Sacred Pilgrimage In The Age Of Distraction Part 2
Episode 23 with Redesigning The Dharma by Sahaja Soma is part 2 of a conversation with Dr. Miles Neale. Dr. Miles Neale is a psychotherapist, Tibetan Buddhist teacher, and author. This episode continues with a discussion on the profound significance of inner, outer, and secret pilgrimages; the challenges and rewards of integrating these transformative experiences into everyday life; and the collective pilgrimage of humanity in the face of modern crises. Dr. Neale also shares personal insights from his move to Bali and his ongoing work, including his experiences leading international pilgrimages, and the launch of his newest book, Return with Elixir.
Episode Highlights:
00:00 Introduction to Dr. Miles Neale
03:31 Therapy as a Form of Pilgrimage
05:44 The Challenges of Integration
11:31 The Collective Pilgrimage of Civilization
17:20 The Importance of a Guided Path
23:34 The Illusion of Quick Enlightenment
32:43 Personal Journey: Moving to Bali
40:02 Upcoming Pilgrimages and Final Thoughts
Guest Bio:
Dr. Miles Neale is a psychotherapist in private practice, teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, founder of the Gradual Path for inner and outer journeys, author of Gradual Awakening, and co-editor of Advances in Contemplative Psychotherapy.
His latest book, Return with Elixir: Four Maps for the Pilgrimage of the Soul Through Death and Rebirth (Inner Traditions, 2025), integrates Joseph Campbell’s mythology, Carl Jung’s psychology, Tibetan Buddhist alchemy, and the precession of the equinoxes.
Over the past twenty-five years, Miles has fused Eastern spirituality with Western psychology. He earned a Masters in meditation research from New York University, a Doctorate in clinical psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies, and trained in long-term mentor-student relationships with preeminent American Buddhist scholars Professor Robert Thurman, PhD, and Dr. Joseph Loizzo, MD, PhD as well as Tibetan master Geshe Tenzin Zopa.
He has taught psychology and meditation at the integrative medical clinics of Harvard, Columbia, and Cornell universities, designed and led the two-year Contemplative Studies Immersion certificate program based on the Tibetan gradual path (lam-rim), offers courses and workshops internationally including at the Tibet House, US, and has initiated service projects supporting nunneries in the Himalayan region.
Miles curates and leads life-changing pilgrimages to sacred sites around the world and lives between New York City and Bali, Indonesia.
Full Transcript:
Adrian Baker: Welcome to Redesigning the Dharma. I'm your host Adrian Baker, and today I have a very interesting guest on.
Dr. Miles Neal is a psychotherapist in private practice, a teacher of Tibetan Buddhism, founder of The Gradual Path For Inner and Outer Journeys, and a co-author of Gradual Awakening.
His latest book is Return with Elixir: Four Maps for the Pilgrimage of the Soul Through Death in Rebirth, which is integrating Joseph Campbell's mythology, Carl Jung's psychology, Tibetan Buddhist alchemy, and the procession of the equinoxes.
Over the past 25 years, Miles has fused Eastern spirituality with Western psychology.
He earned a Masters in meditation research from New York University, a doctorate in clinical psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies and trained in long-term mentor-student [00:01:00] relationships with preeminent American Buddhist scholars Professor Robert Thurman and Dr. Joseph Loizzo, MD, PhD, as well as Tibetan master, Geshe Tenzin Zopa.
Miles has taught psychology and meditation at the Integrative Medical Clinics of Harvard, Colombia, and Cornell University, designed and led the two year contemplative studies immersion certificate program based on the Tibetan gradual path, Lam Rim and offers courses of workshops internationally at places such as Tibet House US.
And Miles's current focus is on curating and offering life-changing pilgrimages to sacred sites around the world.
And that theme of pilgrimage is the focus of much of our conversation today so, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Miles, and please leave any questions or comments with what you enjoyed about the conversation or questions that you'd have or like to be addressed in coming episodes. Thank you.
And I wanted to ask, 'cause when I was preparing for this podcast, hearing you talk about pilgrimage, I realized I'd never thought about, but a yahuasca or so much a kind [00:02:00] of inner pilgrimage. Would you describe that as inner or is that secret?
Dr. Miles Neale: a hundred percent inner pilgrimage. Yeah, a hundred percent inner pilgrimage. It could be secret- we'll get to the distinction- if it evolves movement of prana, then I think it would be secret pilgramage.
Adrian Baker: It would definitely be secret then, at least specifically with Ayahuasca and Soma, but we'll get to that.
Dr. Miles Neale: So the inner pilgrimage very often and usually is simultaneous with the outer pilgrimage in which someone basically leaves a comfort zone or a kind of identity formation that is kind of rigid or seen its last day, or is beckoning the soul is beckoning for transformation.
So someone is stuck, someone's addicted, somebody's grieving, somebody's, somebody has to move from one place to another. There needs to be movement.
