Pico Iyer: The Art of Stillness

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1:11I'm Oprah Winfrey. Welcome to Super Soul Conversations, the podcast. I believe that one of the most valuable gifts you can give yourself is time. Taking time to be more fully present. Your journey to become more inspired and connected to the deeper world around us starts right now. Born in 1957 in Oxford, England, to Indian parents, Pico Iyer was a global soul before he could even talk. When he was seven, his family moved half a world away to Santa Barbara, California. By the time he was nine, he was flying alone up to six times a year to boarding school in England. His love of travel ignited his desire to write, and his multicultural upbringing provided a unique perspective for his work.

2:01After earning a master's degree at Harvard, he landed his dream job in 1982, reporting on world affairs for Time magazine. He led a seemingly glamorous life. He had a Manhattan apartment, a job crisscrossing the globe on assignment. Yet, Pico says he was so busy he never stopped to figure out whether or not he was really happy. So when he was 29, he decided to take a chance on a quieter life in a place, he says, always felt familiar to him. For more than two decades, this renowned journalist and author of 13 books has embraced a simpler life of contemplation. He shares the wisdom he's learned in his latest book, The Art of Stillness.

2:46I knew we would be fast friends when at the beginning of The Art of Stillness, I read, if ever I go looking for my heart's desire again, I won't look any further than my own backyard, because if it isn't there, I never really lost it to begin with. One of my favorite quotes from The Wizard of Oz. Yes. Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. From the wisest person around, who's the little girl in the backyard. Yes, not only the wisest person around. I think The Wizard of Oz is one of the wisest teachings ever. Yes. And when I finally, you know, for the first five or six years of watching it, I thought it was about a yellow brick road and Dorothy.

3:23And then when you realize that it really is about never looking any farther than your own backyard because anything you need to find is right there. That was the biggest aha of my life. And I later learned that the author really spent a lot of time steeped in philosophy and thinking about the essential issues and how you find truth in it all. And yet he delivers it in such a human, accessible way in that story. So a kid can take it at one level and you and I can take it at another. So being one of the most renowned travel writers, you've flown how many? I'd like to know how many miles you think you've flown.

3:56Oh, don't even ask. It's embarrassing. But well over a million years ago, I crossed the million mile mark. And that was important at the time. Yes. And then when you make two or three million, it's like, what am I doing out here? Yes, that's right. Yes, okay. So you've been to every corner of the earth. I've been lucky to see a lot of places. And when I was a kid, I thought, well, I'm part of the first generation that can go to every corner of the earth. For my grandparents, that would be a treasure beyond imagining. So I enjoy traveling a lot. But at some point, I suppose I felt I have so much movement in my life.

4:27I really need some stillness just to make sense of it. And stillness can be an adventure. I have decided that actually I was tweeting with someone several weeks ago and they were asking what's your spiritual practice? And I thought about it for a second. My spiritual practice is stillness and kindness. Yes. Stillness and kindness. I would say that's my religion. Oh, beautiful. And they go together. It's like, well, of course, His Holiness the Dalai Lama says kindness is my religion. It's my temple. But when I was a kid, I thought, if you step away from the world, if you become a monk or if you go on retreat or take a little time off, that seems very selfish.

5:06But the older I got, the more I saw it's actually, just as you say, it's a way to kindness. And it's only by collecting ourselves we have so much more to give to our loved ones and everyone around us. And if we're just caught up in racing around, all we're offering them is, hey, see you later or something. It's really, we need to gather our resources to share them, I think. Okay, so tell, what were you, 29 years old? and you're in your own, you're looking out in Manhattan and you are in a high-rise office building. You have everything. Set the stage for us. Well, exactly as you said, when I was in my 20s, I was leading probably the life I might have dreamed of as a little boy.

5:41So I had that 25th floor office four blocks from Times Square and I had a nice apartment on Park Avenue and 20th Street. I had this really exciting job writing on world affairs for Time magazine. Wonderful friends, no commitments. And I was having a terrific time. but some part of me thought, I'm so caught up in this accelerated movement, I can't even tell if this is the deepest sort of happiness. And I need to take myself away. I've got a chance to experience this small corner of the world but I need to see something from a different perspective. And you were 20? 29 when I did that. Really? Yes, I mean, something in me, you know those mysterious intimations or intuitions we have, this isn't the whole story, and that I'm making a great living but that's not the same as making a life.

