A Personal Note From Orion

Welcome, stellar ones! Have you ever wondered if you’re more than just your thoughts – and what lies beyond the constant mental chatter? Today, I’m joined by the brilliant Dr. James Cooke, a neuroscientist with three degrees from Oxford University, including a PhD in neuroscience. What makes James truly unique is his beautiful marriage of hardcore scientific knowledge with profound spiritual insights – he experienced a life-changing awakening as a teenager that set him on a journey to understand the true nature of consciousness.

In this mind-expanding conversation, James takes us deep into the mysteries of consciousness, sharing his perspective that all living things—not just humans—experience consciousness in some form. We explore the power of grounding practices, the illusion of separation, and how reconnecting with our bodies can heal the modern epidemic of anxiety and disconnection.

What you’ll learn will transform not just your inner experience, but potentially help heal our collective relationship with the planet. So, without further ado, let’s dive into the show!

In This Episode

• [02:02] – James Cooke shares his early teenage experience with existential questions about hell and the concept of awakening in Buddhism.
• [05:45] – James elaborates on the concept of non-duality and non-separation, explaining that awakening is accessible to everyone.
• [09:43] – James discusses the concept of the dark night of the soul, a period of intense suffering and somatic experiences.
• [12:13] – James shares his recent experience of a threshold shift, where he no longer experiences a separate self.
• [16:19] – James explores the nature of consciousness, emphasizing that it is the way reality comes to know itself.
• [18:25] – James addresses the question of free will and the illusion of being the thinker of thoughts.
• [21:16] – James critiques the human-centric approach of studying consciousness through the human brain.
• [24:20] – James reflects on the growing disconnection from nature due to technological advancements.
• [27:06] – James talks about the potential for AI and other technologies to either enhance or diminish our connection to nature.
• [34:45] – James highlights the need for a return to a grounded, present-moment experience to address the root issues of our current crises.

Jump to Links and Resources

About Today’s Show

Hey James, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here. 

Yeah, great to be here. Thanks. 

Could you start by sharing a bit about yourself and why you’re doing what you’re doing? 

I guess my story begins in my early teenage years, when I was a Catholic, and I was ruminating one day about hell and the prospect of being sent to hell and not having blind faith. I was taking it very seriously, and it was really upsetting me. I became deeply absorbed in it, and I put all my energy into this thinking, but it led to a dead end. There wasn’t a logical, rational solution to it that seemed to break the process or create a disruption in thinking. 

I had what’s called an awakening in Buddhism. In the gap between thoughts that were suddenly a noticing, or it’s kind of impossible to spin into words, because it was a revelation that reality is beyond words. It’s just that reality is whole. It’s always this, it’s always here and now. It’s an eternal, timeless, ever-changing present, moment, past, and future – a kind of figment of the imagination that division and separation are. So it was this profound liberation from that whole paradigm of struggling in thought. 

That was when you were 16?

13, really young. And it’s interesting, because I was the opposite of the kind of person who would ease into this stuff gradually. I was not a meditative person. I was the opposite, really – highly strong, very upset about this stuff, and quite rational. And then, it was by going so far away from that stuff that I broke the other paradigm and collapsed into it.

If you take awakening seriously and the idea that you are waking up, you are genuinely gaining insight into the way reality is.

Did it happen in a dream? Were you in your room? How did that happen, and how long did it take?

I was on a bus ride, and I was just absorbed in this question. It happened instantaneously, you know, been ruminating for God knows how long, and then, it was just a sudden clarity. And then it lasted. It’s one of those things that once you’ve seen it, you can never unsee, so it never went away, in that sense, but there’s like a honeymoon period of feeling really expansive and like you’re living in a flow state, and everything’s just beautiful and sparkly and alive. 

After a while, your ego shows up again to be like, “Hello, I’m still here.” That led to, I guess, a longer path of learning how to integrate this stuff and live from it. That’s been an ongoing process, which I’m still refining. The reason I speak in public is that I went on to train as a scientist, because my personality is still my personality. 

So I speak in public because I feel like that synthesis of skeptical, rational, sciency, orientation combined with a deep recognition of the reality of spiritual states of consciousness is a useful middle ground, because socially, people tend to collapse either into one or two extremes, where you’re either a closed minded scientist who’s just like, “This is all nonsense. Go away. I don’t want to hear it.” Or sometimes people can just go off into playing around with ideas and beliefs. 