The inner pilgrimage starts where you are with the confines of the super impositions of your ego and the society and all the ways that kind of limit you.
And basically you sign up for disruption. You let go of some of these things, or you face them or you push through them.
And over the course of the pilgrimage, [00:03:00] not only are you moving physically, but internally you are going through letting go of grief or you're, you know, seeing through your, the kinds of ways we tell ourselves we can't do this or we can't do that, or This is who I am, or this is how I want someone to see me. You get to disrupt and shake those up.
And in the liminal part of the pilgrimage, you get to show up and experiment with what is it like to be completely new or completely different, or act in new ways or to be more pious or to be more thoughtful, or to be more discerning about your limit.
it's also there in therapy. Therapy is a pilgrimage too.
Adrian Baker: That makes sense.
Dr. Miles Neale: In the initial phase of therapy, it's all about rapport building. So you make a connection with someone. You create the confines or the context, and then you start to do deeper work. And you usually hit an impasse where the politeness falls away and someone feels hurt or someone feels offended, or you hit a memory that is painful that you didn't want to deal with, and now you get a chance.
So you volunteer for a [00:04:00] disruptive experience in which you never leave your therapist's office, but you go on a journey with them. And you go and face the dark thing that every fiber of your being wants to run from. And that's what happens on a psychedelic journey, obviously, too. And I, and it happens on pilgrimage.
It's oh yes, I like this space, but something inside of me that I don't wanna deal with is coming up. The space has activated that and your intention has called it forth. And then there it is. What are you gonna do? And so hopefully everything has been set up, not for your comfort, but everything has been set up for your processing of it.
And so that's the inner journey. You,
and it's remarkable what you said about Douglas Brooks, I say the same thing to my group. You go through all of this, the arc, the outward arc, and the inner arc. You find that you have not only deep challenges and deep-seated fears that you confront deep-seated doubts or existential angst, that you have traumas that you confront in the dark night, the shadow work.
But you also taste, a glimpse of awakening.
I mean, I'm sure that the three places that you [00:05:00] mentioned in Tamil Nadu, Tiger's Nest, and the
Adrian Baker: And Machig Labdron.
Dr. Miles Neale: Machig Labdron. Probably. Without me putting too many words in your mouth, the reason that they're so compelling is that some part of your spirit or soul experienced some sense of expansion, transcendent experience, inevitable experience, mystical experience. I would call this in the Jungian terms, the treasure.
And so you, if you feel like home, you feel expansive, you feel like a massive breakthrough. You see the world from a different point of view. You, You have a disruptive worldview in which clarity dawns the clarity of dzogchen dawns.
You have the what are called the blessing. The blessing of the gurus happen at this place. Then you have to decide how are you gonna take this back because you can't stay there. You can't stay on the mountaintop, you can't stay in the high samadhi, you can't stay in the psychedelic experience.
You can't stay in the confines of your therapeutic encounter with your shadow in company of your therapist. You [00:06:00] can't stay on pilgrimage in all these divine places. You can't stay on the pilgrimage route. You have to come home. And Douglas Brooks was right.
I have a debrief with people where I have to, basically say, you're now part of a secret society where no one will ever understand what you went through here.
You're gonna go home. And everybody's the same. They're all oriented in a completely different way than you. They're still oriented towards the mundane world of getting ahead and looking good and keeping up with the Jetsons , and they're, freaked out and trying to avoid being exposed for their insecurities.
They're still oriented by what's called in the Buddhist tradition, the eight worldly winds.
Adrian Baker: Yeah.
Dr. Miles Neale: You've turned your heart. You've had the bodhisattva vow, you've had the disruptive vision, you've had the dzogchen moment. You've tasted the elixir, whatever. You don't operate that way as much anymore. You may need a long period of metabolization and reorientation to fully integrate it, but you're not the same person. You're like an alien now. You're a different creature.
I remember when I came home at 20, from five months in Bodh Gaya back onto college [00:07:00] campus after living with the monks. Waking up at five o'clock to meditate with them and living in a centuries old village in rural India doing prayers and meditations with the Buddhists.
Finally, I came home to Wheaton College campus in Norton, Massachusetts, and people asked me, how was your trip?
Adrian Baker: Don't even bother. Yeah.
Dr. Miles Neale: And, And Douglas Brooks is right. It's like you got I did exactly what Douglas Brooks was like.
After a few of these encounters where I gave the two minute, "it was great." I learned that no one was really interested. A, they would never be able understand me, B. And it did no good for me to try to explain it, C.
So I kept quiet to myself and I tried very earnestly to keep up with my practice. And I soon found unfortunately that I wasn't really ready for reintegration. And this is something that you may find in your psychedelic work. It's like you may have a profound breakthrough, but that doesn't guarantee that you could just come home and it's all transformed.