6:26You knew that at 29? Well, I couldn't formulate it. Because at 29, I'm just like, 29, you're just in it. You're just entering it. So I'm asking that because there has to be something, a different level of consciousness about you that you had all along. Or maybe, you know, I had the good fortune, while I was in that job, I flew to Southeast Asia, and I had a one-night layover in Narita Airport near Tokyo. and I had four hours to kill before my plane left, so I just walked around the town of Narita, wooden houses and a thousand-year-old temple, and it was the last week of October, blazing blue skies, but the first change of colour in the trees.

7:07And something so moved me and felt so familiar in this very foreign place, by the time I boarded my plane, I decided I have to come back to Japan. I have unresolved business. There's something about this place that feels like home. And so that made it easier when I was 29 to think Japan is going to open a door to a totally different world from New York City. And it did. And I was having a happy time there, but I felt there must be a deeper happiness in some way very different. So I moved straight from my apartment on Park Avenue to a single room on the back streets of Kyoto. Was it an uneasiness or that feeling of something more?

7:44Something more. Exactly that. I'm really lucky to have enjoyed this very stimulating life. but there must be something else that's going to sustain me at a deeper level. And I knew going to Kyoto, which is a very quiet, contemplative place, would refresh me in other ways and lead me down different paths. Were you able at that time to articulate that as, I need stillness? No. At that time I probably would have said, I need a Japanese monastery. So my plan was to go and live for a whole year in a temple in Kyoto, and my year lasted only a week. And after a week, I thought I found a temple in Kyoto.

8:21It isn't like my romantic dream of it in New York City. It's a lot of scrubbing floors and cleaning dishes. It's hard work. So I moved just to a room not far from the monastery. But now I've been there 28 years living near Kyoto, and I'm actually with my wife in a much more monastic setting. I probably ended up finally in the life I had imagined when I was a kid. So, of course, I had to go through certain obstacles to get there. What's your life like now? Wonderful, partly because of all the things we don't have. We live in a two-room apartment in the middle of nowhere. We have no car, no bicycle, no TV I can understand, really no bedroom.

8:58And one of the things I found beautiful about that is when I wake up, the whole day stretches in front of me like this great expanse of lawn right here. And it's like time has become almost a cathedral. And I realized at some point when I was working for Time magazine, I had all the money I needed, but I didn't have enough time and I didn't have enough space just to do nothing. Okay, so that brings us to the question, because I think many people watching or hearing you right now were saying, really easy to do if you have the luxury of money. Yes. You can take the time off to discover yourself and find yourself and be with yourself and live in a two-room shack or whatever if you have the money to support yourself.

9:40So you had the means to do that. I didn't have any savings or anything. And of course, it involved a lot of sacrifices. I gave up my glamorous-seeming career, and I gave up a lot of the chance to see my friends. And we still live in a rented flat. It's the same price that my flat was when I was a student. And I've had to give up a lot of material things in order to get more invisible things. I guess this is the question. A lot of people have to ask for themselves, What do you really need to be happy? You know, I had a bit of a crash course in answering that question because a few years after I moved to Japan, my family home here in Santa Barbara burnt down to the ground in one of those forest fires, and I lost every last thing I had in the world.

10:29It was one of the worst man-made fires in California history. The 1990 Painted Cave Fire swept through the hills of Santa Barbara, destroying Pico's family home where he'd been living since his return from a year in Japan. Narrowly escaping with his life, the incident forever changed him. So you lost everything. You know you're in the hands of the fates or something beyond yourself. Yes, a very good humbling experience. So we were stuck for two hours on the mountain road and I saw the fire slowly pick apart my house and systematically reduce everything to ash. And so the morning after the fire and we lost, the only thing I had in the world was a toothbrush, which I just bought from an all-night supermarket after the fire.

