What if Your Mid-Life Crisis is a Wake-Up Call?

Episode Transcript

Debra Maldonado (00:01.137)
Hello everyone, welcome back to Young on Purpose. I am Deborah Moldanata.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (00:05.518)
I’m Doctor Robb, welcome to the program.

Debra Maldonado (00:08.339)
We’re so happy happy you’re here. We are going to be just shifting gears moving forward and a new topic. And we’re talking about the midlife crisis slash opportunity, and we’re going to discuss slash what? Dark night of the soul, midlife pain, struggle, dolls, what is happening in the middle of life.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (00:13.654)
Uh-huh.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (00:21.24)
Slash

Dark night of the soul.

Debra Maldonado (00:35.977)
if you’re a fan of Jung, you know he talks about this a lot. And we’re going to talk a little bit about it from an Eastern perspective, which is going to be different. But before we begin, I do want to remind you: if you’re watching us on YouTube, click the button in the corner and hit subscribe. If you are listening to us on a podcast service, please make sure you subscribe to our show. That helps us reach more people, get this information out to more people. We really appreciate it. So

I had my dark night of the soul when I was 35 or 36, I think. And I remember thinking I d can’t go backwards to the life I had. I had I call it my homeless, manless, and jobless moment. I had broken engagement. I had lost my job. my company folded and I was out of work. And I had to sell my house that I lived in. So it was kind of like my whole life was in this upheaval.

And it wasn’t as dark as I thought it was because I knew on some level that I was heading in the wrong direction. Like I wasn’t super excited about getting married. I was like, I feel like this is that my next step for me. I wasn’t super excited about what I was doing with my life. I didn’t really love the house I lived in. Like it was just almost like if you don’t take action, the universe decides, well, let’s just take it all away and let’s start over. And that’s how I felt. And I picked up

Book by Eckertoly, the power of now. And I was like, wow, this is really kind of where I am. There’s no pa I can’t go back to the past. I can’t, I don’t want to, I don’t want to go back to the past. And I I don’t know where I’m going yet. And so we all hit that moment. some people it’s earlier, some people it’s 30, and some people it’s later, maybe it’s 40 or 50, but it’s usually after you built up something.

And then the things you chased early in life just aren’t fulfilling you anymore. And it’s it’s it can be very traumatic. It could be like s you’re losing a loved one or you know, really crashing your life, or it could be just those little subtle like movements of of shift in life. And so it depends on the intensity. But I knew my friend said to me, Deb, you you were so calm through that whole time. Like you

Debra Maldonado (02:48.167)
We looked and said, wow, look what’s happening to Deb. Like what is how is she handling all that? And I said, I knew that it was taking me somewhere new. I didn’t know what it was yet. And so that was really beautiful. And that’s a way to think about if this is your life, it was a way it it’s an opportunity.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (03:06.933)
Yeah, absolutely. Mine was many but the main one

Debra Maldonado (03:08.465)
Did you ever have a dark night of the soul, Rob? Many. I know we can have a couple. Yeah.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (03:15.911)
yeah, the main one was completely the opposite of what you’re describing. I had everything. I had achieved everything I wanted and more, and I was completely miserable. I mean this was dark. It wasn’t like I’m disappointed. It was a dark, dark period, like you fall into a pit where you can’t see anything.

Nothing makes sense. It’s feels like everything you worked for doesn’t matter at all. And you have to make a a huge decision of whether you’re going to continue or not continue, whether to be or not to be kind of that situation. But it it has to do with, you know, our pursuits of

As human beings, of what we call happiness. And it begins with pleasure and success. Like these are the big two targets that we’re giving or given by our cultures as to what happiness means. Happiness Freud talks about this. He says, Most of the clients that come to me.

with their neuroses, it’s about love or money or love or work. All right. Work and love. that’s kind of what we’re set up for. We’re set up to find happiness through pleasure. And when most of us think about happy

Debra Maldonado (04:58.237)
Finding the partner, yeah, in love and having family and

Dr. Rob Maldonado (05:04.917)
Yes, all those things. And it it includes of course having nice things, being able to travel, to experience new things, books

Debra Maldonado (05:15.685)
doing what the Joneses what are the following the Joneses, keeping up with the Joneses, having the the house and yeah, and looking what kind of car you have and then your children need to have like the best schools and yeah, all that.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (05:20.951)
That’s more the money piece, yeah, the success.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (05:29.749)
Yeah, so it’s this kind of enjoyment of our life as well as having the things that the status symbols that define you as someone someone that’s successful, accomplished, et cetera, et cetera.

Debra Maldonado (05:47.4)
So as Jung would say, building up the persona, you know, having that per you know, outer self that is falling in line with the world, pursuing the things the world tells you that will give you happiness, very externalized.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (05:50.699)
Exactly.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (06:02.264)
Yes. In Eastern philosophy, that’s called Kama and Artha. So Kama is the pleasure from most of you most people have heard of the Kama Sutra, the first word, right? Kama, is this sense of enjoying your life in in every sense of the word. And I love the Eastern philosophy because what it’s saying is this is one of your purposes. This is one of your

Debra Maldonado (06:13.202)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (06:32.098)
Goals in life is to be able to enjoy it. If if you’re not enjoying it, you’re wasting the this great opportunity to be alive and to experience the world. And so it it’s a part of their philosophy that you should enjoy your life. But there’s these other factors that go into it that balance it out. Whereas in in the West, we often focus on this pleasure principle.