You might be a huge mismatch for [00:08:00] reality. You might be a huge mismatch for the world. It may not be seamless, it may not be flawless. You might not just into the round peg with a round hole. No. It was tough for me. In fact, I finished college and two years later, the first thing that I did was go right back.
So in my book Return with the Elixir, I talk about different kinds of integration. There's failed integrations too. So this is an interesting part of the inner journey and the outer one too.
I mean, you have to come home and maybe there's no red carpet for you. Maybe nobody cares about your experience. Maybe no one can relate to it. Maybe you're a complete mismatch and you can't go back to work.
Adrian Baker: Yeah, it makes me think of the Chögyam Trungpa quote he says, basically it's like maybe you don't wanna start the spiritual path kind of thing, know, or
Dr. Miles Neale: be warned.
Adrian Baker: But if you do best, to finish.
You know, you hear these stories with people and I hear people say to me well, I don't know if I want to do ayahuasca because I know this guy who did it.
He was very successful. And then he sold his business. He lost his ambition. He and I [00:09:00] said, if you're really meant, like the way the universe is moving through you creatively is to create this business. You're not gonna lose that desire, if anything, that could flow through you more quickly.
But if you all of a sudden see that you're doing that for all the wrong reasons, then you're not gonna be able to hide it from yourself.
So that's the difference. It's gonna take off the masks. It's not that it takes away your ambition or these other things. But I think the challenge for a lot of people is they experience something like that, that gives them a taste of something that's so timeless and so deeply part of the human condition and then they come back to a culture like the US and they realize they're living in a way that's really out of sync with how human beings have been meant to live. For example, more in community or having more time to process things, slowing down, being more in touch with their heart, their feelings, their body.
And so, I think it can pose a challenge for some people with [00:10:00] integrating that. And it brings up the question from a Buddhist perspective of renunciation. Renunciation is actually important to awakening, you know, not not walking away from worldliness or worldly, But renouncing certain desires or lifestyles, right?
Thinking carefully about how we want to allocate our attention, right?
Dr. Miles Neale: Yeah, Yeah. Renunciation is foundational.
Adrian Baker: And I think, just to add one thing, I think where this comes up a lot, where people see a lot of this, and they're seeing it a lot nowadays with remote work, is they're getting a taste of that paradigm explosion when they travel to a foreign country or when they work for a few months or a year in a foreign country.
All of a sudden, I experienced this, I moved to Thailand at 29. And then when you're there and you're there for a while, you start really seeing the world in a different way.
And I think for some people they either decide to, you can go back and [00:11:00] integrate, but for some people I think it means, if you have a choice, if you have the autonomy, if you don't have particular obligations that are drawing you back, you do decide to walk away from the old paradigm. To shatter it. To create a new one.
Dr. Miles Neale: I think You did it better than me when you asked me what my book is about. What you're talking about right there about going on a journey in which you shatter the old paradigm and enter into a new one.
I mean, I think that's how it's most relevant to people, because we did go through the pandemic, and to me the pandemic was a portal.
It was the one world and the beginning of the other. And whether you understand it through a mystical lens or a religious lens or an apocalyptic lens or whatever lens, I think each individual can feel that there was a de marking line between one world and another. That new world isn't totally formed yet, but we have crossed over.
And so that's why I think this book is relevant to people because in a way, collectively, we're all on a pilgrimage. As a [00:12:00] civilization, everything is deteriorating and dying. What we see around us in terms of all of the telltale signs of civilizational collapse are actually happening.
The energy sector is breaking down. We can't just deplete the resources any further. There's no more resources for oil, petroleum based economy and all the rest of the economic situation is breaking down.
I mean, we're in fiat currency, that's in hyperinflation and United States is no longer immune to what Ecuador or El Salvador or Peru, any of these other countries that we go, "oh, those third world countries," no. We are built on a set of cards that are just about to, we can't kick the can down any further.
Politically , every country's moving into a hyper oligarchy and clamp down and authoritarian overreach. You're seeing. The conglomeration, the ecological demise. You're seeing all these telltale signs that in any one generation, one of them would be enough. But in our generation, they're all happening [00:13:00] together simultaneously and there's a beautiful word to capture that, that's called the poly crisis.
We're in a poly crisis. What I see that as is the end of civilization. That doesn't mean it's the end of civilization, there's nothing left. It means it's the end of the civilization and we're entering a bardo. We are now in a bardo.
And a lot can happen in the bardo, as you know, as you study the text, the bardo is a period where your worst case fears will come at you as externalities.
And in the depictions, in the Egyptian pyramids, they have either thoth or the death and rebirth God, I can't remember holding the balance of the feather with the weight. Whatever the iconography is in multiple cultures, you find that the death moment is a revelation.