11:12But when it came to replacing the things that we had lost, of course I realised there wasn't that much I really needed. And it goes back to your earlier question, it was a lesson in what we really need to survive and what we don't. All the most important things, memories, photographs, they were gone. Couldn't hold on to those. All the things that I needed for a day-to-day life weren't much more enormous than a toothbrush and a few clothes and certain necessities. So in that sense, I noticed when I was in New York City, I felt I was missing something essential. When I'm in my two-room flat in Japan, I never feel I'm missing anything.

11:49I never hanker for more material goods than I have or for the life that I used to have. I think luxury is a matter not of all the things you have, but all the things you can afford to do. At Boar's Head, we've been going back to school for over 115 years. And this year, every school lunch is reason to celebrate with the flavors your kids love and the exceptional quality you expect. Helping you make school lunch fresh, easy, and delicious. Ring the bell room. The deli is open. Borzette, committed to craft since 1905.

12:54I'm not the only one who struggled to find the right foundation or concealer shade, which is why I always shop at Sephora. They have the best brands all in one place with so many shades, coverage options and finishes, plus expert beauty advisors, free samples and shade matching tools both online and in store. So whether you're looking for barely there coverage or full glam, Sephora can help you find your match. A lot of people have been through that process where they, you know, unfortunately lose everything, either through natural disaster or through breaking up, divorce, home, poverty, and can't seem to pick up the pieces and move on.

13:36I mean, I love this Buddhist phrase of now the barn's burned down. I can see the moon. I can see the moon. Yes. And so your attitude was, at first, not devastation? No. Some wistfulness, some regret. Occasionally I would think if only I had five minutes more, I could have gathered everything precious, because even my passport was as close to me as you are, and I didn't have time to pick it up. But then I thought if only I had five minutes less, I wouldn't be alive. And I think sometimes we play this game where we think of all the things we could have and we forget all the things. The what if, the what if, yeah.

14:11That's right, the what if points in both directions. And so in some ways I thought I'm liberated from a lot of things, even from my dream of being a writer, because those were pre-computer days, so my next probably seven years were all in my handwritten notes. And I lost my past, but in some ways I lost my future, and it seemed to me a way, a challenge, one of those challenges life gives us, of think about what is really important and what do you want to do. And your writing is a great diversion, but what's more essential than that? And this really confirmed my sense that living a rather stripped down life in Japan was what was right for me all along.

14:50And it was one of those cases where I'd been to Japan, wanted to live a simpler life without possessions. I came back here and two years later my house burnt down. And it's like, be careful what you wish for, the gods will give it to you. And I thought to myself, I can't complain too much because I had already committed myself to this path. And this is a reminder that this is what something inside me was calling out for from the outside. Yeah, and calling out for, you say, for all the daily excitement, however, something inside me felt that I was racing around so much that I never had a chance to see where I was going or to check whether I was truly happy.

15:27Indeed, hurrying around in search of contentment seemed a perfect way of ensuring I'd never be settled or content. Yeah. And I've always loved Henry David Thoreau, and I had been haunted even at a young age by his line when he says, I didn't want to die feeling I'd never lived. And I had that sense, and I think most of us have that sense at many points in our lives. So I thought, I've lived this life, but there must be other richer, more mysterious lives to lead. One of the things that's so interesting and actually compelling, I think, about what you talk about in The Art of Stillness is that we spend our time wanting to take trips to amazing places.

16:10And obviously you've been to every corner of the world. But the real trip is to nowhere. Yes, yes. And even when we go to an amazing place, let's say you and I were to go to Venice tomorrow. Let's. All right. That sounds like an invitation, doesn't it? We spend, let's say, a week there, and we're lucky enough to be able to take a trip there. If it's a good trip, we will spend the rest of our lifetimes going over our memories, looking at our photographs, rereading our journals. And the week is really just like an appetizer for the main course, which takes place when you're back at home, sitting still, processing everything you've been.

