Chandler James is an entrepreneur, Zen practitioner, and author of Quarter Life Crisis: Leaving Corporate America for a Zen Monastery. After facing depression and substance abuse while stuck in a monotonous corporate job, Chandler left everything behind to join a Buddhist monastery and rethink his conceptualization of life and existence. He is the owner of Cora Cacao, a company that distributes ceremonial grade cacao.
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Reading Recommendations
Chapters
00:00 Start
7:20 The Awakening Process
14:29 The Quest for Freedom
22:41 The Journey Beyond Religion
32:13 The Art of Delegation
39:54 Exploring Astral Realms
57:14 The Subtle Energies of Existence
1:04:57 Communicating Beyond Words
1:12:32 Exploring Buddhism
1:21:27 Teacher and Student Dynamics
1:29:22 Loving Kindness and Compassion
1:43:22 Entrepreneurial Journey Begins
1:48:49 Cacao Business and Vision
2:02:02 Divine Intervention Stories
Transcript
Tyler:
[0:00] The nature of angelic wisdom can scarcely be comprehended because it so greatly transcends human wisdom that the two cannot be compared, and whatever is thus transcendent does not seem to be anything.
Tyler:
[0:13] Moreover, some truths that must enter into a description of it are as yet unknown, and until these become known, they exist in the mind as shadows and thus hide the thing as it is in itself. Nevertheless, these truths can be known, and when known, be comprehended, provided the mind takes any interest in them. For interest carries light with it because it is from love, and upon those who love the things pertaining to divine and heavenly wisdom, light shines forth from heaven and gives enlightenment.
Tyler:
[0:54] From Heaven and Hell, by Emanuel Swedenborg.
Music:
[1:00] Music
Chandler:
[1:22] Yeah because i'm 26 right now and i left when i was 24 and like turned 25 in the monastery so I was there for about a year and it was kind of a long time coming. I was studying, I was just in college, just kind of like a normal human being at this point. And then I got severely depressed when I was in college. And that was just made worse by drinking and partying and kind of shallow social relationships. And then I spent all this time, all this money investing in a degree in psychology. And really, I wanted to know how can I help myself get out of this depression? That was why I studied psychology. And of course, no help at all. No help. Of course, it'll give me a good understanding of the parts of the brain, neurotransmitters, and how roughly the actual physical organ of the brain constructs reality in my personality. But it didn't help address the actual suffering. And so I enter the corporate world. I don't decide immediately to pursue something entrepreneurial as soon as I get out of college. And I'm like, I'm going to take the safe route. So I enter into this kind of consulting role. And I do that for two years.
Tyler:
[2:41] What were you doing in the corporate world?
Chandler:
[2:42] What was your job? I started working through UCLA networks with this one alumni who happened to be the president of a humongous, like billion dollar corporation and, um, And so he, he basically helped me get my foot in the door and it was a two year long rotational program. So I went through every department of the company in like an architecture, in the architecture industry. And, um, and I, yeah, I like got to do an apprenticeship and rotate through and work on every project that was like in the marketing department, in the sales department, in logistics. So I was like literally working in the warehouse for three months, let's say. And then I was also like taking sales calls, also doing like marketing stuff on their website. So it's kind of like a, like a Swiss army knife, like a jack of all trades. And then I would do some consulting for the executive team based on what I found.
Tyler:
[3:41] So I think so many people have like that similar kind of experience. I did a similar kind of thing. I went to go work for like this very large company and did like moved around departments and got like a full okay now i know how this whole business works kind of yeah yeah was like peace out like i can't this does that make me happy and
Chandler:
[4:04] How long were you there for oh two years before you found out.
Tyler:
[4:08] I worked for the company for probably more like two and a half years but like i physically moved to denmark to go work for a video game company when i was 27 seven something like that so
Chandler:
[4:23] That's you were you went to denmark immediately after the two and a half years or so was up.
Tyler:
[4:28] No no no i moved to denmark to work for the for a video game company called 3d realms so oh god i had been you don't know like i haven't even started on this and it's not about me i'm just the experience of like pick you know going and doing the corporate thing and then touring around the whole country like company and like okay i see how this all works and then just getting like uh this doesn't this isn't what i want to do like it's a good learning process but like that doesn't i don't know how people like look at the corporate world and think this is going to make me happy because it yeah yeah well
Chandler:
[5:08] Let me throw out there that like for some people, that lifestyle is a full-body yes. But I'm glad that you were put into a situation where then you had to discern, like, if it's not this, then what is it, right? It gets you one step closer to the yes, the full-body yes, you know? And put you on the path that you're on now i'm sure.
Tyler:
[5:33] Oh for sure yeah i'm glad i did everything that i've done i wouldn't i wouldn't go back and change a thing i'm just yeah the the experience of like especially if you're i don't know a lot of people are in jobs that they fucking hate and then they think you know you see the mountain you know at the edge of the field and you you get all the way there and you climb all the way up mountain doom and then you're standing on top of the mountain and you look around and you're like why am I here I thought this was the answer to all my problems and it's like it's not like money doesn't fix anything like just having lots of money just enables you to be more of a piece of shit if you're already a piece of shit I found right out you're like wow now I now I don't even have to worry about how much money I spend on alcohol and drugs because I have alcohol and drugs money every day so as long as you know that kind of thing but um yeah so you did that for a while did make it yeah yeah
Chandler:
[6:30] There were there were parts of it that were like for sure enriching like I learned a lot about about business people about myself but yeah ultimately like I I felt dread every day when I woke up and I could feel myself like falling away from the things that I cared about so I did that for two years um and like what what was really the icing on the cake is i worked in kind of like their office was in an industrial district so it's like multiple times a week just next door they were slaughtering like pigs for bacon so it's like the it's the most foul scent ever that gets thrown into the air and goes into everyone else's lungs and so it was like like i would see the pigs in trucks on the way to work.
Chandler:
[7:17] I would drive by their plant. I'm like, dude, I can smell it. They're killing all these pigs for meat in there. And so that was wild. Anytime I wanted to go on a walk outside of the office that I would be walking through this sludge.
Chandler:
[7:31] So I did that for as long as I could. And then I stopped sleeping. That's another really big thing that forced me over the edge into going and doing some big thing. They offered me a pretty substantial raise to stay on. And instead of being the rotational thing, like stick into one position. And I couldn't justify it any way that I looked at it because like I said, I was falling away from all the things I cared about. And I was only able to stay asleep for two or three hours at a time and could never dip into deep rests. I had like a lot of inner kind of changes happening in my inner world. And so then I was like, fuck, I'm not going to just be able to go hang out in the woods for a couple of days. Like this is getting really bad. It's been a year since I've had like an eight hour sleep. So yeah, like I said, what I've been doing is just going to get Airbnbs in the
Chandler:
[8:25] woods. Like I went to Sequoia. I went like deep up in Northern California, like in the middle of nowhere and um and i would go for a weekend or a week but i needed something deeper like a deeper nervous system reset so that led me to going to a zen monastery because their program it's like yeah come stay for a month it's only 800 bucks your room and board is taken care of right like stay for as long as you want and so really like it was perfect so.
Tyler:
[8:53] Where did you grow up
Chandler:
[8:56] I grew up in Southern California, like a suburb of LA, Riverside. I don't know. Are you in California?
Tyler:
[9:03] No, I'm in South Carolina now, but I lived in Monterey for a year when I was like 20, 21 timeframe. And I was in California. I mean, it's a, it was a crazy, it's a great time to be in California when you're like 21,
Chandler:
[9:18] You know. Yeah. Yeah.
Tyler:
[9:20] I was still in the military. so it was i was sent there to go to language school because like the presidio of monterey is like the best language school on earth and they send you to monterey they could have that school anywhere but they send you there because it's like the worst schooling you'll ever receive so they want you to be in like a beautiful place so that you like have extracurricular activity so i would like i'd be every day as soon as i'm out of class i'd be hiking you know like in the mountains or down and like and you're going to the ocean what anything other than thinking about at school so it
Chandler:
[9:51] Was pretty yeah.
Tyler:
[9:52] But yeah i'm familiar with california it's yeah yeah
Chandler:
[9:55] Monterey is beautiful dude it's beautiful.
Tyler:
[9:59] Carmel by the sea is really really beautiful oh
Chandler:
[10:02] My god yeah no joke.
Tyler:
[10:04] Yeah um big sur all that yeah just like lots and lots of long weekends going up to yosemite going out like what anything other than sitting on a military base when i didn't have to be there
Chandler:
[10:17] Dude yeah i know it's a it's a grind you were living on base.
Tyler:
[10:20] No i so i i lived off base on like a in like a small apartment because they they give you quite a lot by everyone but california standards they give you a lot of money for rent so i was able to like get a one-bedroom apartment off base it wasn't that far though so i could quickly get you know to school if i needed to or drill or whatever we were going to do but yeah most of the time i just tried to keep those two things separate. And ideally, that's how you get through it. I didn't even make it through the school. I failed out after like eight months, I think.
Chandler:
[10:53] Damn.
Tyler:
[10:54] It's intense, but like I said, there's a reason they keep it in a beautiful Monterey.
Chandler:
[11:00] Yeah, yeah. And you can kind of get away every weekend and be out by the sea or in the mountains and just rejuvenate. For me, I lived in LA for six years and I was locking myself into the city thinking, oh yeah, that's enough. But then when I started moving around and going to different places in California, I was like, oh, the city's not for human beings. It's not for people. I haven't been touched a tree or touched the earth in months. Yes you know that's.
Tyler:
[11:31] 100 how i feel about it i grew up like in the country so
Chandler:
[11:34] Yeah yeah i.
Tyler:
[11:36] Don't feel comfortable like really in cities like i go to them my business to tend to go you know go to shows whatever go to restaurants but like it doesn't feel natural to me but then i know like i have friends that grew up in say new yorker or los angeles or seattle or whatever and they can't imagine not being in a city so that's why i asked where did you grow up because like i feel like it makes a difference like whatever your natural environment is i think plays a role
Chandler:
[12:02] A lot yeah yeah and that's a good point that like even so i i grew up in like the suburbs right like where my family didn't really we didn't go outside very much we didn't hike we didn't go to any nature and then when i was forced into the city for six years and i just like got so fed up with it i moved all the way across the nation to like upstate new york where nothing is going on there's just mountains and my four seasons and dude i love that style of living like the small town in the middle of nowhere oh dude it was it was so rejuvenating.
Tyler:
[12:42] And so you'd never had winter prior to moving oh dude
Chandler:
[12:46] I'd only been in snow like a handful of times everything.
Tyler:
[12:49] Yeah which
Chandler:
[12:51] Is kind of crazy.
Tyler:
[12:51] It's really crazy like how do you like i know you had your corporate gig and all that shit but like how do you afford to just get up and move like that like go to new york for whatever yeah
Chandler:
[13:02] Dude i so like i did i had some savings and tactically i had enough to where I knew I could survive for a while. And, you know, where I was, and I should also say, because I'm young, I had no responsibilities, none at all. I didn't have a family. I was just like renting an apartment, right? So I could kind of like rely on my family to hold on to all my stuff while I just went wandering. Cause I was like, I don't know. I didn't tell anyone this, but in my heart, I knew I could be gone for years. I could go to the other side of the world. like I didn't know exactly what this was going to look like and um I just I told people yeah I'm going to like a mountain retreat for the summer but I was like a full-blown monk doing monastic discernment for a year and so I had yeah I had some savings and basically when you commit to doing a long period of time in according to their rules they'll just like they'll they'll sponsor your ability to be there but you become set so you're kind of like hosting retreats you're doing more more work than just a visitor you have more responsibilities um so that allowed me to live there for almost free i just had to pay like my own insurance and then take care of myself like during the times that were not on the monastic schedule so i i could make it work and then i made it work like i moved back to california that's where i
Chandler:
[14:22] am now um after i was done there and that's a whole other rabbit hole you're.