I’m trying to offer a kind of lean, middle way where it’s true, something truly of ultimate value here about realizing your nature as the same thing as the rest of existence and coming out of suffering. I tend to have a very lean understanding of this stuff. 

The book I recently wrote, The Dawn of Mind, suggests that if you take awakening seriously, and the idea that you are waking up, you’re genuinely gaining insight into the way reality is. I think that an awakened perspective can help resolve many philosophical and scientific problems if you look at them from that perspective. If you look from an ego-identity perspective, however, all these things don’t make sense regarding consciousness and its relationship to the rest of the universe, and so on. 

So, the book is essentially a kind of census of science and spirituality, exploring how we can understand reality and the mind in light of this awakening. 

Have you had moments of awakening where you tapped into this grand reality of oneness? 

Yeah. The funny thing about it is it’s always everything. The thing we’re talking about, nonduality, is often the term used; it’s like nonseparation. So it is just this moment, as everything appears, but it kind of feels like it’s obscured when we feel like we’re a contracted sense of self. So, just communicate that it’s accessible to everyone. It’s not like a higher plane of consciousness that you have to go somewhere to get to, or be special to get to. It’s what we’re all made of. 

In Mahayana Buddhism, they talk about Buddha nature. Everything’s made of Buddha nature. Everything’s already enlightened. It’s just not everyone knows it. Since then, there have been a bunch of different shifts once the contracted self paradigm came back online, and then once I had reached adulthood. There were these two paradigms. There’s a sense of just being a suffering self. 

I had a lot of suffering, but there was an ability to do, I guess, what’s called spiritual bypassing, which is where, in an instant, you can shift so that there is no sense of self. Everything just is what it is. You’re shifting out of concepts. But that would last a few seconds, and it would collapse back into a suffering self. That helped to punctuate the suffering, but it wasn’t a lasting solution. I was still suffering. 

Everything’s already enlightened. It’s just not everyone knows it.

What I had to do to integrate it was go down into the body, into kind of trauma work, healing emotion work, the stuff a lot of people rather avoid, just in terms of the mucky, sort of messy aspect of being a human—traumas and things like that. If you’re doing that post-awakening, you can go deep. You can really delve into Buddhist maps of this concept, which has come to be called the dark night of the soul, where you truly come to grips with suffering at its root. 

That was a few years ago. That’s got its own wacky ride. But then if one is willing to go there and face everything in yourself, the deepest, darkest part of your shadow, that’s where you can come out of it, in a kind of abiding sense of not having a separate self, of there just being the energy of existence manifesting as all of this in every moment. That’s the thing that we’re all seeking, I think, when really underneath it. But we don’t want to go through that barrier of the shadow. The struggle of life is trying, like, “How can I get that lasting happiness and satisfaction without facing myself fully?” And it turns out you can’t. I think the route is through facing yourself fully.

Which modality or modalities worked for you to face yourself fully? And how was it for you?

For me, psychedelics were the way I stumbled into this—the integration side of things. I’d been abiding, and it was like 15 years or so after the awakening, until I started experimenting with psychedelics.

Which type? 

Well, first, it was an intellectual thing where I was like, “This awakening stuff is amazing, and I want people to experience it, and without having to meditate their entire lives or get lucky, see the thing happen to me.” People talk about similar stuff. 

Spiritual bypassing is where, in an instant, you can shift so that there is no sense of self.

There are also scientific papers coming out about mystical experiences, and how they can heal depression, anxiety, etc. I was kind of intellectually curious, “Could psychedelics be a way to democratize awakenings of this kind, just waking up to the wholeness, nondual oneness, of reality?” I tried a high dose, five grams of what they call a heroic dose of mushrooms, the first time. 

That’s a lot. 

It was a lot. It was actually 51 fresh grams, so it was physically a lot of mushrooms.

Thank goodness. Sounds very un-tasty.

Yes, I definitely had dark chocolate or something similar on hand to balance it. I’m not recommending anyone go into this, by the way. This was quite reckless, jumping into the deep end. Please do not take any of this as a recommendation. Through that experience, I saw that the insights held me in a state where I could shift into it for a few seconds and then collapse back into suffering. It helped me there for like hours. 

It was kind of rapturous, but also it was excruciatingly pleasant. It was a kind of full-body orgasmic, but an unbearable kind of experience. Then I came away with the same conclusion: this can reveal the same kind of insights, but with a lot more fireworks and a lot more going on, because, just like with the initial awakening, nothing changed visually. Still, there were radical things that looked radically different, but not in any tangible way; it’s not like there were fireworks and psychedelic visuals with the awakening.