16:47It's almost as if travel is giving you the raw material, but it's stillness that gives you the meaning of what you've experienced. Yes, really good. And that you collect these sites around the world, and you come home and you turn them into insights in some ways. And you see how can what I witnessed in Johannesburg or Venice affect my life here in the United States. You know, years ago, I think actually 2009, I took everyone and their families, it was 1 ,800 people, on a two-week excursion from Spain to Turkey. And I called it Trip of a Lifetime because of exactly what you said. I knew that the actual experiences with your family and some people that never left the country.

17:28Yes. The experiences with your family would be fun for that moment. Yeah. But what would live on for a lifetime is your memories of it, your processing of it, how that experience elevated you to actually live in your own current life. Yes. Yes, exactly. Which is what travel does for us if you do it well. Yes. Yes. Yes. And I think it goes back to what you were talking about regarding the fire, too, because I think all the wise people of ancient Greece or Rome or of ancient China reminded us it's not the experiences that make our life, it's how we respond to them. So many, many people sadly lose their houses in a fire.

18:04Some people see it as an opportunity, some see it as a loss, but it's really up to us how it's exactly the same experience, but we can choose what to make of it, including with the traveling. Yes. So tell me what role stillness plays in your life. For me, it's a, you know, some of the things that you talk about in the art of stillness, I was very proud of myself because I already do. I mean, it's just a rule with me, no matter where I am in what city, I get in a car, the driver meets you at the airport, immediately I have the radio turned off because I don't want other people's extemporaneous noise just interfering with what I call my own personal vibration.

18:45So I like to choose whatever I want to enter into the space. And now there's so much noise. And now there's so much, yes. There's this new field called interruption science, and they've found it takes the average human being almost 25 minutes to recover from a phone call. But the average human being gets an interruption every 11 minutes now. So we're never caught up unless we consciously turn off the radio, as you said, or just try to catch a breath. And I've realized the big luxury for so many people now is just a little blank space in the calendar every day where you collect yourself, I suppose.

19:17So when you ask what stillness gives to me, I'd say it's sanity. And it's balance and it's a chance to put things in perspective. And then we can come back to our lives with much more kindness and purpose and clarity. So are you talking about meditation? People I really admire and respect, probably including you, do meditate. I've been a bit too lazy to have a meditation practice. But I do things just like you were describing. When I'm at the health club, I try not to watch the TV. When I get into my car, I try to use that as a turn off the radio, as you did. When I'm waiting for my wife to come home from work, and I don't know if it'll be one hour or two hours, I used to scroll through my emails.

19:53Then I thought, just turn off all the lights and listen to some music. And I noticed I was so much fresher when I heard her footsteps on the stairs and said hello. I slept better. I woke up better. So just tiny, everyday things, just to clear some space in one's head and one's mind. I think that's so interesting, about 25 minutes to actually clear out a phone call. There are studies on that? Yes. And in the time... Because you're right, because there's the residue of whatever happened on the phone. That's right. You can't get focus back for a long time. And then the next text is coming and the next update from TV.

20:26And you're never caught. And the more you try to keep up with the moment, the more you fall behind, I think. And so I think never before has humanity had such a bombardment around the clock. And therefore a need to step away from that bombardment and clear our heads and really, I think, find out what we care about the most. All right, page 45. To me, the point of sitting still, it helps you see through the very idea of pushing forward. Indeed, it strips you of yourself as of a coat of armor by leading you into a place where you're defined by something larger. Yes. Can you go deeper with us on that?

21:01I think stillness is about listening. And when you really listen in an uncluttered place, you're hearing a voice that's wiser than yourself. Some people would say you're hearing God, some people would say you're hearing your inner voice. Stillness opens us up to a much deeper, broader dimension. We're seeing the wider picture, we're realizing how small we are in that wider picture, and we're not filling our heads with chatter. I'm very inclined to do that. And it's such a liberation for me not to be having things spinning around in my head, but just to be opened up and find what comes to me. Ian, it's sure to be wiser than I am.

21:40It's only, page 62, by taking myself away from clutter and distraction that I begin to hear something out of earshot. I love that. Thank you. And recall that listening is much more invigorating than giving voice to all the thoughts and prejudices that anyway keep me company 24 hours a day. And it's only by going nowhere, by sitting still, letting my mind relax, that I find that the thoughts that come to me unbidden are far fresher and more imaginative than the ones I consciously seek out. Wow, such wisdom in that. I mean, I think our inclination is often to try to impose our will or design on the world.