As it’s gonna give us everything. If I’m enjoying my life, that means I’m going to be the happiest. drink eat, drink, and be merry because tomorrow we die.

Debra Maldonado (07:11.463)
Well if you look

Debra Maldonado (07:15.155)
Well, yeah, that’s true. I used to love Eat Drinkin’ Me Marry when my twenties. That’s when my twenties was all about comma. And and what I think is really interesting too is that we we think we we keep pursuing these things early in life. We keep pursuing and even as adulthood, we keep pursuing that pleasure that if I find that partner or if I have a romantic weekend with my husband, it’ll ignite the marriage or

if i have that delicious dessert if i go to a vacation and and and and be in this beautiful place or make money the thing what we know about in eastern philosophy when we think about what the nature of reality is is those things are fleeting they don’t last they’re temporary temporary happiness they’re that’s why we we’re constantly craving more because it doesn’t last that first love doesn’t last the

The initial spark when you meet someone does not last. You have to keep building it. And and the work, you know, the jujoy of bunny, like you see some people, they’re they’re 12th yacht and they still want more. It’s like something is missing. They’re not happy if they keep they can’t they have more than they need and they keep needing more. and what’s sad is that I think sometimes people replace because if they can’t have happiness, they might as well have money.

And they replace their career and they sacrifice their own happiness for their career for money. So almost like they exchange their life for money. It’s like the your money or your life. They pick their money and and they sacrifice so much happiness, thinking, well, one day I can retire, or one day I’ll get enough and then I could enjoy my life. And it never comes. So this is temporariness of these two basically the bottom pursuits of life.

And they’re both important. We don’t what we’re we’re not here in a human body not to enjoy things and not to have abundance and and enjoy the pursuit of success and all those things. Those are great. But it can’t be the end of the story. And I think that’s where what happens in midlife is that we we hit that point and it’s not satisfying anymore. that not you know, I I see so many people that are so successful and they’re miserable. I’m many clients over the years and they just aren’t happy.

Debra Maldonado (09:34.287)
And more money is not going to solve it anymore. And or having, you know, more affairs with women or women having affairs with men, you know, finding the next partner just doesn’t satisfy them anymore. And so it’s not coming from a place of lack, it’s coming from a place of meaninglessness in those pursuits.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (09:47.406)
Yeah.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (09:54.253)
Yes. And I think to understand the East the the Eastern perspective, it requires kind of a an adjustment. Like what we’ve been describing is kind of more a moralistic understanding of pleasure and success, but they didn’t really see it that way. What they were seeing is everything is consciousness. Everything we experience in our life is essentially

experience as mental awareness, this consciousness. So they were talking about it in that sense, that it’s not about good or bad. It’s more about what do we do with this? Right? We we notice, for example, that as soon as you focus on the body, you understand that my God, this is a finely tuned machine. It’s designed to sense the world in amazing, incredible ways.

We see colors, we sense so many things, you know, we can distinguish like just by touching something, what it is, what it’s made out of, what’s the the surface and all that very very acute senses, very finely tuned to the world. we hear beautiful music, wide range of experiences,

W the the qu their question was, what do we do with this finally tuned instrument? Is it just meant to to to experience the world and and that’s it? Or is there something deeper? And so then they started to think about abundance, like you were saying. we should have abundance and and and we feel good and we feel accomplished.

when we have meaningful work and and we’re successful at it. So all these things we they they were seeing it from that philosophical perspective of well what is the purpose how do we put it to good use and and so they decided that yes we should enjoy our life and if we’re not enjoying it

Dr. Rob Maldonado (12:22.457)
We should pay attention and and find a way to enjoy our lives. We should be successful and have plenty and abundant, but are there other elements to life? Are there deeper structures that we need to attend to? And then they started to include these other two, which is Dharma and Moksha. So Dharma, what it does is

We it translates as purpose, as meaning, as spiritual law. I’m sorry?

Debra Maldonado (12:54.417)
Your sacred duty.

Like your sacred duty, your dharma?

Dr. Rob Maldonado (13:00.249)
Sacred duty, what we call purpose. So young on purpose, perfect, right? it’s what we’re talking about. But note that what it does, it tempers pleasure and success because now you’re including meaning. In other words, why do you want to experience the world in this sensual way? Why is it important for you to be happy in the world?

Debra Maldonado (13:06.131)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (13:30.509)
In your body.

