 I'm so delighted to have this opportunity, David, to have a dialogue with you and to share some of the things I've been wanting to ask you and explore with you since we first met a few years ago at the Coastal Miracles Conference in London, where I spotted you, we were both speakers at that conference and I immediately felt a resonance and a recognition and a parallel and a desire to explore that in some dialogue. And so here we are with both of us having new books out, yours called This Moment is Your Miracle and mine called The Way of Grace and it's a joy to be here with you. I'm so grateful. Yeah, I think these moments come along where you can be having this feeling in your heart like wouldn't that be fun, wouldn't that be helpful, wouldn't that be exciting to have a dialogue and to just call on the spirit and it brings in the nuances. That's why I like dialogues and I like to collaborate and I like to be aware of those that are really into the presence and the experience of grace and living in presence. And you know there's a recognition when you eat someone and you feel it immediately and you can feel the devotion, really the devotion is so palpable and that was my experience when we first kind of synchronistically just happened to sit down next to each other in the front row as we're listening to some of the speakers and then it was just like an ongoing opening but yeah I felt such a very very strong recognition at the beginning like oh I know you, I know you. Yeah so I'm just curious it seems that you've been walking the path for many years as have I and you know what prompted you to pen this book now and what was your intention in bringing it to the world? Well a lot of the teachings and the things that I've done have just been shared more in audio-visual people would say you know you're like a talking mystic and I said yeah I love the silence but I am very willing to be spoken through if it brings a blessing and so as I mentioned you when I first met you it's just been so many travels to so many countries and I guess round and round around the world over six continents over decades actually and then I felt like Jesus had told me you know freely you have received now freely give and so basically pretty early on people started recording the dialogues and the satsangs and the gatherings and sessions and then I would put them out on the internet and and then I was more just like a traveling talking mystic not so much into books or writing books or authoring books or anything like that and then people began transcribing the talks like when Krishnamurti or so forth would go and share Yogananda did a lot of traveling and talks and speaking and then thankfully we have recordings and then transcribers and transcriptions and you know you can feel the presence just you know coming behind the words it's so strong but this book is is kind of designed to be very broad reaching you know I know with your book too the languaging is so wonderful because we have even people who endorse the book come from such a wide range from everything for me from quantum physicists to people that are in religion or eastern you know that's kind of a testimony to that we don't really box ourselves in too much with the languaging because the experience is so important to us and so I think that's how the languaging it's a challenge to you know speak from our experience and we all have a cosmology and lineages that have that we've come up out of and that are central and yet language itself can be a real challenge when what the important thing is is pointing people into direct experience and the infinite possibility of everyone to experience grace the living presence of what we all really are and the miraculous truth of you know of existence I find that the languaging will come out in so many different ways as I travel and if somebody had a like a camera or a little bird's-eye view on me they would just laugh because as I'm traveling with Buddhist or with Christians or Hindus or atheists they would see how much fun I have with with with everybody and interestingly enough you asked me about Jesus to me it's a it's a very deep connection to that non-dual presence we really need to love everyone we can't we can't split hairs over theology over cultures over background or even words and that's been what I feel is the most important thing just to feel that presence of love and not let any differences come in our way is only one fabric you know that existence and everything and everyone in existence is made of the same divine fabric that we might call God or unity but that in that divine fabric there are multiple displays multiple forms multiple beings and incredible diversity and that that diversity is not necessarily a problem actually it can be very beautiful so I find it really lovely to recognize that we don't have to stamp out difference so we can appreciate difference when we understand that we're all part of one divine fabric of being and that there is infinite uniqueness in everything that is displayed that can enrich us and help us to learn more see more expand more appreciate more you know discover more of what and who we really are yeah I find it's it's quite amazing when we open up to spirit in the way that we've done and there's such deep presence and of course both you and I have been really looked into the the history of spirituality you know we've been curious like little children looking at the tradition I when I think of us I think of actually those 10 characteristics of teacher of God starting with trust followed by honesty consistency but the last one is open-mindedness and Jesus says that's why it's the last because it's it tends to come in out of all those traits and