22:18And yet I figure the world is larger, wiser, older than I am. Better to listen to the world than the little pico. And better to respond to its prompts as in a fire. You know, the day before the fire, I had my next seven years outlined. And then a fire rises up in the hills and suddenly I'm reminded it's not me who's really making the plan. It's me who should be following a script that I need to be attentive to. And I think attention, too, is one of our great luxuries. I sometimes think, why do I get so impatient when it takes five seconds for my computer to boot up? Right. And yet I'm having a talk with a friend for five hours and even that is too short.

22:56And I think we all know our greatest pleasures to this day take place when we're having a deep conversation with a friend. No, I say that to myself sometimes. When you're waiting for it to buffer. Now, I always say, now, ten years ago you didn't even have this. Yeah. You didn't even have this, and now you're irritated that it takes two minutes to download a video. Yes. When, you know, five years ago we were marveling that, oh my goodness, you can get a video. I know. We take it for granted so quickly. Yes. They found even two seconds is too long for us to wait for a search engine. Really? So we're living at the pace of machines.

23:31I recently heard somebody say, well, we fail to living at the speed of life. We're living at the speed of light. And we should be living at the speed of these trees and the clouds above and that kind of thing, I think. And my feeling is the machines have made a great improvement to our lives, but they're only going to accelerate. So we have to take conscious measures. And I've noticed just about everybody I know does do something. He meditates, she does yoga, somebody takes a run, somebody cooks. But one way or another, we have to take these emergency measures to keep ourselves in balance, I think.

24:02Is it not possible for all of us who are watching you now to find some peace, some stillness, some happiness, some joy, without having to live in two rooms and not have a bicycle or a car? Yes, it's possible. That's the beauty of it. It's available to us at any moment. Because I really like my backyard. I really do. I did too. You know, I was up at Google, which is one place where, interestingly, they're very aware of the need to take time off and to meditate and the like. And a friend of mine who's a very busy person at Google, I was there last week, said any time of day I can just come into the conference room, close my eyes, and just 20 minutes gather myself.

24:41It's a tool that every one of us is carrying. If we're not in the middle of a war or a really desperate situation, Right now, probably we can take 20 minutes off, and everybody around us will be the richer for those 20 minutes. If you're a busy mother and you've got two little kids, it's really hard to take the time off. But I think if you do, even your kids will gain from it because you will be giving them not exhaustion. I think this is so great because I think people get intimidated by, as I was at first, this idea of meditation because you're thinking, am I doing it right? Am I doing it a lot?

25:10I'm still having thoughts. You know, it's such a discipline and so forth. But I think we can all accept this idea of taking five minutes, ten minutes to gather yourself. And even, you know, I try to meditate daily, but when I don't, I at least give myself moments of silence. Yes. Just moments of silence to sort of center myself in the day. Exactly. And as you said, when you're in the car, you're able to do that. At Boar's Head, we've been going back to school for over 115 years. And this year, every school lunch is reason to celebrate with the flavors your kids love and the exceptional quality you expect.

25:53Helping you make school lunch fresh, easy, and delicious. Ring the bell. The deli is open. Orzette. Committed to craft since 1905. Hey guys, it's Drew from the comment section. Some days my skin just needs a little coverage and other days I want to go full glam for those everyday moments like running errands or grabbing coffee I've been loving the merit minimalist stick because it's a foundation and concealer in one that gives me a really Natural skin like finish, but when I want more coverage i'm reaching for the hourglass vanish concealer every time I know i'm not the only one who struggled to find the right foundation or concealer shade Which is why I always shop at sephora They have the best brands all in one place with so many shades, coverage options and finishes, plus expert beauty advisors, free samples and shade matching tools both online and in store.

