(Preview) Episode 1 - Conversations with The Bearded Mystic and Lyam (Yamsox)

Hello, everyone. Welcome to the first episode of conversations with the Bearded Mystic. And I'm your host Rahul N Singh. So today we're just going to be giving you a clip about our first conversation with Lyam also known as Yamsox. He is a great philosopher and mathematician and a spiritual wise individual. You can imagine there's a lot to take in. Now, this is just a short clip. If you want to listen to the full episode, you do need to go into my Patreon and you will find the details in the show notes and video description below. And here is the conversation. And so would you say that obviously with your dad being agnostic and your mother having a number of differing practices, you mentioned how it helped you in carving a path, so to speak for yourself, but, what was the click that got you to share your message say on social media? Like what was the, what was the turning point for you?

Um,

And how did the background of your parents and the way they, the way you observed their life, how did that impact that turning point?

Yeah. Oh, I like this. So perhaps for a good portion of my life, I was increasingly becoming more skeptical towards all things, uh, sort of reductionism and, I, my parents were well aware of this and I'd, I, I begin to of course, like all teenagers question, the authority of my parents and especially the authority of their wisdom and their beliefs and what not. And I was slowly treading down a path of the, of the sciences, which was quite interesting because neither of my parents had a preference for science in their lives. And as I continued down that path of sciences and theoretical mathematics, you know, very, very precise sciences. It eventually led me through a strange series of events, like a lot of people to Buddhism and Hinduism and things like that. And then I began to practice meditation and eventually at some point I had such a profound meditation that I picked up the phone called my mom and like was crying and I said, it's all true. It's all true.

wow

And I think that was the turning point. If I had to pinpoint it.

What I would like to ask is what type of meditation did you do and know that different meditations have different results and they're all are valid, but what was that meditation that you did that was the turning point for you?

I can really only speak from experience of this will generate similar effects in others. But the meditation that happened to me occurred on a walk home from a graveyard shifts, stocking inventory. And, uh, it was such a bad timing, but almost perfect timing because it took about two hours to walk home, or I could wait there for an hour until the bus came and then bus an hour home and that would take about the exact same time. And so that gave me a quite an interesting choice, whether I wanted to just sit still on a bench for an hour or, or walk for two hours, I feel like both are, are just quite, quite, uh, quite a choice to be made there. Anyway I chose to walk. home and on the walk home, there was this beautiful Garry Oak meadow, uh, just the serene golden Dawn of light shining through the trees and the branches. And upon a rock sitting in a clearing, there was this magazine that said union on it. And I thought, wow, wouldn't that be a nice place to meditate? Uh, so I climbed over the rock, sat on it and I just sat cross-legged on the mossy knoll and all I did was focused on the breath.

Um,

And as simple as that sounds, uh, within maybe 15 or 20 minutes, a certain sensation started arising within my legs as if, uh, this, this force said welcomed its way through my toes, up the soles of my feet and the calves through to the thighs. And slowly from the very bottom of my spine upwards, uh, my body was blending together. I couldn't feel the distinction between one leg or another. It was just body. That was it. That was my only appendage was body. and as I started breathing, it would feel as though I was pulling on this force, this prana, some might call upwards from around the stomach region, the base of the neck, in which it would flower, uh, words down the arms. And that's when I started getting freaked out. There was a lot of fear in my mind at that point, my heart felt like it were to burst. That definitely that fear took a hold of me and it kind of killed the meditation, but what didn't stop was the persistence of that flame, that fire, that forest, which was pervading my body. And it was quite, Terrifying because it would take hold of my arms and hands and I could not move to them. It felt like what I would imagine someone with ALS might feel because there was, there was this urge, this yearning to move their hand that I definitely have control over, but it was frozen in a, in a mudra position. And, and that was quite interesting because I didn't even start the meditation in a mudra, but somehow or another, I felt like I had been forced into a mudra and I couldn't get out of it, even though I was no longer focusing on my breathing. And it took about 10 minutes for that to dissipate, but that sheer energy, which I experienced proved to me that it was all real. And so I had to phone my mom shortly after getting home.

Nice. Nice. That that's incredible. So for me listening to you experienced its kind of similar to what I had. I was walking down the road, I looked up into the sky and I just felt oneness with it. And there was no, like, there was no separate me and there's no separate sky or space, you know, I could see the stars and the clouds and yeah, there was an interconnectedness to everything. At that time, and I felt the same, like elation, ecstasy, joy tears rolling down my face. And, but as soon as it happened, I felt like I got out of it just as

It was fleeting.

