I think we spoke about it a lot of time in our last podcast, but I think you frame it really useful, is how we identify with the I thoughts. Yeah. And how that creates a lot of suffering.

Paul Hurcomb
Yeah. That is the core. That’s like the initial wound that we have this thought of who we are. And the moment we grasp onto that and believe that to be true, then that I thought, which is kind of a mental construct, that becomes our identity. It becomes our self-image. And it becomes the thing that we think we’ve always got to improve upon. We’ve got to make better. But, you know, if you’re paying attention, what you begin to see is that whatever that I gets, the goalposts keep moving. Like it doesn’t really arrive at a point where it says, okay, you know, we’ve got it now. Whatever it might be, it’s like you get it. And then it says, well, we didn’t quite get it in the right way, or it wasn’t quite what we expected. And now we’re going to go for something else. And that is accepted as being a kind of, you know, the way most people live their lives. You know, if they haven’t got something to look forward to, if there isn’t something else coming up, then, well, you know, who are they? But to go to the deepest place in us, the most simple pointer is for a moment, just don’t pick up I. If you don’t pick up the I thought, something else is here. What that is, is very hard to put into words. And yet, it’s always here. But the moment we grasp our I, we miss it. We kind of separate ourselves from it experientially. So often I just say to people, if you really want to know what is true, what is always here, for a minute, don’t pick up I. And find out then what remains.

Axel Wennhall
It’s interesting to see the I thought, how it kind of also is connected to past and future. And just a problem solver. Yeah, yeah. It’s like a project manager who, yeah, it never rests.

Paul Hurcomb
That’s right. It keeps showing up for work. And even you sit on the meditation cushion. And now its job is to meditate. Yeah, right, you know, we’re gonna be the best meditator, gonna be the best yoga practitioner. But the whole invitation in the highest teaching is to let go of the doer. To let go of the meditator. To let go of the one who may have served you so well in the world, you know, got things done, made a business, made money, got really fit, got really, I don’t know, whatever. Yet in spirituality, that one doesn’t serve you. It might serve you everywhere else, but it doesn’t serve you in spirituality. And this is the difference between spiritual energy and worldly energy. Worldly energy is a kind of like a pushing, a striving, a trying to make something happen. Whereas a spiritual energy is much more yielding, a surrendering and a letting go of the doer. You know, if you let go of the doer, what remains? Again, it’s just a natural, natural sense of peace. And the great paradox of spirituality is the seeker does not become the finder. There must be a seeker to begin the journey, but in the final seeing, the seeker is not there. It’s just the seen is there. You can’t be a seeker and be awake. It’s the end of the seeker. And there’s this beautiful quote from Rumi where he says, knocking, the door opens. I’ve been knocking from the inside. It’s like all this seeking and then, ah, the door opens and you recognize you’ve always been what you’re seeking. Yet the moment you join with the seeker, you don’t become a finder. It’s like that old Zen expression, you know, if you’re looking for enlightenment, there’s some good news and there’s some bad news. The bad news is the person you believe you are will never become enlightened. The good news is who you truly are is already awake. So the question is, what is already awakening you? What is not on a journey? What is not striving? What is not separate? What is here by itself? What is just here?

Axel Wennhall
How do you reconcile the more parts of life? You said worldly energy and spiritual energy in that sense that you have a work and you have a business. Perhaps you want to have that to succeed or you have work, you have projects, you have family life. Because there’s one part of me that is interesting because when you said it, there was like, I resonated and like I seen it in an experience. But then there’s like one thing that I kind of, where it kind of comes up a red flag. And that’s, okay, well, so if I let go of that kind of doer, that is so helpful in life, what happens with my life in that sense of, okay, I let go in terms of spiritual enlightenment or whatever you want to call it, spiritual understanding and self-realization. But then perhaps that’s a fear arises that, okay, but what happens then? What happens to everything that I need to look after or need to try to get?

