TRANSCRIPT

Hey how's it going everybody? Thank you so much for popping in and giving me a chance here... listening to my first-ever podcast of my show, Get Real or Die Trying.“ Nothing you do matters, unless what you do matters.”

I've had the concept of doing this show for almost 10 years now. Due to my very busy lifestyle and everything that I got going on, I just haven't had the time, frankly, to produce it, but now is the time, I'm really excited. There's going to be video. There's going to be podcasts with just audio. Sometimes we’ll do video. I'll be interviewing various guests, people from all over the world. Some shows will just be me talking. Some shows will be me and maybe a couple other people talking.

First I just want to share a little bit about myself so you can understand the premise of this show, where I want to go and why you should listen, or perhaps why you shouldn't listen. I grew up in a unique circumstance, different from the average American family, the average American man. I grew up in an intentional spiritual Community, an eco-village, a community of a hundred people from all over the world called Avalon Gardens and EcoVillage. Some people would inappropriately and harmfully call this a cult, but that's their own ignorance and their own fear and their own small-mindedness. My upbringing was indeed different in that my mindset and how I was raised, was very aware; was very different than the average American kid. I knew who I was at a young age. I knew what I wanted to do. I knew where I was going. I knew what I was doing, why I was doing it. I had great parents. I had great teachers. I had a great support system. I had a great family around me.

So I didn't grow up wanting to be “the lawyer”... I didn't grow up wanting to go to college. I didn't grow up creating masks and facades of who I thought I was, who I thought I should be, who I thought other people wanted me to be. I just was me and I was accepted and many people who grow up in a reality where that is the case (I'm not saying I'm the only one) they have a sense of self confidence and awareness about themselves, at a young age, which is special. And they know things based upon their life experiences, whether they're young or not. They're able to attain knowledge and experience and wisdom and spiritual insight because they can process life’s circumstances with a level of reality and realness that others seem not to because they don't really know themselves.

So you may be thinking, “Oh, why should I listen to this guy? or what does he have to offer me?” Well, what I have to offer is simply my opinion, and my insight, and my perspective... my life experiences, and my spiritualised thinking in my attempt towards radical, spiritual, great thinking in viewing life circumstances. So Get Real or Die Trying is about analyzing our ascent and our pursuit and our yearning for greatness.

Some people aren't trying to be great. Some people are content with mediocrity. Some people are content with whatever it is they're doing in their lives, but some people do want to be great. Some people want to achieve greatness. They want to live their lives in the optimum way. I'm speaking to those people. I want to share with those people who are of that kinship; in their mind, in their heart, in their soul; who want to elevate and develop their spiritual mind, their spiritual intelligence, their wisdom, their emotional self control, their existence on this planet.

Spirituality is the basis of my understanding in many, many things. I try and perceive life through the eyes of spiritualised thinking.

A lot of my show is going to be discussing the battle. For me, it’s a battle. For some it may not be, but often it feels like a battle. The battle between human nature and spiritual nature; our higher nature and our lower nature. For me personally it is a battle. If people are telling you it's not, they have not really (in my opinion) done the work. To ascend spiritually and to grow and to outgrow lower patterns and to be pure, takes tremendous work, takes tremendous commitment, takes tremendous vulnerability, and courage and strength and willingness. So my show will discuss these things and all of the various avenues that we take in our lives to pursue this greatness, or even just to pursue the courage to even start the journey of discovering who we really are.

I base a lot of my spiritual understanding off of a book called the Urantia book. I find the URANTIA Book to be the most complete spiritual text that can guide my spiritual life in my decisions and improvise concepts and ideals that help me to grow spiritually. But it's just a book. I am in no way fundamental. I'm in no way dogmatic. I am in no way stuck in the antiquated evolutionary religious, boxed-in thinking that we find in so many religious people. I am more about empowering the individual to recognize their place as a created being, by a loving and massively cosmic vast Creator. So the absolutes that I bring into my thinking translate into my perceptions of all realities around me. So it's important that you understand that I'm an absolute person. What I believe is what I believe, but I'm also willing and have the humility to accept that that is always expanding and it's always growing by sharing that belief with other people and hearing their insight, their opinions, how they think, how they feel.