How did you deal with the darkness within the psychedelic trip?

The first one was just a full-on sense of being. It didn’t feel dark, it just felt intense. And then, after that, I noticed that when I came up and came down, I would touch into emotions, and then I would breeze past them with these big doses. So then I started doing more normal doses and realized I always thought of myself as quite a sensitive, not a macho man, kind of guy. I didn’t think of myself as emotionally repressed. But it turned out I just had a lot of repressed emotions of all flavors: anger, sadness, grief, and fear.

I’ve spent years taking many intentional trips, including an Ayahuasca retreat, which is very powerful, and it helps me get in touch with childhood memories, just exploring. It was quite straightforward. In the end, it was a matter of witnessing, bringing to mind memories and feelings, and learning to empower myself, as well as reflecting on the lessons I had to learn from my childhood. 

That lasted about four years or so, and then I reached a point where suddenly that phase was over, and I entered a period known as the dark night, which is where you feel like you’ve lost your sense of self, as if it’s a repressed mechanism. It naturally keeps things under control and prevents all our reactions from coming out in every moment. So, after such intensity, like digging, digging, digging, they hit a point where a fundamental taking my foot off the brake, or the repression mechanism, had been lifted. 

I guess it was an invitation to learn equanimity and surrender, because it was just a visceral, unpleasant experience in the body, and very somatic, I guess, what people call Kundalini, like lots of tension down the spine and racing and contracting. That lasted a year and a half, and that really sobered up my evangelism. Because before that, I was like, “Everyone should do this. This is wonderful.” That was the flip side of the coin, which is wonderful, and the awakening is very life-affirming, very much about fullness and beingness. 

The other side of the coin is impermanence, loss, voidness, emptiness, and letting go of all the stuff that I personally didn’t want to do. That was a slow-motion ego disillusion kind of thing. But then comes the other side of it, and it’s to resolve that root of suffering. The sense of self is really what I’ve been seeking. And in retrospect, the dark night stuff, it feels hard when you’re in it, but it’s a finite amount of time. It’s like 18 months. 

If one is willing to face the deepest, darkest part of one’s shadow, that’s where one can come out of it, in an abiding sense of not having a separate self.

It’s like a caterpillar going to a chrysalis, and then the caterpillar realizes that it’s going to get dissolved in the chrysalis. That’s what the sense of self is like: “Oh, James was resisting it,” and didn’t want to be doing it, but there was this deep, somatic pull towards peace that kind of pulled me through it.

Who are you before and after that very super, mega transformative process? 

Only a month ago. Again, Buddhism has really good maps of this stuff, so I can go back in those terms. But there’s a particular threshold you cross, which happened to me about a month ago, which is this abiding sense of there not being a self in experience, where experience just feels open, expressive, one-sided. There isn’t this duality of, there’s the world. I’m here in my head somewhere that’s just gone in an abiding way now. 

That’s the thing that creates the sense of dissatisfaction and seeking and suffering, and so that fell away. And once that happens, it’s so simple, because experience is just experience, and there isn’t a second thing looking at experience, there’s just experience. Life becomes more of a flow state, or like the world is life as it is lived. It’s like just this very simple flow of existence. So before that, I was James, and now, on a conventional level, I can still say my name’s James, and I have that sense of self. 

But experientially, there isn’t this extra thing that turns out to be an illusion; it’s a contracted construct where experience is taking sensations from the body and then visual appearances, and doing this thing where it’s like me, not me. If you start to interrogate that, you can realize that it’s very flexible. You look at an object and like, “Well, that’s my object.” 

My identity is infused in that, somehow, you inquire into that you’re like, “Well, how can that be? It’s just a pen or whatever it is.” Then you can see that identity is like a mental fabrication if you’re so inclined, and you have enough suffering. Suffering is what really propels people through this. You can dismantle that and then live from a place where it’s gone, and then there’s a peacefulness instead of struggle.

Reality is beyond words. It's an eternal, timeless, ever-changing present moment. Share on X

Did your relationship with your loved ones or people change?

Yeah, so with the no self shift, definitely, in a positive way in that. When people talk about awakening, the caveat is the point I made about everything being already enlightened. There isn’t anything that’s not awake. But this sense of not being awake, or the dream state, is actually the mechanism that gives you experience. And then on top of that, their interpretation is to say, “This is James. That pen is his.” Those are all interpretations. 