Tyler:
[14:29] A lot smarter than i was at that same age because like i I needed... I needed someone to tell me where to go, what time to be there, you know, like, don't, because if you show up, like, I would just show up, like, hung over to everything if I didn't have someone to hold me accountable. And I found that out after I got out of the military. I was like, oh, I'm free to do whatever I want now. And I was so not used to not having the, it's like bowling without the guardrails for the first time kind of thing. And i went crazy um and i was in europe and i had done you know just everything that i could to just distance myself away from life like whatever i thought that was i'd like like i i joined the military to get away from home and then i went all across the fucking country and then i ended up across the world all that yeah um just just kind of i don't know trying to escape something and i didn't know what the thing i was trying to escape was if that makes sense do you
Chandler:
[15:23] Have more clarity as you've gotten older on what that thing was.
Tyler:
[15:26] 100 yeah i think i think everybody ideally i mean not to get all astrological but you know the the return of saturn kind of thing like sometime around 28 you you wake up i think you have like a perspective shift where it's like i don't know if that's just time or if it's really like a mystical thing or whatever but yeah i i think I think I just got to a point where it's like, okay, this isn't working. Like what I'm doing is not solving my problem. So I need to change the input. And some people don't make the decision to change the input, you know, and that's the way you get, you know, the person who's like 45, had the same job their entire life, never took a risk, never changed anything. In my opinion. In my view of things.
Chandler:
[16:13] Yeah, yeah. And you get people who are stuck chasing that high, like the next thing constantly, and they haven't found a stable place within themselves to just be. They're not at home in their own heart. And that's deep down what we're all, my perspective, and I think the perspective of a lot of the kind of great mystical traditions, I think that they know that what we're after is the revolution of the heart. We're after that inner transformation that allows us to be okay within ourselves. And that is going to inevitably include letting go of the things in our mind that cause us suffering. For me, i had to get sober i wanted to escape all the time and i like in college i was getting blacked out like four times a week oh yeah at a certain point and like so i i had to i had to and i was really struggling around especially around the time that i left for to go to a monastery like it was dude it was it was rough like especially not sleeping that makes all of your other cognitive abilities like completely go out the window i.
Tyler:
[17:27] I ended up in the hospital from basically like I was so alcohol dependent that I could not sleep at all. Like I'd have to wake up like every 30 minutes to just like taper. And it was really, really rough on me. So I went to go check myself in because like trying to taper yourself off of alcohol, if you're a heavy drinker is great. I'd way underestimated the effect that it would have on you. So I was like hallucinating, like hearing things like I heard the same song for four straight days that was not there. And I was like, this is not good.
Chandler:
[18:00] Yeah.
Tyler:
[18:01] So it's rough and anybody out there going through that like yeah go like actually get help to do that don't don't try to do it by yourself
Chandler:
[18:08] For sure and how long did it take you to feel like you kind of um got stable and recovered and you know my my experience is that it was a long process that's taken you know like over it's been like two years since i'm i have touched anything and like i'm still peeling back the layers
Chandler:
[18:27] you know so what was that like for you well.
Tyler:
[18:30] I i'll answer that by asking you another leading question that it's been helpful were you a spiritual or religious person prior to joining the monastery
Chandler:
[18:42] Um, yes and no. Okay. And so when I was young, I like, I was raised in an evangelical mega church with like the boy band in black. And, and I went to the kids place and my mom was in like the main room and, and the kids place, just like the kids all playing with each other. And I was super stoked on Jesus. And I got baptized and I was like on fire. I wore all these shirts saying Jesus is our Lord to school. And I was like nine, 10 years old. And, um, and then when my mom, like my mom left when I was 12 because of problems with alcohol and drugs.
Chandler:
[19:19] And when that happened, I kind of like, I just, I think I went back into my shell. And then also I, I went and lived with my dad and my dad like saw how my mom used religion to justify all these like kind of just ridiculous behaviors. He's like, yo, I don't fuck with any of that. So he didn't make my brothers and I go to church. So I kind of just like gradually unwound from the whole Christian narrative. And then at one point question like, well, you know, according to what I was taught, why would God, the Christian God, allow people to be born into like Muslim families or Hindu families and not know Jesus and then burn in eternity for hell? Like that just started to not make sense as I got a little older. And then I went full-blown atheist, deep into a hole of nihilism and philosophy when I was 18, 19. And then when COVID hit, I was like, well, I'm going to be alone a lot. I got to be good at sitting with myself. So then I started to just take edibles and meditate. And then I stopped taking edibles and just meditating. And then I started looking into Buddhist philosophy and honestly didn't know that much about Buddhism until I went to a Zen monastery. And luckily by some like miracle, I ended up there. So I had to just...
Tyler:
[20:32] Things that pointed you towards Buddhism. Like why? Why didn't you go to a Christian? Any other kind of thing? Like you could have picked a million different routes and you chose to go to a Buddhist monastery. Was it just like random chance? Did you see some signs, talk to some people, read a book, anything? Like what was it?
Chandler:
[20:51] I think... Well, I trusted the Buddhist practice of just sitting meditation. And in my view, no other religion really emphasizes just sit and allow the thing to happen, whatever that thing is, this process of whatever this deep realization is that the Buddha had, whatever the state is that Jesus had tapped into. And so I trusted that practice of just sitting. And I'd had some pretty wild experiences of that. And I knew also, like, when I was young, I had prophetic dreams. So I would see things that were to come true, starting from a young age. Like, this is not my doing. It was happening on its own. And, like, the Christian church couldn't really hold that. And then as I got older, like, that, when I was really in the kind of dark night of the soul phase, I started, like, leaving the body and, like, experiencing astral travel. Well the christians did not like that like the christian friends that i told they were like that's demonic you need to repent and i'm like i'm not even doing anything like i'm not choosing this it's just kind of happening on its own so that's.
Tyler:
[22:03] Why this was like the santa claus moment for me with christianity was and i have no issue with christianity in and of itself but especially some of the evangelical churches that we have in the states
Chandler:
[22:18] It's.
Tyler:
[22:18] It happened in Europe also, but just further in the past, they don't really care about anything anymore. But the idea that you have a problem with someone having these types of experiences when your entire religious belief is centered around several books of people who had exactly this type of experience,
Tyler:
[22:38] and that was their revelation of speaking with God. And anyone who does that, like it happened then, totally okay. If it happens now it's the devil it made no sense to me i was like this is literally insane i cannot reconcile with this i cannot can't be part of this
Chandler:
[22:55] Amen dude and in my book i break that down a little bit of like some of the crazy claims of the bible like um there's a verse in corinthians, and i'm not gonna tell you the exact verse but he the the person that's speaking is talking about another person that goes up to the third heaven and hears words spoken by God that cannot be uttered by man. And he's like, they're talking about this exact thing that the Hindus, that the Buddhists have known for thousands of years that we can leave our body, that we're this giant blob of consciousness that is not just limited to our physical body. We can stretch beyond that Because, I mean, I don't want to get too into like the metaphysics and debating like philosophy, but it seems to be that consciousness is fundamental, you know, based on these things that we, these like natural human abilities that we have.
Tyler:
[23:54] To get back onto your life story and just summarize, when I wrote you back and I was like, I think we have a lot in common for real that this is hitting the nail on the head. I had the same sort of Santa Claus isn't real moment with religion in general, and I was like a teenager. And I could never reconcile with that. So I was more, I don't like to use the word atheist because I don't think I ever just didn't believe in anything. But I definitely separated myself from any and all things like that were not empirically provable like I ended up becoming after I failed out of language school was like a meteorologist in the military I was like I'm a science person I if it if you can't show it to me in numbers like I don't care and I was deeply deeply unhappy until I reconciled with that like until I turned the leaf of like okay I'm this is pride and me thinking that I just like I'm so bold to say that I know that there's nothing or I feel that there's nothing just because I can't prove it with numbers or whatever is stupid that's like the logic of a child so once I made that leap my life got very quickly a lot better and that also helped me to be sober like that was like a huge part of in.
Chandler:
[25:17] Yeah, yeah.
Tyler:
[25:20] Um...
Chandler:
[25:22] Yes, like the scientific materialism, it's not working for everybody. It doesn't provide us the direction and the meaning it feels like we as human beings deeply need. Because it rejects so much of the actual world. Let's say with our five senses, we're only perceiving such a small fraction of all of what's out there. And there's experiences that we can have, you know, through psychedelics, through spiritual disciplines that don't make any sense and can't be explained by the Western paradigm. You have to look to the Eastern paradigm. Like when I read books on yogic philosophy, I was like, oh my God, they've created an entire system of like new terms that didn't exist before to describe these phenomena. And yes, it's like, you can't directly prove that this exact thing, you can't physically measure a chakra. But if you have the vision, which many saints across time have had vision like clairvoyance, you can see chakras, you can see auras, and then all of this stuff is no longer guessing. It then becomes a science of its own. That's why, like, in all of the yogic sciences, or that's what I call it, yogic science. You look at Yogananda, he talks about the science of Kriya Yoga. They talk about the science of Bhakti Yoga, you know?
Tyler:
[26:48] These are using, what we call materialist science is all based on inductive reasoning. Like, observe this and predict that that will remain constant based on trends that you're seeing. And in weather forecasting, that's exactly what we did, you know, because you have no idea what's going to happen in the future except see what's happened in the past, see what you have now, predict the future, right?
Chandler:
[27:16] Right, right.
Tyler:
[27:17] Religion is deductive reasoning where in which you don't have the source, you have things that you observe that, now and you have to figure out what is the source of that but it's still reason it's still logic we just don't think of it that way mainly because our society has trained us not to think that way like well yeah you never know what happened back then or whatever like even even talking about things like climate change or whatever not to that'll get me flagged on youtube just saying that word i'm sure but like okay we didn't have weather observation balloons before 1908 or something i don't know whatever whatever year that was so therefore we don't know anything that happened before that right and then you could start talking about core samples or whatever but then you'll have people even in the scientific community arguing about whether or not you can reasonably make a prediction about like what was the weather in the past before you had a literal observation it's almost like a quantum assumption that like if you're if you don't observe it it doesn't exist yeah yeah completely thrown out um but you can just Do the same set of logic backwards and arrive at like, okay, one day before it was 32 degrees Celsius in Death Valley, it was probably 32 degrees Celsius.
Tyler:
[28:42] It's not that hard. Religion just attempts to do this at a much larger scale.
Tyler:
[28:49] I feel like the world is kind of waking up to the fact that we've lost this ability to think rationally in reverse.
Chandler:
[28:58] Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, and like kind of a non-linear way. Like, I don't know how to explain it. I know what it feels like to think in a non-linear way to where instead of like, I think maybe it's the difference between like the masculine principle of doing versus the feminine principle of just receiving. Like, because I feel like that's a big part of like the mystical experience of feeling the presence of God directly is that you're in a receptive state and you're not in this, I'm so active as being the doer, right? Because when you're using intellect, you're really pressing ahead and using logic and trying to drive things. But someone that's kind of just walking this path and trusting God is just waiting for signs from God. I'm reading Matthew in the Bible right now as a way to kind of come back to my Christian roots. And Jesus is preparing his disciples to go out and perform miracles in his name because Jesus is casting out demons and the response from the people at the time, which is the same response that would happen now is if he's casting out demons, he must be king of the demons. So he's like, fuck you guys. I'm gonna go and teach my disciples to do healing and then claim it in the name of God, right? So he's preparing his disciples. He's saying, don't worry if you don't have like food or money or a house. When you need those things, they will be provided by the father. Even if you're in court being persecuted by a king.
Chandler:
[30:27] You don't even need to worry about what words you will use because it is just the Father who speaks through you. It is not you speaking, ultimately. And that points to this deep kind of non-doership that requires a receptivity. Not a passivity, but a receptivity to something beyond what our five senses are tunes.
Tyler:
[30:48] Have you seen the Chosen TV series?
Chandler:
[30:52] No, I've been meaning to watch that.
