Transcript of MADONNA: For the First Time Ever

This is an iHeart podcast. If you don't have a spiritual life, you're never going to stop and ask any questions. You're just going to plow through life, and you're going to see everything that happens to you as just a random event. I don't believe that anything is random. I think everything that happens to us is meant to happen to us to teach us some a lesson. The number one health and wellness podcast. Jay Shetty. Jay Shetty. The one, the only Jay Shetty.

Madonna, welcome to On Purpose. I am so grateful to be here with you today. Thank you for the honor and the opportunity.

Thank you for happying me.

I'm really happy to be with you after lots of FaceTime calls and discussions about this conversation we're finally here.

Good to finally be in person.

Absolutely. I wanted to start off by asking, you don't do a lot of interviews. We don't see you doing interviews, maybe even for the last 9, 10 years, or give or take. What's your intention for being Why today? Why now? Why today?

Well, in the past, I've usually done interviews to promote my work, whether that's music or a tour or film. But today, I would like to talk about my spiritual life and the spiritual path that I've been on for over 28 years. This wisdom has helped me navigate the ups and downs of life for a lack a better expression. People ask me a lot through the years, what is the reason you're still sane? What is the reason you keep going? Why have you not fallen by the wayside like other people? Definitely a lot of my peers who are no longer with us, what would you say is the key? I would say that is my spiritual life. I absolutely would not be where I am or who I am if I did not have that. It's helped me enormously, as I said, navigate the ups and downs of life. I feel like I would like to share that with people. That's really the point of I'm not here to promote a product or I don't want anyone to buy anything. I want to share something with people that has pretty much saved my life. That sounds dramatic, but it's true.

Yeah, it It seems like it's something that's extremely meaningful to you and a deep part of your life that often I feel you don't get to share in other spaces. So even though it's been a part of your life for nearly three decades, maybe you haven't shared parts of it before. What would your life look like if you didn't find it?

I would believe that the physical world is all there is. I would believe all the illusions. And that would be my downfall. And that is most people's downfall.

What does spirituality mean to you? Because I I think that word itself means so many things to so many people.

Yes. I mean, a spiritual life or a spiritual path could mean a lot of things. I know that you have a spiritual path. For me, it's not really about who's this the best? It's whatever works for you. I've been studying Kabbalah for 29 years, so since 1996. Yeah, it's a long time.

It's a long time.

I'm not a frivolous person. I don't suffer fools gladly. If I think there's something false about it or corrupt or not authentic, I wouldn't have stuck around for so long. I've had the same teacher for all this time. I feel almost like it's my responsibility to share with people because I feel like people need guidance, people need enlightenment. For me, spiritual life is having an internal life. Because you know this, I'm sure. If we get caught up in the belief system that our value in the world is based on people loving us or other people's approval or how much money you have or how many fabulous outfits you have or how many followers you have on Instagram. Those things don't make us happy. Those things don't bring us peace. So having an internal life and being able to look internally and having some practice, whatever that might look like, your prayer, your meditations, the time you take out of every day to stop and take stop Like contemplate. We live in a very busy, chaotic world. Lots of noise, lots of distraction. I mean, how many times have you heard people say, Oh, social media, people can't walk down the street without listening to music.

Everybody has to be visually stimulated all the time. There's no peace. There's no quiet. We're not comfortable being quiet with ourselves and looking inward and asking ourselves, why am I here? Or what am I doing? Or what is my intention and a specific choice I'm making right now? Whether it's about my work or the way I'm raising my children, decisions that I make about everything, really. I have to ask myself. If you don't have a spiritual life, you're never going to stop and ask any questions. You're just going to plow through life. You're going to see everything that happens to you as just a random event. I don't believe that anything is random. I think everything that happens to us is meant to happen to us to teach us some a lesson. But the question is, are you aware enough? Are you awake enough? Are you interested enough to find out what that reason is? Why did this happen to me? What is my lesson? I don't want to go through life seeing everything that happens to me as random, but I also don't want to go through life as a victim. I've had a pretty challenging life, and it's easy to fall into the trap of feeling sorry for yourself or being a victim.

Why isn't this happening to other people? Why is it happening to me? Why don't I have what that person has? I'm sure you know the expression, comparison is the killer of joy. So it's like you got to get out of that game. You have to have a spiritual life. You just have to.

You're reminding me of something beautiful that I came across called the third space theory. Have you heard of it? It's this idea that as humans, around 50 years ago, we had three spaces. So we had work, we had home, and then you had a temple, a synagogue, a church, a community center, or a third space. The point of that third space, it's what you're saying, was a place that you could look back at work and home and you could reflect on your life. You could take stock, you could introspect. But as time has gone on, what's happened is we lost that third space. We stopped going to temple, church, community, whatever it may be. A place of self-reflection. A place of self-reflection. And we ended up with working home. And then after the pandemic, we lost work. And so now we're in one space, and We don't have a different vantage point to where we are anymore, which is what I think you're saying.

Go back even one more step that to me is like a prison. If you remove the spiritual life, spiritual practice, you remove the workplace, then you're in the home. Then removed once more from home is you're looking at your phone, which even takes you out of home.

It's a great point, yeah.

Where are you?

You're nowhere. We're all living in the virtual world. We're living in the virtual world, not even in the material world.

Yes, and a virtual world is not a bad world. But if you don't have consciousness, there's really no point to living.

It's interesting to think about that because I feel like everyone can relate to the idea that if we all had, we need physical spaces to sometimes make us do internal things.

Yes. I mean, some ritualistic behavior has to happen.

What have What are your rituals? I'm intrigued. I'm curious. What are your spiritual practices and rituals that have been so supportive and emblematic of your journey that have kept you going at the times? As you said, there were so many times you could give up or things could go wrong, or you kept pushing and they kept you locked. What were they? What are they?

Well, one really important thing is studying, making time every week to sit down and study. You can study It's the Bible. You can study the poetry of Kehl Gibran, or you can study the Vedas.

And you did that, right? You actually studied different traditions on your part.

To be honest, before I discovered Kabbalah, I was looking for answers.

Why do you think that was? Why were you looking for answers?

Because I had everything that people would assume would give you happiness. I had successful career. I had fame, fortune, monetary things, physical things, but I wasn't happy. I naturally sought out... Well, when I was a dancer, I had a roommate. She was a Buddhist, and she would get up and chant every day. I was very intrigued by that. Nothing bothered her. You know what I mean? Everything bothers me.

Everything bothers me.

I'm I'm a Leo. I'm Italian. I'm very dramatic. I wouldn't say she was peaceful all the time, but I was just struck by her confidence and her knowingness that everything was happening for a reason. She never got upset about things. This is in the beginning of my career when I was living in New York and I was broke, and a lot of crazy things happened to me. It's really scary, dramatic things. I would always ask her, her name is Mariana, I would always say, Why are you never upset? So I attributed that to her spiritual life, but it didn't speak to me. And then later on, I started practicing yoga, Ashtanga yoga. And my teacher, Eddie Stern, he still has a-I love Eddie.

He's great.

You know Eddie? Yeah, I do. Yeah, he's amazing. I got quite caught up and competitive about first series, second series, third series. But one thing I noticed is that a lot of people would come into his practice, his studio where he taught, and they wouldn't even do the poses. They would just go and sit in front of the statue of Ganesh or light candles or prayer. I realized, and Eddie pointed it out to me because sometimes I would have injuries or I would be traveling and I couldn't practice yoga. He'd say, Look, are you breathing? I'd say, Yes. And he said, You're practicing yoga. I realized that I was still too caught up in the physical poses. He's like, No, you don't understand. You're the whole point. The poses are just something that you do to breathe through, to calm your nervous system down, and to bring you back to your center. And that really spoke to me. There was a big... No, it was a painting on the wall of the yoga studio that says, Desire and detachment. I said, What does that mean? He said, Well, of course, we want all the beautiful things in life.

We want all the pleasures. We want all the happy We want it all. There's nothing wrong with that. You can't be attached to it because then if you're attached to it and you don't have it, what's going to happen to you? I studied that for a while and I studied Sanskrit. I had a teacher, and I learned that the vibrations of the letters had a calming effect on your nervous system and centered you and placed you firmly rooted on the Earth. And all of that made sense to me. But then, again, nothing happens by accident. But I was pregnant with my daughter, Lola, my eldest daughter. I suddenly realized, I was living in LA, I suddenly realized, I'm going to be responsible for another human being. What am I going to teach her? I'm like a meteor making my way on this planet. I have great survival instincts. I have a great work ethic. Yes, I'm very ambitious, all of those things. But I was never... I was just knocking him down, you know what I mean? And not looking back. I'm going to be somebody because that's why I came to New York in the first place.

I will never go back to the nobody life I had when I was a child growing up. I definitely was fueled by an inner drive, but I would I would not say that I was spiritual or conscious. When I was pregnant, I suddenly realized I knew nothing, and I was a slave or a victim of other people's opinions of me. I didn't have really, even though it looks like and looked like I was confident, brave, audacious, whatever. Deep down inside, I was not. I was at a dinner party.

While you were pregnant?

Yeah. I was at a dinner party at my friend's in LA, and there was a woman sitting next to me. I knew her vaguely. She's a costume designer. She was a costume designer. Her husband's a director. She said, Oh, you should come with me to class. I said, What class? I'm open to classes, by the way. I love being a student. So what's the class all She said, There's a teacher there. It's something called Kabbalah. It's next to a synagogue. And I was like, Wait, so he's Jewish? And she said, Yeah, but it doesn't have anything to do with being Jewish. It's just a belief system, not a belief system, like a philosophy about life that you could learn a lot from. And I said, Okay, I'll go. So I did. And that's how I met my teacher. And I literally would sit in the back of class for years. Mostly men were in the class at the time, but everything that he said seemed to make so much sense to me and gave me courage to be who I am and who I meant to be and made me actually think about intention and a real sense of purpose.

Because my sense of purpose can't just be, I want to be rich and famous, or I want to be popular, or I want to sell a lot of records, because none of that lasts. But it wasn't until I went to class that I actually started thinking about those things. So I just kept going. And here I am today. But motherhood or being a parent is really what made me start asking questions that I most likely I should have asked them sooner, but I didn't because I was just caught up in my self.