and I think if you just look at at our languaging at us talking on one hand about Rumi or Nizhikada or Ramana or Jesus it flows and the great Indian saints the huge traditions there it's a very natural to us because because we've been curious and we've been very open-minded and flexible and I find too that we both feel how central grace is we see the value of stillness and rest and silence and surrender but both of us interestingly enough having dealt with the course a pathway that has nine chapters on dedicated to relationships that that we see that as the crucible we see that as the practicality we see that as not just running to the Himalayas and and spending 10 12 15 hours but we see the the speed up the acceleration of allowing that mechanism to be used by the spirit and so I find that even when we met you know we were talking and and then when I read your book it kind of filled in a little more because I had a student many years ago who visited you and Robert over there and she came back from England and she was glowing oh my god I met the most two most amazing people Robert and Miranda and and she was going on and on and then when I met you we talked and then when I read the first chapter of your book about being in that cave um in India maybe around 36 years old and going through a divorce and I just thought there's the crucible because I I could feel like it those nine chapters are saying you know you've come so close to perfect union and oneness with the source you have one hurdle and that's special relationship and you're just so close and and for both of us I think if anybody really read if we had autobiographies or they could really see the whole the whole thing that we went through that that it was actually the it was a cracking open I know that was a point of devastation for you and I've gone through that too and and then suddenly I dropped after I cracked I dropped so deep and I know you did too and that's that's wonderful there are certain things that didn't that I kind of chose to leave on the cutting room floor when I was writing the book and one of them was an unpart for various reasons you know I thought some of it would be unnecessary scary for people but one of the things that you know I was feeling was two years prior to that awakening in the cave I could feel a whole new level knocking on the inner door in my meditations and I felt for a number of years alike I was living on what I was sort of manifesting or living was about 20 percent of my capacity now if I'd spoken that to someone they would have said you're crazy look at what you're doing and but I knew inwardly this this wasn't my lifetimes work you know I had a task to do to set up this seminary but I felt quite suppressed inwardly and I could feel this whole other totality of surrender beckoning and I would feel that knocking in my meditations as if I would almost disappear into a very deep void that we just sort of I go just proof you know and I would notice myself just kind of pulling back from that threshold internally and one point I even you know got curious like how come I'm holding back and I could recognize a fear that it might cost me my marriage if I let myself go there well it did and but there was this point in the cave where there was just enough stopping it you know and it was after that that what it looked like a really wonderful marriage and had been really wonderful marriage and started to come apart and I remember just feeling okay what's needed is just to say yes wherever this is going to trust enough to say yes and I really understood deeply then why the importance of those characteristics of the teachers of God that it always meant a lot to me and that so much of it hinges on our capacity to trust so much of the possibility for another level of surrender or letting go really asks for that could we trust that the pulse of existence is loving goodness that only wants what's best for us and that knows what's best for us and that we can completely yield to that even though it might ask us to let go of something that is precious on an ordinary level and so I was hearing in the middle of the night you know in those days you know I was praying you know help me to really see what the invitation is here so I can say yes and I heard the same voice that spoke in the cave ask me questions and it was the without questions and it went through every single attachment that I had starting with who are you without your marriage who are you without your social standing who are you without home who are you without this country who are you without your friends I mean it did not mince around there wasn't a single attachment that I wasn't asked who are you without that and then finally and that's journaling this course at 2am who are you without Miranda and as I was writing the m of my name the pen ran out and I kind of may have get it this is like hold all that go into what I don't know so it was this amazing period of emptying out that went on for about two years and now that I look back on that period of time I see it as the most extraordinary training because there was nothing left and the only way to deal with everything was just to pray what's needed now in that moment and just do that which meant being radically present and radically attuned and radically humble and radically yielded in and amidst tackling big things and it was in that two years that something very foundational in me changed and the experience being in this world from a very different platform inside but it's such a blessing and provides so much capacity to share because I've looked into ever the things that scared me the most and what I realized is there really is actually nothing to fear which the Course