Tyler:
[30:55] So this scene in that show is very well done and it, they had, they're all sitting around at the table and like, it's Jesus and, and so Peter and, uh, James are kind of having this like big to do about this thing. Cause they're like, wait, you're just going to send us out there. Like we don't perform miracles. That's you, man. Like, that's your thing. Like, what are we going to do? And they're all like amongst themselves discussing, like, is he crazy? Like, and he's just like, okay how come you can have faith in me every day as long as i'm here to do everything for you but you can't like just trust me when i say i i got you on this right right right but that's that is an echo of the same principle from moses when the the hebrews are crossing they've just escaped from egypt and moses is sitting on the throne every day all day long listening to all these Jews kvetching at him about all their problems. And then Jethro kind of takes him aside. Depending on how deep you want to go with some of this stuff, like Jethro was like the one who initiated Moses, so to speak. But he's like, listen man, there ain't no reason why you should be solving all these problems. There's too many problems for one person. You need to learn the art of delegation.
Tyler:
[32:14] And then fast forward to the New Testament, Jesus is like doing the same thing with the apostles.
Chandler:
[32:19] Delegating, yeah.
Tyler:
[32:20] Crazy shit.
Chandler:
[32:22] But dude yeah and like that's that's kind of what we're all called to learn how to do like because if you need um i'll just refer to jesus as like the master or the teacher and it could be anyone in any tradition and not even just in the religious domain but like you know even in your professional life if you have to have your mentor your teacher the master holding your hand then you're not actually like that effective like we need to learn to be able to act independently, recognizing that it's like we do have this faith in something else we have faith in the mentor that taught us how to do this job we have faith that god will provide a house when it's needed in words when they're needed and or money will fall into your lap if money is needed at the time for this purpose assuming it's given in you know in the name of god or to all whatever however you want to say that but right, Yeah, that's really cool. I've heard Jordan Peterson talk about that kind of thing. He talks about that issues need to be solved at the lowest possible local level. And then if they can't be solved at that level, then take it to a higher level than a higher level. you know that's.
Tyler:
[33:34] That principle has been passed on by basically freemasons from at least the time of the knights templar to now and our military is based on napoleon's french military and that is exactly that's still in the law it's like in the ucmj all problems must be solved at the lowest possible level before you raise them to the next level because no colonel should be having to have a discussion with like two soldiers who got in a fucking fist fight you know or whatever on the flight line or shit like that like that's not his problem this their media supervisor can solve this problem and if he can't solve it then the next person in line can solve it and that way the person at the top doesn't have to deal with every individual thing because it's impossible no one can do that not even moses can do that so and not jesus probably depending on what you believe probably could handle it but it's like if I do it's like if you're a parent you know I'm not gonna raise my kid to think I'm just gonna do everything for him he's gonna do his own fucking homework think for yourself it's you'll be better off you'll thank me later yeah that's the whole biblical story is you'll thank me later if you'll just stop waiting for a handout
Chandler:
[34:53] That's the problem yeah yeah yeah and there's a there's a kind of like um, I witnessed kind of exactly what you're saying of even someone doing your homework for you with my younger brother. I love my younger brother, but the reality is that when he was young and would complain about doing homework, instead of being forced to do it, my mom would do it for him, would tell him what the answers were. And then he never learned. And then it was a very clear snowball effect. And he never finished high school. Because he didn't have the foundation starting when he was very young of how to do basic math, basic English reading and writing because he could protest longer than the parent had patience for. And in that, there's no freedom now. Now he's having a hard time getting on his own feet. And when you learn to kind of be disciplined, even though it seems like it's this outside thing that is preventing the free flow of the natural development of that person, there's still some freedom to be found because we need the guardrails in certain circumstances to actually tell us where it is that is best to try and go.
Tyler:
[36:14] Yeah. But like that principle of just delegating down to the lowest level goes from Moses and Jethro to King Solomon to the Knights Templar to Rome and Europe all the way into Anderson's constitution in 1723. And it was written into our constitution almost word for word from Anderson's constitution.
Chandler:
[36:44] Wow. It's amazing how that was all passed down so directly in that way.
Tyler:
[36:50] And it's, I mean, that is, regardless of what you think the source of it is, we consider that to be sacred knowledge.
Tyler:
[36:57] Just these core principles of how to properly structure a society or whatever so that it doesn't collapse under its own weight. The old Tower of Babylon kind of principle, when everybody's overreaching. Some people even define evil as simply overreaching. I think as American Christians, we get fed this idea that sin and fire and hell, brimstone, go hand in hand and all this kind of thing. But if you can read Greek, go back to the book of John, and the word is hamartia, meaning to miss the mark. Sin is just simply not doing the exact correct bullseye thing to do. It doesn't necessarily mean you're an evil person. It just means that you're not getting the point. And you need to keep working on getting to the point it's why i like meditation so much because it's like when i first learned how to meditate that you know they start you off with like breath focus on your breath or whatever and like point is not to focus on your breath the point is to notice when you're not focusing on the thing that you intend to be focusing on we say mindfulness and all this stuff now but like just having control of your mind being in control of your emotions and your mind and your body like if you can get those three things on lock you have superpowers like other people will start treating you like you're a fucking genius like i'm not i just have discipline i'm not missing the mark right now in this moment yeah yeah yeah
Chandler:
[38:23] I think what's so interesting about about the the actual translation of sin is that buddhism has a very similar concept, too. It's called the Noble Eightfold Path. They say you start with right view, having a right view of how the world actually works, not through your perception, your limited filters, your senses, how the world actually works. And then you have right speech that is predicated on that there is a wrong speech. There is a way to miss the mark of goodness of being in accord with the way that the world actually works, which.
Chandler:
[39:05] Not to speak on behalf of Buddhism here, but it's based in this idea that there is no true self. That's one of the things that the Buddha taught is this doctrine of anatta, or no self, that the self actually exists. It's just a label that we give a bunch of constituent parts. And so when you start seeing into those layers that, oh, I'm not as simple as just being who I think I am. I'm actually made up of my senses and of my thoughts and of my conditioning. And there's all these layers. Then you start to, there's more of a, like a oneness, an interconnectedness that pervades your life.
Chandler:
[39:47] And then you start to act in accord with that reality that is more interconnected. And that's, I think, like the idea of right action, right speech is like, Is my speech, are my actions, is my livelihood based in this true version of reality that what I do is going to inevitably affect you because we're an interconnected system?
Tyler:
[40:16] So, I think this is a theosophist belief, which probably has some influence from Buddhism and Hinduism. But you mentioned earlier, like, seeing the astral plane in your dreams and that sort of thing. So I took a 90-minute class on astral travel last night. So I'm an expert now.
Chandler:
[40:37] Perfect timing.
Tyler:
[40:39] Hey, that's how the universe works. But tell me about what your experience was, and then I'm going to have this theosophical chart over to my right just to compare notes.
Chandler:
[40:50] First of all, I love that you're bringing up theosophy right now. because I'm in Ojai. That's where I live now. And that's where the esoteric school of the Theosophical Society is. And that's actually what brought me to live in Ojai. It was a crazy series of events that made like, I literally lived at the Theosophical Center here, Cortona, for like two months,
Chandler:
[41:17] because it opened in such a unique, weird way, which I can get into in a little bit.
Tyler:
[41:22] But yeah I'll do that for sure yeah so that's why I booked these things long I've had so many people write me back like are you serious three hours I'm like it takes a while to have a conversation like and actually do it justice yeah
Chandler:
[41:34] For sure um, Okay, so my experience with astral travel, it started just on its own. So naturally, as I was just talking about it, the way I understand it and not through any particular lens, but as you do more meditation, and like I said, consciousness is not localized to our physical body. If consciousness is fundamental, which you'd see in the remote viewing projects, in the CIA Gateway project, and that people can sort of move their conscious awareness to different coordinates, right? This is well-documented that they can give remote viewer coordinates and they can see what's going on there at that time and then in like really other times in the past too.
Chandler:
[42:27] And that's through this moving of consciousness to a particular place. So as consciousness kind of unfolds beyond the boundary of the body, weird shit can start to happen. So for me, it actually started from a lucid dream. So I was just sitting, I was actually just looking at this beautiful view, and then I started to meditate naturally. And then once I closed my eyes, I opened my eyes, hovering over my own sleeping form. I was like, holy shit, I'm out of my body right now. So I stood up and tried looking to see what my form looked like. And I was kind of translucent, but I could kind of see the outline. And then I also started the ending. So then this kind of thing continued to happen where I would wake up in sleep paralysis with my body feeling like it was being electrocuted. And then there was also usually a like a kind of jet engine roaring going on in the ears.
Chandler:
[43:28] And then I was normally able to roll out of my body or I would sink into the bed and like kind of get out and then I would walk around I would fly I would meditate in my living room I do different things and I've had a couple dozen episodes of this exact thing and it was happening on its own for a while where I was not in control of it. But this is part of what caused my sleep to get so fucked up while I was in the corporate world is like I would go out and I would just like wake up in the middle of the night in this sleep paralysis, blow out of my body, sit and meditate in my living room, like levitating off the floor because in the astra you can fly and face through walls and do all kinds of stuff. And I would be sitting there meditating and then like my alarm would go off and I would need to go to work. So it kind of like started to mess up my natural rhythms. And then over time, I developed the ability to kind of control that process. It didn't stay for long. Like now I don't really, like it doesn't, it doesn't happen that often where I'm leaving my body. It's, it's almost like that door has kind of closed temporarily. And was just meant, the way I interpret it is like, it was meant to show me where to go. It was meant to kind of cause particular changes in my consciousness so I would know how to navigate in the future. And then it was revoked when it was no longer needed. Because it was just happening of its own accord. That's the way I see it. It comes when it wants to come, it goes when it wants to go.
Chandler:
[44:57] I would like be in my living room meditating and then go to work. And then when I developed the ability to control it, it would take me maybe 30 seconds of lying on my bed in meditation to then have the electricity start to happen. And my understanding is that electricity is always there. We're just not always tuned into it. We always have this natural vitality of chi or prana, life force, or whatever is a different name for it. But we always have this subtle energy body that's like tingling all the time. But when you kind of like allow this in-between state to happen, you start to feel that, then that's the green flag to kind of jump out of body. So then I started testing it and trying to go visit people. And I was able to see with some accuracy what people were doing at that time that I went to go visit them. Um so it's sort of it sort of like became a little bit of remote viewing were.
Tyler:
[45:54] You able to corroborate that with other people like
Chandler:
[45:56] Yeah yeah hey what.
Tyler:
[45:57] Were you doing last night at 10 45
Chandler:
[46:00] Yeah like little things like i bet you were hanging out with this person watching a movie and like around you know one in the morning like holy shit how did you know i was with them so.
Tyler:
[46:09] Your friends who already thought you were demonically possessed this
Chandler:
[46:13] I made sure to talk about yeah i made sure to talk about this with friends who like kind of knew what was going on you know um, Yeah, friends that wouldn't judge and have an adverse reaction. But yeah, I ultimately was in that. I was not supported by everyone in my life. I didn't tell everyone, but the people I did tell, the reactions were not always...
Chandler:
[46:44] People weren't always excited. Even though you would think that people would be like, no, I want to know what's true. You're having this weird experience that is well-documented in the East. People know about this stuff in India, in places where Buddhism is very prevalent.
Chandler:
[47:01] And people were not usually that interested. They weren't asking scenarios, like, oh, well, what are you doing? What's going on? How does it feel? Are you okay? Like, you're kind of, maybe you're dissolving, which I did feel like at certain points I was dissolving, where I would be out of body and I would be flying around the city. And then like there was one particular time where my alarm to go to work went off while I was like really far out of body. And I felt this really uncomfortable nap back in that wasn't so like wasn't as crisp as I'm used to. And that fucked me up. Like for the rest of the day, I remember driving on the 101 like to go to my job in L.A. And I was like completely dissociated because the question that was on my mind is like, well, how would I know if I made it back? Like what actually is me and you can't look at your memories to corroborate whether or not you're you in your body because your memories would just be stored in your mind as like ones and zeros you know and you can't like your reasoning ability same thing your your hopes your dreams your goals your fears all of that stuff is just programmed in the brain so what are you.
Tyler:
[48:14] Were you familiar with the concept of astral travel projection, remote viewing, prior to stumbling into this?
