Hello, welcome to the Embody Podcast. This is Candice Wu and today I have the absolute pleasure to introduce one of the most significant teachers in my life, Jim Kolakowski. He is my spiritual and Yoga teacher, and by his very existence and his applied teachings, he’s taught me the deeper meaning of Om, you know, that sound Om, that everything’s truly possible, but at a level where I actually started to believe it, and he’s also taught me how the universe works and how to understand my spirituality, according to Tantric and Vedic sciences.

Candice Wu 0:37

Through his teachings, I’ve been able to look at how something functions who I truly am, how to heal at a deeper level, and to create from a place of freedom. I continually feel a level of integration and truer to my genuine self, the more I practice what he has taught me.

Candice Wu 0:57

Jim has devoted the majority of his life to the study, preservation, and teaching of Yoga, the Vedas, and the Vedic and Tantric sciences, and his extensive quest to understand the nature of the universe led him to the study of several rare and highly advanced systems of Tantra. He’s the creator of the Darshan method, a systematic approach to these philosophies and practices which can be applied to any aspect of life, producing exceptional results in physical health and personal development, which I’ve experienced myself.

Candice Wu 1:31

Jim is known for his unique ability to inspire others to achieve physical, spiritual and emotional integration, and he’s a published author, classical musician, amateur linguist, and a lifelong student of oriental medicine.

Candice Wu 1:47

And without further ado, enjoy this podcast with Jim.

Candice Wu 1:52

Okay Jim, so good to have you.

Jim Kolakowski 1:53

It’s great to be here. In fact, it’s always a treat to be with you, Candice.

Candice Wu 1:58

I know a lot about you, but for our listeners, would you share, what do you about and who are you?

Jim Kolakowski 2:03

My favorite question.

Jim Kolakowski 2:04

My name is Jim Kolakowski, and one of the things I think of most that I’m about is I’ve always been interested in understanding the fundamentals behind how things work, the what, why, and how, just about anything, but as I have grown up, I’m growing up, understanding that in terms of the universe as a whole and so I spent a lot of my life trying to understand or since I can remember understanding the what, why and how of things and I’ve been applying that looking into what makes things tick, how they work, what are they, why they do what they do, and then applying that and how to do anything.

Candice Wu 2:39

Yeah, that’s one of the major teachings that I learned from you.

Jim Kolakowski 2:42

You know, there’s a lot of things I guess I’ve been very interested since I was a kid and one of them was music. Music is one of my favorite things, and I grew up in North Dakota, which at the time was sort of rural, and we didn’t have access to a lot of things that were other places, and I wanted to be a classical musician. So, I ended up, I taught myself how to play the cello and to do that required a lot of deep study into the dynamics of the cello, how do you make a tone? What’s the correct tone? What’s intonation? How do you make the best possible tone? How do you interpret music? And so, all of these things I really looked into, and I didn’t have a lot to rely on in terms of other people’s expertise or anything like that. So, I just really went into it and that was sort of a, I guess, one possible starting point for me.

Jim Kolakowski 3:32

As I grew up, I was raised Roman Catholic and my parents were very much into Catholic Mysticism. My dad was actually Eastern Orthodox, and he converted to Roman Catholicism, and Eastern Orthodox has a lot more Esotericism, I think, and Roman Catholic tradition and he brought a lot of that into what we were raised with as a faith and I’m not, I don’t consider myself a Catholic. However, I think that experience gave me a basis to really inquire into spirituality and I think that spirituality has become the central focus of my life and when I say spirituality, I’m not equating that with religion, of course, I’m equating it to a definition that I give, which is a person really looking to understand who and what they are in relationship to the universe they inhabit.

Jim Kolakowski 4:20

What I found is that those two things are actually synonymous, they’re the same thing. I basically have spent a good portion of the last few years looking into this topic and actually languaging it, and I’ve actually spent more than half of my life now think about doing that. But languaging concepts that give us a roadmap to understanding who and what we are in relationship to the universe. I guess that’s sort of what I’m about.

Candice Wu 4:48

Yeah, I would say so.

Jim Kolakowski 4:51

When I was a kid, one of my favorite things to do, I know this sounds silly, but I would take a bath and our house, you could hear everything in every room. But I would take a bath, for some reason, I thought once the door was closed, nobody could hear me and I’d start teaching people things. Like, imagine I was teaching like, a class, different things like, just about any topic I could think of like, how to read or I don’t know why, but it was just sort of a natural thing for me to teach and I think that was one of the first things I wanted to do was be a teacher, then I wanted to be a rock star and an actor because I got inspired by 80s music, I think at some point but —

Candice Wu 5:25

Didn’t you do that?

Jim Kolakowski 5:27

What — There was a brief stint where I was in a band, a punk rock band, we did sort of like, Nirvana cover tunes, I played the cello in it and then I did go-go dancing on the side when I, because not all of the pieces required cello. So, that was fun. I got to be in a cage.

Candice Wu 5:48

Now, this I did not know, but I just had this feeling about you being a rock star, somehow.

Jim Kolakowski 5:53

I don’t know if that counts as a rock star, but it was fun. So the 90s, early 90s.

Candice Wu 5:57

I’ve heard you recount this story a couple of times about how you got into Yoga.