Debra Maldonado (13:31.028)
Well, wouldn’t you say like for the beginning for most people, it’s the pursuit of kama and artha, pleasure and abundance, primarily from the ego in the first part of life. And so the ego gets attached and once more and you’re conditioned to have all those things, but to feed the ego, which isn’t real, but it has you’re kinda caught up in it. And when we introduce

idea of of dharma we’re now acting not from the ego anymore we’re have the ability to act from our soul and that’s what and so it’s it’s sort of a rebirth that we have like that’s why we call it a that’s why we’re not happy it’s actually good news because if you were your ego is just happy going through life you would never have a spiritual awakening you would just be lost in the life so this is an opportunity to be reborn and express your life from a soul level

And we call that your second horizon. And we have a program coming out this fall around it. If you are interested in pursuing your purpose, it’s in the notes, little plug there. But it’s that that new horizon, this new you. You you you can approach these same things. You don’t even have to quit your job. You don’t have to leave your marriage, but it’s your approaching it from a soul place versus from the ego.

which is is is causing all the suffering in your life. You could actually really enjoy love, you can really enjoy partnership, you can really enjoy family and wealth and abundance in a different way. And the the way we do it is there’s some things that stop us from doing it and we’re gonna talk about that.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (15:06.798)
Yeah.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (15:17.283)
Yes, but we haven’t finished the the first four. So we have pleasure and success. Dharma then, this purpose gives them meaning. So that pleasure is not simply for the sake of pleasure, but it’s instructing us. It’s giving us a sense of the beauty of the world, the aesthetic principles of art and this curiosity.

Curiosity about what the nature of the world is, it all comes through the senses. So it’s a beautiful experience. When we focus simply on the senses for its its own sake, we get lost. We fall into addiction or we fall into this materialistic perspective of things that only external sensations can make us happy. And that

Debra Maldonado (16:09.863)
But don’t you think Dharma is to to experience Dharma is to work through the ego attachment? That’s how you connect with your dharma.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (16:21.133)
Yes, absolutely. w and also what Dharma does, meaning finding your purpose, this sacred duty, like you said, it gives then success and work.

Real meaning. Instead of again simply laboring to pay the rent and to feed yourself and feed your family, it becomes then a spiritual path. So both pleasure and success become spiritualized through the understanding of Dharma, through entering this phase of what is the meaning of this?

Without it, and and and this is the the disease of modern society, is that they teach us pleasure and success as happiness, but they don’t teach us the deeper meaning of it. And therefore, people get completely lost in it. Right. And like this dark night of the soul, why does it happen? Because once you attain these things and you find that it’s not what they promise.

You’re disillusioned, you’re you’re depressed, you’re you’re not you you’ve spent so much time chasing the wrong things or or working at them in a in a in the wrong way, let’s say, expecting the wrong thing from

Debra Maldonado (17:55.006)
So how would you say someone finds their dharma? Because there’s a lot of confusion and I know we’re gonna get into moksha too. And I I my understanding was that the attachment is the way to connect with the soul, to be non attached, to do the kleshas, which we’ll talk about, but you’re saying it’s something else?

How does someone know if they’re so they’re they’re in the dark night of the soul. So how do they get back to their soul? Like how do they align with their soul? What is that? What do they need to do to get that? Like many people think of it as more of the purpose like I have to change careers. And if I just change career, I’m just doing the wrong thing. My sacred duty is not to be incorporate anymore to do like be a coach or a therapist or thought leader or you know, completely something new, maybe

Dr. Rob Maldonado (18:26.938)
Mm-hmm.

Debra Maldonado (18:47.36)
get into AI. I don’t know. an and then maybe that’s my purpose. But we’re we’re talking about something more profound than just changing careers. When you say Dharma. Yeah.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (18:56.012)
absolutely. Yeah. because once you understand Dharma, and and it requires, of course, some study and some work and some practice to understand Dharma and in particular your Dharma. now we’re using Dharma here in more in the Vedantic sense, meaning in Buddhism they use Dharma to mean the teachings of the Buddha.

Yeah, but in the original Upanishads, Dharma was more like you mentioned your sacred duty. Like what are you here to do individually as well as universally? It w it was a kind of the what we call purpose, what we call calling. And so it gives you that sense of calling that you’re here to do something and both your enjoyment of the world.

And your work.

are seen through that lens. They’re experienced through that lens. The other one though, which is really the aim, is liberation. It’s the word is moksha or one of the words

Debra Maldonado (20:13.479)
I always think of it as a Starbucks. The mocha moksha. I’ll have a moksha Vante mo moksha, please.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (20:17.52)
To right. Right. It should be a a drink, but it is transcending your individual life. If you don’t transcend your individual life, again you’re disappointed because it all you’re doing is kind of doing all these things and staying busy and working through through your life without.

really having a deep rooted meaning to it.

Debra Maldonado (20:50.461)
So what do you mean by transcending your life for people who don’t know what that means?

Dr. Rob Maldonado (20:55.578)
So in simple terms it’s it means that you’re connect

Debra Maldonado (20:58.439)
Dying going to the happy place. Again. Just kidding.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (21:01.996)
Yeah, you’re you’re connected to something larger than yourself. You could

Debra Maldonado (21:07.719)
So in your individual like ego life, you’re transcending it and seeing yourself as part part of something greater, like the greater source in you, the the self in you as the Eastern philosophy would say.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (21:15.428)
Much greater.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (21:19.982)
Yes, we know that psychologically, if you don’t have that, it doesn’t matter how much money you have. It doesn’t matter how much you enjoy or sensor sensory pleasure you have, how much of that you have, it doesn’t matter because you will not be fulfilling the complete purpose of your life. That’s the dharma and that’s the moksha. So yes, you need the dharma.