I love that story for so many reasons. One of them being that my journey to my spirituality had There were certain similarities in that, not that I was pregnant, so definitely not that one. But I had a friend and friends who were starting to get interested in spirituality, and they invited me to hear a monk speak. I'd seen monks while I was growing up, but I'd never really engaged with one or really understood what they did or meant. I'm so glad I said yes to going along. I was very young. I was 18, 19 years old. I wasn't even seeking. I was open and I was curious. To be honest, I was doing what everyone else was doing at that time when you were 18, 19-year-old kid. Experimenting. Experimenting and doing everything else under the sun. But I'm so glad I went because now, looking back, I find that after meeting the monks that I met, it gave my life a compass at a very early age that I'm so grateful for because it changed the entire trajectory of my life. I can't imagine what I would have ended up doing in the same way as you did.

It sounds dramatic, but it's true that without the group of friends that invited me to go along and meet my teachers who would become my future teachers, I can't imagine what life could be like.

Are those teachers still your teachers?

Yes, absolutely. Still since that time. It's been nearly 20 years now that I've seen.

That's meaningful.

Yeah, very meaningful.

Are your friends that came with you still also studying or practicing?

Yes, absolutely. One of those friends was my I have a best man in my wedding, and he studies under the same teachers till this day. That's cool.

What about the friends? The woman who took me to class, no. Okay. No. She doesn't stick with it.

Are you still in touch with her at all?

Yes, I am sometimes.

It's amazing to hear that you had this ambition and this drive to become successful, and at the same time, there was this spiritual calling that was almost happening simultaneously. How did you reconcile the two when to the external eye, they could look very opposite? How did you actually see them?

Look weird, you mean?

Not weird in the sense of I think a lot of people assume that spirituality and success don't go together. A lot of people would think that- That's absurd.

Those are narrow-minded people. I mean, you need to be spiritual to be successful. Success is having a spiritual life, period. It's interesting because I had this boyfriend some time ago. After we broke up, we saw each other years later, and I was telling him about Kabbalah. He's like, Oh, yeah, that makes a lot of sense because you grew up as a Catholic. I know how religious your mother was. And I was like, No, no, that's not what it is at all. It's got nothing to do with religion. Everybody has to find the path that speaks to them and resonates with them. But I do think it's important to have one. And I dare say if you didn't have a spiritual path, you wouldn't be as successful as you are today. I will make that assumption in your work, in your marriage, in your friendships, all your relationships. Honestly, it sounds like a cliché, your spiritual life, even. But it's just got a bad rap. You 100% can have a spiritual life and be successful. I wouldn't be here if I didn't have one.

Let's talk about how your spiritual life has impacted your different roles because you played so many roles in life. Let's start with artist because that's what the majority of our viewers and our audience will connect with you on. Your spiritual life has directly impacted your art. When did you feel it was first introduced to your art? How was it introduced? How would you use it to inspire your art?

About a year after I started studying, I made my Ray of Light album, and that is 100% influenced by my study, my spiritual practice. Like a door opened for me, and I suddenly... And maybe I was spiritual without knowing it unconsciously. And some things happened. I mean, often things would happen where I would have visions or I would get ideas and I would manifest them. And if you're too busy, just sit for a moment and think, Wow, that's so amazing what just happened. I channeled that. You don't actually know that you're tapping into another dimension until you start paying attention to the other to the idea that there is more to life than you and I sitting in this room on a chair. If you believe in energy and you believe in universal laws and you believe in quantum physics, the possibilities are endless. Miracles, the idea of miracles, is not a foreign concept. It's not a lucky strike. You know what I mean? It definitely affected my work. I became conscious of the fact that I was and am I am channeling light. That's what I'm doing. I don't own it. It's not mine.

I'm a vessel for it. I'm a vessel for this light, which in turn, my goal is to share with other people. Now, I can do that through my work. I can do that through my music. I can do that through my relationships with people. I can do that as a friend. I can do that as a mother, as a parent. So you realize that it informs every part of your life. But the one really important thing, well, one of the many important things that my teacher taught me was that I am not the owner of my talent. I am the manager. As long as you keep that consciousness and you're aware. People who run to say, I did that. That was my idea. I mean, you created an opportunity for yourself by allowing yourself to be a vessel For this, call it what you like, magic. I think it's magic. I think when you channel artistic ideas and you have creative visions, it's magic. When you overthink it or you start thinking about how much of that you own, you stop it. That's why a lot of, I would say, this is my observation, that a lot of people have these great meteoric careers, and they rise up, and they take the world by storm, and they influence the masses, and then something happens, and they can't handle the light, and they're not even aware of it.

In a way, they fly too close to the light and it burns them.

That's tough.

I would say that's really true about many of my peers that I had. I was lucky enough to know them, whether that's Prince or Michael Jackson or Jean-Michel Basquiat, the painter. These are people who just were-Channeling light. Channeling. But I also don't think they understood the concept of what they were channeling and that there has to be some restriction, there has to be some fillament, there has to be... People like to take drugs, right? Why? Why? Because they're actually channeling light where they're tripping on acid. But it's light with no restriction, and then that's what kills you or burns you out.

That was never your path to the light.

No, no, no. No. Thank God, because everybody was doing it around me.

What kept you away from it when everyone else was doing it?

The universe. God. Honestly, people ask me that all the time because I grew up when I came to New York when I was broke and I had no friends, nowhere to live, nothing, really. What protected me from... I was held up at gunpoint, I was robbed, I was raped. All these horrendous things happened to me. But I just feel like I've always had a guardian angel. It took me a minute to figure out how blessed I was and that the universe was protecting me and looking out for me.

Was that a realization that came after?

Because I mean, when you talk- Came after what?

Well, when you talk about the events of getting raped, being held at gunpoint, these are extremely traumatic, stressful. I mean, The most extreme, tragic events people could go through in their life. The realization you're sharing today, talk to me about the journey of having that experience and then getting to the realization you just mentioned, because I'm assuming it's not immediate. No. What was through that?

First, there's just my determination that I think I had such an unhappy childhood that whatever happened to me in New York City, I was like, Whatever happens to me is better than what my life was. I'm sticking around. I'm not going back. But you see, the worst things that happen to you are the best things that happen to you. Because if that If my childhood hadn't been what it had been, if I hadn't lost my mother, if I hadn't had all of these challenges as a child, I would have thought of my home as a place of comfort, and I would have gone back. But I didn't, so that's what kept me going. And then there are challenges in my career. Even though I was very successful, I went through many periods of time where the press was beating up on me, I was demonized. What kept me going? I don't know. Like I said, Guardian Angels. But again, I wasn't conscious of it until I was pregnant. Then I started to see... Everything started to come into focus for me. But it's not... I make it sound like it's an easy thing. Studying, the more you know, the harder everything is.

And the more enlightened you try to become, the more conscious you try to become, the more tests you have, the more... It's like, why? The more you know, the more you realize you don't know. The more you aspire to be conscious, the more you feel like everyone's trying to drag you down and take you out of it and convince you that it's not true or the test. Life is a test, let's face it.

I was thinking about, as you were saying a bit earlier, of managing that balance between recognizing you are a manager of the light and you are not the light itself. I was thinking of this story about Marcus Aurelius, where he was followed around the Roman town square by an assistant, and the assistant's only job was to whisper in his ear, You're just a man. You're just a man. Because people would praise him and people would shower him with accolades and compliments, and the assistant would remind him, and it said that that was done so that he could always remain grounded. I can imagine for you to not fall into the trap of believing you're the light is extremely difficult when you're one of the best-selling artists of all time. When, like you said, you named the company, there's only the Beatles, yourself, Michael Jackson, that sit in this esteemed group of individuals who've achieved incredible things. How did you hold on to that beautiful belief that you're not the light and you're a manager of the light when anyone else could easily believe they were?

By continuing to have a spiritual practice, a spiritual life, by continuing to study, it always pulls you back to center.

Were you able to keep it up when you were on tour or when you're building your album?

Absolutely. Wow. I drove everyone crazy. My manager was like, Why can't we have shows on this night? Or, Why are you late? Because I'm praying. You know what I mean? Would you pray before the show? Absolutely. Pray before every show. But people who are focused on making money are definitely not focused on spiritual life. You have to have your feet in both worlds.

You literally wouldn't do a show on a day because that was your study day. Yeah.

Or I would be late. I get a lot of shit for being late.

Walk me through- Honestly, it's It's really hard to balance being a parent, having work, having a spiritual life.

You're constantly juggling. There's not a lot of time to rest. If people don't recognize that, then they're just going to look at you in a very 1% superficial way and go, You're late. But you don't understand what I was doing before I became late.

I want to talk about how spirituality affected your role as a mother. Obviously, you said that becoming a mother yourself is actually what even began that enlightenment. It began that journey. It felt like a responsibility. It felt like a moment of change.

How is-Well, My mother died after giving birth to all my brothers and sisters. So literally, the year after my youngest sister was born, my mother died. So I always equated motherhood with death. And I also equated it with I could see she was not happy. I could see she wasn't living the life she wanted to live. I equated it with death, or I equated it with no freedom, or I equated it with no life except taking care of other people. And so when I came to New York and I started my career, I was like, No, this is not for me. I don't want to be a mother. I don't want that. I wasn't saying it out loud, but I was thinking of that. Why would I give all of this up? I worked so hard for it. Well, one day I found that I was pregnant, and I had been running away from it for so long. I wouldn't say I was in a stable relationship, but I loved her father. I wasn't really thinking it through, I was like, Okay, this happened to me. It's meant to happen to me. But honestly, what the hell am I going to teach my daughter?

How am I going to guide her? I've just been living this completely selfish life, really. That turned out good in many ways. But in reality, I was doing everything for my own self. I also thought, Well, okay, I'm pregnant, so I'm going to be a mother, so I'll figure it out. I'll work it out. But honestly, I was scared shitless, and I wasn't in a traditional relationship. Once again, this is the story of my life. I keep binding myself in unconventional or untraditional or unusual or unfamiliar places, and I have to keep adjusting. I would say that that is also the reason that I am still here and still going and have the strength to fight things or to survive. Because being too comfortable in life, I would say, is the downfall of a lot of people who started off taking chances, taking risks.

Is that something success does to you, do you think, where in the beginning, you take risks and you get out of it?

