Starting A Spiritual Revolution w/ Rainn Wilson

27:14And a lot of what we're missing in the current mental health epidemic that so many young people are going through can be found in religion itself. Wow, wow, wow, wow. Yeah. And that is a transcendent community. That is people gathering together with purposes larger than their own ego satisfaction. So much of Western culture is geared around my ego and how do I satisfy it? I want more social status. I want more comfort. I want more material things. More material things gives me more comfort and more social status, right? So we're on this drive. We're on this treadmill to achieve for the wrong reasons.

28:00And those things have been proven time and time again by social scientists and psychologists to not bring us happiness and well-being. And yet we pursue them frantically and manically as if they do, because we've bought the lie that has been instilled in us by the Madison Avenue and the mainstream media and social media that we're going to find happiness once we have enough stuff. Now, moving on to the force of love, I talk about these building blocks of religion. There are universals, and one of the central ones that is in every faith tradition and needs to be in any forthcoming, upcoming faith tradition is a kind of love that's next level.

28:48It's radiant hearts the size of basketballs with as deep as possible compassion for the other, for those that are different than us, where we are uniting people in bonds of love, where our action is undertaken every day with great love. And yeah, yeah, yeah. Sounds good, Dwight. But how do I apply that to my life? Yeah, yeah, whatever. Jesus said it better. Well, he did say it better. He said it better and he lived it better. And how do we emulate the deeds of Jesus? How do we not just kind of pledge our love and devotion to Jesus? How do we emulate Jesus? Well, it takes some training. So you start small and you just flex that love muscle.

29:41It's just like working out your epic man bod over there, Ed. You start with little small, you know, exercises and you build. But you can do the same thing with these spiritual attributes. I listed them before. They're the little sparks of the divine that we carry in us. Kindness, humility, honesty, creativity, imagination, you know, inspiration and love. and we can get better at love. We can exercise those love muscles. That's what she said. And to even greater degrees, one day at a time. And I've really undertaken this practice over the last several years. And I find myself going into the world being just more loving.

30:29Let me bring this back around and say one last thing. When my father died, I was heartbroken for months And I had a realization as messed up as he was in so many ways, he was also had this incredible quality where every room he went into, he made a better place. And this really, I'm going to, I'm going to start crying because it really, this really affects me deep in my heart. Every room my dad went into, he made better. He uplifted people. He connected them. He was kind to them. He listened to them. He would look in their eyes and he would tell a joke and he made every room better. How few people I've known in my life that make every room they go into a better, more healed, more uplifting place.

31:22I strive to emulate that. And that's the kind of love muscle that we can grow. We can spread. We can teach to our children. We can share with our friends and our family. and this is how you start a spiritual movement. It starts with something that small. Man, how good is this freaking conversation? My gosh. Right? It's so good. My dad did that too when he got sober. And man, I've worked really hard. It is a muscle. Like I work on my, it sounds, by the way, guys, if you're wondering, well, I want to know about how to make more money. I can tell you I've made a lot more money the more I've walked in rooms and come in a room trying to spread more love in the room, even making business deals.

32:06I'm just telling you, when someone has this sense that you love them and you care about them, that you have their best interest in mind, it takes barriers down. You imagine if we had political leaders actually do the things that the range of referencing here. It's what I think of the whole time I'm reading it, brother.

32:23Here's another one that has changed my life and that you list. It's so good. You guys, his work, I told you when I introduced him, it's so good. But one of them is service to the poor. This is just not talked about anymore. It was like when I was growing up or even in the sixties, this was a benchmark of how we treated one another and service to the poor. See, I have this saying, I say, when you're feeling the most helpless, get helpful. And I think helping all people matters. But I do think, and when I say poor, I want you to talk about this. To me, that's financially poor. For sure, I think that's the real nature of it.

32:59Someone who's just not got the means or the background or the opportunities that you may have had. But also, sometimes people are spiritually poor. Some of them are emotionally poor. And just being in service to people will completely change your life. My life changed, Rainn, I should just tell you. My dad came home from his first AA meeting, and I was living at his house in the same bedroom I grew up in after college. He's like, look, I got you a job. And I'm like, what is it? And he's like, I can't believe you're asking me this. You're eating out of my fridge. Just get your ass down there tomorrow, whatever it is, take it.