Chandler:
[48:23] I was. Yeah, I'd seen videos on YouTube of people talking about their experience. There's a guy like Ryan Cropper that I remember watching from when I was young. And then I read the book, after I started astral traveling, read the book Journeys Out of the Body by Robert Monroe. I was like, holy shit, that's exactly what I'm experiencing.
Tyler:
[48:40] That's a damn good book. Yeah.
Chandler:
[48:42] Yeah, it was very helpful.
Tyler:
[48:44] Now everybody's on the My Big Toe thing because of him. Say again. I forget his name, but there's a book that recently came to public fruition called My Big Toe, Toe Standing for Theory of Everything. I'll throw it into the show notes of this too, but he was like mentored by the Journeys Out of the Body guy.
Chandler:
[49:06] Wow. and.
Tyler:
[49:07] Was a physicist and is like working to try to try to sum all this up into
Chandler:
[49:14] Something yeah we need more people who are like like scientifically oriented but also have this kind of mystical angle of like dude psychic abilities are a completely normal part of being a human and they always have been and always will be unless of course like i think we keep going the way that we're going with this like trying to leave our physical form to be in a more technological form i think like they've always been there we need people who are scientifically minded and also have the mystical angle and can help to bridge the two worlds because like there's such a rich series of discoveries that could come from like exploring this frontier that's been unexplored just because it's not easily studied.
Tyler:
[50:00] It's like a balance thing where you need intuition and you need logic and you can't just do one or the other. Like if you're just going off strict intuition all the time, you're just going to end up chasing red herrings. And if you're just on only logic, which I can testify to, then you lose sight of what the bigger picture is because you're so focused on details. And yeah yeah i think that for sure like look at the great scientists who made or the great spiritualists all of them who made like real progress were both like isaac newton was a devout christian and probably in a lot of other things that you know don't get documented so well today and all of the great philosophers of you know what we now call metaphysics and even in ancient in Greece and Kabbalah were geometrists. You know, they're mathematicians. They were like not people who were just sitting around twiddling their thumbs and thinking crazy stories. Like they were applying reason and logic to everything that they approached.
Chandler:
[51:08] Yeah, yeah. They were like receiving these kind of downloads and then doing something with it. They were trying to like build up a system. And that's funny you mentioned that because the Crotona Institute named itself after Pythagoras' living community. You know, that's where they got the name Crotona from because of the influence of, like, the mathematicians. It's so cool.
Tyler:
[51:28] I can't prove this, but I was told that Albert Einstein kept a copy of Isis Unveiled on his desk at all times.
Chandler:
[51:36] So make sure that was true. I believe it. I know, I think that, was he the one that said that he did a lot of, like, he did a lot of lucid dreaming? Like, he was really tuned in. But I think he did a lot of... yeah yeah and you can't have the revelations that that you that he had and not just have this deep like ability to like drop deep into consciousness and get out of the intellectual mind completely and be like well how does the world feel like it moves like you need this like really feeling the world around him like a bird feels the magnetic field around it in order to happen and to know how to navigate it.
Tyler:
[52:18] The entire principle of geometry beyond three dimensions is kind of something that you need to do a lot of additional thinking about. This was known and accepted amongst many, many different spiritual schools for a long time. But Newton comes along and basically brings into the popular zeitgeist the fourth dimension of physics being like space and time both exist on an axis and things move in curves. Guys, we figured this out.
Tyler:
[52:56] Like, and before that people were just like, time is just this big mystery and it's still a mystery. In fact, he doesn't really give us an answer. He just gives us like an equation that allows you to further test. What can I plug into this and use it as an access to like build things upon. So E equals MC squared doesn't really solve anything. It just introduces a new question. Like what if space and time are relative to each other? What if what if they both intersect and move on a curve so you have like you know one dimension two dimension three dimension ever and all of that's moving in what we would call the fourth dimension and then going all the way back to like kabbalik sephirat and actually you have to kind of get into some of the hindu stuff as well to further explain it but you know starting with zero, zero doesn't mean nothing. Zero means undefined everything. Like it's...
Tyler:
[53:54] Imagine you're looking at like a Cartesian plane and it's just zero is just not deciding on a point. Then you have a point. Number one. Number two, two is basically still nothing because you just have a line in undefined space. Then you have a three-dimensional object. Well, actually, no, you still have a two-dimensional object. So three is still zero. Like you haven't gotten anywhere yet. When you introduce four now you have three dimensions five is moving through time then you have self-awareness and then you have to start building on it with a other more esoteric principles but like that's the basis of how people came up with numbers like math came out of these ideas of like how do we explain what we're seeing it wasn't just like counting sheep
Chandler:
[54:40] Yeah yeah it wasn't dreaming stuff up it was like the perception of something real but like you could only see through a hole in the wall right and try and like guess what's behind it you couldn't actually like always do the what is.
Tyler:
[54:55] It plato's plato's cave
Chandler:
[54:56] Like you're yeah yeah that.
Tyler:
[55:00] We see is just the light shining in through the top of the cave that you've never seen outside of
Chandler:
[55:04] Or whatever yeah you're okay.
Tyler:
[55:06] Head out there it's
Chandler:
[55:06] Terrifying yeah exactly where there's like real sun and real light as opposed to just like shadows on the wall which yeah that's that's exactly right i think like dude time is such a weird concept like having had these like prophetic dreams like i mentioned when i was a kid i don't and i don't like i don't use the term prophetic dreams thinking of myself as a prophet or anything i just use that in a very literal sense that like like that's what seeing into the future in any way would be called and that's been that's documented i think as far even in into the the old testament that there were seers um and so I knew from a young age time is not what we think it is like there are some things that.
Chandler:
[55:55] We can perceive like buddhism talks about it in the sense of they call it streams of causation, so you can like there's i don't know how deep i want to go into this but there's like there's people who are clairvoyant for example that can perceive someone's energetic field and kind of know approximately when they're going to die they know like where they've been they can see their past because it's encoded in the energy. So when you learn to like read and see someone's energy, you can perceive these things. So I knew from a young age, like time did not work the way that we think. Like if I'm able to see the future and have these things come true, and I can document these things very clearly of like, okay, I had a dream about this within 24 hours, something very closely related to it happens at a time where you're supposed to be completely blacked out. Like how is that possible and then you know like going into a monastery i had many experiences in meditation where a period of of 35 minutes of sitting would feel like maybe 40 seconds because i was able to drop into that place where there is no time you know and and i would be like holy shit like the gong is going off to stop meditation and do walking meditation and i just i just sat
Chandler:
[57:09] down but it's been 35 minutes so.
Tyler:
[57:15] Let's let's get back to the journeys out of the body because i feel like we went on a wide tangent from there which is totally okay but so you read this book and like what did you like did you start to look at trying to apply principles based on what it said or how did you get to that
Chandler:
[57:33] Yeah so i i think like i found out about astral travel on youtube first and then once i started kind of like popping out of my body that i was looking for more resources and then i found robert monroe's book journeys out of the body and i started reading that and i kind of like like i recognized that this was just happening on its own for a little bit before um i and i think it was for me reading journeys out of the body was more of just like an anthropological thing. I was recognizing or like seeing what other people have explored in this, in the non-physical realm, as opposed to trying any techniques. To my knowledge, he doesn't really go into like, well, no, he does go into techniques. Now that I say that, I remember he does mention how to do it there. But for me, it was happening of its own accord. And then I just kind of learned how to get a handle over it.
Tyler:
[58:35] It's really interesting uh we were just talking about like dimensions and time and it was interesting about time is that it's just it's only just the next thing beyond our immediate perception and then there's very likely much more than that and people have believed this for so long and then now like scientists are saying it and it's like oh see scientists have proved it it was true for the first time ever and like they're not the first people to arrive at this conclusion right um we're talking about theosophy and astral travel and in like ledbetter in the astral plane talks about kind of like the seven tiers everything's got to be seven in theosophy i i don't think it needs to be seven it could be 12 it could be 10 they're all sacred numbers it
Chandler:
[59:24] Is um yeah it does say the same thing they talked about the seven levels of consciousness all the way down onto the body being aliyah or like the sore house of consciousness so that is there are many models of looking at it but yeah.
Tyler:
[59:36] But the idea of like there's the physical and then the next tier up counting from seven down is astral and then you have four five more tiers after that right so you you you're like an initiate of the sixth degree basically you know like that's where you're at right now which is interesting it's like super super cool you don't have to use or profit for now on just call yourself i'm an initiate like it sounds way weirder i don't know but there's still like the mental the buddhi uh atma or nirvana in buddhism um anapadaka and then adi like way on up there yeah there's
Tyler:
[1:00:20] Different names in different cultures but like the the principle of like there's still more to go after the astral plane that's just like step one of getting out of this reality so wild um so we talked to some people will describe like jesus or buddha as initiates of the third degree which is why atma is nirvana right like people who reached that level and then tried to impart five dimensions up down to us what's really going on here through words that we could you know hopefully like the the song the cult of personality like speak right down to earth in a language that everyone here can easily understand is like the opening line to the song i think that's malcolm x actually oh my gosh yeah but that's that's so wild to just think about like still your journey is so much to go even if you've reached that point like okay now you figured out time what's after that in the astral plane did you run into any spooks or you know goblins vampires werewolves uh because there's a lot I don't necessarily like this terminology, but that's what Ledbetter describes in his book.
Chandler:
[1:01:35] Yeah, yeah, there are a lot of tricksters. So I want to comment on the first part, and then I'll go into this. When I was talking with teachers about experiences and trying to understand what was going on with me, they kept saying, like, don't get distracted by this is fireworks. Keep going. Because like you're saying, there is so much more to go. And the way that that manifests is less obvious than astral travel. It's far more subtle because it's more refined energies that we're perceiving through this antenna system that we have. They're very, very subtle and refined. Versus material would be very dense and gross. These very, very subtle energies that we're referring to, they'll tell you all kinds of things if you can learn how to be still enough to listen. Like, if I could give you an example, this very fresh, like, my mom passed away last week. And three months ago. Oh, you're right.
Tyler:
[1:02:40] God.
Chandler:
[1:02:40] Yeah, thank you. Thank you. Yeah. Three months ago, I kept having this recurring intuition. And I kept thinking about, like, my mom and grandma dying. Because my mom lived with her mom, my grandma. and I kept having this recurring thought about death for months and months and months. And then back in February of this year, I wrote down in my notes, just a document and I get it out of my mind. I wrote, death is near. I don't know what that means, but death is near. And within 90 days, my mom passed. And so like, I know it sounds crazy. It sounds like a coincidence, but like we're able to, as you keep going on this path, you start to perceive very, very, very subtle, you start to receive very subtle impressions, from the future, I don't know, from beings beyond, I don't know, from angels, right? I mean, like every.
Chandler:
[1:03:37] There's angels that appear in all these religions. And so then to answer your question, yes, I did encounter beings and there was one particular being who like when I, I didn't know, But when I did research on this experience, I think that it was maybe a succubus. Type being, I jump out of my window and I like, instead of fly, I sink and I end up on the street of LA where there's like crackheads. I should also mention this. I was right outside of my window. There's people doing a far drug in an alley, right? I like where I would walk to the gas station or when I would drive on my way to work, I would drive past, like there would be needles on the street. So instead of when I jump out my window flying, I get pulled down. And when I get pulled down, I come across like I'm just kind of confronted with this entity. And we communicated telepathically, like it was just not telepathically, just it was like, we were registering each other's intentions and energies. And it was automatic. It wasn't like I was trying really hard to send a signal.
Chandler:
[1:04:50] It's just like what I am is visible to them, what they are at least presenting visible to me i'll show.
Tyler:
[1:04:57] You yours you show me you're like i'll show you mine yeah i get it i
Chandler:
[1:05:01] Understand yeah yeah we don't need words in the astral so the whole.