Paul Hurcomb
Yeah. When I said it was a letting go of the doer, I’m speaking about letting go of the doer as a strong identity and as a particularly strong identity in spiritual seeking. So people sit down, I see them, I see it happen all the time to meditate. You know, I’m going to meditate and I’m going to get really good at meditating and the doer is there. So when I’m talking about letting go of the doer, I’m speaking about it in a kind of spiritual setting. But now you’re raising a really good question. How does that affect the rest of your life? How does that affect your work, your family, your goals or aspirations, whatever you might have? They will continue, but you may find that you’re doing those things more from and as presence. So presence can be active. Presence isn’t, you know, people often have the idea that I’m just kind of meditating all day and I’m not. I’m out doing loads of different things, but I’m more doing them as presence. And I notice that when I become the doer, when I go into that kind of doing mode, then that carries a kind of bit of stress with it. It carries something else with it. And it seems so normal because everyone else is also in that mode. And yet in one way, I really like this expression of not abandoning ourselves because the habit, the ingrained habit can be to abandon ourselves in order to get stuff done. But actually to just remain present with ourselves in the doing is a really practical and valuable spiritual exercise so that whatever you’re doing, whoever you’re with, don’t abandon yourself in the doing. Then something is integrated and something is congruent and you can still, you’ll still do whatever you have to do, whatever you’re called to do. But you won’t be jumping ahead of yourself and sort of having the experience of self-abandonment or self-petrail. It’s a subtle thing and it’s almost like we have to kind of feel these things in the body as we’re doing them. Feel these things when we’re with other people, you know, can we also be with ourself? Can we be present to ourself so we don’t go into something? And we all do it, you know, I do it, I still do it. I catch myself, oh, I went into that. Come back, oh, that’s much better. Yeah, I just be with myself. It feels much, it feels much more peaceful, much more sane. And actually I think it’s what most people want. Most people want to be around other people who are conscious because then everyone can just be themselves. And that’s felt to be kind of deeply nurturing and healing. It’s why so many people love to be with their cats and dogs, I think. It kind of helps the nervous system regulate.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, now it’s good to clear that up. And I could see it also when you’re kind of stuck as the doer, it can be experience and your life can be very rigid and full of fear and stress. But if you can relax into being, you’re much more open and adaptive and playful as well. Yeah, yeah.

Paul Hurcomb
And maybe also you begin to see that this is the most important thing. Other things present themselves as being the most important thing. But actually maybe the most important thing, maybe for all of us, maybe for our children, for even, you know, the planet, for everything, is that just we stay with ourself in the doing. We don’t abandon ourself. Maybe that is what conscious awake living really is.

Axel Wennhall
So we explored the ego, we explore our humaneness, we have explored presence. And yet there is something still here, something that sees all of this. Yeah. Which is a mystery. Yeah. The great mystery. So what can we say about the thing or the subject that can’t be talked about? And still here we are trying to do it.

Paul Hurcomb
Yeah, yeah. Well, first of all, you’re right. It’s a topic. It’s not a chit chat topic. You know, it’s not a dinner party topic. It’s a topic for certain occasions when there’s a kind of openness to that, you know? So we don’t feel that we are just, what did Christ used to say? You know, don’t throw pearls at swine. Don’t just give that stuff away. But it’s almost like you just begin to feel when that kind of energy is there for that sort of a conversation. So someone has to be open for that. You’re not trying to convince anybody, not trying to get anyone to believe anything. In fact, for me, awakening to the self is about grace. It’s about opening to grace. Because we have to let go of the whole idea that we are form. Even as I say that, it’s so easy the mind will say, okay, I have to let go of the form. And then we also have lost it. But I have to say it because those are the words. We have to let go of form for a minute. And just begin to look, okay, everything, I can see everything. I can see all thoughts. I can see all feelings. I can see all emotions. Every experience has come and gone in front of me. But who am I? Who am I? When I say I, to what am I referring? And this is really the inquiry. And we look for the sense of I. Now, most people, spiritual people as well, if you ask them what is the sense of I, they may say, well, it’s an energy. Or it’s a subtle vibration. Something like that they might say, you know? And the question is then, what knows that? What sees that? Now, it’s not that there are more and more and more witnesses. There’s only one witness. The true witness, which is completely formless. But as I say, I can just kind of sense, okay, what will happen is people will just create an image of that in their mind. Mooji, my teacher Mooji, he asked a very good question. He asked, can the seer be seen? That which is seeing everything else, can that be seen? And if there’s anything about that, if that has any subtle vibration, then you must know that is not the true seer. In the end, we awaken to the mystery that something is aware of everything. Something is seeing everything. But when looked for, cannot be found. And yet, it must be what I am. Because the only thing, that’s always functioning. It’s functioning in the waking state. It’s functioning in the dream state. And it’s functioning in the deep sleep state. It’s always functioning. The awakening to that will give us the. It’s not a belief. It will give us the deepest knowing of who we are, of who we truly are. Beyond belief, beyond concepts, ideas, beyond any of that. And getting to know yourself as that, that is also a very, very, very deep journey. And I’m going to quote Adyashanti again, because he says something beautiful. He said, it costs nothing to get a glimpse of the self, but it costs everything to live as the self. So to get a little glimpse, oh yeah, I got that, right, you know, okay, we’re back, we’re back, we’re back in our normal world, kind of thing. But to get us feeling of, okay, what does it actually mean to live as that? What does it mean to live as the formless? To recognize that actually, some great mystery is here within me, and it’s always functioning. And it’s always right now. It’s never other than right now. It’s before any journey. In fact, the great mystery about all this is that what we’re seeking has always been here, but it’s been obscured by identity. And the moment we see that that identity doesn’t have the reality it appears to have, then it’s possible to awaken to the deeper truth of who we are. And no one can keep it. No one can kind of do that. It already is. It’s like no one can keep air. You know, if I said to you, right, let’s go out to Stockholm this afternoon and just try to keep the air, you know, in one place, it’d kind of be ludicrous. And it’s the same as the self. It just is. It always is. And it’s the source of all of us. You know, when people say we’re all one, that’s kind of like a spiritual thing that people say. Sounds nice. But we’re all one as that consciousness. That’s what we’re all one as.