33:33Some guy at the meeting got you this job. So I go down there and it was an orphanage called McKinley Home for Boys. And I was an athlete and a very ego driven guy. And instantly I'm thrown into this environment where I'm completely unprepared. I'm not a psychologist. I'm not a dad myself, But I've got 10 boys that are 8 to 10 years old that I'm now living with that are like my sons. But what happened to me that transformed me was all of a sudden I was forced into service of the poor. These boys come from poor families. They were poor in every way. Their parents had molested them or were dead or were incarcerated.

34:09And they were from financially poor families. But I was almost forced by circumstance into service. And my life altered because I found every day that I left there, I felt richer by serving someone that was poorer than me. And so in the book, you talk about this and about just like reevaluating this in our culture. But as a human, I think it can transform your life. And it's another way to heal yourself as you're still leveraging the things that have happened in your life that aren't so good. So I'll give it to you on that one. Yeah, I know that a lot of your podcast audience wants success in business and in entrepreneurship.

34:47And I value that very much. I'm cut from the same cloth. I'm a big believer in entrepreneurship. But you touched on something earlier that I think is very important. who wants to work with someone with a small life and a high drive and a tiny little life and lots of greed no one wants to work with someone like that so the more that in our spiritual practice whether you're a christian buddhist whether you're spiritual but not religious which is the largest growing religion in the united states we want to turn being uh self-centered from being other centered. This works on a lot of different ways.

35:31It's kind of this reverse psychology. In happiness studies, so I've done this show that's out now called Geography of Bliss, where I travel the world looking for happiness. But if you read anything about happiness and positive psychology, you find that being other centered actually makes you happier. So this This process of service to others and thinking about service to others, you can start it for selfish reasons. Start doing it because it will make you happier and it'll bring you more fulfillment. And actually other people will be drawn to you like a magnet because you're engaging in this process of service to others.

36:13And then before too long, and Ed, you might've found this to be true as well, like you may Start doing it for yourself and maybe your own glory and to feel better. And then all of a sudden you just fall in love with the doing of it. So serving the poor, I love that. And I wish I was kicking myself like, oh, that's really good. I should have said, well, poor doesn't just mean material poverty. It can be poor in spirit and poor in humor and poor in friendships and connections. But just look at the data. Just look at the data around gratitude and how that can help you, how service to others can help you, how it gives you a happier, richer life.

36:59Because at the end of the day, there's – and I end the book this way. This is something we talk about on this TV show, The Geography of Bliss, and it comes down to human connection. There was this study done at Harvard called the Grant Study. Maybe you've talked about it on your podcast before. Fascinating study. Many books have been written about it. 300 men being tracked for 80 years about happiness and well-being. And it all boils down to one thing. It's all connection and community. It's just connect, connect, connect. So I think it's the most fascinating study of all time. And I believe it or not, brother, there's something going on here today that's insane because I had him on, I think, three weeks ago.

37:40No kidding. The guy who took over from George Valen, the new the new guy. Yeah, he's great. He's awesome. And by the way, he's got a joy about him that's wonderful too. All right, I got a couple things for you. It's amazing you just said that. I can't get over that. What's transcendence? What is that? So for me, transcendence is what it's all about. I'll tell you a story. I started acting in high school. It's something I'd always kind of wanted to do and secretly longed to do. and I was in this play in my high school called Pygmalion, and it's the play they based My Fair Lady on. And I was playing the father, this Cockney father.

38:22It's this English play from the 1890s. And it's funny. It's a really smart play. And I was in the middle of a performance. We had like four performances. It was like performance number two. And I was doing this big lecture. I'm this poor cockney guy lecturing these rich people about life. And I gesture over here and they kind of all look over in that direction. And I look down and I see a bowl of chocolates that are on in the set dressing, you know, sitting on a dresser. And in the moment, I pick up the bowl and I dump the chocolates in my pocket and swiftly put the bowl back down on the table.