What is a revelation? It is that you see the telltale coming full circle of the consequences of your actions of a prior life. And so where we are in civilization, we're having a revelation. We see how corrupt we've been. We see how [00:14:00] disgustingly entitled we've been. Everything is coming to roost. 500 years of slavery is coming to roost.
The people on the margins don't want to be segregated anymore, don't wanna be marginalized anymore. Fossil fuels depleted to their te, you know, the, the temperature increase.
All of the, all of the symptoms are alerting us to the fact that we have to take deeper, intentional moral responsibility for what we've done.
And so in the Bardo, we get two choices: more denial and fear and reaction, or we see the telltale signs for what they are. And we atone. We make amends, we vow to do better. We vow to align with deeper intentionality and motivation that's more altruistic, more sensitive, more ethical. And then we can reconfigure our societies.
And this is the choice point right now for us. And I get so excited about this because I know every generation feels this, that their generation has this monumental moment. I get that.
But we are right on the cusp. [00:15:00] Post pandemic. Post, the whole edifice of the world that was designed outta World War II. With all the big conglomerates designed to sort of keep peace and demarcate landmines and landmarks and space. All of it is about to just be utterly reconfigured.
And we have the introduction of nuclear weapons and the introduction of AI technology. There's no way that we can ever compare relative to this moment what we have survived as a species on the planet before.
This moment is so pivotal. So unbelievably pivotal, and what it says to me, this is the collective pilgrimage. Okay? We're on a collective journey and all the same rules apply. We have a moment in time where we can make recognition and amends for all of our dysfunction and all of our malice and all of our self-centeredness, and we can aspire to be more ethical.
And then the nukes and the AI and whatever, huge leaps in quantum leaps in technology and science that are about to be [00:16:00] just, emerge all the emergent technologies, they will be shepherded by better intentionality and by better purpose and mission.
We're in control. These things don't control us yet.
And so this is a monumental opportunity for deeper alignment in truth and in purpose, and meaning, in value, in ethics... So I think each and every person that's listening to this right now, if you ever take anything away from the book Return With Elixir, is that we're all on a collective journey.
We are confronting the dark night of the shadow right now in civilization. And your little experience, your tiny little pinprick of the microcosm matters. It really matters. You're not insignificant, you're not inconsequential at all. That's very Aquarian. The idea in Aquarian is that there's no one Elon Musk at the top of the pyramid that rules the whole show.
No, the pyramid gets inverted, or it becomes more of like a mandala where all the little guys contribute to the [00:17:00] gestalt. And so your ethics matter, your moral input matters. Your reluctance to indulge in violence or hypocrisy matters. Your truthfulness matters.
Adrian Baker: So let's talk about that. It's going back to what we were discussing a few minutes ago about the pilgrimage is so powerful. The Ayahuasca journey is so powerful, but it ends, right? And this is what I try to emphasize to people, and this is the whole premise of kind of what I do with the coaching on Sahaja Soma.
It's to get people onto a path, and you have to find the path that works for you. I mean, for me it's Vajrayana, Shaiva Shakta Tantra, but people need a sense of path and I think that's what people are missing a lot of times.
They're going from this to that. And one thing I notice a lot is people, it's this whole culture of DIY and optimization. and they're like, oh actually it's okay. I am just teaching myself. I'm doing it on YouTube. I'm winging it. It's no, that's part of the problem.
One: 'cause you don't know [00:18:00] and you don't know, it's not just about clicking the right video, you want someone who's at least, if not extremely advanced, ideally maybe you've got that exceptional teacher, but someone who's a bit further ahead and they can show you the proper sequence that these practices, can use or you can start to assemble these things, together.
But it's really important and critically we awaken collectively to your point.
'Cause other people are a mirror to us in our shadow, and we don't, I've tried doing that. I tried doing the DIY thing, so I know it. It doesn't, It doesn't work.
There's some value in it, but then you've gotta connect to a community. So I'd love for you to share a little bit about after the pilgrimage, when people come to you with that question of, okay, how do I integrate it in terms of a sense of path,
Dr. Miles Neale: Yeah.
Adrian Baker: what do you share with them?
Dr. Miles Neale: Yeah. I think I understand the need for people to feel ultra in control and wanna build it [00:19:00] themselves. And rightfully, they have a lot of suspicion about organized religion, which I sympathize deeply with.
Adrian Baker: Definitely
And so,
Dr. Miles Neale: I understand, and I also think the zeitgeist is changing. I wanna first talk about the shadow problem with the do it yourself 'cause I think I agree with you.
The Burning Man ethos has a wonderful spirit to it. It's entrepreneurial, it's new, it's fresh. But you could see all the archetypal longings of a human, the universal archetypal longings of a human being. There's ethos of community, and then they have the effigy, and they have ritual, and they have a cosmology, and they have this shared barter exchange.