Tyler:
[1:05:05] Salute like i'm unarmed like
Chandler:
[1:05:08] Yeah yeah yeah um so this entity has access to like all of my exes starting from when i was young and everybody i've ever found attractive and flips through this giant catalog of beings and then like, and then when I in my energy say that's the one then it stops and we like start to have sex and I didn't encounter I know other people have encountered like like, gods. I've heard Ryan Cropper, he talks about encountering Osiris. And there's people who encounter all kinds of other beings like Bob Monroe. He goes to different planets and encounters different timelines of humans and is pulled into their body and has their memories and lives as them. I've had dreams of those kinds of things happening, but never while I'm out in the astral. So that's kind of the only, I think the only interaction I've had with another, a non-physical being.
Tyler:
[1:06:15] Man, I really hate to give advice. I don't want to be that guy.
Chandler:
[1:06:22] Please, please.
Tyler:
[1:06:26] In the astral plane, if you believe in it, some of the people listening to this are going to be like, Ty is finally cracked. He's crazy. He's lost it.
Chandler:
[1:06:35] Yeah, naturally.
Tyler:
[1:06:37] It's it's the wild west like there's all kinds of shit there you know from you said succubus vampire shades astral shells things that have been left behind by people who have ascended right yeah things that refuse to go up also like the black magician right like is the concept that satan is the lord of the earth is because he refuses to ascend towards god wow yes he ascended from the anapadaka down to what we would call the physical and astral planes and does not wish to be associated with this right right just speaking in strictly like spiritual metaphor for the sake of doing so.
Tyler:
[1:07:28] Okay. If you are adept at navigating this area, you ideally would be able to control it, right? So you've learned how to, you know, hover, fly, remote view, project, all great things. I would suggest when you get there, build something that's your safe space. Like imagine yourself, like do however you want. I like the lodge from Twin Peaks. I like to imagine like, Room with red curtains and a checkerboard floor. It looks like a Mason's Lodge, actually. And nice, big, comfy chair. No one else is in there. And then just like, however you want to do it. Doors. I like an elevator. I was taught this, by the way. So I'm not coming up with this on my own. But I like an elevator. And you have like a button or something that you can hit. And you can decide who comes in and who comes out of your room.
Tyler:
[1:08:24] And if you construct the elevator such that you can see the person before you allow them into the room. and you can just send them away if you don't like them or whatever. And then you can have that how do you do moment. And you can, you know, play the lottery with who you let into your space. And if you're seeking something higher, something, you know, if you want to talk to someone who's not a demon or whatever, however you want to call that, send them straight down and next person into the room until you find people that you actually want to associate with or things that you want to associate yourself with. And even if you don't believe in any of the mystical side of this like just as a strictly like youngian psychological exercise this is a way of personifying your thoughts so i'm making it available to all all comers in that in that case just like as an exercise but then build a table in the room and have a council of people who you trust to converse with and then maybe you know maybe that's just you in your own mind again Maybe you're sitting there with fucking Abraham Lincoln and, I don't know, King David or whoever you admire. I don't know. And if you get a Hitler in the room, just send him down to the elevator. You can't stay here. You're not welcome. And then you have control of the situation instead of just drifting in the astral plane.
Chandler:
[1:09:48] Yeah, yeah, because that is for sure immediately what happened. And then you're kind of at the mercy of whatever beings are around. No, I really appreciate that advice. I feel like it's so helpful. And I love that you mentioned, oh, I was taught this. This is not something I'm making up. You're recognizing that you're a student in this as well. And it's cool that we get to learn from each other in that way. I just love that, man. This is so rare. And what you're talking about, you give the disclaimer of you could even see it as Jungian archetypes. One, I would encourage anyone that's skeptical of these things, like, dude, read the Bible. You'll find crazy-ass quotes of Jesus' clairvoyance, his ability to heal. You'll find documented out-of-body travel experiences in the Bible. And that's only one of the holy books. There's thousands of years of Vedic scriptures and Buddhism, right? It goes right back to the Buddha who had the same documented kind of
Chandler:
[1:10:56] abilities as Jesus, right? Like he broke through the ego. And there's so many rich lineages all around the world of these things being well-documented. And in the West, we're not exposed to them, which is why we're skeptical. They're outside of our paradigm of understanding the world.
Chandler:
[1:11:17] And I wanted to comment also on... Something that you mentioned about the council. Oh, the Jungian archetypes. Personifying thoughts. I think that's so cool because the mind can absolutely construct an entire functioning persona based on a virtue. If you're like, I need someone wise, your brain will pull every memory up of someone wise and construct that archetypal image. And then you can have an exchange with it. And Jung, you're exactly right. Jung talked about this. During his work his life that's so cool i love that.
Tyler:
[1:11:55] I mean freud did too he just instead of giving them names of deities he called them it ego super ego or you could call that the the maiden the mother the crone you could call that the father the son and the holy spirit or the father and the mother and the child or the the triple manifestation of the logos or whatever the fuck you want it doesn't matter like yeah but there's yeah yeah
Chandler:
[1:12:22] Yeah they're pointing to something very deep and like everyone has a version so there must be some underlying reality that they're pointing to.
Tyler:
[1:12:32] You know yes and the plane after astral is the mental plane yeah yeah i didn't make this up this is not me like it's all just being passed down from generation to generation i mean uh but i kind of wanted to get more into the specifics of like your buddhist experience i i recently because i'm i went to a buddhist temple one time i was 20 years old i was in basic training and they had like uh i forget the exact name of this sect but they they do the chanting nam yo ho renge kyo thing and i thought it was a bunch of bullshit so i was like this isn't for me um like go
Chandler:
[1:13:14] Ahead go ahead.
Tyler:
[1:13:15] I was just gonna say recently i went to a zen monastery and did like the you know this is how you meditate all that kind of stuff and like now i kind of have like a pen pal relationship with this guy master rokozan who's like the head of that monastery and all that stuff and he like even just like the little short conversations we've had like made me think like all right i need to rethink this whole thing um because i think you're on to something here i've just haven't been open-minded to it so but like your specific experience with buddhism i'm interested in yeah
Chandler:
[1:13:48] So where do i even start i think i think going there and getting exposed to the context as opposed to just having like the western mindfulness movement that separates it kind of creates a secular buddhism of just meditate right well it'll reduce your stress it'll reduce your depression and anxiety without telling you what it actually does like if you're using meditation to reduce stress that's like taking benzos for a paper cut right we're like removing the whole limb that's been cut and so like we i think it was very helpful
Chandler:
[1:14:24] to understand the context in which this whole system was developed, right? So there's three prongs of.
Chandler:
[1:14:33] I would say, especially Zen, but maybe you could apply it to Mahayana Buddhism as a whole. There's Shpila, which means moral teachings. There's Samadhi, which refers to concentration, and Prajna, which refers to wisdom. So we sit in meditation, we develop some concentration, we still the mind. Then that's just developing a very sharp instrument by which you can use to generate insight. You can cut and see deep into the nature of reality. And when you start having deep insights, you need to know how to fold it. So that's why they have these guardrails that are the moral teachings to be like, you know, like, because you could easily use insight to deceive people, to take things from people, to subjugate people. So you have very specific moral teachings of like, don't lie, don't kill, don't cheat, don't steal, don't cloud the mind with intoxicants like there's very specific reasons for all these things and like before I went I just thought that that was all like.
Chandler:
[1:15:37] Religious dogma and going there and being steeped in this tradition, you start after doing like chanting after doing bowing like a hundred times then it starts to make sense of why we're doing it we're not doing it just because someone told us but because it's actually skillful for producing a particular state of consciousness so like when you're bowing, and I like to think of it in terms of the four yogic paths of like there's devotion, there's contemplation there's meditation and then there's like physical fosters, or I think they call it karma yoga so when you're doing bowing like you're getting on your hands and knees and what it looks like from the outside is you're bowing to this idol of the Buddha, You're not necessarily worshipping the Buddha. What I've had explained to me by the abbot of the monastery was you are kind of performing a devotional service to your own enlightenment. You're making that real, your desire for enlightenment in your own experience, and you're bowing down to this thing that is so large. And you're also, it's an action of respect to the historical Buddha that provided, that like sacrificed his life to provide teachings that can liberate people. Like he provided teachings that liberate the money. Go ahead.
Tyler:
[1:17:05] What's directly behind the statue of Buddha in the monastery? Like directly behind him?
Chandler:
[1:17:15] He was usually in a box.
Tyler:
[1:17:17] Okay. In the temple I went to, I don't know if this is normal because I've only been to one directly behind buddha is the family tree of every master from buddha down to the master of the monastery so it's like your your reverence is not too reverence is actually a good word for it your work you're not worshiping like you said a false idol or something like that which i think a lot of christians would have a huge issue with is like oh you're worshiping a graven image or whatever is like the word worship is kind of stupid anyway because it just means it like it it comes from an old angle either a saxon or angle word just basically meaning to pay attention to something so like yeah yeah that gets really language gets really cloudy when it comes to that kind of stuff but i like your description of it you're just acknowledging like this guy is the dude with the key to the thing that i'm actually worshiping it's a conduit up the ladder yeah what i'm actually getting to which hopefully whatever you want to call that thing up there but it's there yeah
Chandler:
[1:18:29] And and that's really cool that they had the whole lineage laid out and that's something that's so important about studying with a teacher is in a lineage and the lineage that I trained in, they go directly back to the historical Buddha. So the Buddha conveyed his mind to his disciples and created in them that same state of consciousness. So they become, in a sense, like one. They become the same being, although they're different people, but their essence becomes the same. So there's a mind-to-mind transmission throughout time of these teachings, of what is true. And that's what's so important about acknowledging the lineage, is that.
Chandler:
[1:19:24] That being that you're like sitting with now is a descendant of the Buddha, for example. So you're like literally sitting with the Buddha, receiving those teachings directly into your mind. But you can't get that if you're just like, you know, necessarily reading someone's book. It is kind of a similar thing though. Even with a master, someone like Thich Nhat Hanh, he takes a state of consciousness, puts it into words, and then that becomes like a little virus that we read when we read the book, but on a deep level that happens when you sit and you do face-to-face teaching, which I think is something unique to Zen, or at least unique to Buddhism, because maybe they do it in Tibetan as well, but you sit with the teacher once a week, and you check in about what's going on in your practice, what you're seeing, what's on your mind, what emotions or experiences are coming up.
Chandler:
[1:20:16] If you're having a hard time at the monastery, you get to talk about whatever it is that you want and and that it's such a like a precious opportunity to sit with someone who is like a deeply realized master but it's just like on the surface normal chill guy from rural georgia that was like the the habit of the monastery um so there's yeah there's so many layers to it but uh unbroken mind to mind transmission it's so it's so important to sit with because then you get into people especially in the new age movement who just kind of make up their own practices. They're their own teacher. And yes, there is something to be said about intuition and doing like kind of having this inner knowing of what you're.
Chandler:
[1:20:59] Mind, body, spirit needs. But having a teacher can help keep you in check and keep you on the path. Because if you start like astral traveling, you're going to think like, oh my gosh, I'm done now to become enlightened. But you tell a teacher that they're like, keep going. You're getting distracted by the fireworks. What we're trying to do is like, you can use the example of climbing a mountain. We're trying to reach the top. We're not trying to reach, we're not trying to like hang out at every lake and look at every beautiful vista.
Chandler:
[1:21:26] We're trying to reach the top. And getting distracted by the experiences that we see and that we have in meditation that's what they are is their distractions their fireworks and they can pull us off the path so it's really important to have a teacher who's been there before who's walked that path that you're trying to walk to hold you accountable and be able to point at some of the pitfalls a guy.
Tyler:
[1:21:49] If you were gonna go hike mount everest you would have a tibetan guy probably and then yes done it a hundred times walk with you through the whole thing like even in christianity the kind of like the the footprints in the sand concept but like jesus is your god that he was the guy for for those that group of people yeah and interesting like the the idea of like there being a you know the lineage you know and paying homage to Buddha was the master who initiated this person all the way down. But the same thing is in Christianity with the apostolic dissension. You know, you have Jesus and then you have from him to the disciples and then from each of those, you know, the church, etc.