But they don’t feel like interpretations. They feel very solid and real. And it’s that sense of them being real, what’s called reification, the making real of something. That’s what creates all the trouble. That’s the dream: that things are solid, real, and substantial. So before that shift, it’s hard to put your finger on, but there was some sense of a thing called “James.” Not James as the energy of the universe expressing in this current form, but a thing called James. 

That means that when you think there’s a real thing there, then you really need to react. If my wife said something that upset me, and then I felt my feelings about it, there would have been some feeling of like, “I need to resolve this. I need to talk to her about it.” And whereas feelings can still arise, that sense of needing to do something is now gone. That creates a lot more openness and receptivity. 

I think it’s nice for her because it means I can be more open and hear her side of things without having to force my own; you don’t become a doormat. You don’t suddenly stop like, “Oh, I don’t have any needs. There’s no one here.” But you don’t feel compelled to react. So that’s the big thing. Suffering is a form of reactivity because you think everything is solid and real, so you need to struggle with it. 

Suffering is what propels people. You can dismantle that and then live from a place where it’s no longer there.

As I was surrendering, as I was letting go of the struggle, there was a lot of anxiety, of like, “What would this mean for my loved ones?” Like, “Am I doing something bad here?” Like, “Am I letting go of good attachments? I don’t want to not have preferences, not care about my loved ones and and every as I was letting go, became obvious that you were only letting go of egoic clinging, like the parts of yourself that are most wounded are like, “Me, me, me,” instead of being open and present for people that are trying to use them in some way, because we’re talking to kids about the way we show up in the world as normal people. 

But there is a sense that when there’s a ‘you,’ it’s as if everything relates to me and my journey, my quest to make something of myself in the world, or whatever you’re seeking. There is a subtle use of everything in terms of the narrative. As I let go of those attachments, it was obvious that I was only letting go of unwholesome stuff. And wholesomeness remains, the sense of openness, connection, and love. It does not just remain, it’s radically present. I think it’s been a positive thing.

What did you learn about consciousness? What is consciousness? 

With the initial shift in this stuff, people can often get their first glimpse of it by noticing that they are not their thoughts. They are not whatever arises in experience. And then they can come to identify as the witness, the one who is looking at consciousness and awareness. That’s a really good initial movement. However, what can happen is that the idea of identity, the paradigm I mentioned, serves to repress and keep things under control. 

There can become this kind of idea that I am awareness. There’s an identity here. And also, it can get expanded to be like there is only awareness and existence. That’s quite common in spirituality for people to think that only consciousness exists. And there are reasons people think that they’re reasonable. The core issue is thinking that things are solid, real, and substantial when actually, nothing is so. 

The fabric of reality is not composed of some solid, substantial material or building blocks. So it’s true that reality is insubstantial, but I don’t think it’s true to then say, “Well, if it doesn’t matter, it must be mind.” This is kind of where I go into my book. It’s kind of comforting to think that, because my mind becomes like a new substance, where all of reality is made of consciousness. I think the truth is something that can’t be put into words. 

It’s like empty fullness is maybe the best phrase for it, maybe like the yin-yang symbol. It’s like an interplay between being and non-being that cannot be named. So within that picture, I think it makes more sense to think of consciousness as the way that reality comes to know itself. So, as life forms, we are made of the energy of existence, and we’re relating to existence. So it’s this very simple, like reflexivity, that existence has to kind of come into relationship with itself. 

We are the eyes with which the universe sees. We, as in life forms, not just humans. I make the argument scientifically in the book that I think consciousness doesn’t just exist where brains exist. It’s wherever life exists. So I think all living things experience, in some way, that the subconscious is a lot more, a lot deeper, and more fundamental, I think, than the scientists typically think. You think it’s something about the human brain, or maybe brains in general, but it’s slightly more subtle than the simple picture of consciousness only existing.

Do you think our thoughts are ours, or are they affected by the field, and if so, do we have this question free choice?

That’s a direct path to these insights. It is noticed that thoughts, the sense of being, and the thinker of thoughts are illusory. Thoughts arise in the same way my voice is arising to you without you needing to do anything, and in the same way thoughts arise within your mind without you needing to do anything, and that sense of being like, “Well, no, I’m the one thinking the thoughts.” That is a comforting stance to take on reality, but it’s just like an interpretation; there isn’t actually a thinker there in experience. 