It's like there's some really beautiful elements there. But what it doesn't have is it doesn't have legs, it doesn't have longevity, it doesn't have history. It only goes so far because it's basically a contrived fabrication of the last 30 years or 40 years, whatever.
And so I don't wanna disparage burning man. I understand the impulse of the human being to want to express all of these [00:20:00] universal needs. So there's something really that we have to honor there.
But when you kind of shirk tradition and kind of do it yourself, you run the risk over time that it doesn't have longevity, it doesn't have depth, it doesn't have sophistication, it doesn't have a coherent cosmology, it doesn't have a coherent philosophy, it doesn't have a coherent psychology, it doesn't have a coherent ritual base.
That onion is usually what happens in Peru with the shamanic traditions in Tibetan Buddhism that are still extant on this tradition. The few pockets of places where these traditions are alive. If you look at them and you analyze them and you're willing to also raise your hand and say they have inherent problems, have bigotry and they have confusion and they have sexism and misogyny...
let's be honest about all of that. But what they do offer is the whole package that has been time tested and refined over an enormous two millennium.
It's very key. It's very key because as [00:21:00] you go on your psychonaut journey. You will cross certain thresholds that a tradition of 30 years that's made up by consensus agreement for some pleasure instinct, it won't support you. Your deeper psychological needs as a human being on that journey.
And so I think it's fine. I think it opens the doors for a lot of people. I think one pilgrimage isn't going to enlighten you. I think that will open doors for people. I think one psychedelic experience can open doors for people.
It's not the be end all. I think these people that come home from one ayahuasca experience and says that they say they wanna be a shaman for other people incredibly dangerous.
It is such a stereotype, but it's a very real thing. My friend who facilitates and I, we joke about it, we're like, oh, yeah, did it take five or 10, like his, his fifth ceremony the medicine told him to be a shaman, right? As opposed to your ego.
And to add on to what you're saying, the problem is, and it's part of about awakening together.
Adrian Baker: There were [00:22:00] structures, there are problems with those structures, you know, as you've noted, patriarchal, et cetera. But also what those structures do is they keep your ego in check.
And these, a lot of them, they're coming from cultures where in Asia where humility. Is a really big value. One thing that I see with Westerners a lot, and I'm not excluding myself from this, I had to learn it a lot more and more over time being in Asia...
we're too quick to think we know how to do something and we're conditioned to project confidence and all that. But especially when it comes to awakening, it's very different.
And not just Burning Man, but I think of somewhere like Koh Phangan Thailand or Ubud Bali. it's filled with a lot of very beautiful people who are there to heal and smart and interesting people.
It's also filled with a lot of people who are I got my Sound Bowl certification and I'm a shaman here and I'm, I got a little bit of this and a little bit of that, and I did the 200 hour and now I'm a life coach.
Dr. Miles Neale: [00:23:00] Yeah,
Adrian Baker: It's wonderful if that's been healing for you but to be putting yourself in that position of authority, explicitly where if you're advertising yourself as a spiritual teacher, there's just so much shadow that comes up.
We're not ready for that yet. And we need to be in community with people in time honored traditions who've really like your teacher or some of these teachers from Bhutan, they've been learning it long, long periods of time.
You don't want your surgeon operating on you who just learned it last week. There was a lot of training that went into
Dr: Yeah,
Dr. Miles Neale: No, y ou're describing one of the shadows of our culture right now as the pinnacle of narcissism. We have so much spiritual narcissism. We don't have the humility. We think we can do it all, and we think we can do it all quickly.
And I think psychedelics, this is one of the, as I see it in my limited exposure, this gets reinforced, is that because there's such a big breakthrough, there's such an upside in such a short amount of time that you might get the [00:24:00] helicopter view from the mountaintop, but you didn't earn it.
And Jung was very clear about this. He has, one of this greatest quotes I've ever heard from Jung is that he said, be careful of wisdom unearned.
And so if you take the quick path to the summit and you have the dzogchen view where you see oneness, or you see openness, or you see emptiness or whatever it is that's revealed by the mother of Ayahuasca, but you didn't do the hard graft of all the long time preparation of humility, the Ngöndro of all humility it took to get there, and the post pilgrimage integration, which can also take years of, okay, again, building on the foundation of humility.
I saw some things, but I also need to use that breakthrough to keep checking myself and keep digging further and keep going deeper into my shadow and recognizing this is not a one-time thing this is a multi life accumulation of blindness and greed and malice and self-centeredness in there, and trauma and all the rest of it. That it isn't just obliterate in one quick moment.
I think that our [00:25:00] culture, will graft to psychedelics as some... 'cause we also have this appetite for the spectacular, especially in America. We look for the Holy Grail. Psychedelics is now the new Holy Grail. In my generation, it was mindfulness. I'm the that coined the term Mc Mindfulness for exactly this reason, because I saw people hungry for an answer making mindfulness into this big, golden idol in which it's gonna solve every problem.