Jim Kolakowski 6:01

My background in these philosophies that come up with are based in the Vedic philosophies which Yoga is a part of. So, I’ll clarify that maybe I can get into that, as I tell the story. But originally, as I mentioned, I was from North Dakota, and one thing I’ve always loved about it is very removed from the rest of society in a way it was, it’s always been its own sort of world, it’s always a little bit behind. It’s kind of a different way people act, a different culture.

Jim Kolakowski 6:26

When I was a late teenager, I woke up one morning and I just had to learn Yoga. I didn’t know what Yoga was, I wanted to learn it. I thought it was sitting in a corner and making noises like mantras or something. I didn’t know what it was. But I started calling places like the YMCA and asking them if they had Yoga classes, and the response I got was like, Yoga, click and they’d hang up on me.

Jim Kolakowski 6:49

And I didn’t know what to do. So, I actually went to the library, and I got every book I could on Yoga, and I found a book called Yoga in 28 days by Richard Hittleman, and it’s a book, it must have been published in the 1960s and it has these sort of 1960s-looking pictures, black and white photographs of women essentially in leotards doing these poses which not to be down on the book. But nowadays, we’d consider them poor form, but the book was so awesome, and it spoke to him because it gave us a systematic plan in 28 days by the end of it, you’d be able to do a Yoga practice, and what they were referring to are actually Asanas, that’s just an aspect or an access point to Yoga philosophy, the Asana are the poses.

Jim Kolakowski 6:49

I actually, later on, got more books by the same author about the philosophies of Yoga, and I didn’t understand any of them, they made no sense, and I kept practicing through the Asanas diligently and then about six months later, I re-read one of the books and it made perfect sense, it was just all of a sudden there, and that’s where I started with the whole Yoga philosophy.

Jim Kolakowski 7:56

Eventually, I ended up living in a couple of different Ashrams and studying the philosophy, and I came across Maharishi Mahesh Yogi Transcendental Meditation Movement, and I became involved in that and some of the techniques and advanced techniques, and what I really liked about what Maharishi Mahesh Yogi had done is he had taken Yoga philosophy and actually codified it and systematized it in a way that actually made sense. It was relatable, he had an idea to make Yoga into it’s referred to as Yoga but the meditation system in a way to try to integrate it with principles of modern science and physics, and he had done an amazing amount of work with amazing amount of people, including physicist and so forth to correlate these different concepts together, and what was so interesting is that he created something that was just made so much sense, it was so interesting and very inspiring to me, that became the basis of a lot of work I did.

Jim Kolakowski 8:51

I’m not involved with that organization currently, but a lot of the basis of where I started my work began in the way that I observed how Maharishi Mahesh Yogi systematized this philosophy. I started a number of other different esoteric techniques. Some of them are very esoteric and sort of secretive, and for good reason, the more I learned, but what I’ve done with this is actually to really go very, very deeply into these philosophies and actually attempt to unravel whether actually about and then make them actually understandable and a way to actually get there, and I feel as though again, I’ve used the, you know, Maharishi Mahesh Yogi’s template as a starting point, and I’ve taken it to what I believe is a much deeper level, not that he didn’t have access to that by any means, I don’t want to say that. I have most respect for that man, where the paradigm was in the collective consciousness at that time was I don’t think would have allowed to go much deeper, and so I’ve taken some of the language in, expanded on the languaging that he used, and brought in a lot more based on my Sanskrit studies, in my studies, in the Vedic, Vedas in the Vedic literature itself, and the Tantric philosophies, to actually build a whole new paradigm around that. So, that’s basically where the philosophies I use to describe the what, why, and how of creation and who and what we are.

Candice Wu 10:17

Yeah, I can see the echoes of his process in yours.

Jim Kolakowski 10:20

There have been so many Yogis that have brought this knowledge to the west. I mean, Paramahansa Yogananda and Maharishi Mahesh Yogi really, really did, I think we owe him a lot in terms of more than I think he gets credit for, in terms of bringing this very simple aspect of that philosophy to us. I feel like, what I would like my work to be about is actually really expanding that and taking it much deeper and farther as our collective consciousness and our paradigm involves, or hopefully facilitate the evolving of our paradigm, which I feel personally would be a great thing. So —

Candice Wu 10:55

Yeah, absolutely. That knowledge is so important and I’m wondering what concept or what teaching do you feel is really important to you, now?

Jim Kolakowski 11:05

One thing I’ve always been really connected to and fascinated by is something we’ve talked about before in terms of, it’s a Vedantic philosophy principle, that should become kind of popularized in pop culture, I guess, you talk about, how’s it called, law of attraction and this and that, and I don’t language it the same way. To me, it occurs even much more subtly, but the fact that the universe, until we are consciousness, is not identified with our limited aspects of what creates or constructs our personality, the idea that the universe or our universe is an expression of what we created ourselves, who create it moment to moment, and the more I look into this, the implications of this, are they’re unfathomable.

Jim Kolakowski 11:50

There’s actually a quote in the Bhagavad Gita or a little snippet of a verse that says the laws of karma are unfathomable. What’s interesting to me is as sentient beings, whether you’re an amoeba, or you’re a cat, or a person, we’re all actually participating in the process of creation, and its evolution in a seemingly non-normal way. What I mean by that is, we’re sitting at a table and this table is made of matter and the matter is actually in the state of karma, but it actually decomposes or changes in a regular fashion, we can predict how long the half-life of this, of the contents of this table are.