So, that’s the thing that can be deconstructed when it comes to freedom. There’s an interesting aspect where I would say we can start out feeling like we are the thinkers who have free will, truly the ability to choose and be the cause of what we choose. And I think the clearer way to think about it is that we do have agency as living things. We can make decisions. So, if you ask me if I want tea or coffee, I’m free to choose tea, if that’s my preference. 

The dream state is the mechanism that gives you experience.

If you’re not holding a gun to my head, and you then inquire about it, you can say, “Well, I’m British. I was raised in a country that drinks tea. That’s why I’m choosing tea.” The causality of that event can be traced back to British colonization of India, which is why tea became popular there, as opposed to coffee, which is more prevalent in southern Europe. So, the causality becomes the causality of it, where the whole of existence comes together in this moment for me to choose tea. 

There isn’t really a separate self choosing to make that choice. That could feel kind of anxiety-inducing for the sense of a separate self, because it’s that sense of control that it wants, that isn’t there. However, when you learn to become comfortable with that, it really feels like freedom, because feeling like you’re the chooser is a massive burden. But then the final punch line is when you feel there isn’t a separate self, and there’s only the engine of existence, which is what you are, that energy is completely unconstrained. It is completely free. 

So, it’s as if you, as the oneness of existence, have utter freedom to do exactly what you want. However, because it is so free, it will do exactly what is aligned with its nature. So in that sense, it’s kind of determined, because it’s why you would do something other than the exact thing you want to do, if you’re totally free. I believe the reason we have these philosophical debates is that when you approach reality, you typically encounter paradoxes. I think both are true. 

It’s simultaneously utterly free and utterly determined. And depending on how you look at it, we have these concepts that make us feel like there’s some conflict here. But I think the answer is just totally both.

When I was younger, I had a vision of reality, and it was like a maze with predetermined stops. The soul needs to go and experience, doesn’t have to experience all of it, but we have the freedom to take a right turn and choose our own adventure. However, the adventure is similar to what you’re describing. 

Suffering is a form of reactivity because you think everything is solid and real, so you need to struggle with it.

It’s both.

That’s pretty cool. How do you think science today is backing up consciousness, or the idea of consciousness?

Scientists typically study consciousness by examining the human brain, which, in one sense, is reasonable, because humans can provide insight into conscious experiences, and thus, one cannot ask a worm about it if it has a conscious experience. But at the same time, there’s a bias there, whereas there’s a human exceptionalism, where we think we’re really special, that can creep in, or is already there in the background. 

That’s partly why people sometimes make the mistake of thinking that humans are uniquely or exceptionally conscious. However, when you take that view, considering the scientific paradigm that studies one example of consciousness in the form of the human brain, it reveals certain principles about how consciousness works. If you follow that through, an emerging picture emerges that, at least in my advocacy in the book, suggests that these principles didn’t come into existence with brains. 

Those principles came into existence with life. And so, if you look, there’s an emerging picture of how life works that points to these dynamics, which the current mainstream science is a bit hesitant about. They kind of want to say, “Well, the basic components are there, but it’s not really consciousness, because you need something extra.” There needs to be something complex, something about the complexity of the human brain that does an extra trick. 

I just think philosophically. It doesn’t make you get into these insoluble problems if you think there has to be an extra trick. I don’t think there does. It’s just a part of life, but it invites us into a more animist way of looking at the world, where we see other living things as our kin, as relatives, which we know they literally are. It’s like a single family tree of life. 

We’re all related to all living things, and we have the same fundamental palette of things that make us up. All living things possess intelligence, consciousness, problem-solving abilities, and the capacity to maintain their own existence. So part of the message of the book goes beyond the spirituality and beyond the science, to a kind of invitation, on a kind of social level, to wake up from our sense of separation from the natural world and feeling like humans are superior to the natural world and that we get to dominate it. 

While the present moment is the true key, for us as living beings, it’s through the body that we most directly access awareness. Share on X

I think that is the root of all of our current kind of poly crisis, from climate change to interpersonal domination. The route there is to realize that we are nature in this form. We are not superior to it, and we don’t deserve to dominate it, because reckoning with consciousness in reality, we’re really trying to understand who we are and where we fit in. I don’t think we fit in a different place from other living things. We fit in at the same level. That’s the kind of core message in the book.

It seems that as time passes, we are moving toward an unnatural connection, or even an unnatural consciousness. If you think about AI, social media, or smart cities, you’ll notice that they’re being built everywhere. So, how are we gonna evolve? 