And of course, mindfulness without ethics and without wisdom was never taught by the Buddha just like that. As a golden pill to solve all your problems by just counting your breath for a few minutes on a cushion. No. It's the full package again,
Adrian Baker: it's not just meditation as a technique. It's the entire set of teachings and path in the community that transforms you.
And that's something that I realized when I did the mindfulness training, being in Dharma first, I was like this is what's wrong with secular mindfulness.
Dr. Miles Neale: Yeah. And so you're saying the same thing. Our culture has this appetite for the spectacular. We're a little [00:26:00] colonial in our thinking. We think we can just extract the tool and bring it home and mix and match the Kool-Aid as we like. There's a lot of hubris about it. I've been around it to know that I'm capable of it too, and I've had to work with a lot of other people about it.
I think ultimately to answer your question about what is it that you do when you come home. You recognize you can't stay in that high place, number one. You can't practice the way that you practice when you are on pilgrimage. where every circumstance, the food, the other people, the cushions, the places the infrastructure, the itinerary is all designed for this maximal blast of your mind.
When you come home, you can't keep it up in that way. But what are the resources that will help you maintain not just meditation, I'm not ever focused on just the meditation, the whole thing that you're talking about, the community, the infrastructure, the value system, the ethical foundation the philosophy.
You have to find communities that have this rich tradition. So go shopping, go on another pilgrimage to [00:27:00] find someplace that you feel comfortable plugging into and then have a little humility that maybe it's not gonna just work in six months.
Adrian Baker: Yeah.
Dr. Miles Neale: Maybe these things really require.
Adrian Baker: Patience.
Dr. Miles Neale: longevity, like I'm not going to expect to get enlightened in this lifetime.
I know that's my vow from a tantric point of view, but there's also a part of me that's reasonable and says, given the fact that I've done this for 30 years, and I'm still every day confronted by my blind spots and my irritations with my kids, and my impoliteness with my students, and my insensitivity with my wife, and my yearning and my desires and all the rest of it, my God.
I mean, have I made progress? Yes. Am I enlightened by no fucking... not,
Adrian Baker: Not close.
Dr. Miles Neale: not even close. And then in, if I'm really honest with you I have a feeling that this is why the Buddha taught multi life.
Adrian Baker: Yeah.
Dr. Miles Neale: And then think about the humility of accepting that you're gonna do a practice in which you're not gonna see the final result [00:28:00] in one lifetime.
Adrian Baker: And I would say to people who maybe they're just still in a very rational, more scientific materials mindset. That's okay. Try that on just as a thought experiment and see how that feels. 'cause it actually, even if you don't believe it, literally it can orient you; it can invite you into a different way of being.
Orienting to a different way of reality. Just as soon as you say that, I feel relaxation and it's more of an invitation to just be present.
Present, patient, relaxed. Patience is the essence of Dharma, my teacher told me, and I absolutely say mantra.
Dr. Miles Neale: And it's absolute opposite of the world that we live in, right? We have no patience.
If your internet speed isn't like, bam, you're irritated. If there's one person in front of you in the line to the bank, you're irritated. If you, your email doesn't go out and it bounces, bam.
Adrian Baker: Cut me off in traffic,
Dr. Miles Neale: We cannot tolerate even an iota of time and think about these traditions are asking you to think about lifelong, if not [00:29:00] multi-life-long. So I love your invitation of just trying that on for size. I would say the same, not only for your own personal spiritual practice, but now that we've entered this threshold where we're rebuilding civilization, I ask people to think about, are you willing to build the strong ethical foundation in your life that sets up future generations?
So you may never see the development of this civilization. But you would be responsible for the early building blocks of an ethical foundation for the future that maybe your grand grandkids or great grandkids would inherit. Are you willing to do that? And in feudal times, in the medieval times when they built cathedrals, this was the mindset that they had.
They knew that they would be placing blocks in a cathedral that some of those masons and builders would not see in totality. In other words, they committed to a long-term multi life process and they derived tremendous meaning and purpose knowing that they were doing something transcendent for God and for community. For something more than themselves.
But they knew they weren't gonna [00:30:00] get the actual benefit of seeing it or being involved in it. And that's a huge question for us. Now, are we willing to do that? Are we willing to be part of the first generation post pandemic as we enter into the cusp of the Aquarian Age and the what's called the Dwapara Yuga according to the Yuga Cycle?
We are in multiple transitions right now, especially 2025 right now, this year. Three simultaneous transitions on these great cosmological epochal cycles. Absolute game changers, not just for this generation, but sending us off into a catapult for future generations.
And the question of all of us will be asked, are you willing to be ethical and moral and decent and kind and restrain your impulses to develop a future civilization that's much more harmonious than the ones we've ever seen in the past?