Jim Kolakowski 12:28

So if the universe is actually very orderly, but we as humans, or as other sentient beings, we are actually able to seemingly make changes that seem random, and the universe then occurs as a diverse set of karmas happening on infinite levels, and I think as sentient beings as our purpose is to actually contribute to that to actually evolve to where our identification isn’t with our personalities, but actually with the larger consciousness of the universe as a whole, and therefore we have even a more access to be able to influence that karma or create different types of karma and also our intention changes at that point, which is a whole nother topic. But —

Candice Wu 13:24

How does one come in alignment with the collective consciousness?

Jim Kolakowski 13:25

There are two things, first of all, collective consciousness and I may have incorrectly stated this, but collective consciousness is a term I use to define sort of the collective paradigm that or agreement that a group of people and in our case, the human race, or group of beings, the human race subscribes to, right, we have certain laws or that we all agree on and then with our, in our individual pop cultures, or even our companies, corporations, we have individual collective consciousnesses.

Jim Kolakowski 13:52

But I think what you’re asking is sort of the consciousness that fundamentally underlies everything, and how one gets to that actually the practice of Yoga that’s really honestly what the practice of Yoga aims at is allowing an individual which is actually an expression, an individual expression of pure consciousness, which itself is undifferentiated, through the mechanism of what allows us to be to seemingly be individuals, our personalities, which is based on a collection of impressions, which are based on past actions, things we learned, memories, which give rise to our beliefs and gives rise to our actions, ultimately, but in Yoga, what we’re doing is we’re actually transcending that, we normally consciousness, which itself doesn’t have a form and only knows the form or takes on the form of what it identifies with, or what it is projected upon to, and normally, as I said, is projected onto those beliefs, or those we call them sound scars, which create the beliefs which give us all the action that we commit, and those are not a bad thing.

Jim Kolakowski 14:57

But what we do in terms of Yoga, as we take the conscious identification away from that, and we inverted onto itself, and it starts to know, wow, what I thought was me the awareness, that I thought was all these preferences, beliefs, ideals, and what I think is free will is really not free will, it’s just acting or reacting from those beliefs. What Yoga does is it actually takes that consciousness back on itself, and there’s an opportunity to realize, to identify with consciousness rather than those beliefs, that’s Yoga, and that’s the philosophy.

Jim Kolakowski 15:30

Now there are many ways to do that there are Yoga Asana is potentially one tool to do that, if it’s done correctly, can give people access to experiences of witnessing, and terms where they are just the consciousness where they’re not involved directly in the body, that’s one way to look at it, but also different types of meditation techniques, where that actually cause one to move past or to not necessarily identify with those scars and actually identify with consciousness itself.

Candice Wu 15:59

So Jim, when you say creativity, I think what you’re talking about is true freedom, freedom of choice. Can you say more?

Jim Kolakowski 16:06

Yeah, I think that’s a fundamental concept of this, and, as I mentioned earlier, we think we have free will. But actually, we’re acting out of regular patterns. We’re acting based on our past experiences, something happens to us and we react, and then we think that outside thing made us did it but really, it was based on experience that happened, that’s deep in our subconscious at this point, or maybe not even that deep in our subconscious. But, the fact is, we aren’t choosing and what we’re aiming for my mind is what one of the results of Yoga is to actually come to a place of real choice, and how that in my mind works is that people start talking about these concepts like sanskaras, and so forth is that we have to get rid of them.

Jim Kolakowski 16:52

I’ve seen an article a while back in the Yoga Journal, it was saying, now we have to get rid of those nasty Sanskaras, and there’s really no such thing. Everything is a Sanskara, every law of nature is a Sanskara. Nature itself is evolving, and every principle, everything that makes, whatever it does do what it does, even how a tree grows, and this and that is all based on Sanskaras. We can’t, it’s not in our interest to actually get rid of Sanskaras, it’s in our interest to transcend the identification with them. Okay, what I mean by that is we’re actually looking to not be subject to them, not be reactive, instead, actually be able to stand back and look at a full range of potential Sanskaras as a toolbox and I can affect this choice, and I can choose this, which will create this action. Does that make sense? There’s a little more conscious than actually just bam, here it is, and that’s how it works.

Candice Wu 17:51

So that you have all these Sanskaras as a tool out of all the possibilities, and you’re just choosing which one will be effective for what you are desiring, you are wanting to create?

Jim Kolakowski 18:02

Yes. And, in fact, in the Patanjali Yoga Sutras, it’s a big thing in the Yoga world, everyone talks about a few of the sutras they usually know a couple from the first chapter, a couple from the second chapter, and then that they don’t ever go into the last chapters. But one of the things if you start really looking into that, you’ll notice that in the third chapter specifically begins to start to deal with some of these things we’re talking about. It starts to deal with, actually utilizing some of these laws of nature, these which are in turn there can be called a sanskaras, and actually being able to use attention properly, to create particular results, and the way it’s looked at or described is quite esoteric, and it actually is, but when you start to actually break it down to a level of just consciousness, touching on a law of nature and enlivening it actually is quite simple, right, because that’s all we’re doing anyway.

Jim Kolakowski 18:58

I mean, I’m sitting here in a body that’s made of minerals, and all kinds of things that are just not even really me, they’re just matter, and I’m actually causing them to do things by using my attention and my consciousness through all these different mechanisms, like my mind, and my attention, and so forth, and then my actual physical body and which actually makes the body move, it makes talk, I’m making language, I’m communicating, but I’m basically just touching certain laws of nature, and that’s how it happens.