I feel like that happens to other people, not me. I think I've always felt like an outsider in life. I felt like an outsider growing up in Michigan. I felt like an outsider when I came to New York. I felt like an outsider when I moved to LA and had my Hollywood life. I always felt like I did when I was in high school. I don't fit in. And not fitting in is what saves you. Studying Kabbalah, nobody else was interested in it, not my friend group. If I would speak about it to people, they'd be like, Oh, that's really interesting. Having a spiritual life isn't necessarily going to make you popular. But if you're a conscious person searching for truth, then it's going to be interesting. I'm interested in your spiritual path, your spiritual life. I want to know what you do, what it does for you. I want to know how you do it because I'm curious. And curiosity and being an outsider, and those are the things that actually save you, even though it's not supported in our society, to think outside the box, to take the road less traveled by, to not be so concerned with public approval.

Now we live in a world where everyone follows algorithms, and algorithms are the opposite of taking chances. They are the opposite of being unique. They're the opposite of spiritual life. They're the opposite of consciousness. That's why artificial intelligence cannot duplicate consciousness. It can duplicate doing things, following formulas, but it can't duplicate consciousness. Now, have we gotten really off this?

I love it, though. It's great to be in your stream of consciousness. On that point, I'll get back, but I often get asked the question right now when I'm on panels of, do I ever believe that AI will have a soul? My My response is always, I just hope that the people who are building AI have a soul because ultimately it's becoming a reflection of whatever's inside of us. But I digress. Going back to how... Go on, you're going to say something.

No, you're right. The people who make it, but are they?

Yeah, that's the most important part.

That's the scariest part.

Yeah, the intention and the purity.

Intention and consciousness.

Yeah.

I just repeat that like a Et cetera. Consciousness is everything. Consciousness is everything. But a lot of people don't even know what that is.

When you became a mom and you're trying to teach your children about, I guess, I'm assuming you wanted- Kvala. Yeah, you wanted to pass some of these teachings on. Yeah.

I mean, they grew up learning it and studying it, studying or listening to me study with my teachers or listening to other people. And they would bounce back and forth between thinking it was silly or something weird that mom does. But I see that it has impacted all of them.

What makes you see that?

Because they study, not all of them. But I feel like my children who have a spiritual life are happier than the ones who do not.

But obviously, they could start at any time. It could happen.

There's no coercion in spirituality. It's like either it speaks to you or it doesn't.

I remember my dad was trying to get us to do things for so long, and I rejected it so hard because-Yes, Well, that's the other thing.

Children always reject their parents, the path they follow, their belief systems. They think it's stupid, and then they come back around a little bit.

Totally. Yeah. There's that famous quote that says, The day you realize your parents were right, your kids are telling you that you're wrong. I think it's an often common experience that people have. How did Kabbalah and your spiritual practice impact your role as a daughter? Because like you said, you lost your mother when you were five.

To a certain extent, I resented my father growing up because I felt like he wasn't present for us emotionally. He did have a lot of responsibilities, and he's a deeply Catholic person, but I felt like he followed his spiritual path or he followed Catholicism because that's how he was raised. That's how it was done. When I was growing up, if I wanted to ask a question about why do we do this, why are Why are we Januflecting? Why are we receiving the body and blood of Christ? Why is... My father didn't have an answer. He just said, That's what is written. And what drew me to Kabbalah was that I could ask questions, and there were answers. Questions were invited, which is the opposite of how it was brought up. I looked at my father as a religious robot. You know what I mean? Not that he's not a good person, but I didn't want to be a robot. Especially having a spiritual life, I started to see my father as a human being and see that he was a human that made mistakes and that he did the best with what he was taught, what he was given.

When those cylinders start clicking in your head, you start to have a lot more compassion, not just for your parents, but for all people who don't see life the way you see it, that you don't agree with. It brought me to a place where I could have more compassion for him.

I mean, that seems like a really big gift to have that understanding. I could agree. I think spiritual context creates so much compassion when you are able to zoom out and look at someone's life. I remember the moment I really had compassion for my dad was when I visited the home he grew up in, which was this room. I can't even compare it to this. His home was probably just from here to here, his entire home. They shared a bathroom with 20, 30 families. We went outside. I was nine years old. We're in India, and there's cockroaches around us in Pune. There's cockroaches around his home. There's bats in the... And it's just like an inside. I was nine years old, and I couldn't believe that That's where my dad grew up. It was almost like something clicked where I was like, unless I saw that, I wouldn't have had that experience because it was always easier to assume that their life-Yeah, that's the thing.

Like I say to my kids all the time, You're judging me by the chapter you arrived in. This is not how my life has been. It's really hard for kids to see that.

Yeah. Going there was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me because it's what you're saying. I I was able to go to a previous chapter in someone's life. Even though my childhood, we weren't well to do or we didn't have anything, but we didn't have a lot, going to see that, I was like, Oh, gosh, my life is a million times better than this. And having that context was huge for me. I want to hear about how you were able to apply these principles in the difficulty of the big things you're talking about, because whether it's reconnecting with our parents, whether it's recovering from being raped, whether it's dealing with these challenges you've dealt with. As you said, it doesn't happen overnight. It's not easy. It is the level of study and work. But talk to me about the emotional journey of shifting from a victim to whatever you would call this on the other side, because it would be very natural for anyone to feel that way. I want to hear about the emotional journey and the spiritual journey you went on. What were some of the steps or stages that you saw that if anyone is listening or watching can recognize and potentially relate to?

The first thing is you're suffering all the time. If you don't have a spiritual life, you're just suffering all the time. You really think that whatever is happening to you is like something that's never going to end. And you drew the wrong card.

That's how you feel.

That's how I used to think. Even now, since I've been studying, there's been times where I've been really challenged and really suffered in certain situations. If I didn't have a spiritual life, I don't know how I wanted... There were moments in my life where I wanted to cut my arms off. I actually contemplated suicide, and that probably sounds really weird coming from me because I'm not emo, you know what I mean? But I was like, I can't take this pain anymore. But as soon as you understand that what's happening to you is a challenge that you are karmically meant to experience and learn from and evolve to a higher level of consciousness, then you can look at that event, that experience, as a lesson and not punishment.

What pain at the time pushed you to that place of potentially wanting to take your own life?

I'm not in the blame game. That's the thing. I used to be that way. I used to always want to seek revenge. Somebody did me wrong. Or he would pronounce loudly, Oh, well, They'll get their own karma. Well, whatever. You know what I mean? Even knowing about karma doesn't mean you're a grown up. It doesn't mean you're not being a victim. But I would say probably one of the most painful moments in my life where I honestly couldn't see the forest for the trees was when I went through a custody battle with my son. Even though my marriage didn't work out, a lot of people's marriages don't work out. They marry their own people. They're not aligned. They're not meant for each other. Someone trying to take my child away from me was like, They might as well just kill me. That's really how I was thinking. And I was on tour at the time, so I had to go on stage every night. I would just be lying on the floor in my dressing room sobbing. I really thought it was the end of the world. I couldn't take it. I just couldn't take it.

But thank God, I don't feel that way anymore. And I had to keep continuing my studies and continuing on my spiritual path. Helped me to understand that the enemy is within.

Talk to me about that.

Lots of people do lots of bad things and make a lot of bad choices or make choices that cause other people pain, suffering, or chaos, or whatever. But at the end of the day, I needed to learn some lessons, and I can see that with the benefit of hindsight, but I couldn't see it at the time. Also, I was abandoned as a child by my own mother, and so losing a child, it was like life repeating itself. I couldn't accept it. It caused me a lot of suffering. Not being able to accept things causes all of us a lot of suffering. So, yes, and now I'm happy to say that I'm really good friends with my son. But I couldn't see it then. I Really thought it was the end of the world. So thank God I had a spiritual life.

Was the lesson radical acceptance?

Yeah, exactly. It took me a long time, actually, several years. Radical acceptance is just accepting that what is happening to you is meant to happen to you and that you're going to be okay. It's not an instant thing. There's no such thing as an instant There's no way we're going to escape suffering, even if we grow up with wealth and privilege. We didn't grow up in a small room. Our challenges and our suffering is going to come to us in a different way. I can give you another example of radical acceptance, and that This is something that my teacher shared with me. About a year and a half ago, I was rehearsing for a tour, and I got a bacterial infection. One minute I was alive and dancing around, and the next minute, I was in the ICU unit of a hospital, and I woke up from being unconscious for four days. I got out of the hospital. They took me off of the ventilator. I started to breathe on my own. I had something. It's called sepsis, and it's like it can kill you.

Yeah, that's really bad.

Everybody recovers at a different rate. I've always seen myself as superwoman. So I was like, Oh, I'm going to kick this. I'm going to be good. I'm getting back into rehearsals. And I had no strength. I had no energy. I couldn't get out of bed, and I didn't know when it was going to end. And I used to talk to my teacher all the time, and he's like, The sooner you accept what's happening to you and that you don't know when it's going to end, the sooner it's going to end. That made so much sense to me. And of course it did. But I've heard some people never recover from it, completely never recover and have their full health again. So again, it's the same idea, same concept. If you sit around feeling sorry for yourself, Oh, woe is me or poor me, or this is like, I don't accept it. I will not accept it. Well, then you're just going to be swimming and suffering.

You're reminding me of something I read in a... It's not a spiritual book, but it has a similar message. It's called Culture Code by Daniel Coyle. He talks in this book about how when soldiers were out at war, a lot of them wanted to believe they'd be back by Christmas. There were the others that accepted that they had no idea when they were going to get home. He talks about how that those who accepted that they had no idea when they were going to get home were actually happier and were able to endure what they were going through a lot easier than those who hoped they'd get back on Christmas and then It didn't.

Yes, it's like the Viktor Frankl book.

Yes. Same concept. Yes, Man's Search for Meaning. Yeah, exactly. When I hear it from those really extreme scenarios, you're like, wow, if Viktor Frankl can think that in the experience that he had, you go, Okay, well, an Edith Ego with the gift, and you go, Wow. If you can have that experience there, then there must be some truth to that, because how could you accept that when you were through the worst. Yeah. Yeah, it's really, really tough. Going back to your experience of that, what would you say, because you mentioned karma there and this idea of choices we make and lessons we need to learn, and karma almost being this experience of learning the lessons. How do you see karma? How do you define karma from your learnings and studies? Let's start there, and then I'll ask the second question after that.