Yeah. It was very fleeting. But that was when I realized the importance of just meditating and actually having a practice. So it could work on, on that, but it was nice to have a little signpost, a little kind of sneak peek, a little teaser trailer, um, to say, you know what, there's some that you can enjoy here. Well, why don't you take that opportunity? That's interesting how I think sometimes being in nature, invokes this, spirit of togetherness, I really loved that. You said that you automatically got yourself into mudra. Did you have the vocabulary to express your experience or was it after you read some of the scriptures that you then got the vocab

That's a really interesting question. And it's interesting because I don't know, like there is a certain knowledge I have when it comes to terminology and vocabulary of these experiences described in Vedic scripture and Upanishas, et cetera. But I don't remember ever reading them. At least it's not in this lifetime and this confusion, it was, it was further, dampened in just perhaps a year before that experience where I had been doing some theoretical mathematics and it led me to a conclusion that for some reason I had known was the heart of Buddhism. At that time, it made perfect sense how I made that connection. But now looking back on it now, I have no idea how I knew that connection because I had never actually, studied Buddhism as far as my memory goes nor the connections that were then soon made with Hinduism. My only experiences were simply having statues of the Buddha around my house. And my mother couldn't tell me a single word from any Sutra. So I wish I had an answer, but it does also fascinated me. I have no idea,

interesting, because like, for, even though I had a relatively spiritual upbringing, but I felt after my meditation experiences. When I read the, Upanishads or the Bhagavad Gita, then I was like, oh yeah, this is exactly what I experienced. I didn't have the words for it. Or I would read words from different mystics and I'd be like, yeah, this is exactly what I experienced. But yeah, they just helped me give words to the experience that I had that I didn't previously, I couldn't express it before to anyone. But it helped me which was nice to kind of say that I'm on the right path. Just keep going forward. And that's how I saw it as really not oh, you got there for me anyway. I'm not there, but,

It's lovely that had happened in that order of experience. And then the readings, because, or the other way around, you might be, you know, have this bias for confirmation, but without any prior knowledge, that's like, well, it's, that's as much proof as possible without any..

So the one thing I do want to ask you, and I was intrigued when I was watching your TikTok videos is I'm going to first ask what is consciousness or awareness, as you define? What is consciousness to you? What is awareness to you?

Well, at first like to preface such an extraordinary question, the first line, of the Tao Te Ching, the Tao, that can be told that it's not the eternal Tao. So any future words from the matter, uh, are simply only an expression and cannot contain the source of it itself. That said that's enough to say, but I th I think it's important to answer. Why is that the case? Why is it that consciousness or the truth of the matter cannot be, uh, expressed entirely? And I think it is not so different than how the natural states of any system can only be expressed by breaking the natural state. For example, the natural state of the sound system is silence, but silence can only be expressed by breaking silence. And blackness, the natural state of, of sight can only be expressed by breaking blackness and shining light. You name any system, the natural state in order to express it, talk about it, visualize it. It has to be broken or maybe broken is not the right word, but expressed out of the natural state to express the natural state and consciousness of course, is our natural state, the essence of our being. And so in order to express or talk about what consciousness is, we have to break consciousness or break it out of the natural state and talk about things that aren't necessarily consciousness itself. So that is what I would say it is. It's the natural state.

Interesting. So let me just go a bit more precise now. So what if for a lay person, what is the natural state? Because for them maybe, or for anyone that's not accustomed to this spiritual path may think, well the life they're living is the natural state going out, getting a job or, you know having desires. Is that the natural state? What is the natural state?

Right? Right. So let's do another example of the natural state. This ones for the more physically inclined, but I think it does make sense. Anyway, if we imagine the natural state of, of the physical world as vacuum, and we understand that that vacuum or void or that space, all the same thing, just used different words, that spaciousness absence vacuum, that is the place in which all things arise from. And back into that space is the place in which particles forming the atoms and molecules and planets and stars form, and eventually decay back into it's the stage of creation, preservation, and destruction and stillness. And so when we ask, what is the natural state, or if we're thinking about a certain agency and that agency is being questioned, if that is the natural state or not, we simply have to ask is that is what has been there this whole time in which all things arise from maintain for awhile. And then decay back into, for example, is silence really the natural state of sound. Well, it is the place which is always being returned to, and it is the place before sounds. And so I think it would be under those criteria. That silence is the natural state of sound. So for consciousness, perhaps it's a bit more difficult because those systems are still external to us and we can mentalize external objects and cognize these things. But consciousness is a little different because well, it's happening here and right now, so we're kind of to think about it, to think about what the natural state of consciousness is. Well, if we're thinking a thought, then we're provoking and experience within consciousness, therefore to even think about what the natural state of consciousness is, we are eliminating the natural state by creating something in its place. so in most simplest terms, the natural state of consciousness must be that in which no thoughts arise, perhaps this is not unlike a deep sleep, which is still a state of consciousness, but no objects to be aware of within consciousness. The very background layer pervading our existence in which all things arise from persist for awhile. And then dissolve back into this is the natural state.