Tyler:
[1:22:38] That goes all the way. Even the sons of Noah, you know, Sham, all that stuff. Abraham has you know everything branches off from a source at some point whatever it is that you think that is but it's all no one has an original thought these are all things that get passed down is what I'm trying to say like even in the new age you brought up new age stuff like I if you go read like Liberation by Father Yod who was like the dude in the 60s he had a bunch of ladies and all that kind of thing but he was I don't think anything he taught was like bad He wasn't like, he didn't seem to be abusive. But my problem with a lot of the new age stuff is that you have these like people who seem to be pretending like they're the first person to fucking come up with this idea. And all of the new age people were like reading Blavatsky and pretending like they for the first people to say it. Like they don't have that reverence up the chain. It's a little bit weird. It's a cult.
Chandler:
[1:23:45] Yeah, then it becomes that where you're worshipping the person who brought teachings. Because Blavatsky studied in the East. She was deeply, deeply apprenticed with other masters and brought the teachings to the West. And so for then you to just worship Blavatsky without recognizing there's a much deeper human-to-human lineage, you know then then you know we become ungrounded in something and i think like even i mean even in christianity before you can become a priest and lead your own denomination you have to mentor with someone who's in that position so that way you can hold that responsibility well and you're given authorization to okay yes you have a sufficient understanding of the teachings of what it means to walk this path, you know, you have the blessing to go out and spread this as it needs to be spread, which is crazy that you can wind up with people who then get into such corrupt acts. Like, I don't, we don't have to go down this rabbit hole, but there is, it is a fact that so many priests in the Catholic Church were known pedophiles. And it's like, why does that happen?
Tyler:
[1:25:06] That's the it's a trickster that's the whatever that archetype is like with great power comes great responsibility the more you understand this stuff you can be you know you can go the right hand path or the left hand path you could be a white magician you could be a black magician or whatever you want yeah any any religious lens that someone wants to view that through even if you're completely secular about it like you can if you're like a new atheist and you don't believe in any kind of spirituality, but you do believe in morals wherever you got those from. You could be a shitty person or you could be a person who uses good morals and doesn't harm other people. Use other people for your gain, right? It's the same principle. You just... View it through however you want to put it.
Chandler:
[1:25:57] Yeah, that's a good point that you can be an atheist and have no spirituality, but you can still be very moral because you have a basic sense of like, well, what affects them affects me too. So I should live by this principle, which I think something I keep coming back to is the importance of cultivating love. And in Buddhism, one of the practices that they do is called metta. And that means loving kindness And so there's something so important, and Jesus talked about this too, of the importance of developing the heart. Because when you feel very strongly in your body what someone else is going through, because that's what Jesus was doing when he healed, he would take the sickness out of their body and basically put it in his own. And then because he had access to so much universal energy, he just flushed it out of his system. But that's what he did. So when you feel someone else's emotions, when you know where someone is at energetically, then you're going to act from this place of like, well, what affects them is also going to affect me because I feel their emotions in my body.
Chandler:
[1:27:07] That's the importance of developing the heart and love because out of that arises sort of an objective set of morals. If I feel you and you feel me, we're not going to do things to hurt each other because if I do something to you that hurts you, it's going to hurt me because I feel your emotions. So i think it's interesting that like they always say love is the answer but it literally is because you form this this like deep bond or this oneness with another person.
Tyler:
[1:27:36] I'm completely ironically i learned loving kindness from one of the most famous atheists who's ever lived because sam harris in his app because i did his like waking up app or whatever it's called a long long time oh wait sam harris yeah and it it's a great app like literally if you're just like you don't have any spiritual beliefs or whatever but you want to learn how to meditate like you were saying earlier like to relieve stress or whatever like sam harris while a devout atheist is applying all of these principles to his meditation app like so i learned the concept of like loving kindness like you know like the stages of like okay you know visualize yourself looking at someone who you deeply love and then visualize yourself looking at someone you feel completely indifferent to and then like think about someone you fucking hate and want to die and all of the time just like picture them being happy from afar and wish them well and then move on with your life and stop stop hating that person or whatever i literally learned that from like the four horsemen of the apocalypse sam harris
Chandler:
[1:28:43] That's amazing. That's amazing. And that kind of gets into like the Neoplatonist school where you use like contemplation to get to deep states of meditation. Like you first contemplate, I don't remember which direction they go, but they contemplate like, and I've walked through this meditation with someone who's deeply versed in the Neoplatonist school. They'll be like, okay, first contemplate physical beauty.
Chandler:
[1:29:12] So for me, I think about like a very symmetrical woman that has certain features, whatever. And so imagine that face. And then you basically apply the physical all the way to the most abstract. So you walk yourself from like something that you think is physically beautiful to something that is like, well, why is that thing beautiful oh it's beautiful because it's symmetrical informed by nature therefore nature is beautiful why is nature beautiful well like why are we moving so you kind of work your way all the way up the ladder to the abstract ideal of beauty itself and you merge like with that ideal it's a really kind of cool system meditation he does so it sounds like sam harris is teaching something like that which can be very deeply healing and creating more compassion for even the people that you hate because like that's ultimately how we're going to get to world peace you're going to start by liking yourself you're going to learn to love your family members even if you hate them and disagree with them and i don't say that lightly because i've had really difficult family members that i hate their personality and i'm okay to admit that but i love them for who they are at their core and i like even though they say things that piss me off I still have a relationship with them because I need to learn to be in that fire of being upset and angry and loving too.
Chandler:
[1:30:36] And then once you learn to love your family, you have peace in the family, then you can extend that to peace in the community and world peace. But you need to go through those levels of learning to love even people you hate while you're with them and still choose to be with them because when they show you a shadow and you run away, that makes the shadow go deeper, the roots get deeper. Versus when you can shadow with them and help them get untangled, that makes the whole world better, you know?
Tyler:
[1:31:08] I do agree with you in principle. I also think that there are situations where someone is, like, beyond your immediate ability to save. Like, I'm a big fan of the whole, like, never leave someone behind thing. And then that, being too attached to that has gotten me lost in the fireworks, as you said earlier, many, many, many times.
Chandler:
[1:31:36] Totally.
Tyler:
[1:31:37] I've realized with certain you know individuals it's like i do i am not prepared i do not have the skill set to help you out of this situation and i i try to look at it like again we're talking about like personifying uh our thoughts perhaps i don't hate you i hate the demon on your shoulder that is telling you to do or making you do the things that you do that are awful that's what i hate like that's something that i can't fix i'm not gonna exercise you i'm not trained to do that yet you know i'm not gonna spray you with holy water um because it won't fix this problem like that's a battle you're gonna have to fix and that might be several lifetimes down the road so what i'm not saying like i hate you and i'm not saying i'm abandoning you but what i'm saying is we're gonna have to meet again along this path somewhere because you can't it's like trying to save a drowning person. Who's kicking and screaming like you you have a choice now it's like did two people drown
Chandler:
[1:32:40] Or does one person.
Tyler:
[1:32:41] Drown and it's really rough to be in that scenario and unfortunately i think i've been in that scenario quite a few times
Chandler:
[1:32:47] Yeah and and there you're you bring up such a good point because there is some discernment that is needed in order to know like well what is actually the most skillful action you can't you can't save someone else they have to go through the inner transformation they have to be ready to let go of something and and i think that where certain strains especially of buddhist thought get sort of co-opted or misunderstood is that you need to be compassionate and loving in all circumstances but actually like then i bring in the kind of what the bhagavad-gita says about dharma doing your duty right that's like in they've they frame all of these teachings as Arjuna is going to war against his family members. And he's like, well, what do I do? Because I want to be kind. I want to love. These are my family members. And we do have to take actions that are not on the surface what you would think of as being kind, but ultimately they are loving. Like we were talking about earlier with a parent that does the homework for their child, like that's fine, it's not loving. What is loving is getting this person to be able to do something on their own or go through the transformation that they need on their own to be a more whole person. That is what's loving. And sometimes you have to take yourself out of that situation.
Chandler:
[1:34:15] By being honest with yourself. It's like, you know, I actually can't deal with this at this time. And that's okay to just admit that that's where you are and be like, dude, I just need to, I can't be around this person right now. They bug the shit out of me. And maybe your absence serves something in them that then starts that change process, but it was only by doing something you felt was unkind or unloving that got them to move in the direction that is best for them, which is ultimately also what's best for you. I know that gets kind of abstract, but you bring up a great point about needing to discern that the principle can't always be loving, kindness, and compassion. Sometimes compassion is fierce.
Tyler:
[1:34:54] It is a necessary part of the hero's journey archetype that the master leaves you to your own devices. Like, Merlin abandons King Arthur in his time of need for a very specific reason. Jesus leaves the apostles sends them out on their own and then eventually dies and leaves earth to leave us all on our own Buddha ascended you know like this is part of the story it's the same story over and over and over again but yes like with someone who is stuck in that scenario like you can do all you can you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink like so my approach to these things is like give them all the tools that I can like hey maybe you should like read this book or i don't know go to church whatever the fuck it is go go talk it could be go talk to a psychiatrist get some help or figure this out on your own i can't help you and then leave and then i pray one day and i've had this happen to me many times and i have been on the other side of this where i go back to a person who i fucking hated for what they did to me in the past and I'm like thank you so much I just now like 10 years later realized why you did that and it made so much sense and I really appreciate the knowledge you imparted on me and also why you had to go
Tyler:
[1:36:17] Thanks for that and yeah i've also been in those situations where it's like you're gonna thank me later i'm out of here and then later i get that call could be years later where it's like dude you're like the only person who i actually trust to tell this thing to that was bothering me all that time or something like that and that's a huge deal that's being sometimes that's the best thing to do it's the best move and i hate that because i'll my instinct is always like i'm like borderline effeminate in how much I just want to hug and coddle and care for someone I need.
Chandler:
[1:36:52] Right, right. Dude, yeah, that's not always the right answer. It's not always what this person needs. Yeah.
Tyler:
[1:37:01] So now you're an entrepreneur and an author.
Chandler:
[1:37:04] Now I'm an entrepreneur and an author. Yeah, so after being in the monastery, I was there for a year and, every month we do session which is a silent week so you like basically the equivalent would be like you do an ayahuasca retreat each week like you drop in as deep as you can into the mind into the field of reality into your whatever this thing is and then you come back out you learn to integrate for three weeks then you drop back in and you're silent for a week the only time you speak is with a teacher for like 15 minutes, maybe, unless they ring you out of the room for saying something maybe obnoxious. So I did that for about a year, and it was so beautiful and deep and enriching and allowed so much old stuff to be cleared out. And then while I was there, I fell in love forever.
Chandler:
[1:38:04] And dating is against the monastery policy, unless you are coming in as a monastic couple, or unless you come in as a couple, then you're fine. There are two monastic couples there, the abbot and his wife met as monks in their 20s and have been married for 45 years. And she's not even a monk anymore, but he is still a monastic. And then there's another monastic couple so zen has kind of like adapted the form of buddhism to serve an american audience um that being said i fell in love and she left before i left the monastery and so i was there for a couple months and she was kind of on this i need to go on this pilgrimage it's urgent it can't wait, either i do it alone or you come with me and i had always said like yes i want to like join you on this thing so then we thought like i left the monastery in april of last year april 2020 when.
Tyler:
[1:39:06] You when you decided to leave like what was the
Chandler:
[1:39:08] Reaction yeah i was i was supposed to stay until um september of 2024 so i did leave a little early um and, And I had so many conversations with each of the head monks. They would call me into the private room to do face-to-face teaching. And they're like, you're a good person. We love having you here. And we understand that you're absolutely free to make your own decisions. And we want the best for you.
Chandler:
[1:39:45] And what's also true is you did make a commitment to be here for a certain amount of time and in this environment all we have is our word, so it's on you to discern is breaking your word the best thing to do in this situation like we'll still love you whatever you choose you leave us, we love you we wish you the best genuinely, and also consider like the impact that it'll have there's a certain way of leaving where we can really celebrate and be with you versus a way of leaving where it's kind of bittersweet. And ultimately, I felt like this is what I had to do. And I look back and believe that coming here to Southern California with this girl that I met, the monastery, that was the best decision I could have made, even though there was a lot of like turmoil and heartbreak involved and um so we are you.