My personal understanding is that our souls choose the lives that we are born into, the circumstances we are born into, that our souls are perfect, but then we're born into a life which is one challenge after the next, and that our journey is to navigate and to see that each challenge that happens to us is our karmic destiny. It's energy. It's the law of... It's quantum physics. It's cause and effect. Whatever's happening to me that might be uncomfortable is obviously meant to happen to me to teach me a lesson. If I don't learn that lesson at that point, it's going to come up again and again and again until I learn it and accept that it's a lesson, not a punishment. That's you get out of victim mentality also.

What was the lesson that kept repeating for you and took you a bit longer than you would have liked to learn? What was the one that kept showing up?

Betrayal or abandonment. Sometimes they go hand in hand. But it really kept me... I saw a lot of people, or I felt and experienced that I was constantly being either abandoned or betrayed. So that kept me in a state, sometimes often feeling sorry for myself, stuck in a place of blaming others and not taking responsibilities for, Well, how did I I'm bringing this upon myself? Or why asking the question, Well, why is this happening to me? Over and over and over again? Obviously, I need to learn something. I think everybody, if they think about it, what is the thing that always comes is back to you. For everybody, it's something different, obviously. I think the abandonment thing was the greatest lesson that it could teach me, that I could stop being destroyed by it or paralyzed by it, was to think of all… How am I not showing up for other people? How am I abandoning other people?

How am I abandoning myself?

How long have I been not listening listening to myself, my inner truth, my inner voice. Yes. And we all say goodbye to our inner selves at some point or another until something wakes us up. Push has to come to shove for everybody. There's just no way to escape it. So that's something that is a concept that you have to get your head around. There's no running away from being tested. There's no running away from experiencing pain, suffering, whether it's physical or emotional. Obviously, that takes life experience and living and going, Everything's going well for me. I'm so happy. Everything's great. Oh, no, this is a failure. People are writing negative shit about me, or this relationship ended, or this person cheated on me, or all these things that happened to you, rejection. And then you go, No, I'm not happy. If you're going to go through life being a slave to these ups and downs, you're just going to be... I don't know how you can last, obviously. I mean, it's obvious to me. I don't know if it's obvious to you or anybody who's watching this, but I don't know how we can maintain our sanity, especially now.

When people lived simpler lives and we didn't see what was going on in the world, and we didn't We weren't so connected like we are because of technology and the internet, whatever, it's hard not to get anxious or start blaming or taking sides or feeling. You know what I'm saying?

Yeah, I loved what you said. There's one line that will stay with me for a long time. I really thought it was beautiful. You said, We all say goodbye to our inner selves at some point. And that really landed because that's why it feels like we're coming home to ourselves. And I think everyone who's listening or watching, if they've started their spiritual journey, they've started their reconnection journey, They know what that feeling is like, where it's like, Yeah, wait, I left myself, and now I'm coming back to myself.

Yes. I always say, What was I thinking before I was thinking? I don't even know. So I was just thinking about myself. But ironically and paradoxically, when you're just thinking about yourself and consume with yourself, you're actually not connected to yourself at all. You know what I mean? Yeah.

How does it change now when you go through betrayal or you go through rejection or any of those things that you talked about? How do you process it differently now with your spiritual practices than you did before? What's the different experience you have of it?

Well, I spend less time feeling sorry for myself, being a victim, blaming, and more time thinking, Okay, why did this happen to me? What's the lesson? I go to that sooner than I did before.

What's the difference between self-blame and accountability? Because I feel a lot of people fall into the trap of, now you don't go and blame other people, but you blame yourself and you go, I messed up. I should have chosen right. I should have done this.

Okay, well, self-reflection and acknowledging and being accountable for your behavior is not the same as feeling guilty. Feeling guilty is just you're consumed with your ego.

Shaming yourself. Yeah.

You're not going to get anywhere with that. That just stops any growth from happening.

It's pretty amazing to say that you can speed up to that point of asking yourself that question of, what can I learn from this? I mean, that's the ultimate question. Yeah.

And believe me, it's not something that stays with me all the time. It's like, sometimes I forget. I'm like, I'm doing this again. I'm I'm falling it again. I'm falling back into a familiar pattern. But if you don't know, then you're not... It's important to know. Again, not beat up on yourself. Well, okay, I made a mistake. What can I learn from it? Swallow your pride. Tell your ego to shut up, basically.

You mentioned the word manifesting earlier and channeling and being a vessel. I wanted to ask you because manifesting becomes very popular in the world today as a concept. It's at least out there. People understand the word. Now, when people would look at your career, they would assume you've manifested incredible amounts of success for yourself, incredible amounts of wins, and all the rest of it. Talk to us about your process of manifestation. What does it actually look like?

If you're manifesting things and you're not that it's a gift from the universe, from the light, from the creator, whatever you want to call it. If you're not aware of that and you're not conscious, then, okay, you invented something. Great. You created this thing that now is selling billions. But everything becomes finite when you're not manifesting with the consciousness that you are you're handling something, you don't own it. That's a big thing.

That's the key part.

Yeah, sure. So if I have a successful show, if I have a successful If anything happens to me successfully, is perceived as a success in the outside world, I just say, How blessed am I? I manifested that with the help of God. I didn't do it on my own. I do nothing on my own. If you think you're manifesting on your own, you're like an ostrich with your head in the sand, and there will be an end to whatever you're manifesting.

If someone desires something, they've got to recognize that it's not their hand, it's something that they're willing to become and It requires work to be conscious.

It requires work to see that you're channeling something and being a vessel for something. You do have your part in it, but you're not on your own. That's the point.

A lot of us feel like, I'm going to do this. When I do this, I'll get this. When I get this, then I will be this person.

That's desire for selfish reasons. Manifesting success SASS is whenever you want something for the sake of sharing. When you want something just for yourself, I'll be happy when I have 10 Bugatti's and a mansion in every major city, and I'm the brand investor consider of Louis Vuitton. No offense to Louis Vuitton, just throwing that out there. But you know what I mean? Those things really make people happy. But it's short-lived. And sooner or later, everybody comes to that realization anyways. It's just whether it's sooner or later. And these are the things I talk about this in our studies. Let's get back to why I'm here. My intention is to share my spiritual life with people. We talk about in our studies, we talk about manifesting, and we talk about being a channel. I share in one of the studies, I talk about writing my first song, for example, and how I taught myself how to play the drums. My friend, my boyfriend at the time, was in a band, and he taught me how to play guitar, just simple cords. When nobody was around, I would start playing with all the instruments and start without thinking, without any like, I'm going to be this or I'm going to be that.

I just sat down and wrote a song for the first time, and I was very conscious at that moment after it happened, where did that come from? How did that happen? I didn't grow up with musicians. I didn't grow up with songwriters. I didn't have a goal to be that. Where did it come from? And so when you start opening your eyes to that, how did that happen? Where did that come from? Then you see the possibilities. You see the magic of the universe of life. You see that that was a gift. Some angel showed up in my room, and what am I going to do with that gift? So these moments happen to you throughout life. They happen to everybody, whether you're saving someone man's life or you have this incredible idea for some life-saving invention. You know what I mean? We're all blessed with those moments. The important thing is to acknowledge where that came from. That's really manifesting.

I love that. That's my favorite explanation or manifestation I've ever heard. Truly, it really is, because I think what often happens in substitute of what you said is We have an idea, and then we try and manufacture that set of inputs and outputs again to get that again, and then it doesn't work. Then we're confused because like, wait a minute, last time I did this and did this and did this, I got this, and now I'm trying to do it again. Then you get stuck because now you think you can't do it. But the reality is that's just a very functional way of looking at something that's far beyond input, output, and manufacturing. You can't manufacture to manifest. It doesn't make sense. No. Yeah, I really, really like that. I really, really appreciate that definition. I think that's going to help a lot of people because I think the way it's being talked about right now is just being be clear about your goals and be really clear about what you want.

I mean, that's important, too. Say out loud what you want out of life. That is important. But you're in a partnership. That's really what's important to remember. We become our environments as well. We want to surround ourselves with people who are with like-minded individuals. If you are around people who also are attaining to reach a higher level of consciousness or want to know the deeper meanings of life or want to look inward and figure out what their karmic destiny is or even take into consideration the idea of karma. I mean, you need that also because if you don't have that support system, then you can also fall back into the trap of recreating formulas that work or trying to capture some magical moment and make it magic again. That It's just our ego taking over and telling us, I did that.

I did that. I can do it again. Yeah. Yeah, and you can't. No. One of my favorite ways of thinking about it, especially when you said it's a partnership, is when we look at the universe, everything's always serving. So the sun's providing light and heat. Water is obviously giving us life. Oxygen exists. Trees are giving us shade and fruits and flowers. And so in order to really be in partnership with the universe, one has to want to serve because everything is designed to serve and give, and everything's designed to give and serve and provide. And so when we're not serving, we're actually acting against the universe because everything in the universe is designed simply to give. We're wired for generosity, but educated for greed. And when that juxtaposition comes up against itself, it just creates friction. It's like we all feel better when we do something for someone else. Absolutely. We all feel more joy when you take care of someone in need more than if you did it for yourself. The science and the research backs up as well. This isn't some woo- woo spiritual idea.

No, it's absolutely the truth.

But it's amazing how our conditioning and education is so the opposite that we all believe that- Every man for himself.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, that's the statement.

No.

How much unconditional does it take for us to lose the every man for himself mindset? What does that look like in your spiritual practice and journey, especially?

To not fall back into that trap, you mean? To continue to have a spiritual life, spiritual practice, to study. I love how simple it is. To stop every Whether every day, once a week. People don't have some ritualistic moment in their life. Like I said, whether it's every day or a few times a week, what's going to stop you? You know what I mean? You have to have that moment where you're thinking about what you've done, thinking about what you'd like to do, thinking about what... Have I capitalized on the opportunities that have come my way, not monetarily, spiritually. What did I do to help someone? What have I done for others? That's really the only way you can be successful in life.

What were you trying to channel when you were creating in your music? And what were you trying to do to help people?

In the beginning, I just wanted to be somebody. I just wanted to be somebody. I wanted to have a I wanted to make a difference in the world, but I wasn't clear about what that meant. Now I'm clear about what it means.

What is it? What does it mean today?