Candice Wu 19:26

Just to rewind a bit, can you say more about what sanskaras are?

Jim Kolakowski 19:31

Yes, so sanskara, I believe this is from a Sanskrit roots song to bring together, so to create with, I believe, is what they mean, and they’re basically these impressions are vibrations, energetic tendencies, which are, in my mind, create the universe now as sentient beings, whether you’re an amoeba, whether you’re a cat, whether you’re human, we all have the potential or action to create conscious action.

Jim Kolakowski 20:05

For example, an amoeba has a limited amount of things it can do. I don’t know what amoebas do, but let’s just say, it eats, it knows how to look for food, or whatever it does, however, it eats and then at some point, that it learns that if it does this, this happens, it does this, it starts to make a storehouse of impressions or memories based on the experiences or the actions it creates. Eventually, and this is again in Vedic philosophy, but if you think about it makes sort of sense. It makes quite a bit of sense, actually, the amoeba eventually dies, that living organism dies, and what’s left is consciousness, and what it has learned in that lifetime, this storehouse of these impressions or what it can do.

Jim Kolakowski 20:48

So it’s that consciousness and coupled with these impressions or sanskaras, moves into another organism, was born again, and as it becomes more complex, it exhausts being an amoeba can’t do that anymore, because it’s sort of exhausted, that there’s no purpose so it becomes another higher organism, eventually, we become humans, and I don’t think humans are necessarily the most intelligent of animals. But what’s interesting with us is that we have an ability to actually step back and separate ourselves and witnessing quality. We can actually, we’re not, we have an ability to actually watch ourselves do something. We have the ability to evolve that way. It’s not really about intelligence, it’s about, we can step back and say, I can actually have a choice, or I can potentially make a choice. I don’t have to do that. And number one, I think you always really developing that. But number two, the sanskaras, then, at the level of a human being, though, because we are more advanced, “being” is there much more, they’ve been evolving over lifetimes, and lifetimes and lifetimes, we have the same Sanskaras as the amoeba, but we don’t necessarily affect those anymore, or they’re affected, they’ve just become part of our habits. But we all are a collection of those things and those things become our preferences, our beliefs, our personalities, the things we hold near and dear are really just based on past action.

Jim Kolakowski 22:11

They’re not even really real and they’re not really us, but we identify with those and I think that’s why they get a bad rep when people say get rid of them because all our suffering actually comes from that, and all our joy is too, actually, it’s not that they’re bad. It’s just at some point, we kind of get tired of having to be subject to them.

Jim Kolakowski 22:31

Again, to go back to what separates humans from animals, other animals, I’m going to say, and I don’t believe this is 100% true, but generally, I’m very close to my dog, and I do believe she’s smarter than most people I’ve met. She’s incredibly intelligent but one thing is she just, I noticed very clearly, she acts from a very instinctual level, it just happens. Something happens, she just goes into a mode, and not in her defense, most people do the same thing. But we as humans have an ability to stop, I don’t need to do that. So that’s what I wanted to make clear about that distinction. But —

Candice Wu 23:07

So on a day to day level, Jim, how do you incorporate this into your life?

Jim Kolakowski 23:12

There’s a lot of ways. I guess you could answer that question, first of all, it’s a good idea to have a realization of this. I mean, it’s one thing to understand it intellectually, but to actually experience it. And that’s what the practices of Yoga are for and I want to make something very clear: When I talk about Yoga, I’m not talking about something that came out of India. I’m not talking about a Yoga class that you go to at, you know, studio, I’m actually talking about any practice that allows for an individual to understand who and what they are in relationship to the universe they inhabit so that’s a broad thing.

Jim Kolakowski 23:44

Now, one thing about we’re in the United States is we do this, I know you go all over, but one of the great things about this country is we, you know, we are in a place where we can actually explore a lot of these higher concepts, we are lucky enough to. Unfortunately, as Mother Teresa said, we have a spiritual poverty here is a lot worse than a lot of the poverty in India, but we have opportunities too, unfortunately, there’s a lot of people out there that offer different ways to do this, and a lot of different you know, some of the people I know like Byron Katie and her work is a form of Yoga. There are a lot of, I’m not really familiar with like Tony Robbins. But I know he does a lot of things that breakthroughs where people break through their limiting beliefs, which are basically identification with sanskaras. We have a lot of opportunities. So I think it’s, in my opinion, important that someone pursues a type of Yoga practice that allows them access to this, that’s maybe not a very specific thing, but I think anything which allows someone to actually evolve beyond their limitations.

Candice Wu 24:53

This is the big question, who and what are we?

Jim Kolakowski 24:58

Well, with that question, we have a lot of different levels, on a fundamental level, we are just consciousness. We’re consciousness trying to know itself in every possible form, every consciousness by nature, singular, but we are all an individual universe and I think of us in terms of like, in if you look at the universe, the cosmos in terms of cosmology and astronomy, we’re actually, each of us is like a vortex, we’re like a black hole we actually collapse the field onto itself. So that all-pervading field appears as an individual thing, and that individual thing is our attention, that attention is utilized and directed through a mechanism experience called the mind. And the mind is actually set within a more gross aspect of attention called energy, we call it Chi in certain systems, or Prana and Yoga and other things too, which give us a fundamental framework of a physical body.

Jim Kolakowski 25:59

So, I think, you know, those I’m kind of describing a particular range of a human from consciousness to our physical body, but at the fundamental level, we really are consciousness, and we really are here in my mind, to experience ourselves as consciousness and then ultimately contribute to the evolution of the universe as a whole, as I said before.