Axel Wennhall
Yeah, it’s interesting to see how the mind wants to understand it. It’s this how hard it is being a human and letting go of knowledge and understanding. Yeah. That’s tricky. I remember when we spoke last, I think you said something like, can you just be in the not knowing? Yeah. And it’s tricky. There’s something there trying to get it.

Paul Hurcomb
Tricky for who? You see? Tricky for who? Is it tricky for the self? Or is it tricky for something else?

Axel Wennhall
Yeah. Well, it’s tricky for the one I’m identifying with now, obviously.

Talare 7
The self is just. Yeah.

Paul Hurcomb
It’s not just tricky for that one. It’s impossible for that one. Yeah, it’s impossible. This is why also, you know, it’s so important that we come through the heart. Because the heart will take away the strong mental energy. This is why Christ said, I am the way, the truth and the life. Nobody comes to the Father except through me. Meaning the presence I am, which is the spiritual heart, is the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father, quote unquote, the Father, pure consciousness, except through the heart. We come through the heart into the. The heart is the portal into presence and presence is the portal into the absolute. The absolute doesn’t have a location. Yet the heart is the portal into it. The mind is going to say, how the. That doesn’t make sense. So no, we come to a point now where language doesn’t make sense. It has to be experienced.

Axel Wennhall
One understanding I had a couple of years ago was that I can never experience something outside myself. It’s impossible.

Talare 6
Yeah.

Axel Wennhall
It’s always here in, if we call it the self or consciousness, that’s the world. It’s not my world, it’s the world, because I can’t know any other world. And would you also say that knowing and being yourself with capital S in terms of, I know the Buddha said that enlightenment didn’t give him anything, it just reduced anxiety and suffering. But would your experience be that it gives you a choice and Authority and being authentic, or what were you saying?

Paul Hurcomb
Some realization gives you, yeah, yeah, That question can be answered so many different ways because it doesn’t give you anything. It doesn’t give the false self anything and In another way, it gives you the, the understanding and the realization that you can never be separate from source. It also takes away the so much pretense, so much seeking pretense and the need to be different, the need to be other than, the need to be special, the need for more knowledge, the need for more experience. Even I mean, we’re all going to have experiences and I’ll enjoy experiences as well, but the need for them isn’t there in the same way. So it gives you a sense of freedom. It has given me a sense of freedom where it’s absolutely fine to just be as I am. Now, it’s very hard to say that if you’re identified with your mind or if you’re identified with a persona, But when you, when you awaken to the true self, then there’s just a joy in just being as you are.

Axel Wennhall
It’s very simple, Okay, Paul. So in your book there’s been a couple of pointers that resonated more deeply with me. So perhaps as an end before your guiding meditation, would you mind reading up a couple of those? Sure, I’m very happy to do that. So the first one is under the section The Witness. This one?

Talare 3
Yeah. Yeah.

Paul Hurcomb
It has no form, yet cannot be separate from us. It has no location, yet can never not be here. It has no size, yet it includes the entire universe. It has no weight, yet it holds everything within its embrace. It never moves, yet all movement takes place within it. It cannot be spoken of, yet lovers of truth recite poetry to it. It has no reflection, yet every reflection takes place within it. It has no agenda, yet waking up to it will end all of ours.

Axel Wennhall
And it highlights the paradox here. Yeah, it really does.

Paul Hurcomb
It’s um, yeah, I mean, even just reading that, you know, I’m not just saying this because I wrote it, but it just immediately for me, it just immediately just put me in this place of no mind. It’s like, okay, it just stops me. And I just recognize, I recognize the truth, the truth in it. And this truth that it’s been speaking of here in this poem is the same truth that mystics of all traditions have all spoken about. It’s not a new truth. It’s a timeless truth. And yeah, I just feel humbled that somehow that’s clear, clear for me. Yeah.