26:48So whether you're looking for barely there coverage or full glam, Sephora can help you find your match. So how can we begin to incorporate into our own lives this idea of stillness and going nowhere? I think maybe try to take 20 minutes quietly at the beginning of the day. 20 is a lot if you're just running around crazy all the time. Can we start with five? Yes, or start in the shower. A wise Tibetan told me, you've got 11 minutes every morning in the shower. Just use those minutes to think about what you're going to do and bring something positive towards that. And you know, one experience I had a few years ago, I had my annual checkup with my doctor.

27:31And he said, you look fine, but you've reached the age you need to take exercise every day. So go to a health club. And the very next day I signed up and I religiously go to the health club every day for 30 minutes. But another friend of mine said, well, why don't you just take 30 minutes quietly? You know, go to the inner health club, go to the mental health club. I said, oh, I don't have time for that. But I've got time to take care of my body. Why am I not taking care of my spirit or my being, which is much more important for my welfare ultimately than just building up my muscles or getting my heart going.

27:59So I think all of us, nearly, however busy our lives, the busier you are, the more useful it may be just to take 20 minutes or, as you said, five minutes and just be aware of those opportunities. I'm just trying to get people to... Because if you tell somebody you've got to do 20 minutes of anything and they're not doing... You're going to go from zero, I'm just crazy all the time, to 20 minutes. Yeah, maybe that's too long. Can you take five? You're at the doctor's office, you're waiting for your appointment, just close your eyes, don't pick up their copy of Sports Illustrated, just, you know, you've got an opportunity there.

28:29You're in a long line waiting for something. That too. Instead of getting angry at the line, say, well, I've got a little gift of mini vacation. Go nowhere. Yes, exactly. Go in deeper. Yes. Go in deeper. Yes. Would you say that you've achieved the ultimate in happiness? Oh, no. No, no. I wouldn't be presumptuous enough to say that. But I'm living a happier life than I was when I was racing around. and I'm glad that I get to spend a lot of time with my wife and my mother and my children. And that seems the definition of happiness. I'm able to forget. When I go to Japan, the first thing I do is take off my watch because I never need to really to know what the time is.

29:10And I think, well, that's a good sign. I have a lot of friends who are monks and really serious meditators and I hold them in high regard. So I'm just taking baby steps towards the state. So what you're saying is what happens to all of us when you're willing to take the time, just a little bit of time to be still, to gather yourself, I love that phrase, to gather yourself, you end up infusing in a more deeper and profound way everything else that you do. Everything you touch. And also that it's ultimately the solitude or the stillness is not an end in itself. It's a means to having more to share with the rest of the world.

29:46To infuse the rest of the world. Yes, exactly so. And so the point we want to make this morning is that you don't have to, you know, it was a point that Dorothy was making. You don't have to go any further than your own backyard in order to do that. And your own backyard just happens to be in Japan. Yes. My own backyard is here. No matter who you are, you never have to go any further than your own backyard. Exactly. And sometimes we lose a lot of time and energy and money looking for it elsewhere when it has to be here. That's the only place we'll find it. Boy, you've saved a lot of vacation money right there.

30:19You write on page 66, In an age of speed, I begin to think nothing could be more exhilarating than going slow. Yes. In an age of distraction, nothing can feel more luxurious than paying attention. And in an age of constant movement, nothing is more urgent than sitting still. You can go on vacation to Paris or Hawaii or New Orleans three months from now, and you'll have a tremendous time, I'm sure. But if you want to come back feeling new, alive, full of fresh hope, and in love with the world, I think the place to visit may be nowhere. Yeah, and I often think we're most happy when we forget the time, when we're completely absorbed in the conversation, or a movie, or a piece of music.

31:03And what we really crave is intimacy, it seems to me, and kindness, as you said. And again, they found surveys that when somebody is standing in the street with a hand extended in need, and people are walking past or stopping to talk to that person, The one factor determines whether they'll stop and help the person or not is not income or background or race or any of that. It's just whether they have the time or not. And if you don't have time, you don't have enough kindness in your life. You don't have the chance to open yourself up, I think. Let me ask you some soul-to-soul questions. What do you think is the world's deepest wound?