And you won't be there to see it, but you will bequeath it to your grandkids. And if you believe in multi life theory, you will eventually inherit it back. That's a question that those are our bound by that narcissistic impulse and immediate [00:31:00] gratification are going to have a very hard problem with.
But that in those impulses are precisely why we're in the shit right now. And so who's gonna be the first one to say, I'm willing to try to experiment with these impulses. I'm willing to try to experiment with letting go of what's best for me right now?
Adrian Baker: I think we're, that's where the adventure and the pilgrimage parts comes in, because I have to say, I struggle with all those things. I struggle with impulse control, I struggle with self-centeredness, all that.
But I think it's finding something that you love, and really speaks to your heart.
And so for me, connecting to that sense of... viewing it as an adventure. The opportunity to try to change those parts of yourself, but also looking for those things that make your heart come alive.
So it's challenging, right? It's like, I mean, exercise, like a lot of people don't want to go to the gym 'cause they hate it. I love going to the gym and it's not hard at points, but I didn't used to like it. But then once you get into it, you don't even view it that way anymore as deferring gratification.
And it's a similar [00:32:00] thing here. So there are difficult things on that pilgrimage, but that big hike, once, you know how it feels once you get to the top and you overlook the valley, you know, from below, or you're looking up at the mountain and you just learn to savor that or whatever it is.
So find the things that you love as well, and don't just view it as a chore or work or things like that. But yeah...
Dr. Miles Neale: I like that. Find the thing that you love and know that the chore within it, or the difficulty within it is really, really meaningful.
Adrian Baker: It is part of the journey.
And just learn to work with that part of you that wants to shift back and forth, to optimize out that unpleasant part and, just focus on what's nice and frictionless and all of that.
Dr. Miles Neale: Yeah.
Adrian Baker: I'd love to ask you this a as we close on a personal note. I know that after being in the US for so long, you moved to Bali during the pandemic, I believe, in the earlier stages.
And I'm curious for you what that process has been like in [00:33:00] terms of your own inner alchemy. 'cause for me, I feel like that was one of the most psychedelic paradigm changing experiences I did and I know hopefully we've got a lot of people in the audience who aren't just from the US or they're also location independent and they've maybe gotten a taste of it or they're curious to try that.
So I'd love to hear about the alchemical journey for you of living in Bali.
Dr. Miles Neale: Part of my departure was, and this is all in the book, you know, part of the book is philosophical, but it's also a personal narrative too, a personal journey.
So part of going to Bali was on the heels of a terrible ordeal, which included a betrayal that I experienced with one of my primary teachers, a relationship I had for 20 years.
So part of it is that I had built up a whole identity as therapist, and I had a nice job and a fancy title, and worked with big organizations and had a comfortable lifestyle and lived in Manhattan, and started to [00:34:00] feel like the walls were closing in, and that something deeper inside of me wasn't being fed.
And then I had this nasty, heartbreaking, once in a lifetime kind of betrayal that destroyed me, and I felt dead inside, talk about a disruption, it completely disrupted my whole idea of what trust could be. And it took a multi-year journey or process to heal it. But my departure was on the heels of that.
I decided I have two kids. My world has been destroyed. It wasn't that satisfying ultimately anyway, and the world is now open, and so I can go on a pilgrimage. I can try to resource myself and find a location where I could build anew.
And I was following the stars at the time, and I knew cosmologically this is the question that all of us are being faced with, and now you don't have to move to Bali, but the archetype of the signature of the cosmology of the time that we're living in right now is death and rebirth.
It's about civilizational death, and it means are you going to stay holding on to the [00:35:00] old world and counting your breaths and treading water, or are you going to let go, fully die and migrate into the unknown for a chance at a new life that re resembles or aligns with your deepest dreams and your deepest aspirations?
And so that's a risk. That's a risk calculation. And if I could be even more precise to your listeners, the real risk calculation of this archetypal moment is will you risk security for freedom?
The old world was built on brick and mortar pensions, 4 0 1 Ks, paychecks and health insurance. There was a time where our parents used to stay with the same corporation and get a Rolex watch at the end of 40 years of service. And they stayed in one house and you were raised at, you went to high school and 18 years and you move shortly thereafter. You went to college nearby and you had three kids lived in a white picket fence.
That world is gone. Now the new world is coming. And for me, that meant grab my kids, one suitcase, sell my house, every [00:36:00] possession and embark on a journey. I did a little, little sampling of some key places that I thought might be places that represented where rebooting of civilization might happen.
One of them was Costa Rica, one of them was Greece, one of them was Mexico and one of them was Bali.
Bali I ended up finding a teacher there who ended up becoming more than a teacher, became an ally and a friend. A local wisdom keeper of the alchemical traditions of Bali. And the time I spent with him opened portals, and I knew there, and then that this would be where I would go.
Now, one thing about magical and inspiring stories like that is that that's only a half truth. Bali was also an extreme disaster for me too. Okay? I left at the pinnacle of my career where clients were coming in, projects were robust, pipeline of income was there. I had kids to take care of. I had a nice family, a nice house.