Because people are increasingly living in high-rise buildings, they are becoming more and more disconnected from nature, even from their own bodies, and becoming more immersed in social media, computers, and YouTube. Where do you see us heading, and where do you see us heading with the new emerging artificial intelligence?

I think you’re right. The back trajectory is one of becoming disconnected, unmoored, and ungrounded. What I would like to see is a return to a sense of groundedness. You’re right to mention the body, because it is, in fact, the key. Well, present moment experience is the key, but for us as living things, that typically plays out through the body. And so, my own experience is that I got into running in my 20s, and I found that with these minimalist shoes, barefoot running-type shoes, not the toe-finger glove ones, but that type of thing. 

We are the eyes with which the universe sees.

What I found is that I grew up in a way, in a culture where our feet are not. It felt extremely different to me to be somatically grounded to the earth, to be moving across it with every sinew of my feet, gripping it far more primate-like, and it had a profound somatic emotional effect, in a way that made me feel less heady. I think with the Earth, I like to be here in this present moment. 

That is the fundamental issue: we’re tumbling into the future, chasing out of a kind of fearfulness instead of faith. Again, I mentioned that facing ourselves is the root thing we don’t want to do. If we can face ourselves, there’s that saying, “Who said it?” It’s as if all of humanity’s problems arise from people’s inability to sit alone, quietly, in a room, and that’s a similar thing. It’s like being able to face ourselves, be with ourselves, and be present, somatically connected to the earth. 

I think that’s the corrective. It may sound stupidly simple to be, “Oh well, like walk around barefoot. That’s going to solve climate change, but I think if we’re talking about societies made up of humans interacting with each other, there is an inside-out dynamic where our beliefs, our attitudes, and the way we carry ourselves shape how we show up in the world. And so, actually, I do think that if you want to get to the absolute root of it, these somatic grounding practices, such as breath work, are perhaps more important than focusing on the feet. 

However, that’s really where the root of the issue lies. And we fool ourselves when we go off into our ideas and our stories. We believe we’re more than these embodied living things that have basic anxieties about survival, control, and death; that’s the fundamental stuff we’re dealing with. But yeah, so I think the momentum at the moment is this crazed, psychotic kind of living in a world of mind where we aren’t in, we aren’t embodied. We’re rushed off our feet into this tumbling and hurtling into this future like a runaway train. And we’re speaking in 2025 at the beginning of the year, and it’s not looking good as far as I can see. All the signs are looking like we’re entering.

In the next two years. 

I have no idea what the next few years will bring. 

When you feel there isn’t a separate self, and there’s only the engine of existence, which is what you are, that energy is completely unconstrained.

The next couple of years, they’re predicting a lot of shifts. 

Nothing would surprise me at this point, given the current state of AI development and the possibility of World War III, so nothing is off the table. However, the flip side of that is the concept of Generation Theory, which posits that every 80 years, we undergo cycles of conflict on a global scale. After the conflict, we sober up and try to collaborate, but then basic human corruption often undermines institutions, eroding everyone’s confidence in them, and we all fall back into conflict. 

And then it cycles around and around, rather than there being continual progress. And learning about that made me feel like, “Yeah, because I grew up in the kind of 90s where there was a sense of the end of history, of we’ve done it now.” No more world wars; it’s all done now. It’s all just going to be improvement from now on. And now it feels like, “Yeah, we’re going back into a period of darkness.” But then the other side of the coin is there as well. 

I think there’s a possibility of catharsis, in terms of waking up, when things get really bad, forcing us to face ourselves and realize, “Okay, this is not working. Nuclear World War III is not an option. We need to do something.” I’m not an accelerationist or something, but if there is any flip side to it, I think that capitalism can bring sobriety.

I guess in some sense, on a personal level, people often will only ask for help, save for like addiction, go to the first AA meeting when they’ve absolutely hit rock bottom, because the system thinks, like, “No, no, I can still save this thing.” Sometimes we need to hit rock bottom to really face ourselves. 

I get it. 

I’m not looking forward to it.

Well, I understand what you’re saying about the cycle, and it’s true. Actually, we grow when we hit rock bottom. This is where we grow, and then it’s an evolution thing. But you were talking about grounding. Sometimes you don’t even have to put your feet on the ground. If you can’t, you can actually hold a plant and ask it to transfer energy. I actually asked the plant, and I really sense it. Or I’ll go and I’ll hug a tree. That’s also a way to connect. 