Axel Wennhall
It’s interesting reading or listening to this kind of text that it’s, there is a recognition in doing that. And it’s, um, there’s a transmission. Yeah, I would say, yeah. And it’s kind of remembering or remembrance. It’s, um, in one sense, it’s, it shifts something. Yeah.

Paul Hurcomb
You know, I remember when I used to go and sit in Satsang with Mooji in India all those years ago, and just being in that environment where there’s somebody who’s awake and they’re pointing to the pure self, it’s just beyond anything else. You know, I’m not sort of saying that as a brag or anything, but it is, it’s just takes, takes you beyond. And I remember I used to sit in those meetings and at the end of the meeting I just couldn’t move. I would sometimes sit there for a couple of hours afterwards, just it’s like my mind stopped, totally stopped, and I was just just in the mystery. If you ask me what was going on, you know, were you having great visions? Say no, no visions, just this, this absence, but not the absence in the way the mind would say it, just this, this incredibly deep knowing that of the truth of who I, of who I am and of who we all are. And the incredible thing is, in one way, it is so simple. Yeah, because, because we’ve learned about spirituality, and a lot of my book speaks about this, about learning can only take us so far, but in the end, the learning, we have to put the learning down. We don’t want to be a great scholar and not know who we are. Better, better that we know who we are, and maybe then we all could also be a great scholar. But for me, the most important thing is really knowing this, not as informational knowledge, but as realization, as self-realization. And in knowing it as self-realization, it just brings another quality. I can’t speak really what that is, but it it just does. And when I met Mooji, I felt that he was the first person I’d met who I thought this, this guy is actually speaking from the Awake State. He’s not speaking about the Awake State, he’s speaking from the Awake State.

Axel Wennhall
So there’s one other text I would would like you to to read, which goes quite hand in hand with with what you just said, and it’s called The Seeker and the Sage. Yeah, I like this one.

Paul Hurcomb
The Seeker and the Sage. Whilst the seeker believes truth is the most difficult thing, the sage knows it’s the simplest thing, and in this knowing he rests. While the seeker believes he has got to get somewhere else, the sage knows there is nowhere to go, and in this knowing he rests. While the seeker believes the master is the most special being, the sage knows he is the most ordinary being, and in this knowing he rests. While the seeker believes there are higher states to attain, the sage rests in the natural state, and in this knowing he rests. While the seeker is looking for more spiritual instructions, the sage has forgotten all about instructions, and in this knowing he rests. Whilst the seeker is sitting up all night reciting mantras, the sage is enjoying the deepest of sleeps, and in this knowing he rests. While the seeker believes he’s going to save the world, the sage knows the world needs only to be saved from him. And in this knowing he rests. I kind of like that last. I kind of like that last line. While the seeker believes he’s going to save the world, the sage knows the world needs only to be saved from him, and in this knowing he rests. Meaning, you know what it means, be saved from the ego. Yeah, it’s just. I don’t know, it’s just very refreshing to just read it. It sounds like I’m being a bit arrogant, but anyone who’s awake to themself could read that and just really appreciate it. And what was coming to me when I was reading it is just, it’s like sobering up. It’s just like getting sober. And, you know, everywhere it kind of feels like there’s a lot of drunk people around.

Talare 7
And you’re sober, you know, you’re sober.

Axel Wennhall
That sounds horrible. That’s the worst selling argument for spirituality. You will wake up, you’ll be sober, but you will end up just hanging out with drunk people. Like, okay, I almost rather stay drunk. Yeah. But if that’s what it takes, perhaps that’s what it takes, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I know it’s.

Paul Hurcomb
You know, we were speaking recently, I had a retreat recently, and one of the ladies was sharing that somehow when she’s resting in the natural state, it feels like she’s naked and everyone else is so fully clothed and so fully armored and so full of stuff. And she said, it’s, you know, it’s really hard to be in that space. And I totally get that. I really get that. And, you know, we spoke about that, about how we have to take care of ourself and, you know, and the importance also of being around other people who have, who are in your life. And we’re interested in this so we can be validated in this and we don’t feel that we are some sort of freak who has had this spiritual awakening but just can’t, it can’t be understood by anybody else. And I remember when I had my awakening and I was very much involved with the Buddhist community at that time and nobody understood it. I was really disappointed. I thought they were going to understand it and they didn’t. They didn’t. And it wasn’t until someone gave me a copy of The Power of Now that that was the first time that I felt, okay, this is, you know, this resonates for me. And yeah, and I really appreciated Eckart Tolle writing that book, sharing that book, it really touched me.