39:01I'd never rehearsed that. I didn't plan that. I didn't pre-think that. completely in the moment I reacted in the character. And of course it brought down the house. And that's when I had this inhalation of like, Oh my God, I get it. That's what acting is. Oh my, I discovered it. It's that moment where, and that's a moment of transcendence where it's not rain. It's not rain's brain. It's not rain's consciousness and his willpower. There was a lot of training that led up to it. There was a lot of work, a lot of rehearsal, A lot of learning of lines and getting into character and trying to see the world through that character.

39:40But all of a sudden, I had this moment of transcendence that transcended the humdrum, that transcended the sweatiness and the hunger and the itchy pubes and the itchy armpit. And I need to take a poop and all of this kind of humanness. And it's something sublime. And I talk about this a lot. For me, I find it in art a great deal, but also one can find it in church service. One can find it in singing. One can find it in nature. These are the moments that we strive for as human beings to connect to something larger than ourselves. This is how I feel like we connect through the divine. And this is an impulse.

40:29This is an impulse that's been around from day one with human beings, an impulse to transcend our humdrum daily lives with something more meaningful and cosmic and uplifting. Brother, just wow. My dad's sobriety, the first and foremost foundation of it that changed our family's life is really a form of transcendence, which is they basically say, you said one day at a time earlier, but you surrender to a power greater than yourself. And it's actually how you phrase transcendence in the book, the kind of the subtitle. And most of the things I've done in my life that have affected other human beings were transcendent moments.

41:08So like I speak, we're going to get to know each other when you come back to LA, but I speak and I have the blessing to speak on really big stages, you know, 20, 30, 40, 50 ,000 people sometimes. And people always ask me, what do you do before you go out there? Aren't you nervous? I'm like, yeah, I get nervous. And one of the things I do before I go out there is I actually surrender. and I ask, in my case, Holy Spirit to just take over and allow that power greater than me. I've had moments on stage where there are things coming out of me and words coming out of me that aren't even vocabulary that I possess and thoughts I didn't have and things I didn't write down.

41:45And I thought, wow, that really works on speaking on big stages. Why wouldn't I do that when I walk into a business meeting? Why don't I, right before you got here today, I went in and used the restroom and I just said a real quick prayer. I just said, Hey, please use me. Please let spirit take over because I know my limitations. And that, that also causes me to have some form of humility as I've gone on this journey in my life, knowing that I don't have all it takes on my own. I've got to rely on something greater than me. And it's, I pray every night as people probably know, but like I was raised Catholic.

42:15I pray on my knees every night. And one of the reasons I do that is that's kind of like a form of surrender. It makes me feel small and that I'm not this big thing. It also makes my life much more manageable because I'm not riding through this thing alone all the time. I'm so grateful that we're like talking about such deep stuff. It's ironic that it's with someone who's made me laugh so hard in my life, but I'm super, super grateful for that. Now, a lot of people are going to say they're listening to us and you talk about this. They say, well, yeah, it's great. Whatever you believe God is, whatever your belief in God is, If there was really one, why do so many bad things happen?

42:51Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do good people get cancer young? Why do we lose children? Why do we hurt one another so deeply? Why would a loving God allow these things to take place? And by the way, I wonder that stuff sometimes. I'm just curious as to what your answer to that is. You're going to ask me one of the great, deepest philosophical questions in human history. and what do I got, like four and a half minutes to answer it? Whatever you want to take, you can take. Take it all you need. I love it. I love it. Well, I have a section in the book. Yes. I have a chapter on God called The Notorious G.O.D.

43:27And I have a section on suffering. And it's a very important question. And it's an important question on a number of different levels. Before I dig in with a couple of ways of approaching suffering, I just want to say that the Buddha addressed it directly. And he said, my goal is one thing and one thing only. It's the study of suffering and how to end suffering. And part of the Four Noble Truths, truth number one is that life is suffering. So there's a lot of answers to relieving suffering in the study of Buddhism, which has helped me tremendously.

