The New Spiritual Warrior - Practices for Peace and Prosperity: Video automatically transcribed by Sonix

The New Spiritual Warrior - Practices for Peace and Prosperity: this mp4 video file was automatically transcribed by Sonix with the best speech-to-text algorithms. This transcript may contain errors.

Daniel Aaron:
All right. All right. Hello, y'all. Welcome to the Art of Vibrant Living Show. I'm Daniel Aaron. I'm your host, and I'm super glad to be with you today for a different kind of version. I say that a little bit silly, if that's a word, because it's really a new show. So we are still playing with lots of different ways of bringing great value information, inspiration, entertainment and education to you. And in the show, what we do is look at entertain you with, bring you what does it take to create a vibrant life, an extraordinary life, a thriving, amazing life according to your own terms. And to do that, it takes a lot in life, right? And it's not just having a great body or great relationships or wonderful finances. We really need all of those things together. So in today's episode, by the way, let me change my view over here for a moment so I can see your comments as they come in. In today's episode, I'm going to share with you what I am creating something totally brand new. It is a performance. You could call it a theatrical keynote, though, rather than public speaking. What this is becoming is really a new form, as far as I know. And if you are tuning in live or by rebroadcast and you have comments or feedback about it, as we come to the last part, I'm not going to give you the whole thing right now.

Daniel Aaron:
I'm going to give you a section of it because it's in development. I would love to get your feedback both in terms of this component of what I bring you, as well as how you see this fitting into the the bigger picture of transformational entertainment. I don't think I created that term, though. I don't know anyone else using it. And oftentimes when I say it, people say, what? What is that? So transformational entertainment. The idea is it is entertainment. And today especially is a story for you. Yet it's not just entertainment. It's also transformation. Inspiration and education goes along with it. Now, once again, double checking over here. Okay, good. So we are rolling with it. And the title, as you may well know to this performance, is The New Spiritual Warrior, Right? And the new spiritual warrior, or sometimes called the new breed of spiritual warrior. Hold on. There's something funny happening with the computer over here. Don't know what that is. We'll just put it to the side. I'm sure it'll be fine. The new spiritual warrior. It's potent practice and a path to peace. Now. Equally important. Right. And part of this is goes back to. All right. Hey, y'all. Welcome back. Those of you that are live. Well, if you're watching by rebroadcast, you probably missed the tech glitch. Awesome. It's the art of vibrant living show. I am Daniel Aaron. I'm your host and I'm very glad for this particular episode because we are auditioning, sampling my new performance excuse me, my new performance in development.

Daniel Aaron:
Right. And the title of the performance is The New Breed of Spiritual Warrior, Potent Practice and a Path to Peace. And part of how we get here comes all the way from long ago. Anton Chekhov, great Russian playwright who gave this important advice to budding writers. And he said if. In the first act of your play, there is a rifle hanging above the fireplace. It better go off by the third act, which, when it comes to writing, when it comes to drama, is great. Important. True. And when it comes to life, when it comes to human life or all beings living on this planet is bad advice, right? Because just because we've got act after act after act. Of shooting. Killing war does not mean that we want to continue that. So. This is not only how we get to peace. It's also how you create more personal power, evolution, joy, harmony in your life. And this show, The Art of Vibrant Living Show, is all about how do you do that? It's transformational entertainment. It's entertainment stories, information, interviews to give you the inspiration, the education, the entertainment that entrains you to living a vibrant life, your best life, an extraordinary life. So all that said, let's dive right in. And whether you are tuning in live or tuning in by replay, I would love to hear from you.

Daniel Aaron:
Y'all that are here live, Where are you tuning in from? Where in the world are you? And for all of you, what I'm going to do is to give you just a little piece of this performance in development and in the in development. I emphasize again, because I would love to get your feedback later on what worked, what stayed with you, what is captivating? Because I'm going to develop it together with your feedback. And this performance is going to TED stage and beyond and into other formats too. So here's how we got here, all the way back to 1998. In 1998, I was three years after Spirit whacked me upside the head and said, Look, dude, there's more to life than you've been seeing. And I was firmly planted on the spiritual path, if such a thing exists. And in 1999, 1998, I went from where I was living in Spain to Holland to a therapy center, an ashram, a university, all those things in one for an intensive two week program. I didn't know anything about it. My very first email, by the way, was to them, and it was to say, Hey, I want to join. Can I join? I'm joining. Now, once I arrive there, I sure wished I'd learned a little bit more about what the place was because. The very first night. We're starting a two week program and the first night we start at about 10 p.m.