And because we have electromagnetic fields and we are electric beings, we actually need to, just like you, put electricity in the ground to ground it. We need to ground our electric field and go to the ground. And that will balance our thoughts, because we are biological human beings. We’re not artificial. We need that connection to Earth, and a lot of people are disconnected and feeling anxiety. 

We are nature expressing itself in human form, not separate from it, not above it, and certainly not entitled to dominate it. Share on X

I don’t even know why, and sometimes it’s as simple as walking barefoot on the beach, hugging a tree, working in the garden, or going hiking and seeing something other than buildings and beautiful, manicured yards. This wild nature helps you remember who you really are. Many of us live from the neck up and are not connected. Movement and connection to the earth are crucial for grounding. That’s amazing.

Yeah. And I think there can be people living from the neck up who could hear what we’re saying and be skeptical and be like, “Well, why does that feel too simple?” That’s not going to do anything, but that is just the narrative of that full self that has the mental, disconnected self who’s trying to protect itself and doesn’t because this is an invitation to open up and connect and feel, and that’s moving in the direction of, ultimately, in the extreme, if you keep opening, keep feeling, you will come across the shadow stuff. That’s why people have this fundamental resistance to it, and would rather it feels more comfortable to stay in their minds and identify themselves. But to me, this whole wisdom is always in the direction of opening, opening to experience here, opening to the world around us, to each other, connecting. That’s what this is all about.

I just took my son on a walk, and we took a shortcut through a field, and it was so nice. It was a very short walk, but there were flowers on both the right and left sides of us, and just walking a little bit in nature was so soothing and wonderful. He actually said, “Oh, thanks, Mom, for finding that shortcut.” He’s so cute because my tiny son already senses that connection. Even babies, when they cry and have some tummy aches, relax if you put them on the ground. 

They have that instant connection because they are so connected, they’re still on the soul level. So I’m thinking about mushrooms, Ayahuasca, all those things, they are physical things. Some of them are natural. Some of them are chemical. How do they get us into older states? And what is the connection between, let’s say, a mushroom that is grown on the ground, connected to the ground, and bringing you to higher states? That’s pretty interesting. 

Yes, to answer your question, I have a really similar anecdote that happened about two weeks ago. I was walking in the countryside of England with my son, and we went through a path in a field. He’s like two and a half, and there was a kind of gap in the hedge. You could walk through. And so we walked through there, and they explained that it was like a way through the trees, because he asked, and then a few minutes later, he said, “Daddy, what’s the secret way of trees called?” 

I’d forgotten that we just walked through the thing, but it sounded like this little mystic, the secret way of trees, some like a hidden occult. That’s hilarious. It makes sense to me that a lot of indigenous cultures use these kinds of plants, and even altering one state through chemical means is found throughout the animal world. I can’t remember what it was called, but there was a scientist who wrote a book about how certain substances might induce a state of intoxication or something similar, using different examples of animals changing their states of consciousness through the use of natural substances. 

Wow, animals?

Yeah. It’s deep, and so when you look at the way we prohibit this stuff and pretend that it’s something we shouldn’t be doing, it seems so silly. However, there is something fundamental about the root of life, which is known as homeostasis, a process by which we regulate our systems. So if you get too hot, you might start sweating to cool yourself down. If you’re dehydrated, you’ll drink water; that’s basically the drive to keep being, the drive to stay alive, the drive to exist from moment to moment, which plays out through this holistic dynamic called homeostasis. 

I think part of it is that we can get stuck in a rut, really, in terms of ways of being, and when we take a substance, and not just about psychedelics, but any substance, psychedelics are particularly good at this. They open up the system, allowing us to find a new balance, to escape a rut, and establish a better homeostatic set point. And so it makes sense to me that they would just exist, because humans are not separate from nature. We co-evolve with all these species. 

It makes sense to me that our physiology and the physiology of other things would evolve to keep us reined in in some way, so that we’re in harmony with other living things. You know, there aren’t fundamental separations. It’s not NHS as there are mushrooms and then there are humans, and never the twain shall meet. They won’t influence each other in the revolution or, you know, like so it makes sense to me that it’s just a natural part of being a human to engage in kind of shamanic practices, perhaps like psychedelics. 

I could discuss what happens in the brain, but fundamentally, I think it’s about shifting into openness, or not having things be pinned down. And so that’s also why it can induce this kind of spiritual states of consciousness, because really, all they are is opening to the inherent expressive openness of reality itself. So psychedelics can do it, breath work can do it. It’s right here all the time, so that anything can do it. Overthinking about hell can do it. In my case, that’s funny. I don’t recommend that to people as a meditation practice.