Debra Maldonado (21:45.554)
So you need the Dharma to get to moksha. It’s not the spiritual bypassing of if I’m spiritual enough, I can manifest more money. I’m spiritual enough, I can magneti draw in my my ideal partner, you know, using the spiritual ideals or philosophies to get the material. It’s the opposite, it’s like being away, be okay without it.

And understanding there’s something bigger than these little earthly needs. Not that we don’t want to get rid of them again, but you enjoy them more when you’re it’s not a a foundation of your survival. When you’re an ego, I gotta find that person, I gotta have kids, I can’t leave my my husband can’t leave me, or my wife can’t leave me, or my whole life will fall apart, or the job will take away from me. And like I said, when I I had it all pulled away from me, so I I had no choice but to enter the process.

So I think that’s either you get pulled away, it’s like something happens, or you like you, Rob, where you just you hit that wall where nothing’s making you happy anymore. And so, but you need the Dharma because you have to connect with your soul in this it’s almost like the bridge between the a human and the spiritual. The dharma is that kind of you’re bringing your gifts into the world, your your own individual expression of spirit or soul into the world.

And but you’re ha one ha one foot it like Buda has that one foot in the hand in the g in the water and one hand above in that one picture. I think it’s over there behind you doing that. So it’s that kind of you’re b in both worlds, balancing both worlds.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (23:29.774)
Yeah. there’s many meta metaphors on that in Eastern philosophy. again, but the the important point is that it’s not a moralistic judgment. It’s not saying you shouldn’t enjoy your life or you shouldn’t follow wealth or or have abundance. It’s not talking in th those kind of terms. It’s saying more of

These are natural expressions of our human nature. How do we use them creatively, constructively, so that they enrich our lives instead of dragging us down into this kind of meaninglessness of just seeking pleasure for pleasure’s sake or just seeking material wealth and accumulating things just for its own sake as well?

Debra Maldonado (24:23.183)
You can’t take it with you. And there’s a reason why we’re born into this body with limitations and conditioning. And it’s it you have to think there’s a greater plan than just cruelty and suffering. That there’s a there’s a reason. It’s almost like we this like in Eastern philosophy, the self spreads itself out in individual selves, little selves all over, and we each have a a piece of that, part of that, and it’s it’s having an individual expression.

through us. So if the self doesn’t work for you, it’s like God. Imagine God planting a seed in you and being expressed in all the different people and having that potential for enlightenment. it’s a it’s a beautiful idea that I love that this idea that the divine in me wants to express itself through me. You know, like there’s something it wants to be expressed that only can be expressed in this body, with this DNA, with this talent

in this certain way. Like we all have that unique thumbprint of our con our contribution to the world while we’re here. And it makes makes our life very special versus, let’s just get through life so we can go to heaven and one day everything’s fine. This is it. This is heaven. You can have heaven on earth right here.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (25:39.599)
Yeah, that’s a good way to put it. and and so it leads us to this question then. What about evil? What about suffering? again, in in the West, we’re so used to thinking in these moralistic terms. And so we have this concept of evil. What’s preventing us from living this fulfilled life? There must be an evil force somewhere in the universe stopping us.

Debra Maldonado (25:47.759)
Ooh, what about it, Rob? Hmm.

Debra Maldonado (26:09.149)
Why do bad things happen to good people, right? Like why did this random like car accident happen or a murder happen or a mental illness show up and that destroys a family? You know, why did these things happen?

Dr. Rob Maldonado (26:09.271)
Or

Yeah, exactly.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (26:25.7)
That’s part of it, yes.

Debra Maldonado (26:26.589)
Tell us, Doctor Rob.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (26:29.272)
Well, again, if we take the Eastern perspective, there is no evil. The main culprit, the main obstruction to our happiness, to our fulfillment, is ignorance.

Ignorance of what? Ignorance of how do we approach these questions of pleasure, of success, of being in our bodies, of having to work for a living? And what does it mean? In other words, it’s the lack of meaning, it’s the lack of spiritual purpose and spiritual understanding that leads us to the suffering.

Or that creates our sense of suffering. If we get it wrong.

Debra Maldonado (27:20.275)
Yeah, if you look at the world, most people are asleep, so they’re ignorant of their own spiritual nature. And that’s why we have wars, that’s why we have crime, that’s why we have people getting their heartbroken all the time, or or greedy business people, you know, scammers, all because they’re ignorant of their own of their own divine nature.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (27:39.248)
And so no.

Debra Maldonado (27:41.234)
It’s not an excuse for that and to be like, well, they’re just ignorant of their own divine nature. But if those things happen, we can explain it now. It’s not that we are meant to experience someone harming us or hurting us. We say though, now let me look at this ignorance and how do I purify my own mind so I don’t fall into the same level of ignorance.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (28:02.906)
Yeah. Yeah. And it it it makes much more sense and it gives us kind of a a more realistic way of working instead of trying to fight off some demon or some evil spirit, some entity that’s disturbing our mind.