Jim Kolakowski 26:19

So maybe that’s, again, a little bit roundabout way to answer but that’s in my mind who and what we really are, and the answer to that question, in my mind is actually experiential, because once one is experiencing consciousness, and everybody has to some extent, they realize that’s really what we are.

Candice Wu 26:38

Yeah, and so when we experience ourselves as that and we support the evolution of the whole universe, I studied the Yugas with you, within that cycle once we come back to truth, Satya, is it also evolution to go back towards Kali?

Jim Kolakowski 26:56

Okay, so you’re talking about Yuga in term of cyclical, which is, I just want to make this clear, that is not a typically what the way it’s thought of, I think the way it’s thought of now is linear process, but we also know that time is not linear, and Yuga was actually, as you stated it, I believe that’s correct. I believe that it’s a cyclical thing, and everything evolves in a cycle.

Jim Kolakowski 27:22

In Chinese cosmology, they have what’s called the I Ching, which is a set of probabilities in which something happens in a cycle. Anything that exists where I said before, is existing in Karma, and Karma has a beginning, middle and end, right, it has a cycle to it, and what you’re talking about, are Yuga stages within that cycle, and you’re talking about a very large, broad thing.

Jim Kolakowski 27:44

Well, what happens in my experience is that the process of evolution is, once a cycle is complete, it starts out where it evolves, it goes away from itself, and it comes back to itself again, and it’s evolved into something else. So it starts over, with a new set of ideals.

Jim Kolakowski 28:04

Now, that’s the nature of creation, it does keep starting over it goes from Satya to Kali back to Satya, to Kali back to Satya and each time, it’s a new aspect of the same thing, a new iteration, a new variation, when we actually, in my experience, identify with consciousness, we are actually transcending that cycle, we’re sort of stepping back and seeing that cycle for what it is. The beauty that it is, the all that it is, and actually that that’s not what we need to be, again, because otherwise, it just keeps going. It keeps going and it keeps going again, right, and that’s I think, why we do evolve out of that is because at some point is sending it means we get bored with it.

Candice Wu 28:46

Right, so that the Yugas in that cycle is part of the Karma.

Jim Kolakowski 28:52

Yeah, it’s a cycle of Karma, a grand cycle of Karma.

Jim Kolakowski 28:55

Yuga means referring to an age a really long span of time, a large span of time, and we’re actually, they’re just kind of a larger aspect of the cycle. I mean, you can take these cycles of creation down to the most minute scale, nanoseconds, things popping in and out of reality to a very large scale of dealing with a collective of cosmos, and universes and things like that.

Candice Wu 28:57

Yeah, that makes sense, because the way I experience my healing, and my sanskaras, my belief sets, is that some of them never go away, as you said, but I experienced them differently, and then I go another round, and then I come to this place of more balance or a new place in myself, and then I come around again.

Jim Kolakowski 29:43

I think what you’re talking about too, is really, I mean, it’s not about experiences, kind of like you’re on a nice ride, and you’re on a ride and it’s, you’re riding away from inception to completion, and you see a new iteration of yourself, you know, it’s like, I always think of classical music, you know, where they write theme, and then they read all these variations on it. It’s the same thing over and over through different with the same fundamental idea of different iterations, and that’s sort of what I think, what we are as an individual universe, and then the universe as a whole.

Candice Wu 30:13

So, Jim, one major thing I’ve learned from you is that let’s say we’re acting out of fear, or we’re acting of anger, or from a certain belief set you’ve always said to me, that’s okay, but wouldn’t you just rather know what you’re doing and who you are at the time? Like, wouldn’t you rather know where you’re acting from? And that’s just released a lot of shame, helps me go deeper, and so it brings up the topic of morality? Would you talk about that?

Jim Kolakowski 30:38

Morality? Well, I tend to think I don’t believe in morality. I do think there’s action in consequence. You know, I think, you know, morality is a construct that we’ve you know, that is created for particular reasons, and I think it’s a part of a larger sanskara of the collective consciousness.

Jim Kolakowski 30:56

We’ve learned that certain things are helpful actions to society as a whole to be sustained, and certain things aren’t, and those changed over time as cultures evolve, and things going in and out of fashion in terms of well, that’s a larger topic, but the problem is we tend to get confused, because this gets pretty deep. But I think to transcend morality is also another step in this process, and it involves really being personally responsible for one’s actions, and I think that we tend to, you know, favor morality, because, in my opinion of intellectual laziness, we don’t necessarily want to be accountable for making choices. Well, that’s just, that’s the right thing, that’s the wrong thing to do, and very well could be an action that’s actually more evolutionary or less evolutionary, or we can predict oftentimes certain outcomes.

Jim Kolakowski 31:51

I think that’s a better way to look at it in my mind, and I guess that’s a moral judgment, saying it’s a better way. But I think it’s a more effective way to look at rather than just saying something’s right or wrong, but that path to that also requires that an individual makes choices and be very responsible for the outcomes of their actions, and so forth, and when we really start looking at ourselves, and really start being conscious of what we’re choosing, personal responsibility is a huge part of it, and I think that’s why a lot more people don’t evolve as far as they could, necessarily, or they give up on the path they’re on is because of that, and I think morality, in a sense, becomes the default reaction.