What’s your message to somebody who’s listening right now about their own consciousness and their own state of consciousness, and how can they tap into this massive field and feel like they’re a part of rather than so separate or even so lonely on this journey on this planet?

A key takeaway here is a sense of being at home in existence that can begin at the intellectual level, in terms of perhaps finding reassurance that this kind of picture might be correct, that you are not an alienated self at war with the rest of the world. You are an expression of existence. And so there can be this, maybe some reassurance there, that of some at-home-ness. 

And also, the nice thing about that is, if you identify as the energy of existence that currently wears this name for a time, the energy of existence isn’t going anywhere, like when this body dies, the energy of existence will still be there in other forms, and it’s still in there in other forms now. This is a way to gain insight into the concept of no self, where there is only that energy. It has all these ideas that separate people, but it’s really just one energy moving in the direction of this becoming more obvious, and it feels like it in your bones. 

If we could have the courage to meet ourselves fully—heart, body, and soul—and root that presence into the Earth, we’d remember what it means to be whole. That is real corrective. Share on X

Orienting towards openness in the present moment, openness can manifest as a bit of mindfulness, simply checking what’s here and experiencing it rather than what I think is here. It can look like connection in the ways we’ve discussed, such as love, cultivating qualities that aren’t related to defensive, guarded, or self-involved ways of being, and I’m not demonizing those. Those play a role. But as you open, you typically see what’s underneath what you’re protecting. 

And as you bring openness and compassionate witnessing to those parts, you find that those coping mechanisms typically fall away, and then this part can become remarkably profound. But it is always about opening here and now, rather than becoming fixated on where I am going to get to with this. So, if you’re interested, you can open up at this moment. I’ve created a range of free materials available at innerspaceinstitute.org to help people develop basic skills and learn how to do so. 

This isn’t just about us as separate individuals. Going on this journey of embracing the entirety of this present moment addresses the root issue that lies underneath all the issues we face as a species: a sense of fearful separation is the fire that ravages the world and takes many different forms. And so, if you can put out that fire within yourself, then I think you’re contributing to the flourishing of the greater whole as well. 

I love that. So thank you so much for being here. This was a beautiful conversation. 

Yeah, thank you. 

So thank you so much, and thank you for everything that you do. And thank you, listeners. Remember to open up here and now and heal. Remember that you are not separated. You’re not a drop in the ocean. You’re the whole ocean. So, live your life joyfully and heal. Reach for the stars and have a stellar life. This is Orion till next time. 

Your Checklist of Actions to Take

{✓} Practice recognizing that you are not your thoughts. Notice that thoughts arise spontaneously without you needing to “do” anything, similar to how external sounds appear in your awareness without effort.

{✓} Connect with nature physically to ground yourself. Walk barefoot outdoors, hug trees, or simply hold plants to balance your electromagnetic field and reduce anxiety through direct connection with the earth.

{✓} Explore mindfulness practices that orient you toward openness rather than fixating on future goals. Focus on what is present in your experience, rather than what you think is there.

{✓} Integrate somatic practices into your routine. Activities that connect you physically to the earth can reduce mental chatter and create emotional grounding.

{✓} Use breathwork as a grounding technique to establish a sense of presence and connection to your body and the present moment.

{✓} Examine your emotional landscape through intentional self-inquiry. There will be times when you will discover repressed emotions despite considering yourself emotionally aware.

{✓} Approach suffering as an invitation to surrender and develop equanimity. When facing difficult experiences, practice witnessing them with openness rather than resistance.

{✓} Cultivate qualities that move away from defensive, guarded ways of being. Focus on connection, love, and compassion to help protective mechanisms naturally fall away over time.

{✓} Recognize that “you are an expression of existence” rather than seeing yourself as separate from it. 

{✓} Connect with James Cooke’s work at innerspaceinstitute.org for free materials to help develop basic skills for opening to present-moment awareness. His book, The Dawn of Mind: How Matter Became Conscious and Alive, explores the relationship between consciousness and science.

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About James Cooke

James Cooke, PhD, is a neuroscientist, author, and nondual facilitator. He has three experimental psychology and neuroscience degrees from Oxford University, including a PhD in neuroscience. He is the author of the new book The Dawn of Mind: How Matter Became Conscious and Alive. Find more at InnerSpaceInstitute.org.