Debra Maldonado (28:21.575)
Doing incantation to get rid of all the evil, right?

Dr. Rob Maldonado (28:25.474)
Yes. No offense to people that believe that. I mean, i i you know, this is philosophy. That’s why we love to approach this work as philosophy because it means it means we can question it, we can discuss it, we can talk about it. and that’s all we’re doing. We’re saying what’s a reasonable approach and a more creative approach to these human problems that we’re facing? And one of the big questions is what is the nature of suffering?

Debra Maldonado (28:35.857)
Not a religion, yeah.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (28:55.608)
If we say

Debra Maldonado (28:55.921)
And those people that do bad things are are suffering are are suffering too because they’re ignorant and so they’re causing harm in the world. They are in suffering as well.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (29:06.35)
That too. Instead of pointing fingers at others and saying they are evil, we’re simply saying they don’t understand. They’re they’re ignorant of the nature of their human life. In other words, they don’t understand that accumulating more and more and more is not going to lead to anything creative. It’s going to lead to more suffering. When

Debra Maldonado (29:33.244)
And then the people that can’t accumulate or can’t create will destroy. So it’s either they’re creating the stuff with the external world or they destroying something or they’re doing both at the same time with what they’re creating, they’re destroying, destroying natural like the world. I mean, we just went to Aspen last weekend and I was I was shocked at the the the levels of the rivers and how dried up and like what are we doing to this planet? People aren’t trying to be.

hurt the planet intentionally, they just are ignorant of that this is us, like the earth is us. It’s in us. It’s a part of us that they don’t see that. so when we think about ignorance, I always think of I always tell people when we train our coaches or our clients, I’m always saying we only have one problem that causes our suffering in our life is that we believe we’re just the ego. And anytime we’re suffering, anytime we have a bad day or we’re

Going into catastrophizing thinking or getting down. It’s because we forgot who we are. And and it doesn’t mean that you just turn the switch on and everything’s fine, but it’s cultivating this, you know, kind of your your kind of spiritual nature that awakens or dispels the ignorance from your mind.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (30:50.542)
Yes. And so using first principles, what is ignorance made out of? It it is you mentioned the ego, it is this sense of breaking things down into good and bad.

That’s what the ego does. It breaks it down into what is pleasurable for me. Let’s see, it ties into already our sensory experience, and what is aversive to me. So attraction and aversion, the ego uses to define its experience in the world. It tries to move towards what’s pleasurable and what’s

Delicious and easy, and tries to move away from what’s hard, what’s aversive, what’s difficult.

Debra Maldonado (31:50.043)
But it’s painful.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (31:51.601)
Painful, etc. Now it works really well for survival. So we we need the mechanism, but when we stay with it, it leads to ego rule. In other words, the ego then, which is our sense of self, our sense of identity.

Debra Maldonado (32:13.265)
It’s like a function that creates this like image of an eye of us, like an individual personality that we relate to as the body and the mind that is my name. My me. Me and me, me, I, me, mine, right?

Dr. Rob Maldonado (32:25.424)
The

I mean mind, exactly. The I mean mind then is what we see in most human beings. There’s nothing wrong with what they’re doing, they’re simply following their nature, right? They’re they’re trying to enjoy their lives, find happiness, and trying to create abundance or sustainability for themselves. But because they’re not experiencing or working on their dharma.

And moksha, the liberation, the transcendence, they’re simply staying on that surface level. And what they do, what happens is that they think more is the answer. If I’m not happy now, it must be that I don’t have enough. And so more will give me that happiness, they believe. Because that’s the ego, it’s operating on the principle of.

I if this is not enough for me, then more will satisfy me. Right?

Debra Maldonado (33:33.32)
Well, we and then when we get to that point of realizing more doesn’t make us satisfying, we have another problem because the ego also does not like change. So for us to so in instead of more, we’re also attached to what we have and clinging to what we know and the familiar. So we I talk about hanging onto the log, that story. We’re like the floating in the water and that’s kind of keeping you afloat.

And we we start to think of I don’t want to let go of what I have. I don’t I’m afraid to make a change because I’m afraid to lose. So we either chasing something or hanging on to something that we don’t want to lose and then we end up settling in life. I think a lot this happens a lot too, where we get exhausted from chasing and then we’re like, okay, well, I’m just gonna hang on to my little house or my little business and my partner, even though I’m not really happy and

But I don’t want to change. So this the aversion to change and then the chasing of pleasure, but also pushing away any kind of disruption or pain. And so we’re in that really in vi in in between state where we’re not really creating anymore. We’re kind of stuck in like a whirlpool that’s spinning around.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (34:50.702)
Yeah. And so what are the antidotes to ignorance and ego and duality? Well, the antidote to ignorance is knowledge, but it’s gotta be a particular kind of knowledge. Again, because if we’re stuck in sensory pleasure and materialistic accumulation, higher knowledge.

means not just information that leads us to more pleasure and to more materialistic success. It’s got to be higher knowledge about Dharma, about moksha, the true yeah, the true nature of yourself. Yeah. Yes.