Tyler:
[1:40:43] Still together no hey yes this is the moment in star wars when yoda is telling luke you're not done training and he's like no i have to go save han and leia right now and then obi-wan is like You're making a mistake and, but you're free to go. Like you could do whatever you want, but you're not done training yet. And then, you know, he has to come back in the return of the Jedi, but yes, that's so fucking good that you have to read this book. I swear you're going to love this. It's called the brother of the third degree. And yeah, and it's like this guy who's like in a secret society kind of thing. Like for, it's, it's an interesting book because it kind of predicts world war one. It's written prior to World War I.
Chandler:
[1:41:34] Meese.
Tyler:
[1:41:34] But this guy and this girl meet in the lodge, and he's in love with her, but it's not allowed. And constantly throughout the story, he's presented with the choice of like, do you want this or do you want that? And there's no wrong choice. You can do whatever you want. And each time that he chooses to set that aside and go the path of ascension instead, he ends up getting the you know it all works out later kind of thing
Chandler:
[1:42:05] All.
Tyler:
[1:42:06] The way up the chain not to spoil any of the story like that's really not a spoiler there's much more to it but yes
Chandler:
[1:42:13] And it's that's your hero's.
Tyler:
[1:42:15] Journey man that's so great
Chandler:
[1:42:16] Yeah dude for real i've been really working with that idea that the hero's journey and dissecting like my own um, um yeah my own journey like as i especially as i wrote a book on on this journey and the transformation that happened and the events that happened i document the selfie times earlier with i document like some of the buddhist teachings and buddhist practices that i pick up like in the middle of the book there's a whole training manual and zen not that i'm the most qualified but like i recognize that when i was looking for these teachings they were not to be found the only book that I found was like Alan Watts talking about Zen and it was very like abstract and kind of um he was he was intellectual he's a beautiful writer beautiful speaker but he was intellectualizing um like the state that he had found himself in without letting us know how he got how the cat got up in the tree so that's like you know I've been really unpacking this journey And so then I leave the monastery and this girl and I are going
Chandler:
[1:43:21] through, we're on a pilgrimage. I thought we were going to maybe go all around the world because it's kind of what we talked about. We start in California and we're going to different temples and religious sites and we find ourselves like, okay.
Chandler:
[1:43:37] There are currents that we're swimming in, things that we're swimming towards. We're kind of like birds migrating. And certain things have to happen at certain times. So let me give you an example of that. I was supposed to stay in the monastery until like September of 2024. Like I said, I left in April. And when we leave, like we have a car, we have a place. And we kept getting delayed for some reason as we were trying to start on this pilgrimage that had from Southern California up north and then back down and then maybe abroad. We kept getting delayed at the start and while we're in it, we're fighting. We keep getting delayed and we're mad at each other and there's all these things to work out and it seems like we're stuck in this weird little loop of the world of Sam's suffering. Actually, this delay is like, I see it genuinely as divine intervention.
Tyler:
[1:44:47] You're muted.
Chandler:
[1:44:54] How about now?
Tyler:
[1:44:55] You're good. Divine intervention. Just roll from there. It's good.
Chandler:
[1:44:59] Yeah, so I... It's divine intervention that delayed our trip to get us to arrive to Crotona, the esoteric school of theosophy, on the day, the exact day. This is the complete accident of their 100th birthday where they have a full week where it's open to the public. Normally, they're kind of closed off to the public. You can visit the library online. But we got there on the exact day and met the whole residential body. And if we'd gone one day before, we wouldn't have met a single person. And by meeting the residential body, who's all like 70 plus years old, and we're the only 20-year-olds there, they're like, what are you guys doing here? And we explain the story. They're like, you should come do some residential study here. We normally don't open our place out to people, but you guys are in the right place. So Ojai opened itself, right? And so then we stayed for a couple months. And then I was like, well, what do I want to do for work? I don't want to hop back into the corporate world.
Chandler:
[1:46:02] And when I was in a meditation retreat in February, because we do the silent week every month, I just, like, I had this sudden idea to start selling, like, super pure ceremonial grade cacao. Because there's not many people in that lane in the U.S. Yet. There's some people that are doing it, But I felt like there was a good opportunity to help bring this stuff that I'd been enjoying as a daily latte every day for the last two or three months. Like, oh, I could totally start a business bringing this stuff up from Central or South America to the U.S. And that would be a good thing. Helping people to not be so caffeinated all the time, but be working with theobromine, which is a heart opener. That's what cacao has been used for for thousands of years as a tool to open up the heart and make it help us connect more. So that'd be a good thing for society. It's like everyone switched from being coffee, putting themselves up in the mind more to being more centered in the heart. So in February, sitting in meditation and the whole idea, the logo, the packaging, the ways that it would be sold, the website, all of that kind of just flashed before my eyes. So I stuck in my back pocket. I had a practice of writing down every business idea that I've ever had and just putting it in my nose. And so this one was just kind of ready for when I got to Ojai, which is a hippie town, kind of spiritual, kind of health-oriented.
Chandler:
[1:47:26] And I was like, okay, I'm going to pull this thing out of my back pocket and start doing that. And right as my permits were passed, I applied to the farmer's market. Well, the farmer's market normally has a year-long wait list. But the chocolate vendor that does nice homemade chocolate, he could no longer come for the summer because he had a long COVID application, which gave me the perfect one-to-one replacement in at the exact right moment. If I would have waited until September when I was supposed to be out of the monastery, I wouldn't have had that opportunity. I would not have opened. If I would have gone sooner, he still would have been a vendor there. So it's like all these things just worked in such perfect timing. And so I've been just like doing cacao full time. You know, I sell at the markets. I sell in a couple of stores. I sell online. I would love to like see this thing really take off and move into a lot of grocery stores, bring cacao back to its pure form. Because the model that we use is not buying beans for cheap from Central or South America. We say, no, you make us a finished product in like a handcrafted traditional way that's not processed using machines, where it's prayed over, it's blessed, it's all done by hand by an indigenous-owned women's co-op, right? Like that puts a lot of money, keeps a lot of the value creation in Guatemala,
Chandler:
[1:48:48] which is where I source from.
Chandler:
[1:48:49] And it gives people in the US a super premium, like functional, good-feeling product that they share with other people that they love and drink in a more mindful setting, as opposed to binge-eating chocolate bars that have no potency. This stuff is super potent so that's like it's kind of a i've thought a lot about like what does right livelihood look like in action and this is the model that i found so i've been doing this full time i would love to see it take off um and then in my free time since i kind of have won back all my time now that i'm fed i decided to write this book and i've been like i think being in an entrepreneurial world, I kind of get to hone all of my skills. I'm constantly refining different skills from designing things, graphics, to making videos and editing, to web design, constantly refining copy.
Chandler:
[1:49:49] There's so many different skills to be working on all the time. You have to wear every hat, which is so fun for me because it's constant novelty. So now that I to have all my time back and i wrote this book i've been exploring other ways to to create well-being and like with the profits that i make from my cacao business i offer a free um cacao and meditation event where i go through i walk through a couple different forms of meditation one is like just sitting basic instruction and then there's another loving kindness practice that we do and we do like a balancing breathing like a particular pranayama that comes from india that I use the profits from the business to host. So I can have a space, I give cacao out for free, and it's right on generosity. So that's what I'm up to nowadays.
Tyler:
[1:50:42] That's a really good path. I'm a fan of all of this, man.
Chandler:
[1:50:48] Dude, thank you.
Tyler:
[1:50:51] You have become your own master. You no longer are a slave to the corporation. You went on your hero's journey. You chased the girl. You lost her. So now you've got to find the right one.
Chandler:
[1:51:02] That's right. That's right. That'll come when the time is right. I trust.
Tyler:
[1:51:06] I think it'll happen when you least expect it. And it'll probably already you probably already know her somehow if i had to guess but i don't know i mean i can only offer like my perspective i uh i was like i told you before like deep down in a fucking pit of just drinking and fucking smoking weed and being a miserable person chasing the corporate dragon and all at the same time is like almost just a year ago now i came to a screeching halt with my time in denmark i was like fuck this job is not gonna continue on like there was all kinds of corporate shit going on in the games industry and i was just lost and this young lady who i had been friends with never had a thought about being in a relationship like at best it was like well that'll never happen obviously um she was deployed overseas in the middle east and had texted me or actually i had just out of nowhere the night i don't know i was probably fucking sad and drunk or whatever like cold called her to be like hey i just want you to let you know like i heard you're overseas like i hope you're okay if you ever need anything give me a call just looking out for you right so then we had agreed
Tyler:
[1:52:31] That when she came back through ramstein on her way home i'd come hang out because i'm already in the area right um so i made that pilgrimage i had a i like when this finally happened i had just like severed ties with this company i have to move back to america now and i have a limited amount of time and budget to do that and then i i fucking just was pissed off so i went on like a
Tyler:
[1:53:02] In Slovakia spent like a week in Prague and then I came home and she was like on 72 hour notice that when when I'm gonna go to Germany right leave where I'm at so I'm like I don't know when that's gonna be I'll just try to be in Germany vaguely at that time but my trip ended and I went back to Denmark and then the day I landed I got the 72 hour notice so then I I booked fucking plane tickets. I took like two buses, two planes, and then five trains, and then another bus, and then walked probably 30 minutes to get to the gates of Ramstein Air Base. And we're married now. And I moved back to America May 5th of 2024, and my first son was born May the 5th, 2025.
Chandler:
[1:53:56] Wow.
Tyler:
[1:53:57] So, I don't know if that's exactly how it's going to work for you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. I don't know if that's how it's going to work for you. I'm just saying, like, you seem like you're making all the right moves right now. You own your own business. You're not working for anybody. You're not anybody's fucking slave bitch anymore. Are you going to go back to Dagobah at some point? Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the planet where Yoda lives.
Chandler:
[1:54:22] Oh. So I've thought about it and I kind of like, I did my time doing monastic discernment and I found like that's not for me right now. But I did live in that. You know, I felt what that would be like. And I think that where I'm at now is I found that balance of how to retain that state of mind that's being like constantly cultivated in the rest of the world. Because in a monastery, in a Zen monastery, you're doing two hours of meditation, two to three hours of meditation a day. And then you're doing six hours of work a day. And you don't have, you're kind of just constantly on the move anyway. Most of your day is spent working. So I'm like, as long as I just meditate in the morning, meditate at night, and like I say a particular prayer that I got from the monastery before every meal, even still.
Chandler:
[1:55:20] And you can totally be a monk outside in the actual world without needing to be in a monastery. It's just a model that hasn't really been developed that well yet. But there are people that are doing it and I'm trying to make it work of like, be able to take some time to just do extended periods of meditation when that's needed or maintain a daily practice of meditation. And yeah, so no plans to return yet. And I know exactly, like I know you're right, that the person will show up when it's least expected.
Tyler:
[1:55:59] Yeah, you will not see it coming. I'm making the prediction. So when it happens, you can shoot me a text or something and be like, oh my God, it happened. And it'd be great.
Chandler:
[1:56:11] It sounds like when you were on your journey, you knew that this would be something serious. You had this gut feeling like, I'm going to take multiple planes, multiple trains, walk a thousand miles.