Daniel Aaron:
on a Friday night. And the first thing is a demonstration of what we're going to do that night, a 14 stage therapeutic process known as the OM AUM Awareness Understanding meditation, the OM meditation. But let me tell you, meditation is not a word that most sane people would use to describe that activity, that process. Now, mind you understand, I thought that I was pretty cool when I walked into that center. I thought I was semi enlightened, that I was therapeutically experienced, right? I'd lived at Omega Institute, I'd lived at Esalen Institute. I thought, you know, I've been around the block, right? I know about talking to the different parts of myself. I'd use the Styrofoam bat and beat pillows. I'd talk to different aspects of myself, my relatives. I didn't know shit. That's what I can tell you. Because when they demonstrated that first night, let alone not even we didn't even do it yet, when they demonstrated the 14 stages and what we'd be doing, my jaw was on the ground. And while I could not have admitted it at the time, I was scared. Petrified. Right. I didn't let that show. Of course. I just did my best to survive. Right? We started into this 14 stage process and it was intense, incredibly hard. It lasted for 5.5 hours. Now, I'm not going to tell you about the whole thing. The first part, though, is really important and worth knowing about.

Daniel Aaron:
The first of these 14 stages is called No. And it is a process where we picture this. We are in a small room. We're penned into an even smaller area, and those of us in the group that night, it was about, I don't know, 40 people. We are walking around, moving around each other. It's kind of crowded. There's some people speaking on a microphone coaching us. Breathe into your belly, get in touch with your negativity, your anger, and when the music starts playing, you turn and face a partner. You bend your knees into what's in. Martial arts is called a horse stance. You take your hands into fists, you squeeze your elbows into your sides, you face your partner and you scream from your belly at them. What do you scream? You scream? No. You scream. No, you won't hurt me. You can't hurt me anymore. Don't you hurt me. I hate you. Right? That's what we're building toward, right? And from the elevated meta meta process level, what it is literally is emptying out our negativity, emptying out our pain, our hurt, our anger and projecting it intentionally at the other person with an understanding and agreement that we're doing that for each other. And one of the one of the pieces of advice we get from the leaders is don't listen to what the other person is saying. Don't take it on. Focus so much on what you're getting out.

Daniel Aaron:
Now, we could debate and talk about the therapeutic efficacy of that methodology. I have considered it thought about it a lot over many years. For now, though, it's we'll leave that to the side. What happened is I did my best. The two things I had going for me, there were one, I'm a good student, as in I do what people tell me when I am in the student role to. I wanted to run away. That's not the thing that I had going for me, too, is I was. I was so scared, honestly, and overwhelmed. Well, let me let me come back to that in a moment, because what happened that night, we went through all 14 stages. By the end, I was completely soaked with sweat. I watched. It seemed like the other 40 people there have a great time. They seemed so happy, full of energy. Seemed to do it. Meanwhile, inside me, I was just freaking out almost the whole time. Like, what am I doing? What have I gotten into? I wish I wasn't here. Can I run away? We finished the process and the leader said, okay, now you're going to go up and have a shower and then go get to go to bed. Like, wonderful. Great. Thank you. And I hadn't slept the whole day before I got there, so I was really looking forward to this part now. We went up to take a shower and it was a group shower room and that's okay.