31:42Not being understood, I think. whether it's in a personal way or between nations. We're speaking at cross purposes and I think we often imagine we understand things but we feel pain that somebody is not hearing us and is misinterpreting who we are or what our motives are. Not being understood. Yes. Yeah, I think that too. I always say it a different way. I always say that, you know, the lesson I learned in all those years of doing the Oprah show is that there was a common thread in all of humanity that needed to be validated and that it didn't matter what the subject was. People ultimately wanted to know that they were being seen and heard and that they mattered.

32:28So you're saying the same thing. Exactly the same thing, yes, yes. We feel the same. Hey, hey, hey. That's good. So to be understood. You know, we live in this world of polarity, you know, obviously, lightness and darkness. How do we stay in the light as much as possible? I think ideally by forgetting ourselves. And it's really, really difficult because we're all caught up in the business of protecting ourselves and everyone around us. But I think most of us find, as with taking off the watch or as with being absorbed in a conversation, when we leave ourselves behind, that's when we are freest and happiest.

33:03And that's when the horizon is largest. and that the light is something that's obviously inside us, but it's something external to us that's all around us. And we sometimes don't see because we're so looking inside on our agenda or what we have to do today. And as soon as we just look around us, the light is waiting patiently. It's just up to us whether we see it and whether we can wake up to be reminded it's all around. What do you think is the purpose of all of us being here? What's the purpose of human experience? I think partly to look after each other. And in the process of looking after each other, to remind us and everyone else of things larger than ourselves, of a bigger identity.

33:48Whether you have that in a religious sense or whether you're just talking about a community, that it's not you and I isolated going through the world, that we are part of a large network. And that gives a sense of safety and humility. I often think that religion doesn't often answer all our questions, but the one thing it brings every one of us is humility and a reminder that we are not the center of the world and we're not the end of the story. Difference between religion and spirituality. I think spirituality is a candle inside us. It's the light within us that we connect with at points. But religion gives a framework for that and a context and a community.

34:27So religion is meeting ten other people, each of whom is bringing his or her own light, and all those candles coming together to build a flame, maybe. So each has its point, but I think we need to go inwards to activate the light inside ourselves, and then we have something to bring to the circle. Do you have a definition for God? Reality, actually. I think it is. I mean, I'm so glad you asked that because I've never asked it to myself. But I think we've said it a couple of times right here, right now, the larger story that's unfolding every moment, I think that is where everything wise and luminous is to be found.

35:08God is reality. I do think so. I have been asking this question for how many years now? Four years. That's the first time I've had that answer. Hello. Very good. God is reality. What is the lesson that's taken you the longest to learn? To slow down. By nature, you know, I can write and I can talk about being still and being slow, but I don't practice it so often. That's why you had to write about it, to remind yourself. That's why I'm babbling about it at high speed now. But the slower I am, probably the happier I am. And I have to go from fourth gear to first and have to remind myself all the time, and I still will fail to do it.

35:49And, you know, when we were talking about God a second ago, it reminded me of what we were saying about New York and my life in New York. and I think I would say when I left New York to go to Japan what I was looking for was real life and I had a great life then and of course it was real in certain ways but I felt I'm on stage this is not exactly what I was born to do there must be something fuller, deeper, richer and I think all of us one way or another are looking for the real and it's inside us and it's right next to us at every moment but we sometimes have to take conscious measures to look for it and I'm sure I'm the same And what you felt was a calling, literally, to stillness, a calling away from all of the noise of life.

36:37Yes, a calling just... So you can be called to something that feels small to the rest of the world but is the biggest thing in the world to you. Yes, a call to a question, a call to just give myself the chance to think, is this real life or is there something realer? No more than that. I love that. Is this real life or is there something better? And the answer was? There's probably something realer. I couldn't say what it is. I couldn't necessarily find it, but it's there. And better to be headed in that direction than the direction that I was previously, I'd say. Fantastic. Lovely talking to you.

37:15Thank you. A real honor and privilege. Thank you so much. Thank you so much. I'm Oprah Winfrey, and you've been listening to Super Soul Conversation. the podcast. You can follow Super Soul on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook. If you haven't yet, go to Apple Podcasts and subscribe, rate, and review this podcast. Join me next week for another Super Soul conversation. Thank you for listening.

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