That everything I say has weight and gravity, and that words are powerful and actions are powerful. I always ask myself, Why am I doing this? Why is this song important to me? Why is this performance important to me? Why is this conversation we're having right now important to me? That's really the difference is having intention and consciousness. I'm repeating myself over and over again. I can't think of other words that capture that, but self-awareness. Self-awareness doesn't really do it because self-awareness implies selfishness. You know what I mean? A day at the spa. Not that that's not something to be enjoyed. I could use a day at the spa right now. You could use a day in the spa? Sure. My roof has been leaking for a month. Yeah. I want to go to the spa. That's okay, but that's not going to bring me lasting happiness.

But I think that's the reality of it, right? When you look at your experience, everyone's experience is this paradox where it's like you have the highest highs, the lowest lows. You have a life that, of course, you need everyday self-care, but there's also what is lasting happiness and these bigger questions. We all live in this world, but we're not of this world. It's almost like everything that it makes more sense to recognize it's both and as opposed to either or.

Well, you have to live in the paradox. It's like the greatest amount of light is where there's darkness, and you can reveal the most amount of light. When you're in a dark room, you turn on the light. When you're in a room that's already light, there's no effort made. So should we look for darkness? You know what I mean? No. But when we are in that space where we're feeling dark, where we're feeling an absence of light, an absence of hope, an absence of inspiration, of vision, then you have to... Those are the moments, the challenging moments, where you have to say to yourself, This is my opportunity to bring light to a dark place. Spiritual wisdom is not helpful when everything's going your way. It's helpful when you're challenged and when you're happy, it's helpful remember that at any given time, in any moment, it could be gone. So don't take it for granted. Have humility. Be grateful when things are going your way. And when you're being tested, also be grateful. That's a hard one. That was a hard one for me. It still is. But I'm glad that I know what I know.

One of the key aspects of this beautiful study series that you've created is we've We've talked about some of the themes today. We've talked about karma, there's manifestation, there's desire, there's all of these themes that exist. One of the big ones that really stood out to me was forgiveness because When I listen to you today, and I even watched the studies that you created that I'm hoping our audience will go and watch and appreciate and learn from as well, you've conquered and continued to try to conquer some really difficult emotions, really, really difficult things. I feel like forgiveness for us in the world today is probably one of the hardest things for us, whether we've been betrayed, whether we've been lied to, whether we've been exploited, whether we've been taken advantage of. We always hear the age-old phrase of forgiveness is for you, it's not for them. You hear these things, but it's- Who says that? It's common verbiage that exists in the world, at least, of this idea that don't hold on to grudges.

Well, you shouldn't. We shouldn't. It is ultimately liberating for us to forgive. But obviously, the world benefits from our empathy, our ability to forgive I'm a fighter.

Talk to us about that conditioning.

And then what you're doing. I'm a fighter. If somebody messes with me, they're going to get it.

That's not-And you've always been like that. Yes.

But when things happen to you and there's not a tangible enemy that you can put finger on, what are you going to do? You have to lean into radical exceptions. But there are things that have happened to me in my life that I just thought, I will never forgive this person. I will never... Now, I don't want to have those feelings anymore because it's a prison, and it's poison to not be able to forgive and to live in a state of holding a grudge or hating someone or wanting them to suffer. It's like a poison. It's like a cancer. That's why it's important to find a way to forgive even people that you perceive as your biggest enemies. For a For a long time, it was my brother who died recently. Because I think the hardest ones are the people that you feel like you're the closest to. They're your greatest ally, and they turn on you. The people that hurt you the most are the people that you love the most. And when life doesn't go the way that you expected it to go, that you suddenly... This pain is unbearable, and then you think what's going to save you is to think vengeful thoughts or to never forgive.

That's going to give you some power, magical power. It doesn't. It just weighs you down and eats away at you and is poisonous. So having to forgive my brother, knowing that I had to forgive my brother. It's like your ego dances around it. Like, Yeah, I'll get to it. I'll get to calling him up or talking to him or being his friend or helping him. But eventually, I did. And I know I'm being mysterious. If someone you love deeply betrays you and does something that shows that they have no consciousness in that moment, that they made that choice to do that, it's really It's a bitter pill for me to swallow. I can't speak for everyone, but I imagine that lots of people feel this way.

I'd agree.

For my brother, I didn't speak to him for years, years and years. It was him being ill and reaching out to me and saying, I need your help. Me having that moment, am I going to help my enemy?

That's how it felt.

Yeah. I just did. I ended up and I felt so relieved. It was such a load off my back, such a weight that was removed, baggage that I could put down to finally be able to be in a room with him and holding his hand, even if he was dying and saying, I love you and I forgive you. That was really important. That was another thing that I realized when I woke up in the hospital forgiveness, that word came to my mind. I have to forgive people because I was there. I was almost there on the other side, and I had a conscious moment. My mother appeared to me and she said, Do you want to come with me? I said, No. My assistant was in the room with me, but I was still unconscious, but she heard me say no. And then when I did eventually wake up, I realized that the no was about me needing to forgive and make good with people that I still held grudges against. And interestingly, Well, I wrote a song about him. I'm working on new music, and I wrote a song called Fragile, which is about my brother.

And then I wrote another song, and this is, again, just channeling. It's called Forgive Yourself. But The repeating phrase, the chorus of the song is, If you can't forgive me, forgive yourself, which is something we all have to do. We have to forgive others, but we also have to forgive ourselves and stop beating up on ourselves about things, choices we've made in the past that haven't worked out for ourselves or other people. Taking responsibility. Again, we come back to that concept also, or that idea of being accountable and being responsible. Taking responsibility. That's a very big lesson that I learned studying Kabbalah, is that I am responsible. I am responsible. And I believe in personal accountability, personal karma, and I believe in global karma. A lot of the things that are happening in the world is as a result of our selfishness as people, as humans, as a society. We are responsible. You can't just sit in your room or your house or the safety of your home and go, Oh, those people, they deserve it, whatever. To be aware and conscious that you're contributed in some way, shape, or form. At the same time, if we have collectively and consciously evolved to a higher state of consciousness, we can change the world.

That also sounds like a cliché, but make the world a better place. Tip the balance, so to speak. But that's why I'm here, and that's why I'm talking to you, and that's why I made these... This is why I documented my studies with my teacher, because I really believe that this wisdom can help other people in a very practical way, not in an esoteric way. And that's why I'm here.

Thank you for sharing that and that journey you went on of forgiveness, because for you to be that honest and vulnerable explain that that was someone that you felt was an enemy at that point, but the relief you felt from helping someone, I'm thinking about the people that are listening and watching right now and the experience that they're having where they're really struggling to forgive themselves or forgive someone else and looking at it from the point of view of what would that look like if you never got that opportunity? I know so many who regret the last thing they said to their parents or the last thing they said to a loved one or whoever it may be. It seems that vengeance and spite doesn't seem to heal the soul.

Well, harsh words and harsh behavior is energy, and you can never take it back. But you can change your destiny, your karmic destiny. One of those ways is to forgive others and forgive yourself.

Madonna, you've been so gracious with your time, your energy, and vulnerability today. I feel like I've learned so much about you. I'm very grateful to get... You said you repeated yourself, but I'd honestly say that I enjoyed that because it shows to me the good training is good repetition. If you have a similar mindset towards something, in the materialIn the material world, we look at-Well, you only get good at something if you do it a lot. Yeah, in the material world, we know that, but we often look at repeating as, I have heard that before. I know that. But actually, the thing we think we know the most is the thing we need to hear more often. When I think about the Gita or the Vedas, you're the soul, not the body, is the most repeated lesson. It's the first lesson, but the most repeated. You're the soul, your consciousness, not the body, is repeated more than any other teaching, even though it's the most obvious and it's the first teaching.

Very obvious. But so look how attached we are to physicality.

Exactly. You need to repeat it. But I was thinking that this might be a perfect time because you've been referencing in this conversation, you've referenced your teacher so many times. We're fortunate enough today to actually have the opportunity to invite him onto the show. If you're open to it, I think this may be the perfect time. I would love to. Should we do it?

Yeah, let's do it.

Perfect. Hey, Tan, I'm so grateful that we actually get to speak to you. Madonna has been talking about you the whole interview. I want our audience to know, of course, you were sitting in on our conversation as well. You have context of everything we talked about. Of course, you have 29 years of context of everything Madonna shared with us over the last couple of hours. But thank you so much for doing this, and thank you for being here.

Thank you for having the honor of being here and being part of really sharing these teachings.

Yeah, well, I was sharing with you earlier that my vision when I started my platform was to make wisdom go viral, especially ancient wisdom. And so this is truly my heart's work. And so thank you for the opportunity back. I want to dive in because we've heard about Madonna's journey and her journey to Kabbalah, But I would love to hear how you came to it because I'm assuming everyone has their own spiritual journey of awakening or connecting. And I'm sure many of our listeners today are either on their spiritual journey, want to start one. But I'd love to hear, how did you come How did this practice yourself?

I started in a young age. I grew up in Israel in a non-religious family. From a young age, I was asking questions about life. I think it came from the depth of my soul. It's beyond because someone taught me or anything. When I was 17, my brother introduced me to Kabbalah. I went to the Kabbalah Center, and I met my teacher for many years, the Ralph Bird. After hearing one hour of a lesson of how the universe began and why are we here, it resonated in such a deep level, literally I couldn't sleep for three nights. I felt I'm home. I felt I'm reconnecting to really my purpose, what life is about. It took For a few years, by the age of 21, I knew that's my mission in life. Basically, in the last 40 years, that's what I'm doing all day long. Student and a teacher in the last 40 years.

That's beautiful. Like I was saying earlier, I felt like I came to my work when I was 18. I'm a couple of decades behind you in my journey, but that idea of discovering something early and it resonating so strongly with your heart and committing your life to it, what was it like when you first met Madonna? What was that first interaction? From your vantage point, your perspective, tell us about it.

One thing she knows, but when Madonna's friend, which studied with me, called me and told me, I'm bringing Madonna to a class tonight. It's 40 people. I told her, I never saw a picture of Madonna. I heard her name. Cute.

Don't worry, she'll sit in the back with me.

That's actually the first time.

So you had no idea what she looked like?

No, I didn't have a clue. I didn't even have a clue. In those days, I was pretty...

Naive.

You were plugged in.