Wow. And that is very powerful. I've. That was like a meditation in itself if I'm honest bro

All things are meditations.

absolutely. So, and I actually do agree with you with that being the natural state. I'm actually fully aligned to what you said, it's there constantly, even though, like you mentioned, there may, it may have, it may break in certain aspects, but that's just an appearance of something breaking, but really that, like you said, with sound that may break the silence, but actually silence is still there, even within the sound so that, yeah, I really think that's a wonderful way of expressing it. One of the best we have I've I've heard to be honest, uh, one of the best explanations. That's really cool. So, so now, uh, to get a little bit more deeper into consciousness, where is consciousness? I cannot see it. I cannot, I cannot see it around me. I cannot see it in my reflection when I look in the mirror. So where is this consciousness? Where is it? Where can I locate it? Is there a location?

So very difficult to find this is the hard problem of consciousness. Um, I liken it to trying to find a magnifying glass with a magnifying glass. And so you can look through the magnifying glass all you want, but it's right there. It's, it's, you're, you're using it. And so when we're using consciousness to find consciousness, it's quite funny because it's quite as similar situation, where on earth is consciousness relative to our consciousness when we're trying to find it. Cause we try to externalize this, the, uh, the search for it and imagine looking for consciousness within another person, you know, maybe that means like dissecting the neurons and zooming in on an electron microscope and seeing what set of interactions produce the sensation of consciousness. But I think they're really looking for mind and not consciousness and sure you might be able to find the mind within the brain, but the brain is within the consciousness. And so we have this kind of loop going on. We have the brain arises within consciousness, uh, and, but the mind is within the brain, but the mind is what reflects its consciousness. And so it's this interesting dynamic system. And so I think it would be important for me to give my distinction between mind and consciousness, which can simply be set by the difference between a mirror and its reflection. So the mind is the place in which we see consciousness. And so we often confuse the mind for consciousness, but it would be not unlike confused thing ourselves, uh, or, or confusing the reflection for the mirror. And indeed in some sense they are one in the same, the reflection and the mirror is one and the same, but there is a distinction there because the mirror can be without the reflection and the ref, what is being reflected can be without a mirror. And so likewise, when we see say someone who has passed away, there is still that mirror there, but no reflection of consciousness. Likewise, theoretically, although it is hard for us to imagine while in these bodies, we can have consciousness, but no mind reflected sort of a disembodied being. But what's interesting then in this analogy, as mind as the mirror upon which consciousness can be reflected onto itself, is that without a mirror, without a mind, there would be no sense of self because there would be no reflection to see oneself or to be aware of that awareness. And so a truly disembodied being there for, uh, would not realize that they have a, they might not realize that they exist. And in some sense, they, they, they don't just really pressed to the question, what it means to exist. They would have awareness still, but no self awareness, perhaps not unlike a rock. Who is aware of the natural laws and still obey by them and are aware of the fluctuations of temperature and the pressure of the atmosphere in which it responds to. But we cannot say that a rock has the mirror of a mind in which to direct these senses back onto itself to spark self-awareness or self-consciousness or sentience. So the question of the matter is where is consciousness? Well, we know the mind is in the brain. The mind is kind of the software upon the hardware that is the brain, but consciousness is reflected by it, thus pervades it. And so we cannot say for certain precisely where it is, because, well, it doesn't occupy a place or a space or a time only the reflection does only the mind does, but it itself is the subject to whom, which objects such as spaciousness or timeness occur. Does that make sense?

Yeah, it does. To me. Yeah, definitely. When I think about where is consciousness and I'm often asked this question and I would say there is no location because the moment I say it's there, it's also going to be here. Like it's, like you said, it's all pervading. So it's very hard to even say that it's located in the mind because, but for example, when we meditate. We expand, there is an expansion that goes on. So so yeah, and then again, if consciousness is formless by definition, then how can you for there to be a location, there needs to be a form of some kind. So

Right,

Thank you for listening to this clip of conversations with the Bearded Mystic. To listen to the full episode, do go onto my Patreon and the link is in the video description and show notes below. Thank you. Bye