Jim Kolakowski 32:34

In my mind, actually, that’s why people use morality, as far as morality, I’m not an expert on it. I mean I know, as I mentioned, like I did grow up Roman Catholic, and the older I get I realized, I don’t know much about what is taught in the church. I just know what I was taught, and there was a lot of morality, there was a lot of right and wrong, good or bad. I mean, it’s interesting for me, I still look at things, and I still uncover where I have value judgments or beliefs about it. It’s an interesting process, I think it really doesn’t matter. There’s more just action and consequence, and the more aware we get when we start to actually become aware of our choices, and we become responsible for them.

Candice Wu 33:15

When I heard you talk about this topic before, Jim, one of my first questions was, then how do you know what to do? And I remember you saying, well, I checked to see if I like myself, and I think we can understand that on many levels. Can you talk about that?

Jim Kolakowski 33:30

We actually are a lot more aware than we give ourselves credit for. I’m sure in the work you do, you help people to actually feel the sensations in their physical body that go along with the emotional counterparts or the things they’re doing. I think we actually do have the ability to be aware. I think it is inherent in people, whether we want to admit it or not. We live in a culture where we give excuses for everything, and I’m not saying that’s right or wrong. We say I drink because I’m an alcoholic. I don’t really have any choice in it. I did that because she made me do it. She made me mad. We have all these ways in which we justify an action, and again, this is, I think, the key to it is really bringing back to personal responsibility and accountability for one’s actions. Is this action really, does this feel good when I do it? Does this feel and when I say good, do I feel expansive? Do I feel like it brings me into connection with my surroundings or with internal integration even as a good place to start? Does this part of my body feel bad? Or, this part of me feel not connected to the rest? Or, does that feel separate, create a sensation of separateness?

Jim Kolakowski 34:50

We all have the ability to actually feel that, know it, whether we actually live like that. I mean, it can be a process to get there, and whether we actually do that or not is another thing, but I believe I answered that one time, I said to you, do I like myself when I’m that way, you know, yeah, I can go out and I can you can do whatever you want, really. But do I like the way I felt knowing that and seeing what the results of my action are? If it’s something that would be, you know, God hit somebody or something?

Jim Kolakowski 35:21

I mean, ultimately, we really don’t like feeling like that. I don’t think I say this with the utmost respect. I know people are doing their jobs. I think, you know, a lot of people in the military, they come back from these battles with PTSD, and they have to do things that may actually be incongruent with their beliefs in the first place, and I’m not saying that’s wrong, because I’m not, I’ve never been in the military. I don’t know what, I realized that there are missions that, there is a time and place for this within it. It’s not my realm, but I think people struggle with that. I think it’s very difficult to reconcile.

Jim Kolakowski 35:56

So humanity as a whole, I think one day we’ll all be in such a state of integrity, that we won’t need that, but in the time being that’s where I believe you can actually observe what I just said inaction is people doing their job, and they really are not even congruent with the actions.

Candice Wu 36:14

Yeah, it’s like having to separate so many parts of themselves in order to do that.

Jim Kolakowski 36:19

And I think that is a good way to look at it, anything that creates an idea of separation within a person is you could say that disintegration internally could be thought of as an action that might not be evolutionary, actually isn’t evolutionary, their full attention isn’t behind it, therefore, they are not integrated with that action that, to me, that’s a sign probably not “correct” action for that moment so I guess one way to look at it in terms of is this action, create a sensation of integration or disintegration. And when I say, Do I like myself? When I do that, I guess I’m referring to that feeling of disintegration or disharmony between all aspects of myself.

Candice Wu 37:07

Okay, Jim, let’s talk about Tantra.

Jim Kolakowski 37:09

Everyone’s favorite subject.

Jim Kolakowski 37:11

So Tantra is a misunderstood subject, from my point of view, and I can’t say I’m an expert, I practice a number of different tantric techniques, but I want to make this clear. Tantra is a big field, in my mind, Tantra means, it’s referring to the esoteric practices of Yoga. Again, you could almost say it’s another word for Yoga. It’s these techniques that allow an individual to transcend individuality and arrive at the identification with consciousness.

Jim Kolakowski 37:42

Tantras are again, there are so many different paths for this, generally, it is associated with sexual acts, and I don’t know much about a lot of what is out there. I don’t want to be disrespectful towards it, but I think a lot of what’s out there is more on the level of gratifying sensory experience through sex and that’s a different topic, there’s nothing wrong with that.

Jim Kolakowski 38:08

I mean, you can like sex, like anything else, you can take it to its utmost level. I mean, you can do that with anything, you can do that with cooking, if you wanted to, you can find the ultimate recipe for chocolate chip cookies, the best orgasmic cookies, you could have the same with sex, you can take it to the utmost level.

Jim Kolakowski 38:28

But the thing about Tantra is that the experience would be something that is actually allowing someone to actually move beyond the experience of an individual. It’s an expansive experience, and oftentimes, I think, the state of orgasm is confused with that not because it could be an expansive experience, in general, it is. But what generally happens in orgasm is people are all the different aspects of an individual become integrated into for a very short period of time, into a very specific direction of intentionality, different, everything comes together and into a point and makes a very strong experience.

Jim Kolakowski 39:13

Tantra from that point of view in sex, I believe, is using that experience consciously for something else, not necessarily for energy being released from the body or the essence of the individuals released at that point, generally, procreation is involved or the aim, or not necessarily the aim, but in terms of Tantric techniques that involve sex, from my understanding, it’s taking that same strong direction of attention and actually moving it to a place of reversing that direction of energy so that the individual, it goes beyond sensory experience, it goes beyond individuality. So those are actually kind of esoteric and I think complicated or physically complicated things to master.