Yeah, I was totally in mission, and I didn't... I heard the name Madonna, but I didn't actually recognize.

Then did you connect that evening? Was that- Yeah, that evening, actually, we sat.

We did? Yeah, we sat in the conference room because we sat in in Vents that we'll meet. Madonna was very suspicious of me.

I can relate to that. What's the agenda here?

What's happening? But listen, she I had many students, but one of the amazing qualities of Madonna is perseverance, tenacity in the ups and downs. Trust me, I've experienced and seen a lot of ups and downs. But I always say, when you're constantly nurturing your soul, your soul will guide Our soul is the part within us which knows all the answers that connected to the higher force 24/7. It is our body, our logic, our ego, the layers in our hearts that's blocking us to see and to feel the truth. When you just agree with some spiritual concept and once in a while learning, so, Wow, it's amazing. I love it, it's not enough. You need to nurture the soul, that light of the soul and that wisdom of the soul and that intuition that comes from the soul will channel back its energy to your life because the source of all protection and the source of all true joy come from the soul. She has an amazing, an amazing attribute of tenacity and perseverance.

Not giving up.

Not giving up no matter what.

One of the reasons I like going there is because it was the only place where people didn't bother me about who I was. I literally sat in the back of a room with folding chairs As I said, there was mostly men, and no one said a word to me. No one bothered me. No one said, Oh, my God, aren't you Madonna? Can I have your autograph? Or whatever. I just felt like I could be anonymous there.

Was that the first time you'd experienced that in your Were you at that time?

Well, for a long time, yeah. With a large group of people and strangers. I liked the anonymity of just being a student and going there and learning. It had nothing to do with my career or work. That was inviting, so I wanted to go back. Then I would always bring my notebook and take notes. I have a zillion journals from all of my classes and studies. I love to be a student and learn. I was learning so much. What I loved so much about Kabbalah and studying Kabbalah was how in tune it was with science and quantum physics. It wasn't just Just because. You know what I mean? Everything made sense to me. I could see how even the idea of how the world was created or the beginning of life, the idea of Genesis, for instance, or the idea of Adam and Eve. I learned that nothing in life can be taken literally. You have to study the deeper meanings of everything. That is true for a spiritual practice as well as science, as well as everything we do in life. You can't judge a book by its cover. You can't take things literally.

I was like, oh, when I was growing up as a Catholic, I would always say to my father, Well, why Why do we have to wear dresses to church? Why does wear a hat, cover your head? There was no explanation for anything. And that really bugged me. So if you can't find a reason, If you can explain something to me, I'm not interested. He did explain things to me, and everything made sense. Nothing was silly. What we do study when we study Kabbalah is we study the Zohar. In Within the Zohar is everything about life, about medicine, about science, about nature, about relationships. That was really comforting to me. To see that's what helped me see life is not a series of random events.

Eitan, you mentioned, as I'm listening to Madonna speak about this as well, you mentioned that, obviously, this tradition is 4,000 years old.

The first book that was written, but it was before it.

It was put into writing. It was put into the technology of books 4,000 years ago. How did it come to be? Tell us a bit about the history of it so that we get some context of the tradition.

Actually, the first book that was ever written in Kabbalah was three pages long. It's called The Book of Formation that was written by Abraham the Patriarch. He's reading in such a coded way and will not get any understand the secret of life and the whys of life.

That's three pages.

Three pages. That's cool. Yes. It's a lot of commentary, but yes, three pages. Then the main book of Kabbalah, after many Kabbalis teaching from one to another, was the Book of the Zohar or the Book of Splender that was revealed 2,000 years ago. The Zohar is actually decodified the Torah, decodified the Bible. Helping us to understand the Bible is not a book of stories or laws or religion. Curiosity or dogma. It's the secrets of life are hidden there. The Zohar, the main book of which we have it today, translated to English and to other languages, it's actually He's helping us to understand that everything in this world has a purpose and a reason. If you're asking what really Kabbalah is about, Kabbalah is about understanding the whys of life of the universe and why I'm here and what is my purpose and why are we struggling and what is the journey of our soul and where we came from. If the creator is such an infinite force of good and love, how come we all struggling? Either with pain, with doubts, with negativity, with selfishness. That is the main book of Kabbalah. Of course, there was many Kabbalists throughout history since then that were able to bring Kabbalah down to us.

And in 1970, that's when the Kabbalah Center started, which is opening the gates and the doors of Kabbalah to all mankind.

You're talking about the whys of life and the questions and the seeking. Do you remember one of the first questions that Madonna inquired about or one of the first things that she was grappling with? Or do you remember, Madonna?

I don't even remember.

I don't remember in what specific context.

It took us 29 years. Also, I didn't study with him like this. I was just a student in the back of a class. It took a while for us to have one-on-one conversations.

It took a year or two until we started to meet regularly once a week as well. But I think one of the things that I remember speaking to Madonna, and this is a struggle that everybody has. We get there's a higher power. Call it God, call it the light, call it, endless energy of love, of giving that is beyond time and space, and it's within us. Why there's evil? Forget about outside, even inside. Why do we have constantly destructive forces within each one of us? There's a constant chatter. You wake up and gravity pulls you down. Why? A lot of people study today how to overcome that negative force, but why there is a negative force within us. One of the basic understanding we're talking about, it's understanding that the greatest gift The greatest gift the creator gave us is the opportunity to overcome the opponent within. Because when you overcome, you become co-creator. The reason why we don't experience enough peace, enough light, enough fulfillment, it's very simple. Like attracts like. You want to experience the light? Be like the light. Be a being of sharing. But part of what the light is about is a creator.

The gift to overcome negativity within is the gift of being the creator. Imagine you were given everything. You were born with talents, you were born with love, you were born with just helping people all day long. That's your natural tendency. No negative force tried to pull you down, no selfishness. Do you think you really will be able to actually experience and appreciate the force of the creator, the force of love, the force of light, the force of true fulfillment? The answer is no. So while sometime we upset why I have this particular negative voice in my mind, and why do I have to struggle with abandonment issue? Why do I have to struggle with moments of sadness? At the moment you realize, one second, this is the greatest gift the creator give you. It doesn't mean you right away know how to overcome it. Maybe we'll share some tools how to do it. But the fact that you accept the greatest gift in this world is the gift of overcoming. It doesn't mean it has to be with suffering. Actually, it doesn't mean. But the fact that you accept that opponent within you, it's actually was created by the light, by the universe, by the force of good to help us to grow.

Imagine you bring, spoke about soccer a little bit before. Imagine you bring your kid to play soccer and you bring them in front of a goal and with a ball and say, Now score. Will it be fun? No. He needs an opponent. He needs a goalie. He needs to overcome something. Without overcoming anything, we'll never have a sense of true fulfillment. We're not talking about overcoming the external challenges, which is part of life, but recognizing the unique challenges he Each one of us needs to overcome. We call it karma. We call it kabbalistically, ticun. Each one of us have our own unique areas of transformation. Everything that life presenting to us is to present these opportunities of overcoming. As a result, allow my soul to shine, my gifts to shine, my true purpose to shine.

That's beautiful. I love hearing It's so interesting to hear how that which we believe to be the obstacle is actually the path. It reminds me of, and I know, Madonna, You studied the Gita as well. Origen's dilemma in the first chapter. So Origen's a warrior. He's an archer, to be specific, and he's in the middle of a battlefield. And on one side is his brothers, and on the other side is his cousins. So it's all family, the opposing side and his side. And he's on his chariot in the middle of the battlefield, and he's talking to God. And God is serving him as his chariteer. And what he's expressing to God is his doubt, his anxiety, and his insecurity. And that's how it begins. It begins from a place of doubt, stress, fear, pressure, which is what engages him to ask the question. It's so interesting that we often think that doubt and anxiety are the problem, but often they are the seed of where the question comes from and why we even look up or look around and question what's happening in our lives. It's almost like doubt is the direction and anxiety is...

Beautiful. Right? It's similar, isn't it?

Something has to wake you up, whether you need some pressure, whether you're standing in front of a goal or you're trying to win a war.

Well, your pressure was becoming a mom.

Yes. Coming to terms with Is also my life in my career, as an entertainer, is going to change? Is it going to be over? Like I said, I associate motherhood with death. So it's like, What's going to happen to me? I needed to be rooted somewhere and I needed to have certainty. But you can't have certainty unless you start with doubt.

Exactly. Like she mentioned before, Madonna mentioned before, that the greatest light hiding beyond the greatest perception of darkness. If darkness manifestsates itself as fear or the unknown or the uncertainty, or the doubt or the weakness. One of the practices is actually ability to pause and allow yourself to feel it for a second because there's a great light hidden there.

Yeah. What did you help What do you remember helping or what advice would you have given to Madonna at that time to help her connect the dots? I think the phrase that she's repeated a few times in this conversation of seeing motherhood as death is such a strong statement, but makes so much sense from your experience when you connect dots. How did you encourage her to reflect on that association?

We didn't necessarily speak about that concept, but about other challenges and fears and perceived pain.

Abandonment. We talked about that a lot.

Abandonment. Absolutely.

I think-So you don't want to love or be in love or be attached, feel attachment Because then you could get hurt. So that was a big issue for me. I'm good on my own. Like as a warrior, surviving. Don't with me.

I don't need help.

I don't need any help. I'm good, but then you need help. And then it's hard to say it and say, I'm doubting myself. I don't feel like a warrior.

Yeah, that's Yeah, it's Arjuna's dilemma. He's the greatest archer of his time, yet his bow is slipping from his hands because he's like, I can't shoot an arrow, and he's the best. That feeling of... I think we all have that. You so beautifully talked about Eitan, this idea that we've been given so many gifts with so many talents. I think a lot of our audience today in the world, people have forgotten the gifts that they have. Then we often get into This feeling of low self-esteem. We don't feel worthy. We don't feel we have a purpose. I feel like that's where the world is today. A lot of people who are listening and watching today probably feel like they don't have something to offer, or maybe they know what they have to offer, but they don't feel confident enough. What would your teachings and some of your guidance say to those people who are sitting there thinking, I don't have that confidence in myself. I I don't really know what I'm going to do, and they're feeling stuck?

I think like Madonna mentioned, she felt weak. She didn't feel her personality of being a warrior. There's a big difference between personality and soul strength.