When I hit Bali, my income stream dramatically decreased to half, and that was shocking to my system. The phone calls, no projects, no clients, nobody knew me. [00:37:00] 20 years of building up my identity and my infrastructure and my brand and all of that gone, I was literally dead. I was no one.
So the, all the aftershocks on my ego and what I expected and what I thought I earned at near 50, this is like you don't get many chances in life to build a career. It was destroyed in a couple of years, never to be rebuilt.
So I traded the security, but what did I get? I got a lot of revelation in the quiet time. A lot of shadow came up. I would say it was like a three-year psychedelic experience where all my garbage was coming up. It was very painful and very, very disorienting and very difficult.
And so everybody thinks, oh, you moved to Bali and rice fields and following the wisdom keepers into ceremony. No. Bali is a volcanic place that activates your karma tenfold. It's a 10x place. It's a place of extremes.
And so my wife and I, who's also a psychologist for a couple of years there, were really sorting through a lot of very painful shadow about identity, and who we had arrived at, and [00:38:00] where we were, and what did we regret, and how much did we lose, and where were we going and not knowing.
But it taught us both so much. We reoriented our entire value system. The centrifugal force of our identity for a nation was absolutely disrupted and in its place we could redesign a life.
So what did I get in return? I live in a modest house. I am tenfold more involved in my children's life at a time where they're young enough there I actually could be involved.
And there's really wonderful people in Bali that are also got a lot of humility and they're interested in the new world .And they're interested in building projects. And they're interested in collaboration and they're not so interested in chasing their tails and building empire and building reputation and building name and working God, God forsaken 16, 17 hours of their life, to the, for the paycheck and the reputation.
People in Bali are mostly cooling the jets. They value wellness. We go to the gym for two hours a day in Bali. We have lunches together, we commune and [00:39:00] collaborate. We talk. everything is slowed down. So these are the benefits. Okay?
But I want, I don't wanna pretend that it was just like, jump to Bali and everything was great. Symbolically, Bali is also one of those last bastions of ancient wisdom, but it's also going through its own dark night of the soul where all of its inner resources are being depleted and overdevelopment and pollution and corruption.
So we can't escape. You can't escape. You don't have to jump to Bali. The idea is, are you willing to surrender your security, your comfort, and your identity to enter into the unknown? For a chance to be rebooted. Salve et Coagula. Civilizationally and personally.
Adrian Baker: I love that. That's a great place on which to end. You brought it all together back with the alchemy.
So there's so much more we could talk about. I'll have to have you back on. So this was a lot of fun.
Dr. Miles Neale: we'll have to have a, smoothie bowl in Bali sometime.
Adrian Baker: Sounds great. That sounds very [00:40:00] Ubud-esque. Miles, thank you so much for your time. Will you tell people about any upcoming offerings that you have and where they can find you as well?
Dr. Miles Neale: So they can go to Gradualpath.com. The Gradual Path is where my educational resources and pilgrimages are all kept. Or you can find it milesneal.com. I do therapy online. I do these pilgrimages. My next pilgrimage is to Bhutan. That's in October with Geshe Tenzin Zopa and also maybe Java.
So I might do Java in October too. And that one's really beautiful because it's all about cultivating altruism as an altruistic leader right there in Java, amidst the sacred sites where kings used to see themselves as deity responsible for all their vassals and all their their countrymen. So this is an opportunity to transform leadership, what we call leadership with greater integrity and moral integrity and compassion.
Next year I go to a number of locations. People can find all the pilgrimages on my site. I think I have Sun Valley Nepal. I have [00:41:00] Japan. I have Turkey. And maybe Java again too. So anyway, there's where you can find me.
Thank you so much, first of all, for you Adrian, for your invitation and for this great conversation, which I can tell between the two of us, we could go and go. And I'm sorry I didn't give you nearly enough time to share all of your insights and brilliance and experiences. So I hope you'll afford me the opportunity to learn much more from you in our next conversation.
Adrian Baker: Oh, sounds great. Like I said, I had you on, so happy to, to listen to you more. Thank you so much Miles. Appreciate it. Okay.
Adrian: Thank you for listening to this podcast. If you enjoyed it or found it helpful, please consider subscribing to Sahaja Soma on YouTube, rating the Redesigning the Dharma podcast on Apple or Spotify, or sharing this episode with someone who might benefit from it. Any and every little bit helps.
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None of this represents medical advice or advocacy and should be construed as a recommendation to use psychedelics.
There are serious legal, psychological, and physical risks. Psychedelics are not for everyone. They can exacerbate certain emotional problems, and there have been, in very rare cases, fatalities.
Thank you very much for listening, and I hope to see you on the next episode, or elsewhere on the SahajaSoma platform.