Debra Maldonado (35:34.192)
About the reality of consciousness and who we are and the bigger pi bigger questions, right? Not how to like drive a car or work your computer or something you could put in Chat GPT and say, can you tell me how about this or that? And you could probably get some quotes from the Gita or learn about Vedanta, but it’s so much more than just learning an idea, but it’s about embr embodying the higher knowledge. It’s about

Dr. Rob Maldonado (35:47.599)
Yes.

Debra Maldonado (36:04.463)
you know, a a practice. Yeah. How to how do we put it to work? How do we integrate it? Because otherwise it just stays on that intellectual level. And and you can spout wonderful verses from the Gita or the Bible or whatever. And and it it’s empty if you don’t know or know it in your heart.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (36:04.752)
How do you put it to work? Yeah.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (36:23.972)
Yeah, that’s why we distingu distinguish higher knowledge from lower knowledge or from what we call information. there’s a glut of information. We have so much information. Yeah. We have so much information now that we don’t even know what to do with it. But knowledge is any higher knowledge is any knowledge that instructs you on the nature of your consciousness.

Debra Maldonado (36:32.914)
Yes.

I got tens of bucks here. Yeah.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (36:52.974)
Because consciousness is what we experience the world through. So pleasure, material, our sense of purpose, our meaning, it’s all consciousness. It happens in consciousness. It doesn’t happen anywhere else except in awareness. That principle, once we start to practice that, it leads us to our own understanding. This is what self-inquiry is.

in Eastern philosophy, the the principle of self-inquiry then evolved into what we call yoga, meditation, non-attachment, all these beautiful practices that that feed that, that instruct that self-discovery. And self here, not ego discovery, but self as the true essence of who you are. What it what is the Atma and what is the soul.

Debra Maldonado (37:44.955)
The true self or the higher self.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (37:51.566)
What is essence in you that

Debra Maldonado (37:53.746)
So we have ignorance and the opposite is knowledge, higher knowledge. And then we have the other two, which are attraction and aversion, that are keep us in ego. And the antidote to that is.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (37:57.327)
Yeah, higher knowledge.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (38:04.568)
And the the antidote the antidote to that is nondual. Non-duality the well, non-attachment is part of it. It’s a the practice, right? But you have to understand, like you have to understand the theory. What is the theory? Instead of operating in this good and bad, which is the e the simplest, right? It it works really well.

Debra Maldonado (38:11.483)
Or non attachment or

Dr. Rob Maldonado (38:33.818)
For survival, but if we remain there, we’re we’re remaining in kind of a primitive state of awareness. It helps us survive because it keeps us away from what’s painful and what’s difficult and moves us towards what’s pleasurable, the pleasure principle, but it doesn’t instruct us into the deeper nature of ourselves in the world. Now, what we do with non-duality is simply this.

We understand that non-duality, first of all, it’s very subjective. Like what you like and what I like might be completely different.

Debra Maldonado (39:16.541)
What’s good and bad, what’s pleasurable, not pleasurable, what’s painful, what’s uncomfortable, what’s ple pleasurable, all that is subjective.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (39:19.191)
Exactly. Yeah.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (39:24.588)
It’s very subjective. And you notice where does where do arguments and and conflict arise from? Precisely that. What you define as good and what you define as bad is different from what I define as good and what I define as bad. And therefore we’re in disagreement already. There’s a conflict.

Debra Maldonado (39:47.518)
But even beyond that, just in a your personal life, if you want to be happy and you’re only happy when the things you assume are good show up and the things you assume are bad aren’t there, as soon as the bad comes in, your happiness goes away. And so it’s that non-dual ideas mean that they’re both the same. They’re equal. Like the pot of clay and the pot of gold are the same. And so when you approach it that way, it helps you get the

The gerbil wheel of chasing and running away from things. Because that’s really the suffering. Is I believe this gold is going to save me. This clay, But if you’re an artist or sculptor, that clay could be worth millions of dollars if you take it and shape it, right? So it’s like an all perspective. And if you put that in front of a baby, they say the baby doesn’t know the difference. A baby baby would probably go for the clay because it’s something they can put their hands on and

Dr. Rob Maldonado (40:36.173)
Yeah, it simplifies things.

Debra Maldonado (40:44.765)
Touch and

Dr. Rob Maldonado (40:46.49)
Yeah. Yeah, the good and bad, the kind of and this is the basis of morality in the West again. that w they think w we can define good and bad and then use that as the the rules for the collective. Right? This is religion in a sense. That here are the definitions of what’s good and bad, what’s godly and what’s evil.

And if you follow these rules, you’ll be fine. That doesn’t work because again, it’s it’s subjective. And as soon as we run into other people that have other religions, now they’re our enemy, or they’re not who you know, they don’t belong to our club and that kind of stuff. And so you have the makings of wars, the makings of cultural conflicts, on and on. So

The non duality is the new approach that we need to adopt as human beings so that we can all understand each other. Understand that, yeah, this is a function of ego. It works okay to build basic systems and survive, but it doesn’t work in a world where there’s eight billion people, each with their own.