That's why I'm excited about bringing on other people to this show, including people who are atheist or agnostic or don't even consider themselves spiritual. I often say on my radio show, it's funny that some of the most spiritual people I've met, not the most, but some people who are very spiritual are actually atheist and their actually practicing the spiritual virtue, the spiritual values, and these principles that a lot of people who are religious do not actually practice. In so in many ways they're actually practicing the spiritual values more and they're demonstrating them through their daily actions. So this isn't about belief or non-belief. This is about, do you want to be an optimized human being who's aware of who you are and your place in an intelligent loving Universe with a personality Creator, as a personality human? Our personalities are given direct from the Creator and we have to fulfill those personalities. So doing that in life, there's a lot of agony, there's a lot of ecstasy, there's joy, their sorrow, and there's everything. There's the ups and downs and we're here to talk about that. I'm here to share my experiences. I'm not perfect. I'm not trying to tell you how to live your life or not how to live your life. What I am doing is sharing with you what's worked for me. How do you know it's worked for me? You're just going to have to get to know and listen.

What does it mean to be real? That's the basis of my show, is just being real. I know I’m sounding quite serious right now, but I'm actually quite comedic and in my show I'm going to explore... make fun of, and have a good time with, all of our silly ideas of what we feel it means to be an ascended spiritual person. So many people are pretenders. So many people are actors. So many people think they have an understanding of what it means to practice these ideals in their life when they're not actually willing to make sacrifices. They are not willing to suffer. They're not willing to experience pain.

So it brings me to a quote that I read by the German philosopher Wolfgang Goethe and the quote is: “Die and be reborn. For if you miss this valuable lesson, you are but a dull guest on a dark planet.” He also said this: “Knowing is not enough, we must apply. Willing is not enough, we must do.”

So it's about action. It's about taking action in our lives personally and taking responsibility and accountability. Back to the first quote. To me, having the courage and the willingness to make sacrifices and endure the pain of living a purpose-driven life, endure the pain of living a committed life, endure the pain of not compromising. Those valuable lessons that you learn during that process, in that attempt to live like that, are Eternal and invaluable. That is what, indeed, makes you real. That is what makes you tapped-in to reality. Some people are aloof, some people have no idea that the world around them is controlled by spiritual energy; not by physical matter.

I wish to just dive into subjects, people, situations… There’s going to be socially and politically and culturally current events I'll be discussing. I'll be chatting with activists. I'll be chatting with spiritualists, mystics. I'll be chatting with all kinds of people because I feel that there's truth in many many places. It's not just in one place. Truth is a cosmic and a vast deep, deep thing that we as human beings think that we can capture and place a label on, and a name on, and shove it in a little box and then deliver that; wrap it up and deliver it to people. That's not how it works. It's evolving.

The pursuit to self mastery, of the soul and of the flesh and blood and of the body and of the mind is a daily battle, and if you pretend like it's not, you think it's just a blissful life and it's about being whatever... making the choice to be a vegan, or as simple as this, or doing that... it's much bigger than that. It's so much bigger. You have to be willing to accept the struggle. You have to be willing to look in the mirror every day and say, “How can I improve myself? How can I refine my soul? How can I define my purpose? How can I serve others? What do I need to do to rid myself of my lower nature? What are my shortcomings? What are my weaknesses?” Identify them and cut them out; do the surgery.

So I've been blessed to live a lifestyle where that is expected, actually. It’s expected in our community. I mostly have been blessed to be the son of two great spiritual souls, Gabriel of Urantia and Niann Emerson Chase, spiritual leaders, teachers, and founders of our community. So my upbringing taught me at a very, very young age that I had to take responsibility for my actions and for who I am and who I am to become. Nobody else is in control of my being. Nobody else is in control of where I'm going with my destiny but me. So when you take ownership of yourself and your choices and your actions and your life, you become more powerful. You become empowered and you have more authority of the circumstances around you. You have more confidence.