of Miracles has been saying this whole time very simply but you don't know it till you know it yeah yeah I know so it will be such a blessing as we we share this with the world because so many write to me every day every week for for years for decades about what they fear the most and what you've just described is is just facing that with such grace and such surrender and then I always like to to share with everybody as we come out the other side and go oh my gosh I can't believe I was so afraid of of those things at all those were just attachments it's we we laugh but but also the song as you do the sad songs the gatherings I share the presence is radiates through and the beloveds I know you have that same experience like I do that that call you to different parts of the world that that nurture you that love you that that bring such caring that they they light up that this is relationship transformed this these are reflections of a mind that is aligned with with source so the love it just radiates out and the reflections are everywhere and that's what I want people to know that that even though they can be frightened of losing something or frightened of abandonment or rejection those are very common that once you yield it's it's not that experience at all it's it's amazing it's miraculous it's just kind of evolved now where I've been doing almost like like kind of almost like online sad songs like Muji does where I'm on this intimate experience and there's a hundred plus being sprinkled in little sparks of light all over from Australia to Japan to Europe and all around and then and oftentimes people think well it won't be quite the same digitally but then the tears and the breakthroughs and we're all cheering each other on every month and and it's my heart just bursting with joy because you can see even when I get an email of someone saying oh I'm in such a dark place now and you know I wish I could come on and I said come on and then they come on and you see that crack of a smile it comes and my heart just burst open you really feel like wow there's just one of us here and it's so different from that old way of perceiving relationships it's very different I was unsure at first whether the transmission would get through on the online and I have been pleasantly surprised in the power of what is possible through this medium and the blessing of that that gives the possibility for people wherever they are in the world at little or no cost to become part of a global sangha you know to be connected and I feel that there is no such thing as an individual awakening you know there's no such thing as your awakening separate to mine we're going to come home together or not at all you know because awakening means that we evolve beyond just you know me and my you know so I think in that understanding any way that we possibly can form spiritual friendship and community and help one another to engage and practice the better I really enjoy that too because there's like an invitation there even when we travel to know we have a beloved invitation to just go and be engulfed and embraced in that love and rejoice absolutely rejoice that what the spirit is and what the spirit is is extending and to me that that feels so good it doesn't feel like a big wide world anymore it just feels like a huge invitation and I'm always like jumping jumping right in and loving to collaborate I was at the lunch the other day and somebody wrote and said oh I'm I'm on your online movie watchers side of enlightenment and I'm oh my gosh I'm watching movies with you and listening to your commentary and and she said I have a program on it's called quantum conversations podcast would you would you collaborate with me and I said I would love I just wait for those collaborative you know from the heart invitations of where we have a recognition where we feel the joy and and I'm not interested in concepts or proliferating anything in form or anything like that but I do love the heart this way of the heart and and feeling the grace so strong you know that's that's my greatest joy we're just at a place now where the practical experience is everything to us and the concepts are nothing so whether we're out at a diner whether we're talking to somebody who's had their house burned down one of the people in our group was was part of those wildfires in Canada and and she said it's coming close it's getting oh but there it goes my house is burned down so the same kind of things that are happening in these very interesting times but there's that love and that connection and support and nurturing that's there and it doesn't really have anything to do with any of the the concepts of the categories of the world I know if somebody met you like like I sat down at a course of miracles conference and met you but if they met you basically in any context imaginable those characteristics and that presence and those attributes just like it just comes so naturally from you it's who you are and it can't be separated I think that's what happens to us all and it's so profound when we recognize the miraculous process of transformation and it's humbling and we understand what our part is and what's not our part that then more of what we are shines and it's a blessing for everybody yeah yeah it seems to me I'm getting more and more aware of when in a course of miracles it's spoken that this world is backwards and upside down and so things that I had viewed in my life as challenges as struggles as devastations now with this higher perspective I just kind of have a bursting gratitude and I see with my life and I see with your life the way our parables our stories have gone that like you starting off in Australia and I enjoyed hearing