Jim Kolakowski 39:58

There are many forms of Tantra that involve different types of very complicated pranayamas or breathing, in which different energy channels of the body are cleansed and utilized to make different things possible. There’s the Chinese, I’m very familiar with this, many of the Tantras were preserved in China in the form of the Qigong, many of which are very secretive in the Daoists practices. I know some people would argue with me about that, but I really do believe that’s where most is preserved.

Jim Kolakowski 40:26

If you go to India today, I don’t think you find so much of these original Tantras. It just, the knowledge has been lost or changed and this and that, but I believe, Tantra, is such a wide scope, it could be a number of different practices. Some involve sex, but a very small of them involve sexual copulation, or whatever you want to call it. So what’s out there again, it’d be nice if people would be, in my opinion, more respectful towards the practice and the arts of Tantra in terms of, again, you know, it’s one thing to make a sensory experience more intense, and that’s one thing, and there’s nothing wrong with that. I think that’s a separate thing.

Jim Kolakowski 41:08

I would like people to maybe, if I wanted to know anything about Tantra, is to have an open mind about it and understand that it encompasses anything that’s going to allow an individual to transcend their individuality, rather than just a way to create better sex. There’s a lot of ways to do that, and I actually think some of the Tantra practices that I’m aware of that involve, again, that’s such a wide range, but that involve any use of sexual energy, they should be very well respected, because it starts at that point to get very powerful and actually, in some ways can be physically dangerous, if you don’t know what you’re doing. So it’s good to really have respect for that system.

Jim Kolakowski 41:45

Certain practices involve developing and cultivating the sexual energy and the essence which precedes that. You don’t know what I’m talking about. I think in Yoga or Ayurveda they may call it, Ojas, right, there’s a certain level of a refined part of the physicality called Ojas and it’s a refined aspect of an individual that sort of contains everything of that individual, and that is actually due to certain types of practices that involve, I guess what we could say they look rather sexual, involve taking that essence and actually transforming into a very refined form of energy, which is, in a sense, correlates to the individual’s consciousness moving from a gross level of essence, to a refined energy, ultimately, to something we call Soma, which is a most refined form of that individual, and that process could be dangerous physiologically, because some of the practices that I know, can elevate the blood pressure. They could cause a stroke.

Jim Kolakowski 42:50

For the men, we do certain things that might actually be dangerous to themselves, if you don’t know what you’re doing without saying too much about that. One thing that happens too or can happen, any Yoga practice or tantric practice, particularly these ones I’m talking about creating a strong level of physiological integration, a strong sense of physical integration, but also physiological on, when I talk about physiology, I’m, again, I’m referring to that full range of a human being from the more subtle level of consciousness or fundamental level to the gross level, which is the physical body. But all those parts coming together, and when that happens, if an individual isn’t ready for it, it can be sort of mind-blowing, in a sense, right? It could be too fast. Right?

Jim Kolakowski 43:36

I always think of and this is off-topic, I’m not saying Eckhart Tolle did these practices I’m talking about but in his book, The Power of Now, which I only read the introduction, because I’m a really bad reader, but he talks about how he had this transcendental experience and he basically had this experience where he transcended himself, and for several years, he was on a park bench, and Byron Katie also describes these and I love this, her stories, they’re utterly hilarious. Some of them they’re so great. But my point is, you know, under the improper circumstances, someone may not understand because they are not themselves anymore, and it may take them a while to come back to as Byron Katie and Eckhart Tolle talks about, it took them a while to come back to, “reality” where they could function normally. Then you have a deal with this new state of awareness, they were in some of these practices can really accelerate that process so quickly, that it could also be very challenging for the individual. It could be painful, emotionally, it could be actually, it could just be too much, and so forth, as well as physically problematic, I think, too. So —

Candice Wu 44:44

That makes sense, and it seems that respects that you were talking about for the practices, and for what you’re doing, knowing what you’re doing, really connects up with having a good teacher or that teacher-student relationship that’s been in tradition, like lineage. Can you speak about that?

Jim Kolakowski 45:02

Yeah, that’s actually a really important thing, and I think, I mean, we’ve really changed how we view that. We, actually, the word Guru has kind of a negative connotation, oftentimes, and I often see a lot of people like: “You are your own guru”, and “blah, blah, blah”, and this and that. I think that’s actually really a true thing.

Jim Kolakowski 45:18

Ultimately, we are our own guru. We are our own teacher. However, most people can’t teach themselves. I mean, I was able to teach myself cello but most people can’t do that. I’m not saying I’m smarter, there’s a lot of things I can’t figure out myself. I have to bring in someone else to teach me. But it’s helpful when you’re learning to drive a car to have someone show you how to drive. I didn’t mean you have to submit all power to them but it’s good to have a good teacher. And I believe, really good teachers are not as plentiful as one would think. So I think lineages are important, where the person is really, I think that could be just as simple as someone being very set in what they’re teaching, very knowledgeable, oftentimes, that comes through lineages.