Understanding of good and bad, their own subjective interpretation. Non duality, what it does, it says it these opposites come together. Like anything anytime you define high, you’re defining low just by by defining high. Yeah.

Debra Maldonado (42:32.659)
‘Cause our world is dual nature. So it’s understanding that you can’t have one. I remember when I first met you and you were saying that if you just keep making everything light and beautiful and positive, you’re gonna create the opposite. There’s always gonna be the opposite of that. You it’s in a dual world, you can’t just focus on just everything light. Even y Young said that you can’t get enlightened by imagining figures of light, but making the dark conscious it’s it’s all of that that same idea.

Of the non-duality. And so all these things that we’re talking about, just to tie it into our our our midlife, is that at midlife the answer is not out in the world anymore. And so Jung talked about the first part of life is about going outward and seeking outer things, building up your life. And the second part is going inward. But he also said, which I think some people forget.

Is that you still need the outer life? You don’t like escape the outer life. You’re just bringing their soul along with you this time. So it’s not about turning your back on the world and then doing this spiritual work and let the world fall away. And it’s not about I don’t care about money, I don’t care about relationships anymore. I’m just gonna go and on my spiritual journey and forget. It’s a how do we integrate it? Because that’s the real challenge. If you just say, I’m gonna live a spiritual life and ignore the material world or the physical world, then that’s a easy

task. You could just shut it out. The more difficult is how do I integrate it? How do I how do I be in the world but not of the world? How do I how do I pursue my goals without being so attached to them that they make me miserable? And how can I enjoy this success without making it define me and make me and where then I’m afraid it’s going to be taken away.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (44:17.998)
Yeah, Young’s work, we see especially shadow integration, and we we see that it serves this purpose because it gives the individual a direct experience of non-duality. That i if what I’ve been projecting and seeing as evil in others is really a projection of my own mind, that’s a a step, a big step towards.

Debra Maldonado (44:23.571)
Mm-hmm.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (44:48.002)
Understanding non-duality. That it’s all one consciousness, one awareness. It’s simply we’re dividing it and making decisions about what’s good and bad based on our sensory experiences, and therefore falling into a kind of a basic, very primitive state of mind instead of moving upward towards an expansion of awareness, a collectiveness,

An inclusiveness, everything is one. Everything is existing in awareness, in consciousness.

Debra Maldonado (45:25.179)
I remember one time you said that we cut up the world in pieces and we’re now and and we’re trying to collect it what we’re trying to do is collect it back again. We cut it in pieces and we think it’s separate, but we’re seeing that oneness. And again, that first principle, it’s like I read a quote once it said, if everything was one, how can any opportun anything that shows up in your life be bad or good? Like it’s all an opportunity for you to to

Dr. Rob Maldonado (45:33.05)
Yeah.

Debra Maldonado (45:53.362)
Realize the one, you know, if that’s that we’re the one, you know, we are connected to it all. And so, if we stop looking at bad things that happen to us or tragedies or struggles or midlife crises as this terrible thing, and we start to say, How can I invite this in and know who I really am? And I remember when I left my corporate job at that time, I I said, I just want to see what I’m made of. I don’t want to go back to corporate. I want to start something new. I wanna

I want to live. and I think that that’s what a lot of people we know like do this work. They’re really, they’re not looking to escape the world and and give up their beautiful comforts and the all the things they built up and the relationships they built up or you know, other things they have goals they have. But we all and making a difference in the world and doing great things with their companies or their nonprofits. but we also want to have that inner life and come from the right perspective so we can enjoy it and be in joy and be connected.

And I think if we do that for ourselves, everyone that comes in contact with us is getting it unconsciously. They’re getting some kind of transmission. wait, maybe look at how Rob is. He’s so like even. Th there’s a way you can you you’re demonstrating to others like there’s a better way than chasing and being afraid of life.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (47:14.596)
I’m glad you brought that up, but because we’re not after kind of a a static situation where nothing happens, right? Or or nothing right. that that’s kind of a false understanding or or a misunderstanding of what the aim of spiritual work is.

Debra Maldonado (47:25.371)
There the the calm lake.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (47:41.728)
It’s more about embracing all of it. Like you say, okay, if good and bad are are kind of simplifications or oversimplifications of our human experience.

Then embracing what we call bad or s what even what some people call evil, kind of inviting it in and learning from it, then leads us into a more creative stance. Instead of pointing fingers and saying they’re evil and I have to get rid of them or kill them or fight them. I

You know, it’s like Gandhi came to this conclusion through his work with the Gita. He saw that the oppressors are caught up in the prison that they’re creating as well. And so his work wasn’t about just liberating his own people, it was liberating both the oppressor and his people from the situation. Because if you don’t do that.

Debra Maldonado (48:34.863)
Ignorance, yeah. Mm-hmm.