44:07We are not, as a culture, talking about suffering enough. What is the purpose of suffering? Because as evidenced by the fact that the number one thing that psychologists point to with young people of why they are struggling so much in this mental health epidemic is they don't have resilience. So how do you build resilience if you don't understand suffering itself? And that leads us to death. You talk about death, you talk about suffering, and that builds resilience. And you understand that suffering is a part of life. It's not something to be avoided at all costs. Parents have to raise their children to understand that suffering is a very real part of their life and is going to be with them hand in hand until the grave.

44:51So that's an important thing. Now, putting that aside. Huge. If we are souls having a human experience and we're continuing on our journey, some people would say to heaven, some people would say nirvana, the happy hunting grounds, whatever it is, we're continuing our journey without our meat suits. Then what is our purpose on earth? Well, our purpose is to grow those spiritual qualities that I've been talking about. We're inhabiting fleshy soul growing machines, Ed. And one of the ways, one of the principal ways that we grow our souls is through suffering. So there is a divine purpose to suffering.

45:33The Bible talks about this. The Bhagavad Gita talks about it. The Buddha talks about it. Baha 'u'llah from the Baha 'i faith talks about it. And this is the importance of suffering. That's number one. Number two, think of all of the suffering that we could end and reduce if we weren't fighting each other and building instruments of war constantly. So this is, I go to Star Trek, okay? You said we're going to talk about Star Trek. I'll bring in Star Trek a little bit. Star Trek to me is a very spiritual vision of humanity because humanity has solved all its problems on planet Earth. Income inequality is gone thanks to technology.

46:12Racism has been solved. Diversity is embraced and loved in the future. Equality of women and men has happened. There's a harmony with the natural world and with science in Star Trek. If we stopped building, you know, missiles and weapons and tanks and drones and guns and bullets and put our focus towards healing cancer, healing heart disease, reducing pain and suffering, increasing our health care system, we would get rid of a huge portion of that suffering. Now, is there still going to be a storm where a building collapses? Is there still going to be a tidal wave and people are going to die? Are innocent children going to be born with diseases?

46:58Yes, they are. But that is part of this human experience. And what I do in the book is I inverse it and be like, well, are what people are asking for is a life without suffering? Because what would that be like? First of all, it defies science. The idea that we are born effortlessly. We don't cry when we're babies because the mother's vagina opens up to the size of a football to let us effortlessly out into the world. We never stub our toe. We never skin our knee. No one ever gets sick. Everyone dies at the age 100 peaceably in their sleep. Like that's absurd. So we see that there is a great mystery and a great purpose to suffering.

47:38Wow. Brother. I'm going to play that part back for me. Because I've had a rough couple days. Two things I've done is surrender. And the second thing, now after you've said that, is in retrospect in 52 years of my life, almost all of the great growth of my life came through some form of suffering, sometimes crisis, stuff like that. And so it kind of is a gift. It just doesn't feel like one in the moment. and I needed to hear that for myself right now, so thank you. They're telling me I only get to ask you one more question because we're bumped up on time here. And so I'm going to – first off, I want everybody to go get Soul Boom.

48:21It's right here. I'm holding it if you're watching the YouTube. Go get it. Why We Need a Spiritual Revolution. I think we've touched on a lot of reasons today why and some solutions in your own life of how you can create a life revolution through the principles in the book. You've got Rainn Wilson and the Geography of Bliss, the TV show, and Metaphysical Milkshake, by the way, is the pod. So I love that. I want to step out of this just for a second, but it'll tie it all together. Was it worth it? We talked about the top. So was it worth it, all the sacrifice, all the suffering, everything you had to go through, the 15 years of being relatively not very well-known, and then all the stuff that's good but also not good that comes with the success?

49:02So take everybody into success for a second. You can do it from a spiritual perspective, though, if you want to. but I get asked this often like is this really worth it like all this price paying you know all the rejection and I have my answer as to why um and I'll I'll give it to you a little bit right after you answer but if someone asks you that hey man it's like climbing to the top by the way becoming the best English teacher in the country if that's what you chose to give you a reference earlier or you know become Emmy nominated or you know become a well-known person is it worth the pursuit of that stuff?