Axel Wennhall
Have you since then been in other Buddhist traditions or groups or sanghas that you have kind of resonated with?

Paul Hurcomb
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I think Zen Buddhism is, you know, getting rid of all of the rituals and getting rid of all of the superfluous stuff. The stuff is put on top and it’s getting down to the bare bones. And that’s what I like. You know, I feel like if spirituality is true, then it can’t be just be cloaked behind some sort of symbols that only a few people know about. And it’s secret. I feel like it has to be open. And the spirituality that I was always seeking was just a simple, open, practical one. It wasn’t a kind of hidden one. And I spent a lot of years studying Tibetan Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism is full of, you know, every kind of practice you could think of. And yet the bare bones, when we come down to the bare bones of spirituality, just my opinion, main thing, remain conscious. That’s it. Just remain conscious. Go about your life. Do whatever you’re doing. You know, you’re going to be a father, you’re going to be a business person, you’re going to be a monk, doesn’t matter. Just whatever you’re doing, stay conscious, which means the same, the difference between your being and the ego, really.

Axel Wennhall
With this podcast, I’ve had the good fortune to speak to teachers and people from all kind of the world with different traditions. And yeah, I think my humble opinion or my view on it now is that there’s no tradition that’s better or worse. There is truth, wisdom and love in all traditions. Yeah. But in most traditions, there’s also stuff that obscures it. But it’s interesting, what you said now is that that’s the commonality, that kind of being, presence, non-identification with anything really.

Paul Hurcomb
Yeah, yeah. I mean, what I really appreciate is the mystical branch of each religion. You know, so Zen, Ivaita Vedanta, Christian Gnosticism, Kabbalah, and what’s the Islam one now? I’ve forgotten now. The Sufis. The Sufis, yeah, exactly. There is some sort of freshness in all of these, which they honor in one way, they honor their religion, but they’re not caught in their religion. And they know that there’s something deeper, deeper than the religion. And that those are the spaces that I’m drawn to. And I still, I mean, I still, I’ll go to church sometimes or go sit in a church and I still really love to do that. But to be in a place which is kind of full of, you know, too many rules and that doesn’t feel right for me. No, I agree with that.

Axel Wennhall
All right, Paul. So thank you so much for joining the podcast. It was so nice seeing you again. But before we end the podcast, would you mind just guiding through a short meditation or a self-inquiry or whatever you feel inclined to guide?

Paul Hurcomb
I’m very happy to do that. And yeah, we can do that. And also thank you to you, Axel, and to you, Gustav, for inviting me here again, four years since we did the last one. And yeah, it was a pleasure speaking to you. Yeah, thank you for the invitation. Okay, so we’re just going to take a few moments together to bring this podcast to an end and to really see if we can begin to notice some of the things that have been shared in this podcast within ourself. So it moves from kind of knowledge to experience. So I just invite you to find a comfortable position and just allow your body to relax. Allow your shoulders to relax. And just begin to bring the focus and the attention inwards. And as much as you’re able to, just let go of the thinking mind for a moment. And come deeply into your body. And as you come into your body, feelings, emotions, sensations may be there. And is it possible to just allow them to be as they are without joining your sense of self with them? Just find this deep sense of acceptance of your humanness. And if you accept your humanness without joining your sense of self with it, then the space before your humanness becomes available. The space of natural being and natural presence. I’ll just invite you to bring your attention into your own being. And just allow yourself to stop. Allow yourself to be still. Allow yourself to rest. In this space of deep rest, there’s nothing you need to do. There’s nothing you need to create. You’re just exploring the possibility of being as you are. What does it feel like to be as you are? What does it feel like to rest in peace? And if you follow this peace into its core, into its source, then it brings you into the great mystery of who you are. As you let go of control and allow yourself a moment or two to die into the mystery. To rest in the unknown. To rest in the truth of who and what you are. And in a moment, I’m going to bring this meditation to an end. And when it comes to an end, see if you can remain conscious. See if you can explore what it’s like to live in a meditative way, a conscious way. That is the best gift you can give yourself and those around you. Thank you.

Axel Wennhall
Thank you for listening to Meditera Mera with Paul Hurcomb. We hope you have been inspired by our conversation and by Paul’s meditation. And I can highly recommend you to read Paul’s book. You’ll find the link to his website in the information about this episode. And if there’s something that we will bring with us from our conversation with Paul, is it to focus on the seer and not the seen? Okay, we’ll be back soon with a new episode. Take care and be well.