Debra Maldonado (48:47.783)
Victor Frankel also talked about that too in the Holocaust he was talking about the guards. He felt sorry for them because he said he had his mind and they w didn’t not have the the the ki the understanding and that they’re caught up in ignorance and they’re in a bigger prison than he was.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (49:06.776)
That’s right. Yeah, a and if we don’t do that, all we’re saying is let’s postpone the war until later. Because it’s gonna come then. It’s still gonna come. Sooner or later, it’s gonna create a war between peoples and between the oppressor and the oppressed. That’s not the aim, that’s not a proper aim. The proper aim is how do we understand this so that we can diffuse the whole situation?

Still deal with the reality. Note that Gandhi didn’t back away from politics and social change. And he understood, well, that’s what it requires. That’s what we have to do is simply s look at our situation in the world and say, How do we how do we embrace this? How do we learn from it instead of simply trying to solve the the the situation right now?

that it’s going to come up again if we don’t.

Debra Maldonado (50:09.925)
Or put ourselves in a hole until things change and then the regime changes and we like, Okay, well now we can be happy again and yeah.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (50:20.068)
Yeah, and that’s what we’ve been doing as human beings again, because if you look at a society it’s run by ego.

All our leaders, right? They use the ego, meaning the persona, the that dualistic good and bad, to run their lives and to run to do their their political leadership. And that only leads to more division, more suffering. Again, because they’re only living on the surface of pleasure and material success, as the definition of.

Debra Maldonado (50:36.583)
And the ignorance of

Debra Maldonado (50:56.325)
And so that’s why the sorry, I thought you were done. Yeah, and that’s why when we’re not happy with the material world, it is an opportunity to turn inward. It means that we we we we’re trying to like run a boat on the top of the surface and navigate the world without paying attention to the ocean and its currents and what’s deeper underneath. And and so you’re we we’re not getting rid of the world, we’re bringing in

Dr. Rob Maldonado (50:59.906)
As the definition of happiness.

Debra Maldonado (51:26.045)
More of who we are. So we can navigate ourselves in the world with more profound grace, with more joy. And I think another thing too is that I think the misunderstanding is for me, for instance, is that when things were going right, I felt like, and I see this with a lot of clients too. I’m doing it wrong and they you beat yourself up. And I should, I’m a spiritual person, bad things shouldn’t happen to me. And we have to let go of that good or bad, and we have to say, you know, embrace it like.

When we’re enlightened, it doesn’t mean the whole whole our whole life is perfect and we never have problems anymore. We we were in a human body, we will have human problems. We just approach them differently. Yeah.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (52:07.512)
That’s a good way to put it, yeah. We

Debra Maldonado (52:10.007)
And so midlife is an opportunity to it’s a natural stage of development from neuroscience to young psychology. We talk about this ch our brain changes and it’s it’s really the path that we’re we’re supposed to be on.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (52:29.646)
Yeah, he he philosophy is is powerful when it’s put to work, when it’s applied. Otherwise it’s just beautiful ideas and beautiful literature, which is the way it’s transmitted a lot of times, but but really to use its power is the ultimate.

In other words, we put higher knowledge to work directly in our lives, it changes the world. Because each individual, each one of us, a billion of us, we all have our own world. We’re perceiving our unique world experience for ourselves. So

When we talk about changing the world, making it a better place, we have to start with ourselves. How do we change our own yeah, our own understanding, our own perception? If we’re still thinking good and bad and saying, I’m good, but this these other people are bad. We’re still caught up in duality. And all we’re going to do, even if we solve the problem, is postpone it and it’s going to come back at us.

Debra Maldonado (53:34.461)
The man in the mirror. Yeah.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (53:56.77)
And create that. Hell you know. Yeah.

Debra Maldonado (53:57.213)
But Rob, those people are bad, people would say. But the thing is, in in that instance, that’s where self-inquiry comes in. And that’s where we talk about shadow work and and that what we’re seeing out there. We see there’s a part they’re a part of us. We’re not us as an individual, but part of the one. And so why is why is that arising in my mind? Why is that? And we can learn a lot from our judgments of others. That’s what shadow work is all about, seeing that.

But anyway, great topic today. loved talking about individuation and the dark night of the soul and eastern spirituality. And again, if you’re interested in learning more about Second Horizon, which is coming this fall, please check the link in the show notes below. We will be sharing some information very soon. So get yourself on the waiting list to get announcement. Me too. And it’s Second Horizon is this rebirth of.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (54:47.342)
I’m ready for the second horizon.

Debra Maldonado (54:54.387)
Who you really are meant to be and making a big impact in the world. I know we’ll have a lot of people that follow us that really want to make a change in the world. They’re not just looking for money or manifesting, you know, just a partner. They really want to contribute to the world in a bigger way. And you can’t do it from an ego perspective. You could try, it’ll be exhausting, it’ll you’ll be attached to it, you’ll be defined by it, and and and there’s a better way, and more profound way you can work in the world that

Be very enlightening. The enlightened leader. Okay, take care, everyone. We will see you next week on Jung on Purpose. Take care. Bye.

Dr. Rob Maldonado (55:32.795)
See you soon.