So I want to impart, and I want to learn more and I want to develop those things in myself and I want to share it with others. I want you to be inspired by my show. I want you to realize that you can take control of your reality... and I don't mean that in a relative way. I mean that in a way of, once you unlock certain spiritual principles and you start having understanding of how the universe exists, how day-to-day actions exist, that it all comes back to you really, and that you’re part of an intricate system... you start treading more carefully through life. You start realizing that your choices mean something, and you start becoming more real, because fakeness has no place in eternity. Fakeness does not get things done. Fake does not accomplish greatness.

So it may be uncomfortable to realize, “wow, I'm really fake.” It may be uncomfortable to realize, “wow, I really don't really know who I am.” That realization is actually a beautiful first step to discovering who you are, who you are in God. Who you are meant to be. Everybody has a destiny purpose. Everybody has talents and abilities that are meant to be actualized and used for something special and beautiful. I look forward to speaking with people about their talents and their abilities and how they're using them in the world and how they're helping.

Another quote of mine that I came up with about 10 years ago is: “Pain is temporary and Victory is eternal.” It’s a reminder that I have to tell myself all the time, because I can be in pain... emotional anguish, spiritual anguish, even physical anguish, but it is temporary, and the spiritual mind can transcend that pain into victory. We're going to talk about and discover what that really means throughout my various episodes on this show, but really it's just discussing the fact that we’re spiritual beings, are spiritual beings trying to conquer our human nature.

So I want to attempt to bring spirituality into everything. I want to have humor. I want to have enlightenment. I want to have honesty. I want to have vulnerability. I want to take what's going on in the world, whether it's a social or political situation and bring a spiritualised perspective to it, a humorous perspective to it. I'm going to make fun of people. I'm going to make fun of myself. If you think I'm arrogant, you don't have to listen. If you don't like what I have to say, turn on someone else's podcast. I'm not a wishy-washy person. I'm not here to just say nice fluffy, lovey statements that feel good and that everybody agrees with. I don't care if you agree. I'm not here to make friends or to find thousands of followers and have likes and make statements that everybody else is saying. I'm here to speak my truth, what I feel is the truth, and with that I have the wisdom and the knowledge to know that that's going to piss people off. It's going to divide. People are going to disagree with me and that's okay. People disagree with me my whole life. My entire life has been outside of the system of agreement and compromise and falling in line that so many people do. That's not who I am. So it’s death before compromise.

I'm a Spiritual Warrior. I'm a flawed man. I'm not perfect. I'm not pretending to be somebody who teaches something, or expresses something, like I haven't experienced it or I’m above it. I'm a man who has suffered, and bled, and wept, and experienced so much. I just want to impart what I've learned from those, and continue to learn from those, experiences with you, my audience. And I want to hear your opinions, your reactions, your thoughts, your truths, your beauty. I want to hear the ugliness, and the pain, and the suffering... how can we take that transforming into something beautiful?

So Get Real or Die Trying is about prioritizing things in our lives that we may not put enough significance on. What's important? What is real? What is not real? What is happiness? What is not happiness? That's why my tagline, “Nothing you do matters, unless what you do matters.” That's why my tag line is so important for me personally, to remind me, I only have importance, and value, and meaning, and happiness, and blessedness, if what I'm doing in my life matters; not just to me, but to everybody. That's a big step. Not just to my neighbor, to my wife, to my family, to my sister, to my friends, but it must matter to the whole world; to the globe.

So we're going to discuss these things. I'm going to discuss these things. I'm going to share my mind. I'm going to share my heart. I'll probably make a fool of myself sometimes. Oh well. You know, that's the courage, that's the strength that it takes.

But first and foremost, I see myself as a soldier. I see myself as a warrior poet. I see myself as a committed soldier in the army of the Creator. I don't mean that in a way that most people understand soldier, in violence and battle and war. But there is a spiritual war going on. There is a spiritual battle going on, and I am indeed a soldier in the Army. I am indeed a part of that battle and I'm willing to put myself on the front lines.

So come with me on this journey. Come with me on this battle. I'm going to share my heart. I look forward to making mistakes, doing it better, having revelations, and being... just true, just talking, just being real, and not trying to pretend, because that's what Get Real or Die Trying is about.