Talk to us about the difference. Yeah. What's the difference between personality and soul strength?

Madonna always been a warrior. That's her personality. That's part of her gifts, but it's not necessarily mean that she'll channel a warrior's attributes in a soulful way. But we identify with that. I'm a warrior. When I'm a warrior, I'm strong. When I'm strong, I'm happy. When I'm strong, I'm meaningful. When I'm strong, I matter. When suddenly you go through a situation that threaten that ability to be a warrior, to be strong, to be independent, suddenly you feel fear and emptyness. What I would recommend, what I would share with Madonna, I would recommend anybody. In order to find your strength, start with the challenges of today. It's not about finding my purpose in the future. Let's break it down to simple-That's a great point.

It's such a great point. It's brilliant.

Simple four steps. How do I handle a challenge today?

Step number one. I just wanted to, before When you dive into the steps, that is beautiful. I absolutely love that mindset. I think it's such a great... I hope everyone who's listening and watching right now, it's such great advice because we're so fixated on finding, discovering, looking for the answer in some point in the future, and it just keeps feeling postponed and further away. I love what you're saying is that the challenge in front of you right now is the purpose. Exactly. It's a beautiful-How do you connect the delight with the energy, with your soul, with the blessing that available in this very moment.

Very good.

Sorry.

That will lead to other blessings. That will open doors. That will attract clarity. We face a challenge. All of us, it can be challenge at work, it can be challenge at home, it can be just I start to compare myself to someone else, and it triggers lack. All of us, it doesn't matter how spiritual we are, and doesn't matter how successful we are.

Dirty.

We'll have at least 100 times a day. Lack will be triggered.

Fear today. Even today.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Every day, it's like The comparison game.

At least 100 times a day.

I mean, that's what social media is for, really, to make you feel bad about yourself. Unless you recognize that that is an illusion. That's not reality.

Oh, this is an opportunity.

Right. An opportunity for me to not engage.

Exactly. To actually find light in the moment.

Just actually to conquer your fear in that moment or to conquer your repetitive behavior of, Oh, my God, I wish I had that. Oh, my God, I wish I that person. Oh, my God, I wish that my life was that person's life. If only I had... It's like to stop yourself in that moment and conquer that moment, which is I'm good enough. I'm everything that I need. I am. I embody it. I just have to reveal it. But that's a really hard one, I think, especially for women, because we are conditioned to want to aspire to be this beautiful or this great of a mother or this great of a homemaker or this great of a... It's a test every day to not judge yourself and to not feel like you're lacking in some way, like you say. When I say my prayers, part of my prayer is that I rise above my limitations and that I rise above my nature and that I don't get sucked into the vortex of lack, which can come in so many different forms. You really have to be consciously like your head is a radio dial. Like, no, I'm not.

That's not me. You know what I mean? It's a constant conversation you're having with yourself.

Yeah, so true. So that's a really relatable problem.

It requires work and it requires paying attention being aware. We also get caught up in... We live in a world that's just distraction. It's so easy to get distracted. It doesn't mean you're not supposed to have fun. Like right now, I really want to have fun. Not that you're not fun.

We're not having a fun? I think we're having fun.

But yeah, it's just we live in a world of distraction, so it's so easy to get pulled off the track of, What am I doing? What am I doing right now? What am I doing to myself. I'm already there. I got caught. You know what I mean? By the seed of doubt and self-judgment and comparing, and I'm not good enough, therefore I'm going to be in a I'm in a bad mood, or I'm going to shout at my child, or you know what I mean? It takes so many different forms. The greatest thing in the world is to be able to stop yourself before that happens. But it does require constant vigilance.

Yeah, absolutely. It's amazing to hear you say that you still feel that way. Yeah. That's helpful and validating for all of us.

That's part of the path of transformation.

Sorry, back to the tool, yes.

Really, because without what is lack is the illusion that there's no force of good. You are not protected, you are not loved, you're not loved. You're alone. You're sad. You're disconnected. The practice to overcome that, not just in meditation, throughout the day, which is very powerful, is step number one. As you face the challenge, as the reactive process of lack and negative thoughts, tell yourself, say these words, Pause. What an opportunity. I don't know why it's an opportunity, but I know every moment of luck, it's a gift from the universe to help me to reveal greater light and a blessing in my life. Step number two, don't fix it yet. Embrace what is. Embrace difficult feelings. Because in order to find light in darkness, you need to be there with courage a little bit in darkness. We want to fix right away. We want to get rid of what bothers us. We want to get We want to get rid of the fear. We want to get rid of the insecurities. We can't stand it. We don't like the discomfort. How do we want to get rid of it? By being reactive, by blaming, by judging ourselves.

Yourself by jumping after opportunity for insurrifications, by being self-destructive. Pause, embrace. It's okay. Part of the reason of studies, developing trust. It's okay. Embrace first what is and then go to the next level.

When you say embrace, do you mean to meet it positively? To me, as it is-It was to allow it. Yeah, allow it.

Because it-Sit in it.

Yeah.

Allow it. Not because I want to stay there, because that's part of the process of revealing the great light of my song.

Yeah. It almost feels that often what happens is because we've tried to go to the light so much, sorry. It often feels that because we've tried to go to the light so much, we don't know how to sit in the darkness. Exactly. We want to go to the good so quickly, we don't know how to sit in the bad.

That's when you develop strength. There's a concept Kabbalistically-The discomfort. Yeah, there's a concept Kabbalistically called certainty beyond logic.

Explain that.

Which means I'm trusting, even though I don't feel it, and it doesn't It makes sense that actually I'm led towards anything positive, but I'm trusting beyond logic that this experience is for my best. Even if I'm guilty and feeling horrible about mistakes that I've done, it's okay. You're going to get to the part of learning the lesson. Don't fix it, don't erase it. Certainty beyond logic. The part of embrace, sit, allow. Then you're ready to the next step, which is telling yourself, because our belief system tells us it's moment of darkness. There's no light here. There's no good here.

There's no light here. There's no love here.

There's no light here. You need to tell yourself, All the light that I need is within me now. Just tell yourself. It doesn't make sense. Logic doesn't agree. The heart doesn't agree. But that's the job of this world, to allow the thoughts, the stream of energy that comes from the soul, to influence gradually the mind and the heart and the body. Again, and again, and again, tell yourself, All the light I need is within me in my mouth. I'm certain beyond logic. It's for my best. Then, show me the way, the light, the universe, when you feel less reactive. Because usually when we experience lack, we're reactive. We want to get rid of the lack. We want to get rid of the... And that's what's caused. Think, what's caused evil behavior between people? Not knowing how to handle moments of lack. That's where it starts. Forget about others. Let's start with ourself. Sometimes we'll fix the lack because someone will tell us, Wow, you're in a I'm an amazing person. I love you so much. Now we feel good. I fixed it. I forgot about my lack. I forgot about my insecurity. Actually, I am amazing.

Are you? Are you developing true muscles and skills to find the light within, or you want to be attached to the external energy that will fix you. It will never work. Of course, when you're in that place, actions of giving, even if it doesn't make sense, calling someone, adding value to someone, being kind to someone, also help you to shift your energy towards the vibration of the soul, towards the vibration vision of the light. But we all need to go through this test. Some people would call it mental illness, but we all have that mental struggle. We all have that mental struggle in feelings and in our mind. It's a daily practice to transform. It's a daily practice. When you have the courage and you study enough depth that support the understanding that the light is never gone, it's my perception. I see the light, I don't see the light that is causing me to feel the light is disappear, and I'm small, and I'm not enough, and I'm not capable, and I'm not confident.

Yeah, that really resonates very strongly because I feel like When you're first reading this new script, you don't believe it. That's why, as you're saying, the regular study is almost like reading a script, consistently a new script, because we're already reading the old script of I'm not good enough, I'm not capable enough, I don't belong, whatever it may be. But the one line that I really loved that resonated with me, which I want to ask you about, Madonna, is the trust beyond logic, because I think that's the phase that most of us give up, because we are living in a logical, functional, material world where if a train is not coming, you would leave the station. But here the trust beyond logic is, No, I'm still going to wait here, or I'm going to act in a certain way, or I'm going to change these behaviors. Madonna, when did you have to practice trust beyond logic in your life the most? Where have you seen it?

Every challenge I've ever had once I became aware that I had the power to do that. Making art, creation, has nothing to do with being logical. It doesn't have anything to do with the logical part of your brain. You can't measure it, you can't predict it, you can't control it, you have to allow it. I would say that challenge is happening on a daily basis. Even now, I told you, there's a pipe that burst in the middle of my house, and it's creating havoc. I was so excited to come to London, to be in my house in London, and everything's gone wrong. I'm like, Okay, so there has to be a reason for it. I can't just sit here and be angry or upset. There's a illogical wisdom to everything that's happening. If If that's not being attached to material things, then that could be an option. If that's because all these things are broken, I need to spend more time doing something else, it's more important, then that's... You know what I mean? There's always a reason for something. You can't logically figure it out. I wish that I could have seen 10 years ahead that my son was going to be my best friend.

I was to make logical sense of everything. You know what I mean? I wish that I knew then what I know now. There's always been there's big struggles and little struggles. You can't logically explain things, especially... I always use art as an example because I can tell you that 99% of the time when I'm writing lyrics or singing a melody, I'm not thinking about it. That's logic. If I think, it's gone or it doesn't come to me.

I want to ask you, Eitan, based on that, as Madonna said, she waited 10 years to see that experience of her son becoming her best friend. I think a lot of people wonder, how is the reason revealed or received? How do we know? Because like you said, it's trust beyond logic. And logic is like, if I do this, then this will happen. And this is like, my pipe's a burst. If I call the guy, he'll come and fix it. That's the way our brain works. When we're trusting beyond logic, it It could take 10 years to receive a reason. It could take 20 years. It could take 50 years to really have a revelation on something. How is it often revealed or received when it's not based on logic?