Jim Kolakowski 46:03

I believe teachings evolved through the lineages. So I mean, I come from a lineage that goes back, but a while, and I’m sure the practice has evolved from teacher to teacher. My teacher evolved it much differently, I think I have taken other takes on it too. But ultimately, the fundamental techniques in the message are the same, and that’s important because oftentimes, you know, someone comes on why just do it this way, and then all of a sudden, it isn’t the technique, it isn’t doing the same thing. So I think lineages can be very important, and I think teachers are very important too.

Jim Kolakowski 46:36

At some point, again, we all break away from our teachers. We all become personally responsible for ourselves and our actions, and I think there’s a point where that happens on a path, but I do think lineages, and even to some extent, this is not where I’m at. But I think for some people, religion fulfills that. I think a lot of times, and I don’t want to go off on religion, but a lot of them have fallen short in terms of, they become so exclusive, and even systems and techniques and lineages have become that way where this is the best way, this is the only way.

Jim Kolakowski 47:10

All paths, whatever they are trying to teach always end up at the same source, which is consciousness at the end. Some are just faster than others, some are more effective in doing this, some are more effective in that, but ultimately, everything’s leading towards one thing, the realization of oneself as consciousness.

Candice Wu 47:25

So given all of this really important knowledge, it’s been so important in my life, you’re human.

Jim Kolakowski 47:31

I struggle with all the things we talked about. I mean, I really do struggle with personal responsibility. I mean, there was a definite point in my life, where I realized, wow, once I know this, I can’t pretend I don’t anymore.

Candice Wu 47:43

I know that.

Jim Kolakowski 47:45

And it’s that kind of goes with that question you asked about, you know, I was talking about what you know, when something happens too fast, and I don’t know if it happened too fast for me, but there are certain points along that way, and it still happens where I reached a new level of that, and I feel like, I really struggle with really being responsible for my choices, and really being responsible for how and where I direct my attention.

Jim Kolakowski 48:08

That’s something, it’s constantly there for me and not that it’s always a struggle, but there are times it, you know, I really would like to do something, I’m like, well, that isn’t really, I don’t want to be responsible for the outcome of that, also, I mean, this is very personal, but I actually was part of a system, a tradition and I struggled with for actually a couple of years, whether to continue my participation in that, I have so much respect for the system and the lineage and the teaching.

Jim Kolakowski 48:40

It just, I reached a point where again, I was ready to leave that, that was very challenging for me, because of all of the personal investment I had in that, and all the identification I had with being part of that system and part of that lineage, and I always will be. There’s no way I will always be very connected to it but to actually be participating in the organization and the dynamics of it was something I just felt like was not appropriate for me or anymore.

Jim Kolakowski 49:10

So that was something that’s very recent for me as I was going through, it was quite a struggle. So again, to me, that goes back to a level of personal responsibility because I didn’t want to be, to leave requires a certain level that I take responsibility and accountability for my life and my spirituality and that I didn’t want to.

Jim Kolakowski 49:26

So, I think that’s one thing that’s really alive for me in terms of, I work on. There’s a gravity to Karma and I think, you know, evolution sometimes or when we evolve, and I use that word synonymous with the term involution, which is something else but to me when we are moving, we are evolving. And as I do that, there’s a gravity to certain situations that ultimately, don’t serve a purpose for me as an individual or me as abandoning individuality, ultimately, they don’t serve that purpose. So yes, there’s a gravity to that, and it is leaving that can sometimes be, it’s kind of like breaking up or a marriage or divorce.

Jim Kolakowski 49:27

I think given even our own personal habits or our personal aspects of our personality, when we realize we no longer need to be subject to them again, we don’t have to abandon them. They’re always there for our use if we want them. But actually, sort of not being married to them, so to speak anymore, it can be actually, in my opinion, somewhat devastating.

Candice Wu 50:26

Yeah, it does.

Jim Kolakowski 50:29

Yeah. So I think it’s something you know, it’s a constant thing and I think it’s beautiful on one level. And it also involves, for me personally, and just a lot of really being present to myself and to, again, going back to what feels integrated or integrating and what doesn’t feel integrating. And as I mentioned that before, in terms of morality, we’re having that conversation, I think that perhaps an infallible way to know if you’re on the right path.

Candice Wu 50:56

Jim, it’s been really fun talking with you. I’ve just been so grateful for you in my life, and so it’s super fun to have you on the show and I’d love to have you back again.

Jim Kolakowski 51:05

Thank you, Candice. As I said before, it’s a real pleasure. I’ve actually this is the second day in a row, I’ve seen you, which never happens, and so this is a real treat. Thank you for having me on. It’s just always a blessing to be in your presence.

Candice Wu 51:18

Thank you, Jim.

Candice Wu 51:20

I hope you all enjoyed this enriching conversation today. If this blew your mind or was challenging to take in, trust me it took years and years and years to begin to understand, and it all went somewhere on some level, and one day, just as Jim had said, at some point that he just started to get it. I started to get it.

Candice Wu 51:45

So I want to share that Jim works with clients that include professional athletes, celebrities, government officials, and CFOs of major companies as well as colleges and universities who have sought him out for his expertise, and he can be found at www.darshancenter.com.

Candice Wu 52:08

I appreciate you listening in and always welcome your ideas, your feedback and requests. Before you go, you can sign up for the weekly podcast at CandiceWu.com/podcast or email me at [email protected].

Candice Wu 52:23

You can also find a newsletter, workshops, retreats, resources, meditations and other healing tips at my website, Candicewu.com, where you can access the Facebook Embody group as well as the newsletter.

Candice Wu 52:39

See you next time on the Embody Podcast.