49:37And if so, why was it worth it? That's an interesting perspective. I don't quite know how to answer that. You know, when I look back on it and say, you know, was it worth it? Was the hard work worth it? Was the suffering worth it and the difficulties along the way and the difficulties once I arrived worth it? Yeah, absolutely it was. I am, man, I am so hashtag blessed. I mean, I really, it's incredible. I mean, dude, dude, so many actors just as talented as me have never gotten on a TV show. And then so many have gotten on a TV show that didn't go anywhere. And then so many have gotten on a TV show that went somewhere, but no one really watched.

50:26And then so many have gotten on a TV show that people watched, but then once it was done, it faded from into obscurity. I got to do this TV show that lasted, had success. People watched. It ended. And people still watch and refer to. I'm really, really lucky. I know that's not exactly what you're asking, but it has been worth it for me because, again, from a spiritual perspective, I'm growing my soul. So am I happier now, wiser now, more filled with well-being, more filled with purpose, more filled with connection now than I was five years ago? Yes. More than 10 years ago? Absolutely. More than 15 or 20 years ago?

51:08Absolutely. You know what I see in you? Can I tell you what I see in you as a friend for an hour now? Yes. And I found this in myself. The pursuit of success is a real self-awareness journey over time. You know, how do I improve? How do I grow? How do people look at me? How do I do it? And then somewhere in there for almost everybody, it morphs into a self-awareness journey, but it actually becomes a spiritual journey because you reach these conclusions of I probably couldn't have gotten here on my own. and is this all there is? And it, and, and all my faith, my spirituality is almost my success I've had has become almost a confirmation that there's got to be a higher power.

51:54Cause I'm not that great. But at the same time, had I not had all these failures and these ups and downs in my life, I wouldn't have ever looked at myself. I would have never looked at my life. Like it was a great mirror. The pursuit of growth, the pursuit of success is like life's great mirror. And it's like this laboratory of who am I? Where do I come from? What does this mean? What impact is it making? What impact do I want it to make? Let me jump in here because I got to say something because what you're saying is key. For some reason, I don't know why, for some reason, I've always had a deep driven desire to better myself and to get to know myself more and to dig into life's biggest possible questions.

52:37I've had an insatiable curiosity and a need to grow and understand myself. And I've been in therapy for 20 years. It's been amazing for me. I'm not necessarily recommending that for everyone out there, but Jesus, to spend one hour a week out of how many hundreds of hours there are in a week to spend one hour, actually 50 minutes, to spend one hour just kind of talking about my patterns, my habits, looking at my traumas, trying to make commitments to better my life, to unearth stuff. Like this process, the therapeutic process, my recovery process in 12 steps, my reading of mystical pathways, my journey as a member of the Baha 'i faith, and especially in raising and being a part of my precious, precious family.

53:26Like I think that's where you start. Like any listener right now, like you want success, start with a deep curiosity. Get to know yourself better and better. Work harder. Read more. Study. Ponder. Meditate. Pray. Converse with like-minded others. Serve side by side. But deeply, richly, curiously engage with the stuff of being a human being. Man. I want to say something to you. Thank you for doing all that in your life because God's using you, man, in really powerful ways. You have impacted me in my life through your work. The book did. But I got to tell you, today's conversation has taken it to a completely different level.

54:14And I have a very deep sense that there will be another one here on the show and probably personally too. We're going to continue this unlikely bromance. It is, man. We're going to hit some soush back in L.A., and this is only part one of our conversation. Let's get a continuation of this conversation in the near future, for real. I want to do that as well. I just want to say on behalf of millions of people, thank you, man. This was profound. And everybody, listen, go get Rain's book, Soul Boom. And if you enjoyed today, share the show. That's all I ask for you. It's the fastest-growing show on the planet because you share it, and you share it because of stuff like this happened here today, man.

54:52this congratulations on all your success it's well deserved man i can i can see why your fans line up you you have so much to offer and it's been just an honor and a pleasure to be here i'm sorry our conversation has been cut a little bit short no man i love it and uh i'm very grateful for today and it's just one that's going to continue all right everybody god bless you max out your life this is the ed mylett show

55:16you

55:22Tell me about this bird