Does that make sense? Yes, it makes sense. What you're asking, number one, is when things don't go your way. Of course, sometimes we need to do practical action to make things better and to to fix things, but sometimes it's out of our control. Things don't go our way, like the situation with the experience that Madonna shared. Certainly beyond logic is that The struggle that I'm going through is for my best, but doesn't allow me to be self-destructive because if I want to speed up the process that I I see the light at the end of the tunnel, I need to strengthen. We need friends, you need teachings, you need the right support to actually trust the universe loves you, and it's for the good. It's difficult it is. But then you need to ask a second question. When you're ready, when you're not as reactive, what's my lesson? Why is it in my movie? And sometimes, the answer is simple. Every time we experience rejection, what is rejection? Things don't go our way. It purifies us because our mind and our heart is so attached to happiness is when this will happen, which is not necessarily the big picture of happiness, but really good for me.

When You actually realize that actually that's a purification process, and you open and you allow it to happen because all of us are not aligned with the true desire of the universe. If it would be aligned, we would be joyful every second, and we will be giving unconditionally every second, and we will think all day long, How can I add value to others? Because we are not there, and that's part the gift of life, gradual transformation, we need moments of rejection. But when you question yourself, Where am I too attached? What's my lesson? What do I need to let go? That will support to speed up the process of seeing the light. Because every fruit in order to become sweet and ripe, is first sour. There's a process. Actually, Usually, the botanist would say that more sour the fruit in the process, sweeter at the end. It's so easy to throw the sour fruit and to say it's a bad fruit. But if you're able to allow this process, and you need a lot of spiritual strength because culture, society, our body, our mind is prone to react and to decide it's bad. That constant conversation in our mind, it's good, it's bad.

I'm good, I'm bad. It's that reactive conversation we have within us that actually prolonging the process. Actually, faster we're embracing certainty biologic, faster we're asking questions because at the beginning, you cannot ask because you're in pain. You just try to at least trust and embrace and embrace and beg something and ask him, but when you're ready to ask questions, what's my lessons? Because very often, we are so attached, we spoke about forgiveness to What's wrong with them? We forget that the true purpose of life is my own transformation and elevation while I'm interacting with other people. When the conversation is no longer about They are good. They are bad. How did they do it? And you bring it back to you, How can I elevate? How can I become better? How can I transform between me and my soul, between me and my perfected self? That's when you inject the energy, then the light will be shown faster.

Yeah, that's the question. That's the accelerator Yeah. We want the pain to go away quicker. Exactly. But that question is, and sitting with that question is the thing that actually speeds it up. What are you trying to work on right now, Madonna, that you're working on in your studies? I know you get together regularly. People are going to be able to watch your studies as well that you do together. What's something that you're trying to work on right now that seems very fresh as a challenge, something to overcome, as you said?

The lessons that I learn and study are more applicable to things that are challenging me on a regular basis, which would be my children. They're always challenging me in one way or another. It's such a big lesson for me to let go of expectations and stop trying to control the outcome and over worrying. Some days I wake up and I'm like, I'm just Just relieved that they're all okay. You know what I mean? I always say to people, When you have that many kids, you're not really a parent, you're a manager. You know what I mean? Yeah.

By the way, she has amazing kids and spiritual kids. Because of her tremendous effort to infuse, not just with the teachings, with their behavior, consciousness, sometimes you don't see it right away, but we see kid after kid that actually they're coming around in their own unique way.

It's also infuriating me.

What things trigger you?

I have to stop thinking that mom My way of doing things or my way of approaching life or my way of being an artist is going to be somebody else's or my kid's way of doing it. Everybody has their own journey, and it's taken me a long to accept that.

And to let go of control.

Why is that so hard as a parent? Because I feel like so many parents would be able to relate to that right now where we subconsciously or consciously are projecting, living through our children, wanting them to Yeah.

Wanting them to be successful. Not even in a... I want them to be rich and famous. I just want them to be happy. I want them to be authentic. I want them to not compare themselves to other people, not worry about what people think of them because they're my children. We're fearing judgment, letting that go, helping them to see their own unique gifts. It's a constant battle because also you don't want to come off as somebody who's trying to control the situation all the time either. My weekly studies with Eitan or my daily prayers or whatever are often about, I don't want my children to do specific things. I want them to realize what they were put on this Earth to do. I want them to elevate to their highest level of consciousness, and how can I help that? That's it. But it's still hard not to be bothered by things.

I think that's a very a relatable challenge for parents. It's a real one. I guess when you ask that question then, what is the lesson in this, applying Eitan's process, what do you often come up with?

Trying to control all the outcomes in life and not getting the outcome you wanted is what makes you suffer. If that lesson keeps coming back to me, then I guess I haven't learned it yet. Children are a perfect teacher for that because they're never going to do what you want them to do, the way that you want them to do it. Just get them from here to there without hurting themselves or anybody else. You know what I mean?

Because they, too, have to overcome.

Exactly. I grew up with very little, and so I have a huge desire. Then, of course, you give your children all the things you wanted to have. Then you realize That's killing their desire. You're just constantly going, Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Okay, I'm not. Just be counterintuitive. Just say nothing. That's a big one for me. Say nothing. But I'm getting good at it. I'm just really getting good at it.

I appreciate you walking us through that thought process because I think you've summed it up. That's exactly what we want to do. We want to take away someone's pain or the pain we thought they're going to have because of the pain we had. Then you provide something only to create a new pain and for them to never have the pain that you had, but have a completely different version of it. We do it for everyone we love. I was going to ask you, Eitan, what do you do when you don't like the answer? That question is so important What is the lesson I need to learn? But a lot of us subconsciously may not like the answer we get, and that's where we have to keep learning it again. What happens when you don't like the truth that you're experiencing?

So I think part of true spiritual transformation is craving truth. I want to know really what's my lesson, because what's the other option? More pain until I'm going to learn the lesson. The reason why we're not listening to the voice that tell me, Let go of control, or for kids, one of the biggest mistakes parents do is is overgiving to kids, which in Kabbalistic terminology, we call it bread of shame. When you give to someone something without working for it, without earning, you're actually hurting them. The parent might know, I'm overgiving, and it's not healthy for them, but I feel guilty to say no.

I'll be popular if I say yes.

Exactly. Here is the test. Guilty of saying no versus long-term pain for the kid and for yourself. Actually, pause and ask that question. That will help you to get closer to the truth and be less in denial. And a fork, short-term, long-term. Saying yes just to fix the pain, to give them what they want, to let them play with the phone, or say no. It's difficult, and they feel bad, and they blaming you, but you're doing it from place of love. Because what's driving us? True desire to share in a long term. If that's my true, and that's the truth, am I really coming from true desire to share for a long term sharing, not just temporary fix? When I'm coming from that place, only blessings. You're planting a seed of light, a seed of blessing, a seed of miracles. When you're coming from another place, pretending to be good or nice or kind, only because you cannot handle the temporary pain, you're planting a seed of chaos, which chaos also has intelligent to teach you lessons, but in a longer path.

I can relate to that as a kid because I'm not a parent, but it was almost like during your teens, you just think everything your parents say is wrong. Then in my 20s, I was so grateful for the discipline and the rules. I was only allowed to play video games for X amount of time or whatever it was. And all of a sudden, everything my parents did, I was like, Oh, wow, there's actually a lot of good in it. But during my teenage years, I obviously didn't agree with anything they said. And there's such a reality to that feeling of the long-term that you're making, that long term point that you're making. That long term, you realize, Oh, yeah, I'm glad you actually didn't just let me eat rubbish, or I'm really glad you didn't just let me waste hours playing video games. I'm really glad that you didn't do X, Y, Z, or whatever it may be. It's hard, though, because the parent or the person, this could be romance, it could be in any relationship. You've got to be unpopular in the moment. Absolutely. You have to put aside your ego.

You have to go to that discomfort.

Yeah, which applies at work, it applies In anything, especially in the culture today when everything can be so instant.

App and ordering food and getting what you want and watching any program and in your phone. That instant culture preventing a child or an individual to go through a real process of going through discomfort or earning delight, as we're saying kabbalistically. And people don't understand. They can be bright. How come I'm depressed? Depression, very often, it's a consequence of insingrification, not willing to go through a difficult process.

So hard. We don't want to go through the difficult process, and we don't want anyone we love to go through a difficult process, although that is the only process that's going to benefit us Well, we're going to anyway. Absolutely. I have one last question to ask both of you. What is your soul's purpose? Why do you think you're here? What personally was the becoming or the overcoming that you went through to really receive that soul's purpose that you're living by? What was it that birthed that idea within you?

My soul's purpose is to reveal light in the world. Through whatever I do, whatever that's, being a parent or being an artist, being a friend, being a leader. We are here to receive for the sake of sharing. I have a huge desire. I have many desires. This is not a belief system or philosophy that's about, no offense, being a monk and going up in the mountains and meditating for hours and hours. I want it all, but I want it for the sake of sharing, not to keep it for myself.

Eta?

He wants more followers on Instagram.

The personal relationship between me and the light, between me and the creator. I know that I don't want anything less than connecting while I'm in this physical world to the soul that was given to me. It means total transformation, total desire to receive for the sake of sharing, certainty beyond logic until it becomes second nature. That's at a personal level. But one of the ways to achieve it is to connect with our purpose of sharing. I know in my gut, in my soul, and knowing it was beyond logic that that's what I came to do in this world, which is to spread, to be a teacher for the teachings of Kabbalah while I'm studying. One of them is about being too perfectionist, spiritually, taking spiritual lesson to an imbalance place. Something is wrong with me. I know as long as we're in this world, and if we truly not settle for less, and that's a message for everybody, I want to say, never settle for less. Wherever you are, this is just the beginning comparing to your next level potential. Those challenges were necessary to help me to evolve to where I'm at today. And of course, this is just the beginning.

What's that? Adana, Eitan, thank you so much for your time and energy. I've, again, learned so much from both of you today, and I really can't wait for people to watch the studies. I hope that it gives spiritual seekers a opportunity to ask better questions, deeper questions, and begins their quest for Overcoming and becoming whatever their soul's purpose truly is. I'm so grateful that you're both living yours, truly. I'm really, again, thankful for the opportunity to have learned so much from both of you today. Thank you so much. Our honor. Thank you so much. Thank you. If this is the year that you're trying to get creative, you're trying to build more, I need you to listen to this episode with Rick Rubin on how to break into your most creative self, how to use unconventional methods that lead to success, and the secret to genuinely loving what you do. If you're trying to find your passion and your lane, Rick Rubin's episode is the one for you. Just because I like it, that doesn't give it any value.

As an artist, if you like it, that's all of the value. That's the success comes when you say, I like this enough for other people to see it.

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