all the things you went through in Australia because that was like a whole thing of you know not quite fitting in and I could be up there there that's yeah yeah I could see that and then over to England and the interfaith thing and you know and then the huge crack open and then like feeling oh my gosh I haven't done my life's calling yet I yeah yeah I could just relate and then here now and then with the song as in in San Rafael and Sonoma County and all that area you know it's like it's there's a flowering happening and you can just feel the blessing that even when you were uprooted we'll say from Australia and then uprooted again and then the India experience but but that uprooting I see now is a blessing at the time I was going through my uprooting I didn't big part of the work is just staying in our but staying present and feeling everything and recognizing that you're not going to die from just staying present and feeling everything you you know all of it needs to be met with love and if it's met with love then what is true will shine forth more freely and what was never really true will dissolve and will be seen as an untrue and then it does no power to hurt you and what happens in the process of that is we become wiser and more compassionate in relation to the human condition and everyone else we have more understanding of you know the immensity of what it is to be a human being and the mystery thing incredible opportunity it is to have all of our experiences and the opportunity to learn and grow that who we really are and what really matters from life to me I always seem to talk a lot about divine providence because I mean for the human being and for human beings it seems like that survival thing is so strong and there's so much learning and conditioning that goes into that and then like you said earlier I think trust is actually the key for everything it it allows us to surrender it's not it's not like we have to push something or force something it just that it just grows and to me that's what my experience has been is that it's so many floods of miracles like it it was like a big convincing job to convince me to let go of of concerns around survival even of the daily concerns that that is so heavily conditioned and I find that no matter what I I call the retreats undoing the doer or into the mystic or whatever topics we go at it seems like we get back to that core like for someone saying sentimentally I'm with you I like the vibe of this but here's some things that I just am dealing with on a daily basis and I'm like oh let's go into those and let's really face those and look at those inquiry let's use use the moment to to have inquiry is it really so is it really so and then with that love and that compassion and watching the faces light up all of us light up when we discover that we are we are cared for that we are carried that that divine providence and grace is our inheritance it's it's it's natural for us it's not high in the sky it's not just for the st. Francis and you know mother Teresa it's it's real yeah so one of the things I've found you know I agree with you completely and that you know what really helps in cultivating trust is to allow space for our mistrust to get aired you know because I think you know most people that I speak to they really want to trust but they find it difficult at times you know and I think we all know how that feels and so a question that I'm always giving to my students where which we practice in pairs you know like a repeating question is what limits your capacity to trust the loving goodness underlying your life because so often we think of trust and we think of trusting another person and we all know that you know human beings who aren't fully enlightened are limited in their trustworthiness you know they're not trying to be mean necessarily but the degree to which any of us are caught in our defenses and our fears is going to limit our capacity to be loving and to be you know kind and responsive to one another and so it's not necessarily about placing our trust in the capacity of another to always be a certain way for us because we all know that that might always might not always be so that there are limitations that we all have and that's okay but the trust we need is the trust in the fact that the pulse of life is beneficent that loving presence is very real it is the foundation of everything and you know to flush out our beliefs our concerns our felt sense that that's not so and just to let it air out let it detoxify with our friend in front of us just saying thank you to whatever it is that we say you know just letting it flush out until it flushes out and then we can explore you know what's holding us right now yeah it's like happy dreams come true not because they're real but because they're happy that's the that's the whole thing where it's like a like that mystical moment where everything's vibrating and and you just are fully experiencing it but there's no sense of causation or no sense of otherness with it it's just so all-inclusive and I just love that you're sharing that because this this is I think it's important to take something like you said let's take mysticism off the pedestal let's take mysticism out of the closet let's be truly a hundred percent transparent because why would we want to be anything else and I find when we have no private thoughts no secrets to keep nothing to hide then what flowers the fragrance what comes from that is is so exquisite and it's so effortless it's so natural there there's not any kind of having to do something for it or even to maintain it it's just it's just given yeah yeah oh thank you thank you yeah bless you and thank you just wow thank you so much