Tyler:
[1:56:23] Here's what I knew. I knew I cared a lot about this person. Like, who is now my wife? I knew for sure I was not going to go back on my word that I will meet you in Germany. I had, I was so fucked up. Like, I had no intention, like, at all of it becoming like, oh, this is going to be a romantic relationship. I even told multiple people leading up to it. They were like, what are you doing? You're going to Germany? For what? And I'm like, oh, my friend, she just got back from a war zone. I kind of want to go be there for her. Uh i've known her for like like a long time i would hate to be alone in a hotel room and not have a friend around after having done that uh so i was just like i didn't know where it was leading i just knew i have to do this like it's not it wasn't negotiable in my mind i'm like i even despite all of the other reasons why i should be packing my apartment and breaking a lease and all that kind of i was just like going to germany at least for these three days and then i'll figure out all that afterwards then after i left germany i was like now i know what i must do i need to get back to america and i think like two weeks later i was like on a fucking airplane i'm out of here it was a it was rough it was like so now i get to throw it in her face all the time i was like oh i moved continents for you like i've literally chased you across the world
Tyler:
[1:57:52] Both directions so you're stuck with me forever now it was the best thing in the world and i could have never like the the day we met i could have never said that's gonna be the mother of my child there was couldn't have made that prediction at all
Chandler:
[1:58:08] Wow and i love to think like as you're going through the process of trying to see her in germany like the only reasons that your mind can come up with or like, yeah, I like care about this person and I would want the same thing if I was in that situation. But your heart knew what it was doing. It was pursuing something that you felt this like deep, you know soul level connection with it sounds like.
Tyler:
[1:58:32] Yeah the what you know you just talked about divine intervention earlier like i did my mind didn't know what to do but like you said my heart was in the right place it was just like you yeah like i i didn't consider it any other option other than to like you gave your word your word is your bond like if you break your word you look like a giant asshole you let someone down who you care about so don't do that so and it was a it was a pretty bad day because i like woke up out of a fucking three-day alcohol stupor i was fucking like uh like it was it was just bad i was like in a really tough spot and then i have to like get it was almost like the universe was physically making me get out of my own shit to do this because like i didn't know what else to do so get up walk to the bus stop get on the bus get off at that next bus stop get on that next bus okay walk into the airport go through security get on the plane get off the plane get on the next plane how do i get because i landed in like frankfurt and ramstein is a long way from frankfurt so i'm like how do i get to ramstein by tonight so i have to go to a fucking you know
Tyler:
[1:59:43] Train station i'm like speaking in english to a bunch of germans like how do i get to ramstein on a map and the lady's like oh american uh you know because germans they don't they don't like our archive right um they they like order and for things to go the correct way and i understand that i respect their culture but then she's like okay you just basically need to get on this train and then i don't know so i'm like following google maps i got off at the wrong place like the wrong stop so it literally took me what should have been two or three trains five trains to arrive
Tyler:
[2:00:20] In the nearest train station and then i stood at a bus stop for hours because it was like the buses were off schedule which is rare in germany but for some reason and there was i walk up to the bus stop standing there there's only other people in the fucking city that i can see are this couple with their baby and then i overhear them speaking and i'm like holy shit you guys are from america what are you doing here and they're like oh yeah we're waiting on the bus but it's always late but if we hang out for a while we'll probably find it i was like sick i have to get to ramstein air force base which way should i go and they're like oh that's the right bus so i get on the bus and uh go to swipe my card and the guy's like oh no it's cash only man it was like this like i don't know where it was from probably northern africa or something like that and he's just like it's cash only luckily i had a few euros in my pocket i just threw cash at him
Tyler:
[2:01:18] And then he takes me to the city of ramstein which is like nowhere and it's it's an abyssal tiny little town the only reason it exists is because there's a giant air force base next to it and then it's 30 minutes to walk from that bus stop to the front gate of the base and then i had to sit in the waiting area and wait for myself to get sponsored onto the base because my military id had expired it was just like none of that deterred me for any reason i don't know why like i could not at the time have predicted where it would go you
Chandler:
[2:01:52] Just take the next step you're like i just have to do this it's going to happen
Chandler:
[2:01:56] no matter what just a steamroller it was like testing your faith each time like okay here's my name.
Tyler:
[2:02:03] Is my wife's name is faith i swear to god what oh
Chandler:
[2:02:08] My god man.
Tyler:
[2:02:11] That's what I needed then I got sober and now I'm a dead
Chandler:
[2:02:18] Wow, man. It's really great to see. And how old are you?
Tyler:
[2:02:22] 30.
Chandler:
[2:02:24] 30. It's great to see young people getting married, having kids, because I feel like it's so prominent right now in our culture to like buy into the whole, like the world is ending. Humans are a cancer on the planet like i'm not gonna have any kids because humans are a cancer on the planet or i'm not gonna get married because i don't want one partner forever, so it's great to see other young people like doing the thing so i don't have many there's not many examples of that that i have in my life my.
Tyler:
[2:03:02] Cousin just got a vasectomy he got married and immediately got a vasectomy so that he would never have to worry about having kids and i'm like i I mean, I respect that, but I'm like, why? Who would want to bring a kid into this world? And I'm like, that's the fucking shittiest excuse I've ever heard. Make the world better for your child.
Chandler:
[2:03:19] Exactly. Exactly. It doesn't change. Yeah, the world's not going to change unless we all take accountability for it. It starts with me raising someone that's not a piece of shit. Like being conscious, being present, being healed to... And raising someone who has been a blessing. Their whole presence becomes medicine to the world. Everyone they meet. I know that sounds really idealistic, but it's like, that's true. Have you ever met someone who didn't grow up with insane amounts of generational trauma? Dude, they're like a walking hug, a walking smile, and it's like easeful, and good things happen around them. It's crazy. It's crazy. So I really respect that man.
Tyler:
[2:04:14] I'll tell you one more divine intervention story.
Chandler:
[2:04:17] Amy.
Tyler:
[2:04:18] Okay. This is late last year, like in the fall. I'm at home for two weeks while my wife, she was not my wife yet. She was still my about-to-be wife, like fiance, right? Went on a two-week vacation with her family to Italy, right? And I stayed home and I had nothing
Tyler:
[2:04:44] Better to do than get drunk so I just drank two weeks away into oblivion like an asshole and I felt terrible and I was like really really psychologically fucked up like not just
Tyler:
[2:04:57] From doing too much drinking but
Tyler:
[2:05:00] Like I am not in a good place I don't know why I was like this is bad but I refused to like reach out to anybody or ask for help and i was like kind of alone in that city so i didn't have any friends to like really talk to you yeah and it was the morning that i was supposed to get up and like today i have to go pick her up from the airport which was like an hour and a half away and i was like i have to get my shit together enough to go pick her up because if i don't then i'm now i've failed everybody now i'm a total ass so can't do that um so i sobered up and begrudgingly painfully made that trip but before this i was laying in the bed and i was trying to figure out like how am i going to get my shit together and i just like prayed really long i was like i need a reason to stop doing this to myself please give me a reason to stop doing this i know that i'm supposed to choose it and all that stuff but like I need something to make me not do this anymore I picked her up from the airport we drove home I unpacked her bags and she's like hey can you open that zipper right there I'm like yes and it was all these Italian baby clothes that she bought because she found out while she was over there that she was pregnant and that was like my that was my moment like yeah
Tyler:
[2:06:28] If this isn't it, I don't know what is. Because I couldn't see myself being the way I was and being a present, productive member of a family.
Chandler:
[2:06:39] Yeah. Dude. It's like, that was, that was the, it was like in a way a rock bottom, it sounds like. I was like, dude, I'm on my knees, I'm praying. And then immediately the sign hits you of like, your life is about to completely change.
Tyler:
[2:07:01] Yes.
Chandler:
[2:07:01] Your life is no longer going to be about you and your pain and even your gratification. It's going to be about the well-being of like this other little, little being.
Tyler:
[2:07:14] Yeah it was like this is the this is the thing you asked for this so here you go challenge and i didn't have to i could have just been you know like many people are they're like ah whatever but i asked for it like to whoever was listening like i need this i gave it to me and now i'm just like okay and now every day i'm like i don't just feel like i need to not drink because it's better for my health I feel like oh I made a deal and I can't go back on that deal
Chandler:
[2:07:50] Now we gotta live with like what we got when being yeah.
Tyler:
[2:07:56] Man we uh we should probably wrap this up pretty soon but it's been really really cool to talk to you I'm really glad you reached out you you'd mentioned you had trouble getting people to respond can you tell me a little bit about how that's been for you
Chandler:
[2:08:12] Well, so I've been, like, I signed up for this newsletter thing that's trying to get people with a story to tell connected to podcasts who want people with stories to tell. And I've reached out to every podcast that, you know, is appropriate for what I want to talk about through this platform. I've reached out to every podcast that I can think of that I've ever listened to. Even the like full shot in the dark ones because if you don't ask the answer is always a no so i'm like i'll just put myself out there and see what happens and um and just like nobody has even responded so part of me is like maybe they're not even getting my message um and yeah but totally because i know that they they probably when they put out um you know a guest they're seeking a guess that they get a million responses because it's all these people with some story to tell that have just written some book and but yeah so I just haven't really gotten any responses and so that makes me wonder okay is it something that I'm saying or is it like they're just not getting it or maybe no it's not the right fit but I'm so glad that we got on because this has been so fun it's like I said it's great to meet someone who like is also wondering about these same things of wondering about the past, trying to figure out what it means to be a human.
Chandler:
[2:09:41] How do we live well?
Chandler:
[2:09:43] How do we commit and come back to these, in your case, these traditional family values is like being a husband, having children, being the father that's going to pass on love and prosperity to their kids. You're thinking about these things, you're like, fucking gotta quit drinking not every alcoholic that the parent does that like mine did not you know yeah.
Tyler:
[2:10:08] I get it and
Chandler:
[2:10:09] So it's just i'm glad we got to connect.
Tyler:
[2:10:13] The uh the funny thing is that so i like he he was born two weeks ago right and crazy i had missed a week because i'm usually really good about like booking up stuff ahead of big events but it didn't work that way so i missed a week of the podcast and i'm like well shit now that i'm home again i get all this settled all right i need to get back to work and i had gotten like a cold email from some representative at podcastguest.com which i'd never i've always just been like i'm the one reaching out to people always like hey you want to do this thing or just like meet someone like you want to be on podcast that kind of deal so podcastguest.com is like offered me i don't know if it's a free trial or whatever the fuck. Be like, hey, do you want to be listed in this month's issue? It's coming out in like a week or whatever the fuck. I'm like, yeah, why not? I don't care. Like, sign me up. Literally i think i said like sign me up and then like i got just flooded with all kinds of applications a few days ago right when you got my response email it was like me and my friend were like just going through all these like you know some of these are like weird charlatan kind of things it's kind of the you put yourself into the spiritual and or ufo categories like you get a lot of oh yeah i could very open-minded but i can i can i think i can smell not good when i see it um
Chandler:
[2:11:36] Yes i'm gonna at least be able to hold the crazy against like being kind of grounded.
Tyler:
[2:11:41] Yeah for sure like you know there's people who were like i had this amazing story that i'd like to share and then there's people who are like i can heal people by touching them and you know and I charged this much money, or whatever the fuck, and I'm like, no. No, I don't think so. But yeah, and that's how we ended up together today. Just weird happenstance.
Chandler:
[2:12:05] Dude, that's the man intervention.
Tyler:
[2:12:08] Yeah, man.
Chandler:
[2:12:09] It doesn't have to be that. Yeah.
Tyler:
[2:12:14] Okay, well, let's wrap up the recording here, and then we'll talk again. We will do this again at some point. dude
Chandler:
[2:12:21] Yes i would love to.
Tyler:
[2:12:32] Thank you very much to chandler for coming on the show what a fucking guy what an epic story more stuff like that down the pipeline uh so if you liked this episode uh buckle up because this is kind of the direction we're going to be going for a while this kind of stuff the deep questions uh make sure you go to chandlerjames.blog and uh grab a copy of his really really cool book like that quarter life crisis get uh more of the details of how he ended up where he is and all that stuff because there's no way we could cover it all in three hours but yeah i'm really blessed to have met this guy i'm super super stoked by the universe bringing amazing people like this into my life and then me being able to share it with you guys um also make sure you check out his cacao business cacao cora cacao and uh yeah ceremonial grade cacao it's uh for making stuff like chocolatey stuff i know you want that i want that i'm gonna give some to my my wife probably like soon
Tyler:
[2:13:42] It's simply divine thank you to all of our wonderful supporters on Patreon you guys rule if you would like to be a supporter of the show you can inthekeep.com support I love you God love you stay in the keep
Music:
[2:14:12] Music