Daniel Aaron:
I'd gotten over nudity earlier in my life and we went up and then we got into our bed spaces and by the time I got to sleep, wake up, it's time to go again. And so it went. For the next several days. We slept only a tiny bit. We did these intense therapies and I was overwhelmed. Right? I just felt scared and I wished I hadn't been there. Picture this now. About a week into the process, I'm sitting with the small group that we have, our therapy group, people that are on the two week program, and there's a woman who's in charge of our group. She's like half dorm mother, half therapist, and one of the tools that they work with at this place, it's called Human diversity. One of the tools they work with is theater. They assign they assign us to play different roles. So they assigned me when I first got there, they assigned me the role connection, knowing from our conversation in my intake that I tend to be a bit of an introvert. They said Connection, that's your first assignment. And they gave me a sign, like with a string and a cardboard here that said I need hugs. And my assignment was to within 24 hours get 100 hugs. Okay? So and literally people would see the sign and say, oh, okay, I'll give you a hug. And then I would mark it off.

Daniel Aaron:
Okay, 1 to 20, 25, 50. So a week into the program, our dorm mother therapist Lucy, she says to me, you know, it's time for you to get a new role, new name, new position. Do you have any ideas? And I said, no, no ideas. Meanwhile, I'm thinking to myself, my only idea is I want to get out of here. Like, how can I get out of here? But again, I'm a good student. The other thing I had going for me is I was cheap in those days, as in I'd paid what for me was a lot of money. I wasn't going to quit early. I was going to try and get all the value I could out of it. So she thought about my lack of input for a moment. She said, How about Braveheart? Now, this was not long after the movie with Mel Gibson had come out, and as soon as she said it, I thought, No, I don't want to do that. What? She didn't know what I barely knew myself. My repulsion, my negativity toward the idea was I had been a fat boy, fat kid, overweight, lots of body image issues. And the idea of playing this hyper masculine warrior, as I imagined, the character just was really uncomfortable to me. So my response to Lucy was, Well, why? She looked at me and she said, You remind me of Mel Gibson. And this was a reference to the fact that at that point I had long hair ringlets down the back ponytail here like he did in that movie.

Daniel Aaron:
And it's true, a few people had said that, that we resemble each other. And my response to her was, well, just because I may or may not look like an actor, that doesn't seem like a very good reason. Respectfully, not that I was being respectful, but I use the word as if I was. She thought about that for a moment, chewed on her pen, and she said, You know, Daniel, up till now, and I'd been there about a week, we have seen this kind, loving, considerate, conscious yogi that you are. And that's wonderful. What we haven't seen, though, is your real power. I was so ready to give a rebuttal. Except she had nailed me. As in. It was exactly true. Totally true. And again, I was not conscious of this yet. Yeah And what I came to see later is when I was a kid, there was so much anger around me, so much fighting, arguing in my family that hurts so much to me. I had made an unconscious decision when I was a little boy, like, no way. I'm not going to I'm not going to feel that. I'm not going to do that to anybody else. Anger suppress. Push it down. Uh uh. Well. So once she clarified why Braveheart was in fact a great assignment for me, I shut my mouth and started thinking about, okay, how can I play this character? So after that meeting, I went to the costume room, the wardrobe room.

Daniel Aaron:
I found an old tablecloth, checkered tablecloth. I made that into a kilt. I took my shirt off. I painted half my face blue. I got a big piece of PVC piping and I carried it around like a staff. And for three days I did my best to be in character. And the way it worked is you would be in character until you went into the therapy room and then you do it all the intense therapies. And then when you left the therapy room, you'd be back in character. And I hated it. It was so uncomfortable, so awkward. Didn't feel like it fit me at all. And it looks like we might have another computer problem popping up. If we do, I will graciously say thank you so much for tuning in and part two will be coming soon, but unless it actually quits, I will keep going. For now. Here's the amazing thing that happened, right? Day three of me playing Braveheart. We went into the therapy room for our first therapeutic process of the morning, and this particular day we happened to go back to they had a lot of different things in their toolbox. We went back to that same 14 stage process, right. And when we started it. Gosh, now I can't remember.

Sonix is the world’s most advanced automated transcription, translation, and subtitling platform. Fast, accurate, and affordable.

Automatically convert your mp4 files to text (txt file), Microsoft Word (docx file), and SubRip Subtitle (srt file) in minutes.

Sonix has many features that you'd love including collaboration tools, secure transcription and file storage, enterprise-grade admin tools, automatic transcription software, and easily transcribe your Zoom meetings. Try Sonix for free today.